 
Climbing To Freedom

By Jasmine Winterson

Copyright 2011 Jasmine Winterson

All rights reserved.

This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical, or otherwise – without written permission from the author, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Other Books by Jasmine Winterson

The Uncertain Ground Series

Roost

Power Play

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Cover design services provided by Julie Cornia (Black Dog Design LLC)

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Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 1

Katherine Jordan left her desk and walked over to the wall of glass. What am I expecting to find? she asked herself, shaking her head. The sky is not going to offer up any answers. Rivulets of rainwater coursed down the glass, inches from her face. Carry me away. Wash the slate clean –

"No." Her voice was a whisper... but it was firm. She escorted the temptation to give in to the edge of her thoughts and gave it the boot. There is no turning back, she reminded herself. They started this. Below, she could make out the heavy pulse of traffic. She imagined the sidewalks under the march of an army of feet. Muffled horns and the occasional screech of outraged brakes were the only sounds that made it through. For mid-afternoon, it was busy and miserable out there. The rest of the world was carrying on. And so can I.

She looked at her watch and sighed. The time was fast approaching. In a few minutes, Stanley Richards and Wellsey would try to pull her apart in front of the senior partners. The bastards. "Lighten up," she said to herself. "I can do this..." She did her best to try and relax. Despite the thick fog curling in from the Potomac River, she could still see the white dome of the Capitol building. The Senate and House chambers were lost from sight. Straight ahead, Seventh Street provided a rain-soaked glimpse of the National Mall. Even today, it helped. Heroes – women and men – have come here to fight much bigger injustices, she reminded herself. I'm facing nothing more than petty crimes committed by petty men.

She wasn't nervous – she had been doing her job well and was at the top of her game. But she was angry and frustrated. Powerful forces were moving against her. Following months of uncertainty, things were close to the point of no return. She knew she might go too far during the meeting. Perhaps she would get into a heated argument with one of the partners or calmly finish the presentation before sweeping the laptop and projector to the floor. I can't allow that to happen.

To her right, cabs and delivery trucks filled the slick, dark asphalt strip of Pennsylvania Avenue, slowly pushing their way westward. Before long, she thought, the fog will swallow everything. One thing was certain. Change was coming.

A short, hard knock on her door jolted Katherine out of her thoughts. It could only be one person – everyone else had long since run for cover. "Come on in, Jackie," she said, her voice softening into familiarity as she spoke. The door opened slightly. Her one remaining friend in the world leaned her head in. "Hey there," her friend said. "Just wanted to wish you luck. Need anything?"

"How about a glass of something strong and a shot of adrenaline," Katherine said dryly. "Come on in..."

Jackie Rebens was a constant surprise. Her casual appearance – something always slightly askew – put people at ease. Her desk, swarmed by colored post-it notes and rivers of spreading paper, hinted at a distracted mind. Both, Katherine knew well, were among her best friend's deliberately and cleverly cultivated covers. Jackie was nothing less than the heart and soul of the firm's public relations department. The firm's representation to the outside world, from Brussels to Los Angeles, depended upon her network of contacts, her marketing savvy, and her uncanny ability to stay a step ahead of everyone else.

Above all, Jackie was her friend. Those were hard to find in this town. They had met eight years earlier at state college in upstate New York. Katherine was majoring in accounting, Jackie in psychology. They traded class notes over coffee and quickly found they shared the same taste in men when Katherine pointed out the professor as one of her favorites. Both had large circles of friends. They soon were moving smoothly through each, always close to the other, always choosing who to flirt with and who to ignore.

Plenty of coeds were looking for the money. Katherine and Jackie were looking for something different, even if they couldn't put it exactly into words. They wanted more from life. Men were no exception. They stalked their prey together, something that did not go unnoticed for long. By the time graduation rolled around, they were known as the Tiger Twins, a pair that men found dangerously attractive... and irresistible.

She missed the college days sometimes. Not for the parties or the classes – for the company. Now Jackie was her only thread to the past. She was so lonely now, every night a dull ache awoke inside her, keeping her from the sweet release of sleep. She was the consummate professional from the early morning through to late working evenings, never letting her guard down. Inside, though, she felt shallow and false, like she was propping up a thin likeness of herself while her true self crept away to hide.

The college game had been simple. Most guys wanted sex; some were looking for relationships. Emotions might have been shallow but at least they were genuine. Five years in this high-powered fishbowl and she could no longer trust her instincts. Power, greed, and fear were part of the mix. Relationships no longer warmed the heart. They were, however, indispensable to self-promotion and the padding of one's financial future. Everyone dated in the firm's offices, even if no one fell in love. Katherine no longer dated at all. She made an appearance at the Christmas party and that was it. After Stanley Richards, she didn't feel she could trust anyone.

Katherine turned from the window. "Any word on what they're planning upstairs?" she asked.

"Nothing," Jackie replied, lowering her voice.

"I was sure he'd let something slip."

"Not yet. Richards is doing what he does best." Jackie walked over and gently rubbed Katherine's shoulders. "Remember, bide your time. Bob and weave. Let him build his case and then pull it apart, brick by brick. Dance like a butterfly, sting like a bee."

Katherine nodded. They had been over the strategy a thousand times. "I –" Her desk phone rang loudly, cutting into their conversation. It had to be them. Jackie whispered words of encouragement and headed for the door. Katherine walked over to take the call.

It was Wellsey.

"Ms. Jordan," his voice, low and rasping, curled out of the receiver. "We'll be starting the afternoon sessions a little late, around 2:10." Each word was soaked in venom.

"Thanks John, I'll be in then," she replied calmly. She hung up and leafed through her presentation one more time. I'm not going to make this easy for them.

Spending time with her father over dinner at his apartment the night before had allowed her to relax and gather her thoughts. He had suggested, not for the first time, that she try to turn the tables on them.

"They've treated you so badly," he said. "There must be grounds for discrimination, for entrapment, something. For harassment even, given what that man in the elevator tried to pull."

"They've been careful, dad," she replied. "They're playing their cards very close to their chest."

"They'll make the first move," he replied, shaking his head. "And God only knows what that might be." He leaned toward her and took her right hand in his own. His other hand remained under the table, tightly clenched. "I just don't know," he said quietly.

"You're right." Katherine answered her father firmly. "They'll move first. And I'll be ready for them."

She knew how it must seem to him. She had not been able to find a better solution. She didn't like the prospect of marching into arbitration or a courtroom, a world owned by her enemies. But they held all of the cards. When they made their move, she would think on her feet and adapt. She could give back what they gave, and more besides. Hopefully, it would be enough.

How was it all going to end, she wondered. It had all begun so differently... that small basement office, the independence to work and learn as she wished. Straight out of college, she had landed an entry-level assistantship at the law firm, ending up in a tiny closet of a workspace where she was supposed to expand her knowledge of state and federal taxation law. She kept a low profile, spending most lunch times across the hallway talking to Jackie in the corporate research department.

In that pattern, days followed days, and almost a year passed with little change. That was the case, at least, until late on one hot August afternoon, when a tall man in a jet-black suit and exquisite silk shirt walked through the door. He had an air of playful casualness about him, a lightness in his step. Katherine would realize much later that it was all carefully calibrated and calculated.

The palm of his hand rested against Katherine's desk, his fingers tapping lightly. He glanced down, then stared directly into her eyes. "Would like to go out for a drink?" he asked.

Katherine felt instantly warm and secure in the man's gaze. She didn't have any plans for the evening and the day was winding down... It took but a moment; she knew she would fall for the man standing in front of her.

"Sure," she mumbled, looking into his soft brown eyes, lost. She hadn't known if or how such a moment would ever arrive. More likely, falling in love was a fairy tale. Just words standing in for other things – money, prestige, security. In a rush of emotion, she suddenly knew otherwise. By the time she had reached for her bag, his face was etched in her mind. His firm, set jaw, his high cheekbones, his perfectly tanned, sandy-brown skin. His dark, slashing eyebrows. The slight, scattered stubble. If it wasn't for his hair and eyes, she thought, he might even have seemed a little dangerous. But as it was, his eyes were deep pools flecked with black, echoing his dark, curling mane. His hair cascaded down to just above his shirt collar and surrounded his forehead with rounded locks.

"How have you found your time with us, so far?" he asked Katherine as they left her office. He held the door for her as they walked out into the late afternoon light. So, she thought, he was with the firm as well. Likely working in a very different part of the building.

"It's been good, a little strange," she replied. "Going from school to the working world has taken some getting used to." She found herself speaking honestly, with little reserve.

The magnetism was intense. Unspoken possibilities blossomed in her thoughts as they walked. She could not help herself. She found the man next to her poorly suited to any modern job in the city. She could see him on a country estate in centuries past, astride a huge stallion, chasing through an early morning, slow-rising primeval mist. He was older than her, probably in his early 40s, she decided, but his maturity suited him perfectly.

They crossed the busy street, ending up in an understated café that served the area's elite firms. Ordering a beer and a glass of wine at the bar, they walked over to a quiet corner booth and sat down.

"So, do you have a name?" Katherine asked. Her voice was lilting, playful. She had never heard the tone in her voice before.

"I'm sorry, I'm such a –"

"No, no, I didn't mean anything by it," Katherine cut in, smiling. "I just thought, getting to know something about you, that seemed a pretty logical place to start, that's all." Her words were tumbling out now. The cold white wine was refreshing, tinting her cheeks with the slightest of flushes.

"I'm Greg. Greg Talbot," he said. He looked up from the table at her. "And I think you're just beautiful."

Katherine blushed furiously. She avoided his eyes and tried to look past him instead, focusing intently on an overwrought picture of a foxhunt and manor house on the wall.

"I've seen you walk through the lobby each morning from my office window," he continued, "and I've been hoping to do this for a long time now." He reached a hand across the table, lightly touching Katherine's cheek. His fingers wavered, then curved slowly down to her chin. His touch was warm and soft, like a gentle breeze, and then it was gone. Greg withdrew his hand and sat back, watching her from across the table.

Katherine had no idea what to do, much less what to say. She hadn't started or withdrawn from his touch, which spoke volumes more than any words or action ever could. This was different. It had been only minutes with Greg, a few words over a drink. Her body had cried out from the moment she sat down that being touched and held by this man was all she would need.

Those moments were the beginning of a romance that soon transformed and consumed Katherine's life. Having hardly ever left the city since arriving, there were now weekends away to the Shenandoah Valley, visits to the Brandywine in Pennsylvania, overnights to New York City to catch the latest shows. Greg played his princely role to the hilt. Five months into the relationship, he even confessed that he had lied to her.

Katherine's breath caught in her throat.

"My name isn't Greg," he began. "It's Stanley. Stanley Richards. I didn't think we would get to this point if you knew over drinks that day."

Katherine flinched slightly as he spoke. She told herself to breathe slowly, to think. So, her lover was not one of the hundred or so lawyers fighting tooth and nail for partnership on the floors above, as she supposed. Her lover was one of the partners already. In fact, he was a senior partner, and had been part of the firm's rarefied stratosphere for years. Everything about the firm's handful of senior partners was kept secret. No pictures on the company website. No résumés on company letterhead. No meet-and-greets with the new attorneys. The senior partners' parking area in the building's underground garage led to a high-security elevator that provided limited access to the building's twelfth floor.

"Can you forgive me?" Stanley asked quietly. "This way, we're where we are now because of who we are, not because of titles or false impressions."

Katherine had not offered an answer then. She left without a word and spent the night alone. By morning, the confession had only drawn her closer to the man; the lie fit snugly in her fairy tale's progressing storyline. Her lover had revealed his true identity and she would accept him as he stood before her. When they next made love, their bodies intertwining through the night, the ecstasy drove any darker lessons from fairy tales, of dense forests and lurking evil, rapidly from Katherine's mind.

Shortly after that, Katherine was promoted to management, placed on the track to a junior partnership. But if she had fallen hard for Richards, it was not blind devotion. She was one of the company's smartest and sharpest young financial professionals and had earned every square foot of her new sixth-floor office.

Four years later, Katherine was ready to destroy the remnants, the smoking wreckage of her castle in the clouds. Stanley Richards had turned into her arch enemy. Now, they were waiting for her in the boardroom.

Suddenly, a loud thump shook the windows of her office, shattering the silence. Shocked, Katherine looked up, looked again out at the wet, streaked world. She was startled to see a man's leg at the top of the glass. She walked around her desk to the window, curious. Despite the rain and fog, she could see that the leg was bare, extending into a tight rubber climbing shoe that rested against the glass. The leg muscles were tense, the skin covered in swaths of auburn hair. Squinting upwards, Katherine could make out the rest of the body. It was the window cleaner, sitting in a black harness above, working his way down the face of the building.

"Plenty of floors to go after this one, mister," she muttered to herself. "And you're washing windows in the rain."

Katherine didn't recognize the man. She thought she remembered that the cleaners usually came as a team of two or three, winching down on a long, flat platform that shifted in the wind. She didn't know how someone could do that for their living, day in and day out. It made her job look safe, she decided.

"Oh, why am I thinking about such irrelevant things!" she said to herself, exasperated. "Distractions aren't any help."

With that Katherine Jordan, Senior CPA, picked up her papers and walked out to present the quarter's numbers to the law firm of Allen, Sheldon, Richards, and Jones. The past kept trying to break through. For the next hour at least, she had to live in the moment.

The window cleaner fled from her mind.

Chapter 2

The company boardroom was empty and pin-drop quiet when a tall, impeccably dressed man opened its east wing doors and strode in. He placed a folder of papers on one of the desks and flipped on the room's lights. He turned to a phone by the doors and picked up the receiver, hitting several digits on the keypad.

"Wellsey," he said brusquely. "I was trapped in that lunch meeting. I'm having second thoughts about this... plan of ours. Meet me in my office... now."

There was no response on the other end; the line went dead.

As Richards walked out of the boardroom, he passed board members and the firm's partners who were beginning to filter in for the afternoon's lengthy meetings.

John Wellsey was waiting in Richards' office, twirling a pen in his fingers, by the time the senior partner walked in. He was a short man, dressed in a faded suit and creased white shirt. Nicknamed "bowling ball" by the firm's elite for his round, rotund appearance and bald, near-spherical head, Wellsey was the sharpest young antitrust attorney in the firm. Everyone agreed on that. The sky was the limit for his future.

Richards came at him quickly, pinning him in a corner and peppering him with questions. "If we spring this now, John, is it the best time? Is it a sure thing?"

Wellsey looked back at his Richards and did not give any ground. He knew his boss was a tough son of a bitch who had been through some of the worst corporate and legal trench warfare this town had seen. A simple "yes" on his part would suffice. Both men were in too far now to go back. Richards had been in for years. Wellsey had only signed on ten months earlier. The only question that really remained was timing.

"If we move now, I don't believe Katherine Jordan will have any idea what happened to her. She already knows something is afoot. She'll be angry, she will almost certainly sue the firm, but in her mind, behind everything, it will still be a case of a broken relationship turning nasty. It's as clear cut as it gets."

"I know all of this, yes," Richards replied briskly. "Your answer, then, I take it, is yes?"

"Yes."

"Then we shall move as planned."

"Very good, sir," Wellsey replied. He placed his pen in the breast pocket of his suit and turned to leave. Richards placed his broad hand on Wellsey's shoulder as he walked past.

"Final details too, John," he said. "Is everything in place for monitoring after this goes down? Listening in on her, keeping an eye on that friend of hers in public relations?"

"It's taking time, sir. But it'll all be in place by the end of the weekend."

"Good, John, good. This whole thing is about control. Whoever has it, wins."

"We're on the same page, then. Leave the details to me. Take care of the important stuff in the boardroom."

After Wellsey left his office, Richards checked the time on his Blackberry. He would have to move quickly to beat Katherine to the boardroom, which was important for appearances if nothing else. Instead, he paused, staring around the vast plush expanse of his office. His last words echoed in his mind. This whole thing is about control. Whoever has it, wins.

Richards had known this day could come since the first day that he had chosen Katherine, almost five years earlier. He had hoped it could have worked out differently, but he had chosen poorly. The woman was an independent thinker, dedicated to her job. He still freely admitted to himself in quiet moments that Ms. Katherine Jordan was a rare and winning creature. She was a highly intelligent and beautiful woman with an open heart. But that was not what he had been looking for, then or now. No, he had needed a dupe, and Ms. Jordan had let him down badly.

So, this day had come. This whole thing is about control. Whoever has it, wins. Until now, the control had been relatively easy. Now, for the first time, uncertainty entered the game. No matter how much he and Wellsey discussed operational details, they could never predict or control Katherine's behavior or her resources with complete certainty. They were about to try, however.

Whether or not Katherine knew it, the ball would be in her court. He was counting on the fact that the shock, shame, and confusion of the ordeal would degrade and destroy her will to act, to argue, to even wake up in the morning. He hoped that Ms. Katherine Jordan would just let the subpoenas, the news stories, the humiliation just wash over her.

His eyes wandered over to the large digital bulletin board hanging on the wall across the room. Next to the meeting schedules, opera tickets and dry cleaner stubs stuck to its edges, a picture of Katherine still hung there, almost directly above his chair. How had he forgotten to remove that?

Her face in the picture stared silently back at him. She had a slight smile on her lips. The picture had been taken just before they went horseback riding at a friend's estate in Middleburg several years ago. To Richards, it felt like a lifetime.

Snap out of it, Richards said to himself. He strode over and ripped down the picture. He tore the image into pieces and tossed them to the floor, smiling grimly as he did so.

"No more loose ends," he said quietly.

Richards always knew he had been born lucky. When he walked from his office and took the elevator down to the boardroom, he found that Katherine hadn't arrived early, as he had feared she might. Instead the board members and partners were milling around, chatting, carrying on the endless game of contacts and proposals that helped generate millions in billing fees for the firm.

Everyone turned as he entered. Some people nodded, others moved toward their seats. Richards walked over to pick up the folder he had left behind earlier and turned to greet the audience.

"Well, gentlemen, welcome back for the afternoon sessions. I hope that everyone had a pleasant lunch. I find in this town, after all, it is usually over food when most things get done."

A wave of polite laughter filled the room.

"In just a couple of minutes," Richards continued, "we'll begin with a presentation from Ms. Katherine Jordan, Senior CPA at the firm, who will review our financial details for the quarter. In the meantime, please relax."

This whole thing is about control. Whoever has it, wins.

Chapter 3

Outside, bathed in the warm Washington rain, Ry Austin rested against the side of the building. He looked down into the now-empty office below him, his eyes roving over the contours and shapes he had memorized over the preceding weeks. The woman had just walked out. When would she be back? Would he get another chance? He knew the odds of anything working out were incredibly long in the first place.

He slammed a fist against the glass.

"An idiot. I swear, you are such a complete idiot. This is the best I could come up with?" he asked himself. He had spent six weeks building up the courage to come near the woman, and then he had just hung there above her when she came over to look at him. It could have been so much more than he had hoped, the chance to see her up close, and he had been caught in the moment, paralyzed. His arms and legs, strong from years of climbing, no longer worked.

Instead, he just rested there in his harness. The moment had passed. She had probably just blown him off as a window cleaner. It was infuriating.

Ry planted his feet squarely against the side of the building and stretched backwards, arching his back so that he looked out at the city upside down, and let out a long cry of frustration. He smiled as he saw a few pedestrians below him look up with startled faces.

You're the sheep, Ry thought to himself. You think I'm strange and yet I'm the one up here, free.

The young man was lying to himself. He would regain his composure. He knew he would try again to reach the woman. But he was not free. With one look, that woman had complete power over him. She had bewitched him weeks ago with chains his muscles could not break. His heart no longer beat solely for himself.

A broad smile broke across Ry's face. It was a new situation for him, he had to admit that much. He had always been in control, from his days as an Army Ranger and later in the Colorado backcountry. Looking out over the rain-swept city around him from the heights of the building, he wasn't sure what should happen next. Having some dinner and drinking a beer or two and thinking it over sounded pretty good. If he told his friends back home about his infatuation, he knew they would raise their eyebrows and shrug their shoulders and tell him to get a life. But he was undeterred. They still thought he was crazy for the decision he had made to come East, and he had survived that just fine.

"You're kidding, right?" his friend Cobie had asked him repeatedly during the series of parties before he left. "You're heading East to grab a squeegee and wash other people's windows. Where the hell would you get an idea like that?"

Ry looked around the apartment full of his friends. There was so much of his life in that one room, years of stories and good times as well as frustrations. But he felt a stage was ending in his life. He wanted to try something new.

"Nah, it's not for the windows I'm going," Ry said, resting a hand on his friend's shoulder. "That's to pay the bills. I want to see the East and climb the mountains over there."

"But the Appalachians are molehills," Cobie protested vehemently, alcohol fueling his words. "Why don't you and I pack up and move to the Sierras and set up shop?"

Ry couldn't answer that question.

"It's just something I feel," was the answer he ended up giving to family and friends alike, all of whom stood by with questions and puzzled faces. Leave Colorado? What about his family? What about his future?

Their voices still echoed in his mind from time to time. Not that he had regrets. In fact, his new life had worked out better than he could have planned. During the week, the days were taken up with windows downtown and across the Potomac in Rosslyn. Lately, he had had more business than he could handle. His one-man company, Sky Cleaning, Inc., seemed to appeal to building managers who had long deferred their own dreams. Tied to a little office for years; Ry couldn't imagine a worse fate.

So far, they loved his marketing and his work. "Ever thought about your window cleaning team?" his website asked. "Let one man do the work for you instead. Demand a new level of clarity. Bring a champion rock climber on board your team." Sometimes he was even invited to mingle at company parties as a paid guest. He told stories; people listened.

While Ry was pleased with his weekday business, he lived for the weekend. On Friday nights, he packed up his harness and took it to a more traditional setting. He worked as a senior instructor for a local mountaineering company, taking groups of intermediate rock climbers out to West Virginia. There, above the little town of Harpers Ferry, the groups took on the sheer rock faces that loomed over the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers. Ry could climb the worn rock faces blindfolded, but he loved going slow, teaching the newcomers how to find a good hold, how to trust the surface they climbed. After his students had painstakingly reached the ridge line, Ry always followed, scaling the heights like a cat.

Winching himself back up to the top of the building, Ry unloaded his window supplies and stepped onto the roof. He removed his climbing harness and reached for a black sports bag resting next to a heating vent. In moments, the transformation was complete.

Ry's broad chest and thick muscles were now covered by an open-necked, cinnamon-colored business shirt, while navy cotton pants covered his legs and tight waist. He reached again for the bag, finding nothing inside.

"Damn," he said, throwing the bag to the ground. "Sometimes I can't even remember how to get dressed."

He had forgotten his dress shoes. He turned, reluctantly, to pick up his discarded climbing shoes and slipped them back on his feet.

"Just perfect," he said to himself, a wry smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. He moved quickly, packing his climbing equipment into the bag, before walking to the service door and entering the building. He slung the bag over his shoulder.

It was mid-afternoon now. Usually, given he started working at dawn, Ry finished up while office workers had a couple of hours left in their days. In any case, he wasn't even scheduled to be working today.

Ry's descent through the building was slow. He stepped out of the stairwell to talk to some guys he knew in an engineering firm on the eighth floor, then ran into a landscape architect who was learning to climb.

Ry fit easily into the different corporate cultures in the buildings where he worked, talking with both men and women in the offices or in the elevator. Over the past few weeks, they had been the key to learning the basic details about the law firm that leased most of the building's floors. He had quietly discovered that the woman he had seen was part of a powerful legal team. Hell, he knew the floor's layout and her office number from the building maps. But her name had so far eluded him.

So, too, had a strategy for meeting her. Hoisting himself up outside her window and staring in clearly wasn't going to work. Barging into her as she walked to work seemed too rough and unsteady. He needed a perfect moment.

Twenty minutes after he had entered the building, he finally reached the sixth floor. He stood silently by the door, resting against the whitewashed wall. He twisted an old piece of cut climbing rope in his hands.

He decided to walk the floor once and see the layout, pick up any details he could as he made his way around. Given the stack of papers he had seen her leave the office with, Ry figured the woman was probably busy somewhere else anyway. He'd just meet a few new people, maybe her secretary if she had one, and work his way a little nearer to the woman herself. He turned and pulled the door open.

The room was striking. There was not a cubicle or fax machine in sight. From the door, thick sky-blue carpet stretched to an arching, semi-circular wall about twenty feet away. It was the receptionist's desk. Moving nearer, Ry could see her head behind the chest-high rampart. On the wall behind her, the law firm's name hung in silver letters, backlit by a soft orange glow. Looking to either side of the room, panels of windows stretched from the floor to the ceiling.

Ry had looked in on a lot of offices since moving East, and he was used to federal workers' grey cubicles and rabbit warren hallways. He had never seen such an extravagantly beautiful waste of floor space like this. Behind him, the stairwell door had closed, leaving a seamless wall of burnished dark wood and golden brass.

"Can I help you, sir?" the receptionist asked.

"Yeah, hi," Ry started. "I'm the window cleaner for the building. I'm taking a look at the inside of the glass on each of the floors." He smiled reflexively and handed the woman his pass.

"Is this for the public relations department or the accountants?"

"Uh, I need to see the entire floor, if possible."

"Sure, that's fine," she replied, barely looking at the man in front of her. "Go right ahead, sir."

Under the desk, she pushed a button. The adjacent glass doors unlocked with an almost imperceptible click.

Here goes nothing, Ry thought. I'll just keep reminding myself that I'm here on business.

He pushed open the door and walked into a small reception area. Three small couches and a coffee table were arranged in a square. The middle of the floor remained empty, while the offices, five on each side, five along the rear wall, ringed the perimeter. Ry scanned his memory for the location of the woman's office and strode to the rear left side of the floor. The door was open.

As he stepped closer, a woman walked out, nearly running straight into Ry.

"Sorry," said Jackie, pausing for a moment to take in the unexpected visitor. "One of those days, you know?"

"No problem," Ry replied. "I'm the windows guy. I'm visiting each floor, making sure you're having no problems on the inside, no leaks, no streaks, no gaping holes, that kind of thing."

Jackie smiled. A knowing smile, Ry thought. A smile with something behind it.

"Not that we've noticed," she replied. "But feel free to take a look for yourself. My name's Jackie and my office is over there," she pointed across the floor, then gestured back behind her. "The owner of this office is in a meeting at the moment, so I'm sure you can look in there as well."

"Thanks," Ry said. As the woman turned away, he walked into the empty office behind her. The nameplate on the door, he noticed read Katherine Jordan. Was it the right office? Looking in from the outside had been so much easier. Once Ry stepped in the door, however, he instantly recognized the room's layout, the pictures on the file cabinet. He was in the right place. And so Katherine Jordan must be her name. Success.

He turned to examine the office's window panels one by one. All looked to be in good shape. As he worked, he felt a presence in the doorway behind him. Jackie had returned, walking over and watching him as he worked, slowly and quietly, it seemed to her.

Ry felt awkward. Technically, his visit was legitimate. But maybe this woman thought he was a thief or worse.

"So, what's it like working here?" he called out over his shoulder, aiming for a casual, cheerful tone.

Jackie took a long moment before replying. "It's good, usually fast-paced, never a dull moment," she said. "Right now it's a little too hectic for my liking."

"Why's that?"

"Office politics, that's all. It's enough to make anyone's hair turn white."

"Looks like you're holding up pretty well so far, then."

Jackie laughed. She was pleasantly surprised by the genuine warmth of the man. He talked easily, looking over his shoulder to make eye contact with her. He seemed confident, even-keeled.

"So, can I ask you the question the entire office has wanted to ask you all day?" Jackie said.

"Fire away," Ry replied.

"Why were you out there washing the windows on a day when it was raining?"

Jackie couldn't see the man's reaction to her question, but he remained silent for a moment, then rose from his knees to stand. He slung his black bag over his shoulder and walked over to her.

"I'll be keeping that a secret for now," he replied. "Thanks for your time."

"Okay, Mr. Window-Climbing Man," Jackie said, smiling. "It looks like I just won my own little bet, then." She saw the man begin to recoil in shock. "Don't worry," she said quickly. "I'll keep your secret. I care a great deal for the woman who works in that office. I like the idea that there's someone else taking an interest in her at the moment as well."e stHe

Ry nodded and tried to smile. He could not speak. Embarrassed beyond words at being found out, his face had turned beetroot red. He strode past Jackie and back across the office to the lobby and stairwell. His mind was whirling.

By the time he reached the ground floor, his thoughts had slowed and calmed a little. If he could trust the woman, whoever she was, then he had a key ally. If he couldn't, Ms. Katherine Jordan would soon find out she had an admirer. Either way, it was better than just hanging in his harness outside her window.

Ry pushed open the stairwell door and stepped into the main lobby. To his left, by the bank of elevators, Frank was on duty at the security desk. Tall and muscular, Frank had been a wide receiver at Tulane before missing his chance at the NFL draft when he blew out his knee. He and Ry trained together sometimes. Both had athletic drive that left everyone else in the weight room in awe.

Standing behind the desk, Frank looked over at Ry, a broad smile breaking across his face.

"Alright, Frank, what is it?" Ry asked, grinning.

"I just wanted to say that I really like the look you're going for with those climbing shoes," he said. "Combining function with style, is that it?"

Ry placed his hands on his hips and looked down at the small, worn black and green shoes poking out from under his dress pants. He let out a booming, resounding laugh.

"It's the latest fashion," he said. "Maybe you need to get out more, see what's going on out there." Ry gestured at the building's entrance.

"No," Frank replied. "I think it's maybe you're just getting a little absent-minded these days."

"So, what's been going on with you, my man?" Ry asked. e wa

"Hey, don't try to change the subject. Word spreads quickly around here. Washing windows in the rain on an off-day? I know a man who's been smitten," Frank said. "And man, you're it. You're in deep smit."

Chapter 4

An hour earlier, Katherine had walked from her office to the elevator. Time seemed to slow down; each step seemed like a journey. Six floors above, the boardroom stood waiting. Oak-paneled desks curved in a horseshoe around the edge of the room, each with a glass of water and microphone for the board members. Katherine had a technology island in the center of the room. A digital projector installed overhead was on standby. She would stand while the others sat. She would talk when others fell silent. She would have her job on the line.

That was how she imagined the scene. Typically, presenting the firm's quarterly earnings was not a big event. It was a five-minute presentation in the midst of a day of board meetings. This time, however, Stanley Richards had scheduled nearly an hour for the presentation. His memo called it a "chance to discuss the direction of the company." Katherine and Jackie called it the "jilted lover" memo.

As far as Katherine could tell, Richards would have three other senior partners backing his every move. That left the six board members, all men, all from outside the company, to whom Katherine could turn.

Opening the boardroom door did little to calm Katherine's nerves. A circle of white light highlighted where she would be standing. The only other lights lit the faces of each partner and board member in a soft amber glow. Their heads seemed almost detached, disembodied, their dark suits blending into the background. The scene looked like a reworked version of Judgment Day. Richards was pulling out all of the stops.

"Good afternoon, gentlemen," Katherine began, walking in and placing her briefing materials on the island. "I trust that everyone is well. I'm here this afternoon to give a rundown of our latest financial details and to answer any questions."

The heads around the room nodded solemnly. They seemed restless, and Katherine wondered why the afternoon meeting had been pushed back by ten minutes. It looked like everyone had been present for at least that long.

Katherine picked up the remote. It was time to begin. The projector clicked on at Katherine's command and the first data display slid into view.

"As you can see, it has been a slightly above average period for us. Billing hours are up two percent from this time last year. Client retention has climbed one-half of a percent, to 96.2 percent. Administrative costs have remained in line with inflation. Profits were affected slightly by maintenance offsets early in..."

Katherine's voice trailed off. After looking steadily around the room, her eyes came to settle on the familiar face of Stanley Richards. He was smiling, the broad grin stretched wide across his handsome fact, unflinching under Katherine's gaze. His eyes were opaque, unreadable in the shadows. His fingers drummed rhythmically on the ledge of his desk.

"Do you have a question, Mr. Richards?" Katherine asked calmly. She could tell in an instant that he was preparing for battle. It was only a matter of seconds, or minutes at most, before lightning struck the room.

"No, Ms. Jordan. Please proceed," Richards replied. "I apologize for distracting you."

Katherine returned to her presentation, trying with every fiber of her being to ignore the warnings flashing through her mind.

"As I was saying, maintenance offsets had a slight impact. Staffing levels remained unchanged."

Katherine clicked the remote several times, pulling up a new set of data sheets.

"Changing gears now," she continued. "At the last meeting, the board asked for an update on the financial implications of reconfiguring the employee benefits plans, looking in particular at health care and stock options."

The faces in the darkness nodded.

"You can see –"

"Is everything proceeding as planned, Ms. Jordan?" Richards cut in suddenly.

Katherine knew then, in that fleeting moment. The meeting she had prepared for was over.

"Everything is balancing out, Ms. Jordan?" her former lover continued.

"I'm not sure what –" e was

Richards cut in again, his voice slicing like a knife through the darkness. "And why do you think everything looks fine?" he asked.

"I –"

Richards rolled his chair back from his desk and stood facing Katherine. He unbuttoned the cuffs of his shirt and methodically rolled up his sleeves. He leaned forward, resting his hands against the desktop, illuminating his body in the faint light.

"You know, Ms. Jordan, I'd say these numbers look fine to you because you're the one in charge of them. Am I right? We pay you to crunch the numbers, don't we? We bill the client upstairs, you keep the records downstairs, isn't that right?"

Katherine reached under the island and turned off the projector. Emotions coursed through her body, images of the man, their conversations, their intimate moments of love. Instances and stories collided, blended, broke and flooded as past and present slammed into each other.

Katherine ground her heel against the floor to steel herself. She would not let this monster have his way with her again, not ever. She still wasn't sure of the game he was playing; he was holding all of the cards and had not yet showed his hand. Her conversation with her father from the previous evening replayed in her mind. They've treated you like so badly... They'll make the first move.

Katherine focused in on the moment. Calm. Poise. Strength. If she could just push Richards a little further, make him speak more savagely, make him lose his tight, professional control. He had already made it dangerously clear that this was personal.

"Mr. Richards, with all due respect, I do not have to stand for this," she replied firmly. "In my time at the firm, I have never experienced such unprofessional conduct. I would ask the board –"

"Yes, Ms. Jordan, that's all very noble," Richards cut in, "but I have an announcement to make. I wasn't too sure about the numbers you've been feeding us for years now, so we hired an outside source to do your job for a little while, and see what they found. An evaluation of your evaluations, so to speak."

He reached behind his desk and lifted up a thick stack of white paper.

"Gentlemen," he said, turning to address everyone else in the room. "These are copies of the auditor's independent findings for each of you. E-mailed copies will be distributed after the meeting. I encourage you to read through the summary page now. Take your time. It's quite a page turner."

The fog cleared in Katherine's mind. My God, she thought. Of course. It wasn't about enemies within the organization. All Richards and his cronies needed to do was turn the rest of the board, the independent and advisory members, against her. Once the gears were in motion, the bastards would have to plot no longer. They could wipe their hands of the ugly, illegal behavior they had uncovered, while the board took full responsibility and even credit for meting out efficient, even-handed justice.

"In reviewing even for a few minutes, gentlemen, I think you will find evidence..." Richards voice drifted into the background of Katherine's mind. The copies were being passed out. As time slowed down and then stopped, she saw herself from the outside looking in, trapped and alone, hunted like prey. She saw the board members' faces looking down, the hands passing papers. She saw Richards standing, expectant, exultant.

"... that Ms. Katherine Jordan willfully abused her responsibilities..."

Each of the faces had furrowed brows now. Some of the men sighed heavily. The pages turned slowly, crisply.

"... embezzling funds at regular intervals over more than four years..."

Richards stepped out from behind the desks and walked toward Katherine.

"... leaving us no choice but to suspend Ms. Jordan indefinitely while we determine..."

He extended his arm, his hand gesturing her to the boardroom doors as he moved closer.

"... if legal action is warranted and how best to finalize her termination. Ms. Jordan, I'm sure before today that everyone in this room would have thanked you for your years of service. Instead, we learn that you have betrayed us."

He stood beside her, his face above hers, looking calmly down, a serene smile on his lips. There was not a sign of tension to be found, not a hair was out of place as he proceeded in the demolition of a woman's life.

Katherine turned to look at the doors behind her. Exit. To where? To what? She smoothed her skirt with her hands and turned back to Richards. Across his suit's breast pocket, she noticed for the first time, a silver pin lay snugly in place. It was a keepsake, her keepsake, turned from a gift of love into a weapon of revenge.

Richards coughed quietly and gestured again to the door. Do you see how easy this was for me, he was asking by wearing her gift, without ever uttering a word. Do you see that I can mock our past together even as I frame you and pin you down?

Katherine felt the room begin to spin. She placed her hand on a nearby desk to steady herself. The faintness did not last long; her steely core determination to survive had not deserted her. She offered her hand to Richards. Taken aback for an instant, his smile wavering, he grasped her hand firmly and shook it.

"I will await the board's word, Stanley," she said. "While I pursue every option at my disposal. I demand an opportunity to be heard as soon as possible. And for the record, as we both know, this is bullshit." She reached for his breast pocket and ripped the silver pin free with one quick, firm tug.

"That's mine, I believe," she said, grim-faced. "I hope you weren't too attached."

Richards was no longer smiling.

Katherine wished the board members good day and walked to the doors. Outside, the hallway was quiet, the future uncertain.

Chapter 5

On that day, that Friday, it was almost as if dusk was falling early, Katherine would always remember. The cloudy sky and building shadows made it feel like a strange mid-afternoon malaise was casting over the Washington skyline when she stepped out onto the sidewalk. It seemed like any other day, yet it was profoundly different. She looked above her, up at the rows of windows in the firm's offices, the reflected grey clouds skidding across the dark glass. The rainstorm had ended.

Katherine had taken the elevator straight to ground level after the meeting. She needed time, she needed help. Dazed, all she could do was walk. She could not face walking back into her office, she couldn't face Jackie or anyone else, not now. Noises out on the street seemed far away, people brushing past barely registered in her mind. Her thoughts were short-circuiting; the composure that had held in the boardroom was beginning to fracture. Tears were near the surface. Years later, she would think back on that afternoon, unable to remember much, thankful that she hadn't walked into moving traffic. At the time, it would have been a relief.

Instead, a man standing on the curb was suddenly talking to her, talking energetically, gesturing rapidly at something she couldn't see or understand.

"What are you saying?" Katherine cried out. "I'm sorry, I don't understand, please go away, please just leave me alone."

The man didn't seem to hear her. He kept speaking and moving his hands emphatically. Katherine's mind slid sideways, moving through cloudy, murky thoughts, of futures lost and pasts torn asunder.

She tried again. "Really, you've picked the worst day of my life. It's all over, really, please, please..." her words petered out. "Please just..."

Katherine stumbled. The world, the man and the cars and the sidewalk suddenly darkened and faded away. She saw the man move toward her. She felt his arm on her elbow.

"Please stop," she whispered faintly. "I'm fine..."

"You are clearly not fine, Ms. Jordan," Ry Austin replied. "Far from it, it looks to me. Just what kind of work do they have you doing in there, anyway?"

Katherine never heard his words. She had fainted, her inert body resting against Ry's chest. He checked her pulse, noticed her shallow breathing. She would be just fine with some rest, a good night's sleep.

"I was trying to ask you out," Ry said quietly to Katherine's prostrate form. "And you go and faint on me. Not even a moment of flirting. Don't you think this a little dramatic?" He paused. Despite the brief attempt at levity, he was worried and deadly serious. It didn't appear that there were many options. The woman had left her office building clearly distraught, so taking her back inside was out of the question. From his years of experience in mountaineering rescue squads, he knew that she was in no immediate danger, so taking her to a hospital seemed unnecessary. He didn't know any of her friends and family. All he could offer... was a safe place to sleep. His place. It wasn't a great option, either – he could imagine her waking up and thinking he had kidnapped her or worse – but it was a better solution than the other options.

He lifted Katherine into his arms and walked three blocks to the garage where he had parked his car. He laid her gently across the back seat, paid the attendant, and drove fast through rush-hour traffic. Twenty minutes later, he pulled into the quiet, leafy streets of Alexandria, across the river south of the city.

"You'll have to excuse the mess," he said as he lifted Katherine from the back seat. "I wasn't quite expecting this."

Once inside his apartment, Ry laid Katherine down on the bed in his guest room, then went off to prepare a cold washcloth and find something to soften the killer headache she might have when she woke up. Striding into the kitchen, he picked up the phone and called Frank at the building's security desk.

"Hey man, no time to talk," he said quickly. "Could you pass along a message?"

"Sure thing."

"Call the law firm's sixth floor main line. Tell the receptionist that Katherine Jordan made it home safely."

"Why would I need to let them know that? We haven't heard of any kind of problem."

"Tell me you're kidding. I run into this woman on the street, she leaves work delirious and faints in the street, yet no one notices anything amiss."

"I'm telling you. I know and like Katherine Jordan. She did not come through my lobby this afternoon. Maybe she left through a stairwell or a side door. What are you talking about?"

"I'll tell you more when I know more," Ry replied. "Right now, I don't. For now, just pass my message along. There's a woman there I met, Jackie I think was her name. Get the message to her, in person if you can. She'll understand, I think. And give her my number."

"Will do."

"Thanks."

Ry hung up the phone and walked into the bathroom the get the washcloth. He realized that his apartment hardly looked its best. Climbing equipment, packs, rope and maps were strewn across the living room carpet. Dishes were piled high in the kitchen sink. A mountain bike lay in pieces on his bedroom floor, waiting to be rebuilt.

He decided he would attempt a quick cleanup. First, he stepped back into the guest room and placed the washcloth on Katherine's forehead. Checking her pulse, he found it was definitely stronger, no longer light and fluttery, featherlike. He thought she might wake up in a few minutes time. Likely, no more than an hour would pass. After the shock of waking up in unfamiliar surroundings, he hoped that he would be able to convince her to remain and sleep as long as she needed. Beyond that, he didn't dare think.

Fifteen minutes later, Katherine began to stir. At first, all she could feel was a constant heavy pressure in her head. She tried to move, but couldn't. The pressure shifted, and her head began to ache, slow throbs surging through.

"Uhhhhhh," she groaned.

Opening her eyes, black and white lines shot across her field of vision, crackling like a static television screen. A migraine, she thought. Again. They arrived in her life whenever her stress level overloaded. There was no choice but to wait it out.

I must be at Jackie's place, she thought to herself. She's put me to bed.

She could remember nothing after the boardroom doors closed behind her. As Richards' words began to echo again in her mind, her mind instantly protested and recoiled. The part of the day that she wished to erase would be with her forever.

Katherine's vision cleared a little. She could make out a greenish-blue blur on the ceiling above her. That was different. She couldn't recall any ceiling decorations at Jackie's place.

The colors swam into focus, and Katherine realized that she was looking at a huge mural of a mountain climber. Alarmed, she raised her head slowly, gingerly, and looked around. A dresser. A fitness machine. Everything was unfamiliar. A wet washcloth slid off her forehead onto the bed.

Just where the hell am I, Katherine wondered. Cold fear gripped her veins like ice. Her body tensed. The way things had been changing lately, anything was possible. Had they drugged her at the board meeting? Were they still several steps ahead of her?

Katherine looked down at herself; she was lying on top of the covers of a double bed, still wearing her business suit and shoes. She felt for her earrings. They were still there.

Maybe it's time I leave, she thought. Make a break for it and surprise whoever is out there. Her head still ached terribly, but her vision had improved and her thoughts were less cloudy. The fear had taken care of that. The open doorway was to the right side of the room, about fifteen feet away. Through the opening, she could make out what looked like a well-lit kitchen. Clothes were in piles on the floor. She shifted to the side of the bed and began to stand up.

A man suddenly appeared in the doorway.

"Oh good, you're awake. I'm –" he started.

Katherine screamed, falling back on the bed in surprise.

The man recoiled, concern etched across his face. "No, look, I can explain, see –"

Katherine cut him off in a low, calm voice. "Just tell me one thing. Do you work for Richards?"

Ry stepped further into the room.

"Stay right there," Katherine said. "Answer my question."

He stopped. "Please try to relax. I don't know who Richards is. This is my apartment. You fainted and I tried to help. You're safe here. You don't remember me at all? The man on the street outside your office?"

"It's all darkness after I left a meeting this afternoon. For all I know, you're part of the mind games that Richards has put into play. Who the hell are you?"

"What about from this morning, when you were in your office?"

Katherine was exasperated. The man didn't appear dangerous, but playing twenty questions and name games wasn't reassuring either. Maybe he was an incompetent kidnapper.

"What are you talking about?" she replied, raising her voice. "I'm trying to figure out if I'm alive or dead and you want me to guess your identity?"

Ry leaned back against the wall.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I'm the window cleaner at your building. My name's Ry. I was outside hoping to talk to you when you left work this afternoon. You walked out and it looked like you were on a sinking ship. Something seemed very wrong. I tried talking to you, but nothing worked. Then, you fainted. I caught you and brought you back here to my place."

Ry gestured around at the room. "We're in Alexandria, in case you're wondering."

"What, you didn't think a hospital might have been a better choice?"

"I'm trained in emergency medicine."

"So?"

"So, when a person faints on the street and you have to think on your feet, you come up with the best plan you can. I knew you were going to be fine, and I wasn't sure a hospital was a place where you would want to wake up. I knew I could take care of you and –"

"Well, that's very touching," Katherine replied. It looked like she was out of immediate danger, and hot anger coursed in, replacing her fear. She could feel the rage building, boiling steadily. The nerve of this man, the assumptions he had made were infuriating.

"Let's go back to why you were waiting for me in the first place, out there on the sidewalk. What were you doing there?"

"It was nothing, really," Ry said, looking away.

"Tell me. Stop playing games."

"I was going to ask if you maybe wanted to go rock climbing some weekend."

"You were looking to ask me out on a date?" she asked, incredulous.

"Yes. I –"

Katherine cut him off again. "So, I didn't answer, right? I fainted instead, and so what is this, your fairy tale ending? You presume to carry me off and save me, thinking I'll wake up forever indebted to your noble actions? Your hormones took precedence over my life and I'm supposed to find that touching. I don't think so. Shall we just play house here together forever, darling? Look, I don't know you, you've scared me half to death, and now I'm going to leave."

Ry was silent.

"Good," Katherine said. "No more games."

She slowly pushed herself to her feet and walked past Ry out into the living room. The walls were a kaleidoscope of climbing posters. It looked like most of the floor's contents had been dumped into a corner by a window and a half-dead fern.

"Your phone?" she asked.

"In the kitchen, to your right."

Katherine picked up the receiver and called Jackie's home number.

"Hello," her voice answered.

"Hey Jacks, it's me here," she replied.

Jackie let out a huge sigh of relief. "Oh thank god. You're alive. Did that guy take good care of you?"

Katherine couldn't believe what she was hearing. "What are you talking about?"

"That guy. He's the only reason I haven't been flying around the city checking every hospital bed. The front desk security guy came by around five, said a friend of his was taking care of you."

"And you believed him? Did you sign off on this little joy ride as well?"

"Katherine, what, is there something I should know? I can come over right now. I have your bag and phone and keys if you need them."

"We need to talk, soon. Right now, I need to rest. I can get home, so just keep my stuff until I see you."

"I'll come over first thing, we'll have breakfast. It was bad, wasn't it? At the meeting?"

"Yeah, Jacks, it was bad. So bad, I think my life as we knew it is gone. At least you're still here. Thanks."

"I'll never be anywhere else," Jackie replied. "See you tomorrow."

"One more thing," Katherine said quickly. "Watch your back, too, Jacks. Stranger things than we imagined are happening at the firm. And they might not like leaving any loose ends."

"Roger that. Rest up."

Katherine hung up the phone and turned to find the front door. Time to leave. She saw the man down the hall, still standing in the bedroom doorway.

"I need a cab," she said simply. "Please call a cab for me. I'll wait outside."

"I could –"

"Don't offer, please. Thank you for what you've done. Regardless of why you did what you did, I'm alive. So thank you. Now I need to go home."

Ry walked over to open the front door. "You're in Alexandria," he said. "A cab will pull up out front in five minutes or less."

Katherine nodded and walked out into the night air. It was humid again, the air heavy and moist. Summer was coming early this year.

"I'm sorry," Ry said, and closed the door behind her.

Chapter 6

For John Wellsey, Saturday mornings consistently meant one thing: pain. While others in Washington suburbs like Bethesda and Falls Church went to their kids' baseball games, cut grass, or slept, Wellsey dragged himself out of bed at first light for combat.

The racquetball court at Arlington Health & Fitness was the battlefield. The opponent was always Stanley Richards. When they'd first become friends, Richards had asked in passing if Wellsey had ever tried the sport.

"Never even watched it," he replied.

"Time to give it a try," Richards said, smiling.

Wellsey never found an opportunity to tell Richards that, in fact, he hadn't played any sport since high school. The triple jump in varsity athletics had been his crowning moment. Since then, nothing. So, every Saturday morning, the junior partner was supposed to not only learn new skills relating to a racquet and a small blue ball, but to overcome years of inertia. The result, predictably, was muscle strains and back pain that lasted well into the work week.

Richards, for his part, couldn't have cared less. He played stronger opponents, from the firm and other firms, during the week, but his Saturday mornings were reserved for strategy. The game scores may have been lopsided, but the discussions between the two men were always equal.

Following Friday's board meeting and the shocking ouster of Katherine Jordan, Wellsey had hoped that the weekly battle / meeting might be canceled in celebration of a job well done.

"Cancel? Why?" was Richards reply late on Friday afternoon. "Everything up to now has been groundwork. We're in the real game now. I'll come by and pick you up as usual."

It was almost enough for Wellsey to wish that he'd never become involved. In rash moments, he was tempted to invent an imaginary family or pressing out-of-town engagements. The rewards, however, were simply too great to pass up. He'd been given enough cash on the side to pay off his law school debt, not to mention his new office on the ninth floor. That had people talking over their power lunches, he was sure.

As so, Richards' gleaming black leather-top Mercedes convertible pulled into his driveway on Saturday morning, as the sun began to peek over neighborhood rooftops.

"What do you say, Johnnie-boy," Richards said as Wellsey slid into passenger seat. He leaned in close, leering in, before clapping him on his shoulder. "Are you ready to play or what?"

Wellsey found it hard to believe, but the strong, biting scent of whiskey drifted across on Richards' words. The man was drunk, and had been for god only knew how long.

"Hi Stanley," Wellsey began carefully. "Yeah, sure, I'm ready. Ready as I'll ever be."

"Good. Good."

Wellsey's mind was racing to keep up and adapt. Why was the firm's senior partner drunk one day after the boardroom success?

"Stanley, what do you say if I drive us this once?" he offered. "I'd love to try –"

The car lurched backwards out of the driveway, screeching into the street.

"I've had a little to drink, it's true," Richards said. "They say honesty is always the best policy. But I'm good to go, Johnnie-boy, I've got this one just fine, thank you very much."

The Mercedes tore through the quiet streets of Falls Church, running several red lights on its way into Arlington County. Wellsey kept quiet, his hands clenched tightly by his sides. Richards drove with his body hunched over the wheel, staring intently out at the asphalt coming toward them.

"We'll be there in no time flat," he said, cackling slightly as he spoke. "And I've made some decisions regarding our friend Ms. Jordan."

"What are you talking about... sir?"

"I'll tell you about them during our match, Johnnie-boy. Or in between games, when you're trying to catch your breath." Richards cackled again.

With a sharp turn of his wrist, Richards spun the car into the sports club's parking lot.

By the time the two men had changed clothes and begun to warm up on the court, Wellsey thought Richards had sobered up slightly. He had stopped calling him Johnnie-boy and was walking without weaving. But, as the game unfolded, Wellsey couldn't believe the change that Richards wanted to make in the strategic plan.

"You're serious?" he asked repeatedly, as Richards' score rose and Wellsey stuck out his racquet repeatedly in vain.

"I've thought it through and this is how we're going to play it."

The original plan called for strong, immediate, full-court pressure on Katherine Jordan after her ouster at the board meeting. A lawsuit and legal proceedings alleging corruption and theft would be filed immediately by the firm, followed by leaks to the press. Slammed firmly with such force, the thinking went, Katherine would be too busy hiding to defend herself. Or even to know what had happened.

Richards' change to the plan was simple: they would wait two weeks before implementing these steps.

"Now, I'm not really interested in what you think about this, John," Richards said, his voice strained after a reasonable rally. "As usual, it's my way goes, we both know that."

"Be that as it may," John managed, almost completely out of breath. "I still want... to go on record. This is a major... mistake. Easily avoidable. Without... justification. Stupid."

"Thank you for your thoughts. Duly noted. Case closed."

Wellsey's anger and frustration with his boss was close to boiling over. He'd skipped polite questions and been direct, even provocative. Still nothing in response. New plans, no rationale, it was a recipe for disaster.

"Stanley, I think –"

"I don't pay you to –"

Upon hearing those words, Wellsey cut in brutally. Enough was enough. "Excuse me, sir, but that's exactly what the firm does pay me to do, and I won't stand for this level of abuse. You want me in, then you'll listen to me, and I'll listen to you. No more of this one-way street. Or I'm out."

Richards turned away, slamming his racquet hard into the seamless white court wall. It clattered to the floor. Richards said nothing for several long moments. Watching his boss, Wellsey refused to speak first in the silence. He waited for a gesture, a rebuttal, for an angry denunciation of everything he stood for.

Richards began to speak slowly and quietly. His sentences were short and clipped, his tone firm.

"You don't know how it was between us. You don't understand. It had the elements. The elements, you understand? There was love there, in flashes. She had a way about her, she could take my breath away."

Richards leaned down to pick up his broken racquet and turned to face Wellsey. His face was pale and drawn. His eyes smouldered, flashing as he spoke.

"So you don't understand, John," he continued. "The least I owe the woman is a fair fight. That's what this is about. I've said it, okay? Never ask me about it again. We give her the two weeks. And then the plan goes into action."

Silence returned to the court.

"I think we're done here. Let me give you a ride home." Richards moved to the door, tugged at its metal handle. Without saying a word in response, Wellsey followed behind, walking down the quiet hallway to the showers and changing room.

On the drive back to Falls Church, Richards talked about a favorite island of his in the Bahamas, cigars, and golf courses. The topics flowed from one to another smoothly and rapidly. Wellsey gave short, perfunctory answers. His mind was elsewhere.

On the one hand, looking over at Richards, there was no outward sign that he had ever been intoxicated or that anything, in fact, was different from business as usual. Dressed in a grey polo shirt and dark, pleated chinos, Richards tapped his hand lightly on the steering wheel to the beat of a new Lady Gaga song on the radio. He once again looked like the picture of calm and professionalism. But Wellsey couldn't shake the feeling that something fundamental had changed. That, like a child secretly peering down through the banister of a staircase at his fighting parents late at night, he had seen something that Richards never wanted revealed.

The car pulled sharply into Wellsey's driveway and glided to a stop, its massive engine idling. Wellsey reached for the door and swung out his legs onto the driveway. He could already feel the dull, angry back pains gathering force. Time for some aspirin. And a strong drink.

Distracted in his thoughts, he mumbled a goodbye to Richards and closed the car door. He stood there until the car pulled out, turned, and began to pull away. He raised his hand in farewell and then started walking up his front steps. The car's horn honked twice and Richards was gone.

Wellsey couldn't entirely put the pieces back together. It was simply too soon, and too much had happened in the course of two hours. But the plan was in tatters. It would never be the same. Apart from the alcohol, Wellsey felt increasingly sure he had smelled something else, something far stronger, on Richards' breath. Something that would not go away. Something that could not be hidden away forever. Weakness.

He was not sure what to do about it. Not yet, anyway. They would give Katherine Jordan the two weeks, that much was clear, and he would mull and consider their changing options. But everything they built going forward was now resting on an uncertain foundation.

Chapter 7

There was not much point in getting up and facing the day. There was not much point in staying in bed, either. There was no reason to eat breakfast, and no reason to go hungry. There was no reason to do anything, ever again.

These were the thoughts circling in Katherine's head when she heard her front door open and close. It would be Jackie, she thought, good to her word as always.

Katherine had slept deeply for a few hours after getting home the previous night, running inside to find the money to pay the cab driver. Worries and demons soon unsettled her sleep, however, tugging at her dreams, poisoning her quiet peace. Even as she hated herself for it, she had begun to dip a toe in the waters of self-pity.

She turned on her side to look at the red digits of the clock on the dresser. 7:15. This time yesterday, she thought, my life still made sense. That alarm went off and you thought you were prepared for what was coming.

"Hey Jacks," she called out. "That is you and not some psycho banging pots together, right?"

"Hey, you're supposed to be sleeping," came the familiar voice from down the hall. There was the sound of footsteps and Jackie's face peered around the door of Katherine's bedroom.

"I was going to make us some scrambled eggs and pancakes, with huge glasses of orange juice to wash it all down with. It was supposed to be a surprise, but looks like that idea's toast. Sound good?"

"I guess. I won't be eating much."

"What are you talking about? We've got to feed you up. You're going to need your energy, sister."

"Why? I'm not going to fight. I'm just going to stay here. Forever."

As she spoke, Katherine began to feel like she was fading away, vanishing. She sensed a huge force gathering inside her, a force that threatened to overwhelm and destroy her. She had the sudden urge to vomit, and stifled the impulse as best she could. She looked over at her friend.

"I'm sorry, that statement was a little extreme. I'll try and eat some of your breakfast."

"Well, thank you very much, your highness," Jackie replied with a sarcastic smile on her face. "I wouldn't want you to have to suffer through it."

"Jacks –"

"Oh, I'm just kidding. You stay put and I'll be back in a minute or two."

When Jackie's face disappeared from the doorway, Katherine slid back into bed, lying prostrate under the sheets. She shifted one arm, then the other, then moved her legs back and forth in a swimming motion. She gazed at the ceiling, tracing the thin white cracks in the paint.

Oh dear God, she thought to herself. What am I going to do? What on earth am I going to do?

For a moment, the room was quiet. Then, the levee burst.

The inner storm that had been building for weeks tore through Katherine's soul. She had kept it all in for so long, under control. Now, the blind, thoughtless tears swept in. She was startled by loud sobs before she realized they were her own. She buried her head under her pillow, clenching the sheets tightly in her fists.

Why me? She thought. Why now? They were the only words not drowned out by the hot, wet tears and heaving sobs that racked her tensed frame. The questions hung in the air, circling, haunting her in her long moments of unguarded pain.

Time seemed to no longer exist. At some point, she noticed that Jackie was holding her in her arms, stroking her hair and rocking her back and forth.

As the intense crying subsided into a dull ache, Katherine became momentarily more aware of her surroundings. She noticed that light was streaming in the windows. She noticed a tray with pancakes and fresh fruit and spilled orange juice next to the bed.

It was merely a lull in the storm.

The emotions swept in once more, and Katherine broke down again. This time, though, words and ideas began to form on the tide of emotion.

"How could anyone do this to another human being?" she cried out. "I loved him... I lost him, wasn't that bad enough..." her words tumbled out between sobs. "Now he's pushed me... and I have nothing left... I have nothing left."

Jackie held her friend in her arms and said nothing. She let the storm rage.

Until her relationship with Stanley Richards ended, Katherine had never before experienced the possible depths of sadness. Carefully and quickly, she had cut herself off from her recent history, focusing only on her job and her survival at the firm. Richards quickly became a monster in her mind. She had desperately ignored everything else the man had once been to her.

As she lay there crying in Jackie's arms, her tears represented nothing less than her release from four months of pain. She had never given herself time to reflect and mourn, until now. Her mind drifted back to when she and Stanley Richards had still known each other intimately, allowing the painful memories to surface for the first time.

The downward slide, she had to admit, had lasted months, but she had refused to see it coming. For Katherine, the years of love she had shared with Richards were a steadily rising staircase of hope that could lead to nothing less than a lifetime of happiness together.

"You can come out now," he had called to her on a hot July day the previous summer. Katherine, blindfolded with a blue Hermes scarf, sat motionless in Richards' Mercedes about fifty feet away from him. It was the day before their anniversary, and her lover had swept her out of the office that morning. A blindfold and three hours later, Katherine had no idea where she was.

Nervous excitement bubbled inside. Where could they be? For how long would they be there? And what would they do together? To each other?

She slowly stepped out of the car, feeling loose gravel under her feet. The last hour of the drive had been slower, on a curling, winding road, so she had no idea where she was.

"But I can't see," she giggled.

"Just follow my voice," Richards replied. "You can call me the Pied Piper, if you like."

"Okay then, Mr. Piper. I'm coming." She took several tentative footsteps.

"You're doing great. Do you know where we are?"

"You've got to be kidding. I don't know anything, except that you are mysterious. And possibly wonderful."

"Go easy on the compliments. After all, you don't know where I've brought you. This could be a dungeon or a cesspool or something."

"Smells much too nice for that. In fact, I think I smell pine trees. Maybe we're on a mountain?"

"Don't go too fast there, sweetheart. Just keep following my voice." His words took on new urgency and specificity. "There are steps coming up. I'll take your arm... here we go."

"I counted six steps. And I think we're in a building now. Our voices sound different."

"I refuse to answer all questions on the grounds of self-incrimination. Keep following my voice. I'm over here now."

The ground under Katherine's feet squeaked slightly as she walked. "This must be a hardwood floor," she said. "So, we have pine trees and a hardwood floor. Still not much to go on."

"Time to stop. More steps. This time we're going down, not up. Take a step and I'll be by your side."

"I smell pine trees again. There's a breeze here. Outside again. Are you taking me in circles?"

"Almost there, sweetheart. A few more steps and the blindfold will be lifted¸ I promise."

"Now?"

"Now."

The blindfold fell from Katherine's eyes. A vast expanse of countryside, woods, fields and rivers spread out before her. She was standing on a massive wooden deck, looking out over the wilds of West Virginia. Behind her stood a sprawling structure. Technically a cabin, it was palatial. Built of interlaced stone and wood, it blended perfectly with the hillside.

"They call this the Cranberry Wilderness, Katherine. And –"

"Shut up and kiss me. Take my clothes off and hold me. Offer me up to the stars, you sweet man."

"I love you, Katherine."

"And I love you, Stanley."

The couple's anniversary extended over the next three days, mornings and afternoons and evenings of loving, reading, cooking, hiking and more loving that passed in the quiet wilderness.

Afterwards, the drive back to Washington slowly brought the couple back to everyday life. Katherine remembered that she had dry cleaning to pick up and meetings looming that demanded her attention and preparation.

"Can't we just turn around and go back?" she asked, only half-joking, as the Mercedes drove on, drawn inexorably back to the city.

"Let's see. Senior partner drives off into the sunset with his love, who also happens to be an accounting executive at the same firm."

"Fair point. But still, maybe one day..." She was still lighted-hearted, playful. She noticed that Richards was not. He had gone quiet. "What's up, my love? Sensitive subject in there somewhere?" she asked.

"I don't mean to be a bucket of cold water," he said. "I think we should treasure our times like this together. But you know that I live for the city, for the firm. You and I are the perfect pieces in the puzzle."

Katherine hid her reaction to his words. She wasn't surprised, but neither had she expected his seriousness to come in and suddenly change the end of their special time together.

"You know I feel like you do, Stanley," she replied. "I also like to imagine and daydream."

For three days, Richards had let down his guard. His tight control, his rational side, had been put aside for seventy-two hours. He had been funny, playful, light-hearted. She so rarely was allowed inside his private world like that. But now, she could tell that he was once again assuming his heavy worldly burdens. His mind was racing ahead and his wonderful sense of humor had been replaced by business-as-usual rationality and calculation. When this part of his personality took over, the world was defined as a series of contrasting oppositions, victories versus defeats, successes versus failures.

"Who should I take on this week?" he often asked Katherine as they relaxed in his home or her condo on Sunday mornings, reading the paper.

"Maybe yourself," she often replied. "That's the only person who'll be an even match." For her lover, there was no middle ground, only extremes. She knew that fact was a key reason why he had dominated the world since he left law school. From time to time, Katherine wondered how she fit in an equation like that.

By the end of the week, she had adjusted back into the rhythms of work, and the busy weeks began to fly by once more. The summer would be over before she knew it. There would be trips in the fall when she and her lover could again create special places and times, she told herself.

But the fall never quite materialized.

Richards walked into her office on one Thursday afternoon in late August, closing the door behind him.

"Stanley, you can leave the door. I hardly ever close it, you know that."

"This is a time when you'll want it closed," he said. She noticed that his face was thin and drawn. He looked tired and irritable. "There's been a change of plan."

"Okay. Well, what does that mean?"

"I have to go away. For quite a while."

"I see..." Katherine's vision of a long Labor Day weekend at the beach vanished.

"The firm has picked me to be our lead attorney in Europe for the next three months. My turn to have a hand on the tiller over there. It's Paul Miler's old post."

"Three months." Katherine tried out the words in her mouth. She didn't like how they sounded.

"I'm sorry, but it has to be. It's business. You can visit, we could see Paris, Venice, anywhere you like. We can escape, just like you love to do. Maybe it'll be even better than usual."

That statement caught Katherine off-guard. She would never have thought to try to outdo their private love getaways. She didn't know what to say.

"Wow. So..." she struggled. "This is going to take a little time to sink in, Stanley. But also, I mean, congratulations. This is quite an honor, isn't it?"

"There's another thing, sweetheart." Richards turned to look out her windows, then turned back to face her.

Katherine's heart sank. "Yes?"

"I leave on Monday."

"What?"

"It's a tradition here, I think. I have no choice in this. Whoever goes, goes surprised. Pack a bag and cross the Atlantic is what chairman just told me to do."

"So we've the weekend and then we're holding hands across an ocean?"

"Let's say it another way, my love. Let's make it a weekend to remember." His words carried almost no warmth or sincerity for Katherine. She could see that, as usual, his mind was racing ahead. Visions of power lunches on the Champs d'Elysees in Paris. Attending operas with clients at the Royal Opera House in London. He looked right through her as if the present didn't exist.

Katherine shuddered.

After a few long moments, she decided that it could be a small hiccup in their lives together, nothing more. It wouldn't be too bad. She could visit. And perhaps his return would bring a ring.

At first, the phone calls were regular, even frantic in their frequency. Katherine left the office each evening and headed home, waiting for his voice. She would pull up a stool to the kitchen bar, nibble at whatever she'd prepared for dinner, and scan the paper's headlines. She learned quickly that if the phone hadn't rung by 7:30, there would be no call that night. The call usually came exactly at 7. Stanley was as regular as clockwork.

On the phone with her lover, Katherine had trouble fighting back her growing loneliness. He sounded so far away. He only ever described his days in the most general ways, and she wasn't sure what he actually did for the firm in Europe.

For her part, she shared tidbits of news. An evening out with Jackie. New office politics. Old office politics.

"Busy." That was Richards' standard response whenever she asked how he was doing. He never elaborated, except to tell her where he was calling from.

When he didn't call, there was usually a brief e-mail waiting on her BlackBerry. Sometimes, an exotic image of a French menu, grainy pictures of faraway mountains. Twice a week, also regular as clockwork, the local florist arrived with two dozen red roses. Just as the old stems wilted, fresh rose petals arrived.

"Sign here as usual, please, ma'am," said the delivery man at her office door.

"Thanks."

"I hope you don't mind me saying. You must be the most loved woman in the world. Fifteen years in flowers and I've never seen anything like this. You two married?"

"No."

"Been together a long time?"

"Four years now. Hoping to stay that way."

"Well, as I say, you must be some woman. Have a nice day."

"Thank you."

The flowers kept arriving twice weekly. By the end of September, though, the flood of phone calls had slowed. They now had a single standing call time, Monday evenings at 7 p.m. The e-mails dried up. Talk of a trip stalled. Each conversation felt exactly like the previous one, almost as if they were both following the well-worn grooves of a record that never ended but just circled, round and round. Regular as clockwork.

It didn't take long for Katherine to worry. She wasn't sure what exactly to worry about, though. Should she worry about whether their relationship was changing for the worse, about Richards' health, about his work, or about the tone of his voice when they talked? She knew so little, she had no idea where to begin.

"Hi sweetheart." Then silence.

"Hi Stanley. I miss you."

"I miss you too." More silence.

"I was thinking of booking a ticket soon? Milan sound good, maybe Rome?"

"You know we can't right now. My schedule is so crazy. I'll let you know when something opens up. Right now, I just can't see my way clear to any time off."

"I understand."

"Love you."

"Love you too." More silence. "What's work been like this week?"

"Advising for a chemical company in Palermo. Litigation in Italy is just crazy. They've spent centuries perfecting a system that is designed not to work. So it's keeping me busy."

Stanley no longer asked her questions. She would pretend he had and soldier on regardless.

"Back here, Stanley, everything's okay. Work's fine. I'm going to an NSO concert with Jackie this weekend. Kennedy Center. Cocktails. All I need is the arm of a good-looking man..."

Katherine's attempt at humor failed. Stanley's response was dry, matter-of-fact.

"Yes, well, it won't be long."

"No, Stanley, it won't be..."

"I love you."

"I love you too. Bye..."

And so the conversations continued into October, their pattern unchanged. Anger and frustration increasingly filled Katherine's mind after each phone call. Their summer anniversary seemed to exist in an alternate universe. Had it been the same man for those few days? Where had the laughter and love gone? If only she could rewind time and go back.

"What are you doing over there?" she screamed at the walls of her condo after one awful conversation. She picked up the telephone and threw it across the room, watching as it broke into pieces after slamming into her bookshelf. She slammed her fist down on the kitchen table, cursing under her breath.

"Where are you? Who are you?" she asked quietly, bowing her head. The room provided no answers, only more dreadful silence, and the tears flowed.

In mid-October, Richards called to let Katherine know that he would be an extra month in Europe. He knew for sure now that she wouldn't be able to visit at all he said, but he would be flying home at the end of November.

"Will you be able to pick me up at Dulles?" he asked.

"What a silly question, my love." Katherine mustered all of her strength to sound normal, casual, unconcerned. "Four months and you think I'd make plans for that night? I don't think so. I'll be there with bells on."

Katherine remained hopeful and positive that Richards' return would bring only change for the better. Things would surely become magical again when they talked face to face, when they held each other, when they danced, when they made love. To fill her time and stop thinking about the future, Katherine threw herself into her work with abandon. She worked weekends and late into most evenings, with the occasional night out with Jackie for dinner or to catch a movie. Her friend was concerned, but Katherine refused to talk about Richards at all.

"I'm fine, Jacks," was her answer. "I miss him, that's all. I've got time to kill, so I might as well be productive. I'm fine."

But Jackie could easily see that Katherine was not fine. In fact, the entire accounting and public relations divisions were aware of the change. The open-minded, dedicated woman they worked with had disappeared, and in her place stood a tense, driven ghost. She had begun to rule the accounting division with an iron fist, demanding ever-increasing productivity, daily status reports, and endless meetings. She never discussed her rationale for decisions or changes in project plans. There was no discussion of longer-term goals and priorities. Soon, Katherine's anger and frustration were shared by the entire sixth floor. Jackie tried to intercede, but was met only with terse answers and denials.

"I hope he has a really good reason for his behavior," Jackie muttered under her breath after another stressful meeting. "I hope he does, because otherwise, I will kill him for this."

Meanwhile, slowly and inexorably, the end of November rolled around. Their phone conversations did not improve, but Katherine clung stubbornly to her lover's arrival date. Seeing each other would make all of the difference, she told herself.

Thanksgiving stretched her optimism to breaking point, however. As usual, it was just her and her father in his small apartment for two days. They always prepared the meal together. A turkey, chestnut stuffing, turnips, sweet potatoes, and vegetables. Pecan and apple pies with ice cream for dessert.

Katherine arrived on Wednesday evening after work, hopeful that a brave face and constant conversation would mask the situation. After all, there were only five days left until her man returned. Surely, she could make it just a little bit longer.

Her father knew her better than she knew herself sometimes. Within an hour of her arrival, he knew that his daughter was troubled. It was the way she refused to look him in the eye when they spoke. The way their conversation flitted quickly from subject to subject. The fact that she forgot to ask him how he'd been. In the past six months, he had hardly seen Katherine. It was almost as if they lived thousands of miles apart instead of a few miles. Katherine still called regularly, but her visits had stopped.

So, on Thanksgiving Day, as Katherine baked the sweet potatoes, he brought up the subject as tactfully and respectfully as he could.

"Katherine..."

"Yes, dad?"

"I'm only going to bring this up once. I know you're not happy. And if you need me, if you need to talk, if you need anything, I'm right here behind you, like always."

Katherine flinched slightly and looked away. But as she thought before she spoke, she realized that she didn't want to run from her problems with Richards any more. She was so tired of telling everyone that everything would be fine, that everything would work out.

Responding to her silence, her father pressed on, trying his best to reach out. "Something's not right, darling. Is it work? Stanley? I hate seeing you like this."

Katherine laughed in relief. "Dad, I can't believe how you can read my mind. I do have a problem. But I think it will go away soon. I don't really want to talk about it, but your support makes me feel much, much better. Like I'm not alone after all."

"Are you sure that you don't want to talk about it?"

"What I could really use is a hug. And then I can try to make this Thanksgiving a little more normal for both of us. It's so good being home with you."

"Deal." Katherine's father stepped toward her and embraced her in a big bear hug. It lasted a good long time, his still-strong arms squeezing the breath out of her.

"God, dad, I'd forgotten that you're a champion hugger."

Her father smiled. "Years of practice and training, kiddo."

Katherine turned back to the oven to check on the sweet potatoes. They were ready for mashing with butter and brown sugar. Her father finished preparing the stuffing. From there, their Thanksgiving traditions went as they always had. In the afternoon, after the meal, they left the dishes piled in the sink and the two of them played cards and leafed through family photo albums. In the evening, they picked out a movie showing at a nearby theater and walked the three blocks in a drenching rain.

For two days, Katherine managed to leave her burdens behind. Her traditions with her father were grounding, reassuring. Change might be coming, Katherine allowed herself to admit, but I still have so much. I still have so much.

The thought helped the final three days before Richards' return pass fairly quickly, and Katherine left work at midday on Monday to prepare herself. Her whole body tensed with nervous excitement. Perhaps change could even be a good thing for them, opening new doors and opportunities.

When his plane landed at Dulles International Airport, Katherine had already been waiting in the Arrivals Hall for an hour. Her heart continued to flutter, thinking of the moment to come shortly when her love would walk through the barrier doors, take her into his arms, and sweep her away. She walked around the main terminal, scanning advertisements, watching the porters, anything to keep her delicious excitement from getting the better of her. She took an elevator up a floor to watch the planes land for a few minutes, all the while savoring what was soon to be the end of her four-month exile from her man. The strange, disjointed phone conversations drifted far from her mind. A new, ideal present and future loomed large in her imagination.

She looked at her watch. The arrivals screen listed her lover's plane as "in customs," which meant he could appear at any moment. Katherine walked quickly to the elevator and returned to the Arrivals Hall, her hands clenching and unclenching in anticipation.

The first few passengers from Richards' British Airways flight from London were beginning to trickle out. Some were business types, dressed impeccably in suits or fashionable skirts and blouses. They strode out alone, headed for the taxi stand. The flight crew walked out and headed out of the terminal to the waiting van that would take them to their hotel for the night. Casually dressed passengers poured out of the doors, a riot of color and energy. Most were greeted emphatically, hugged and kissed by those waiting all around her: husbands, wives, girlfriends, boyfriends, grandparents, children, some with Welcome Home balloons tied to their strollers.

Watching their faces light up as their loved ones arrive, Katherine had to smile. Their happiness only multiplied the butterflies in her own stomach, for the moment when the customs doors would open and her love would arrive.

She looked across from the joyous, emphatic embrace of one young couple to the doors. In that instant, one that seemed to last a lifetime, the doors shot open and there he was. Mr. Stanley Richards, the love of her life. He looked as good as ever, traveling casually in his favorite chinos and open-necked polo shirt. He looked fit and healthy, none the worse for four months of wear. There he was, and he belonged to her.

He hadn't yet noticed Katherine among the throngs of people waiting behind the arrivals barriers, so she jumped up and down, waving her hands in the air, and called out his name. She felt herself losing control and loved every moment of it.

Her lover still hadn't noticed her gesturing, though, so she walked quickly around the barriers and stood waiting for him. He was there, barely ten feet away, and she ran to fall into his arms. Her arms extended, wrapping around his neck, and her face brushed his.

But something was wrong. Drastically, horribly wrong. As Katherine touched him, he had no reaction. He was still pushing his luggage cart, dragging her along with him with formidable strength. Then, in a quick, firm movement, his hands left the luggage cart, removed her hands from his neck, and pushed her away. His hands returned to the cart and he began to walk away quickly, following the signs for taxis. His head never turned. He never acknowledged her existence.

Katherine was stunned. Surely this was not happening. Her Stanley had not just ignored her and walked away. It had to be a dream, a nightmare, anything but reality. Her mind couldn't grasp what was happening, so rapidly and so unexpectedly.

People around her were staring, whispering to each other. And Richards, when she looked again at the exit doors, was gone.

She raced down the hallway, leaving the gaping onlookers behind, just in time to see her love stepping into a long black stretch limousine. She ran outside, ramming her body against the car. As it began to pull away, she slammed her hands against the dark window glass.

"Let me in," she screamed.

The car's front passenger window opened slightly with an electronic whine. It was only an instant before the car moved away, but Wellsey's pale, blank face was unmistakable. "Please move away from the car," he said in a harsh, biting tone, and then the car was gone.

Katherine was left barely able to stand, shaking uncontrollably in the middle of the taxi lane. Muffled sobs racked her frame, and only when a large yellow cab hit its horn behind her did she finally, slowly and haltingly, step aside.

That final image hung in Katherine's mind, repeating, echoing. She found herself, after what had been an unknowable length of time, still in Jackie's arms, her tears still moist rivers on her cheeks. She smiled.

"Jacks," she whispered.

"Yes?"

"I went back to it all, and I'm still here."

"I'm not sure what you mean. You're certainly still here."

"I've been back to the time, to those months. I've just relived them as much as I ever could. And I'm still here."

Katherine sat up slowly from her resting position and turned to look at her friend.

"The memories just came after me, Jacks," she said. "They came to swallow me up and I let them. Only... I'm still here."

"You mean you hadn't allowed yourself to make peace with your time with Stanley? Ever?"

"Jacks, I just didn't let you in at the time, I didn't let myself in. I just closed the door. It was all too painful. I felt like if I didn't bury everything, I would come apart at the seams."

The choice, at the time, hadn't been that difficult. Richards' abrupt disavowal of their relationship, after all, was quickly compounded by bizarre events at the office. People from other divisions and departments began to snub her. She received vague, threatening phone messages and e-mails. And the man in the elevator.

Closing it all off and fighting for her suddenly imperiled career had been an easy decision to make. Avoid the pain. Don't think. Act.

Jackie handed Katherine some tissues.

"Wow, Katherine," she said. "I'm so glad you're back. I can't tell you how glad I am. You've had me scared stiff all morning. I kept talking to you but you didn't respond. Your eyes, they just stared off into space. If it wasn't for your pulse..."

"Jacks, I'm here, I'm back, I'm feeling good. Is there any of that breakfast still around?"

"Katherine, that was three hours ago."

"What? I've been lying here that long –"

"Yes, my dear, you have. You've been gone a long, long time."

It had dawned on Katherine already, even in the first few moments since she had returned from her painful past. If she had the courage, she knew now, she had the chance to break free forever. She had never even realized before that she had been trapped.

Chapter 8

"Katherine, there's one little detail I haven't mentioned," Jackie said, smiling from her seat near the roaring fire in Katherine's living room.

Katherine smiled back at her friend. "Oh, really?" she asked playfully. "I have to warn you. Not much surprises me anymore."

Katherine was in high spirits. Since the tumultuous start to the day, she and Jackie had behaved like two carefree girls. They'd laughed over old lovers and college happenings, torn apart the office politics at the firm. Jackie had gone out and rented several old Cary Grant movies and picked up some takeout Chinese food, and they were just settling in for a relaxing, decadent evening.

"One other thing, my dear," Jackie said. "You're busy tomorrow."

"Where are we going, Jacks? A little shopping therapy?"

"Not we. You. I've arranged for a field trip."

"What are you talking about, Jacks?"

"Ever tried rock climbing?"

"No." Katherine wondered where this was leading.

"Well, that's going to change. I've hired a guide to take you out to Harpers Ferry tomorrow. To the cliffs."

"But –"

"But nothing, Katherine. You need a break. Change of scenery. Fresh air. All of this will still be here when you get back. It's only a day, so if you hate it, no big deal."

"But it's so random, so... strange."

Katherine thought it over in her mind. She pictured herself dangling off a cliff, somewhere far from help, her fingers clawing at jagged, unforgiving rock. Ah hell, she thought to herself, it would be different and probably a good time. The future could wait for a day or two.

"Where did you find this guide?" she asked.

"Oh, I asked around. People in the office who climb say he's the best. I think you'll like him."

"Should I pack a lunch? Go out and buy climbing equipment?"

"Your guide said to dress like you were going to the gym, and to bring a change of clothes for afterwards. He takes care of everything else."

"Thanks, Jacks," Katherine said. "At least, I think I'll thank you for this..."

After that, the following day was not mentioned again. The two women dug into the Chinese food, turned on the television, and fired up the DVDs. Katherine settled back into an evening of calm relaxation, of flickering images and compelling romance.

She was abruptly woken up the following morning by her friend, who had slept on the living room couch after the movie marathon had finally ended.

"Up and at them, sleepyhead," she cried. "Throw on your best gym clothes and you'll be out the door in a minute or two."

"Is the guide here?" Katherine managed to mumble the words.

"Nope. About ten minutes and he'll be here."

Katherine quickly snapped into alert consciousness. She didn't know why, but her stomach was filled with tumbling butterflies of excitement. The day had to bring something new, something unknown. Her high energy levels took her completely by surprise, though. She hadn't expected herself to really want to try rock climbing.

"All right, Jacks, I'm up. I'm getting dressed. I'm kind of awake. I'm walking around and getting some breakfast."

"Ten-hut!"

"You know, Jackie, you'd make a lousy Marine."

"Heyyyyyy..."

"But you make a great best friend." Katherine gave Jackie the best imitation of one of her father's bear hugs.

"Your opinion on that might just change on a minute or two," her friend said mysteriously.

"What does that mean?"

"Oh nothing. I was just thinking that –"

Katherine's buzzing intercom cut Jackie off in mid-sentence. Katherine crossed the room and turned on the intercom.

"Hello? Anyone up in there?" a voice boomed across the room. "I found my way through Rosslyn in one piece, so I hope someone's there to answer."

Katherine thought she recognized the voice, though she had no idea why that would be the case.

"Is that him, my guide, I mean?" Katherine asked, flustered at the prospect of suddenly heading outside to climb a cliff face.

"I think so," Jackie replied. "Have a great time. Don't break a leg."

"Should I ask him up?"

"No, no no," Jackie replied vehemently. "I'll stay behind. You just head on down and meet him."

Katherine stopped in the hallway, placing her hands on her hips. "Why are you acting so strangely?" She was suspicious, tipped off by her friend's nervous insistence that she leave. Jackie clearly was up to something. Of that, there could be no doubt.

"Go, Katherine. Leave. Get out the door. I'll see you tomorrow night."

"After work?"

"Yup. I'm going to put in some time now, and then take off early at the end of the week. To spend some quality time with my best friend." Of course, that's if you still want to be my friend tomorrow, Jackie thought to herself. I may not be too popular.

"Okay. But just know that I'm on to you, Jacks."

"I'm as innocent as a little lamb," Jackie replied, smiling impishly.

"Forgive me if I don't believe that for a second, my friend."

"Now go!"

Katherine spoke over the intercom to her anonymous guide. "I'll be right down."

"Okay, so I'm in the right place," the somehow familiar voice came back. "Now we can move on to rock climbing."

"Hmmm," Katherine said as she walked to the door.

"What does that mean?" Jackie said, smiling again.

"Just hmmm... I'll see you in a day and then I'll tell you what it means."

"Bye. Have a great time. I'll let myself out." The door closed and Katherine was gone.

"Yessss!" Jackie shouted after a few moments had passed. "Just call me Ms. Matchmaker."

As the elevator descended past each floor, Katherine felt increasingly like she should back out the excursion and head back up to her condo. As she stepped from the elevator into the lobby, that impulse soared.

"Well, here goes nothing," she said under her breath as she pulled open the door and stepped outside.

"Uh-huh." It was all she could muster when she saw who was waiting for her. The urge to turn around and walk back inside was nearly overpowering. His enthusiastic words caught her.

"Say, how are you? You're ready, I hope, Katherine? I must say it was such a cool surprise to hear from your friend Jackie that you were looking to try something new."

I bet it was, Katherine thought. A surprise to me as well, in fact.

She paused, gathering her composure. Nothing to lose, she told herself. Something new to try. A breath of fresh air. "It's Ry, isn't it?" she asked.

It was indeed, him. Again. Leaning against the front fender of a bright blue Ford pickup truck was the strange man who had saved – or was it kidnapped – her about thirty-six hours earlier.

"Hop in," he said cheerfully. "We've got no time to lose on a beautiful morning like this."

It took strong nerves for Katherine to walk around the car and get in. Whether by accident or not, this man remained tied in her mind to Friday's poisonous whirlwind. Her mind kept linking him to Richards and Wellsey. Surely he was some hidden part of their plan?

On the other side, she knew these concerns were absurd. He had been a bystander in all of the madness. Perhaps a bystander with a motive, but a motive completely removed from that boardroom. And, perhaps most impressive, he had passed Jackie's vetting process. Let's keep this simple, she thought. Let's treat this experience as the turning of a new page. New experiences. New possibilities.

"So this is your truck, then?" she heard herself say as she opened the pickup's door and climbed in.

"Yes. My pride and joy," Ry replied. He sat down next to her, turned the key in the ignition. The pickup's engine roared to life. Before she knew it, the truck was pulling away into the street.

Ry looked over at her and smiled. "You looked kind of surprised to see me back there," he said.

Man, Katherine thought. This guy is direct. But then she remembered – Jackie had told him that this was all her own idea.

"That's a fair assessment."

"I see. We'll try our best. It should be stunning out there on the rocks today."

An awkward silence descended as they headed out of northern Virginia. Neither Ry nor Katherine spoke for what felt like an eternity to both of them.

Katherine filled the silence by looking intently out the window at the world passing by. She was astonished by the speed with which the city was left behind. Heading north first on the George Washington Parkway, then taking I-495 for a few miles before driving into the Maryland countryside, they had left the metro area behind. White fencing raced alongside the state route, keeping in occasional herds of cows. Grain silos and farmhouses with wide porches emerged out of the early morning mist. A checkerboard of dew-soaked fields and thick forest alternated as the road curved westward, toward Harpers Ferry and the West Virginia border.

"Do you come out here much?" Ry asked finally, his voice cutting into the silence.

"I've never been out here," Katherine replied. "South of the state line, I've spent time in the Shenandoah Valley. The only parts of Maryland I've seen are I-95 and Baltimore." She looked straight ahead, watching the truck devour the highway in front of them.

The air between them was electric, teeming with unspoken questions.

Katherine decided it was her turn to be direct. "Look, Ry," she said. "I have to admit something. This is a complete surprise for me. Jackie didn't tell me anything. So, to be honest, I'm not that comfortable sitting here. It's been a crazy and very unpleasant few days. You were caught up in that and I need to let go of that whole time. If climbing a mountain can give me a fresh perspective, I'm on board. And just to be completely clear, I'm not looking for a boyfriend."

Ry looked over at her calmly. "We are on the same page, no problem. I've been hired as your climbing instructor. You're my client for the day, an accountant from an area law firm seeking an introduction to rock climbing. We're en route to the climbing site."

Ry paused. "I'd like to say a little more," he said. "I'm not here to put any moves on you, this isn't my attempt to ask you out again. I'm sorry about what happened on Friday. I'm sorry if I scared you."

"Thanks for saying that. It sounds like we're clear. I'm not looking to be swept off of my feet, so we can leave all of that stuff from the other day behind, right?"

"Right."

Since they were talking directly and effectively, clearing their brief, strange shared past out of the way, Katherine decided to continue in the same vein.

"Ry, I'd also like to apologize for the way I treated you the other day. You were trying to help. Maybe it's not what I would have done in that situation. But without you being there on the sidewalk, I'm not sure what would have happened to me."

"No problem," he replied casually. "We all have bad days."

"No, Ry," Katherine said firmly. "I need you to understand that this was something else entirely. We're talking once-in-a-lifetime kind of stuff. It was the beginning of a nightmare that's now unfolding as we speak."

"I see. Wow. Thanks for telling me that." His voice was gentle, reassuring. "Have you remembered much else about when you fainted?" he asked.

"Not yet. It's all hazy. But I've got a question for you."

"Shoot."

"If this trip is really just business, why did you still decide to do it?"

"After all that happened, I was hoping today might help make things right. This is the least I can do. It must have been terrifying waking up in an unknown place and then having some weirdo walk in."

"Yeah, when you put it that way... it was pretty scary."

"Was it really that bad?"

"Absolutely, positively. And that climbing mural on your ceiling sure didn't help things, either." They both looked at each other and laughed.

From that moment, both Ry and Katherine began to feel comfortable with each other's company. When they talked, unspoken questions no longer hung in the air. When there was silence, the pauses felt natural, normal.

Katherine even began to smile. Yes, she thought, the day would be fun. She could handle a day of one-on-one training with a world-class climber.

Ry interrupted her thoughts, handing her a map. "In case you'd like see where we're headed," he said. "We're turning onto Route 178 at this light up here, and we follow that straight out to the rocks. We'll cross the border in the next couple of miles as well."

"Great," she replied, tracing the rivers and ridge lines as they converged around the town of Harpers Ferry. On the map, the road looked like any of the other thin black lines that threaded the hills and valleys where the mountainous western counties of Maryland and Virginia converged with West Virginia's northeastern panhandle. But it was early on a Sunday morning, a warm breeze was blowing and the thin black line was transforming into a back-country road that curved around rock outcrops and forested hillsides. The map was coming alive.

Katherine looked out the window at what on the map was supposed to be a zigzagging blue line. In reality, it was a wide, thundering river. White-flecked waves tore and sucked at the shore. She could see the swollen, muddy current carrying parts of trees rapidly downstream.

Between hillside beauty and the river's low roar, the map seemed increasingly irrelevant to both occupants of the blue Ford pickup truck. For the next half-hour, Ry's truck slid smoothly over the two-lane blacktop, tracing a path along the Potomac, a river whose banks had been obliterated by late spring flooding. The road passed tangled overhangs of deep green ivy and exposed rock, an occasional worn-out farmhouse, and openings in the forest that provided glimpses of the fast-flowing river. The air was moist and humid. The forest's green growth seemed on the verge of overflowing in all directions, fertile beyond belief.

"We're headed over that way." Ry pointed at the river's far bank.

Katherine could make out little across the water. "That's where the rocks are?" she asked.

"That's right. A few more miles and we'll be pulling in. You'll see the rocks when we get closer. They're hard to miss."

Katherine felt a knot of nervous athletic energy forming in her stomach. She was ready to take on the challenge.

A few minutes later, they pulled into Harpers Ferry. A sleepy small town, it was made famous by John Brown's 1859 raid on its federal armory, a bloody moment that helped ignite the irrepressible conflict that would tear the country apart only two years later. Now a living museum, it was completely quiet as they drove down one of the town's cobblestone thoroughfares.

"I guess we beat the rush," Ry said, pulling his pickup truck sharply into a gravel parking lot.

"I guess –" Katherine's jaw dropped. Across the Potomac River, less than one hundred yards from where they were parked, the cliff face literally exploded out of the ground, soaring high into the sky.

"It's so steep," Katherine gasped. "It must be, must be..."

"It's not as daunting as it looks," Ry said gently. "It's five hundred and eighty-one feet to the top, if you want to know the specifics."

"That sounds about right."

"But don't worry. Nothing to worry about. You're out here to learn and enjoy. Simple as that. Come on out and I'll show you something."

Katherine opened her door and walked around to Ry's side of the truck.

"You see that up there?" Ry pointed to a flat shelf of rock cut into the cliff face, about fifty feet up from the ground. "That's what we're aiming for. We'll climb up there, have some lunch, enjoy the view, and then rappel down."

Katherine was astonished. "I can actually get up there and back down on my first day of doing this?" she marveled. "I'll believe that when I see it."

"Well, first things first. We're not going to cross the river and go near that rock until I've explained the basics. Climbing can be safe and it can be dangerous..." Ry walked around the back of his pickup as he talked. "... so let me just get this stuff and I'll meet you over there on the grass."

Ry picked up two climbing harnesses and several tightly bound cords of rope from the truck bed and walked over to meet her. Katherine continued to stare at the soaring cliff face.

"You could even get to the top with practice, Katherine. I promise you that. It all takes practice. Now, hold out your hands."

Ry handed her a coil of rope.

From the moment when she first held the rough-fiber rope in her hands, Katherine was mesmerized. Over the next hour, Ry took her through the different ways to ascend rock faces, taking into account the cliff's geology and verticality. From simple fireman ropes to complex free rope systems, Katherine had never considered that there were so many ways to climb.

She quickly realized that Ry was a wonderful teacher. In his words, the sport came alive, and she soon felt confident that she could at least make it a few feet up the cliff face. The ledge, however, seemed far beyond reasonable reach.

They practiced drills and routines on the grass until Katherine had a basic understanding of how climbing harnesses worked, how different rope knots were useful in different settings, and what would happen in she lost her grip on the cliff.

"We'll be using a basic fireman's rope today," Ry said. "Basically, I climb up to the ledge, hook in a rope, and send it down to you. We then attach your harness to the rope and you're all set. It'll just be like walking, only you'll be moving vertically."

"And if I fall?"

"Not much will happen," Ry said, to Katherine's great relief. "You'll fall about two feet before your caribiners catch the slack rope and you'll come to a stop. You'll be left dangling in space. All you have to do is place your feet against the rock and try again."

"Okay. I'm ready."

The two of them picked up the equipment and carried it across the trestle bridge over the Potomac River. With each step, the cliffs loomed larger and larger. On the far side of the river, they crossed a small canal and soon stood near the base of the rock. It was time.

"Alright, Katherine. So far, so good," Ry said. "I'm going to climb the cliff and get your rope set. I'm also going to run a rope for myself, so I'll be next to you the entire time, okay?"

That sounded fine to Katherine, but she was wondering how Ry would be able to get up to that rock ledge himself. There was no rope for him to use, and the cliff face looked smooth as glass.

"See you in a minute," he said and walked over to the cliff face.

Katherine stood back and watched. For the first of many times on this day, she was amazed.

Ry dug his hands into a chalk bag belted to his waist before setting his hands on the rock. He called out to her, explaining that the chalk was "to help with gripping." And then he was on the move. Without ropes, without any support, Ry steadily scaled the forty-foot-high cliff face with his bare hands. Within ten minutes, he had reached the rock ledge and two fireman's ropes were set securely in the cliff above. Ry tossed the ropes down – they uncoiled down to the ground near where Katherine stood. Ry rapidly descended one of the ropes and came over, crouching to prepare her equipment.

Katherine noticed that Ry had broken into a slight sweat, but his breathing was not strained in the least.

"That was incredible," she said. "I mean it. It was like you and the rock were working together."

"That's the final frontier of rock climbing," Ry replied, looking up at her as he spoke. "That's you working with the rock, no ropes, no equipment. Just you and your hands."

"But you made it look so easy."

"It's what I love. I've spent my life doing this."

Katherine was suddenly aware that she must be sounding like an awestruck schoolgirl. She tried to tone down her enthusiasm, and focus instead on the challenge ahead. One thing was for sure. She would not be making today's climb look easy.

Ry adjusted her climbing harness, attached her to an elaborate safety system of additional ropes and caribiners, and she was ready.

"Now I'm going to give you a boost to start, and then you're on your own," Ry said. As if she was a feather, he lifted Katherine in his arms and held her above the ground. Katherine was taken aback momentarily, but the warm sunlight and Ry's amiable, smiling countenance reassured her.

"Now place your feet out on the rock there," he instructed. "And hold the rope with both of your hands."

Katherine did so, but she found the position excruciatingly painful. "Ry," she gasped. "I can't hold this, my muscles can't do it."

"Lean back," Ry said firmly. "Let gravity do all of the work. Tilt your body backwards, toward the ground, and start pulling yourself up that rope."

With that advice, Katherine found that the sharp muscle pain disappeared completely. She took a tentative step upward, then another, and her delighted voice called back down to Ry.

"I'm actually climbing, Ry. It's fantastic... it's wonderful. How am I doing?"

"Too early to tell yet. Take a few more steps. I'm just adjusting my harness and I'll be following you up on the second rope."

From there, Katherine made slow but steady progress. As time passed, she found the climbing exhausting but exhilarating. From his position on his rope off to Katherine's left, Ry kept careful watch on his student, offering suggestions and support only when needed.

Every ten minutes, Katherine took a break, stretching backwards to loosen her tight muscles and to turn her head to enjoy the view. In the early stages, she was barely able to see beyond the nearby trees, but by the time an hour had passed, she was above the tree tops. She could now see the shining Potomac and the Shenandoah Rivers. She could see traffic moving slowly in the distance on Route 178. She could look down on the world where she normally walked.

As she rested, Ry would join her, and usually start talking about random subjects like current events or sports scores. Katherine didn't know it, but his consistent conversation was intended to keep her mind off of her fatigue and to make sure that her confidence didn't waver. The last stages of a climb could be the toughest.

But Katherine never felt overwhelmed. Instead, taking a deep breath, she would grip the rope tightly in her hands, and begin taking small steps upward once more. Their periodic rest stops near the end of the climb were, for Katherine, the highlight of the day. There they were, two people talking like old friends over coffee on a beautiful day. It was surreal, acting as if everything was normal, as if they weren't hanging off a cliff at a dizzying height.

"Can we come out and do this again?" she blurted out. "I'll sign up for a class."

Ry wanted Katherine to take her climbing seriously and slowly. "I don't see why not," he said. "But let's worry about that later. Let's get to the top and finish strong, what do you say?"

"I'm there."

And so they continued on.

It was past one in the afternoon when Katherine's dirty, scraped up hiking boots tentatively stepped onto the rock ledge that she had thought she would never reach. So close she could touch it now, the ledge looked amazingly large and substantial up close. There would be more than enough room for her and Ry to sit and watch the world go by. It dawned on her that only climbers had been able to visit this small stone alcove over the centuries.

"Careful, now," Ry called up to her. "Grab a seat there someplace nice and I'll be right up."

She had done it. Relief and triumph washed over her as her exhausted legs stumbled toward a comfortable resting place. Her back ached, and her arms felt like rubber, but she had done it. She was too tired to yell the news to the world, but a warm sense of accomplishment enveloped her from head to toe.

Ry soon swung up next to her, producing his final surprise of the day – lunch.

"You are a miracle worker," Katherine exclaimed. She was thrilled. "I could eat half an elephant right now."

"Well, I didn't know where to find one of those," Ry said, smiling, "so we've got sandwiches and trail mix and water instead."

Katherine rested against the smooth cliff wall behind her, feeling her racing heart slow down. She was able to take the time to really enjoy the view now, to let the day's events wash over her and reflect. Living in the moment was wonderful. She wolfed down a turkey sandwich and washed down some trail mix with a bottle of water.

Ry sat next to her, silent, quietly pleased with how his newest student had pushed herself to her limits. If she wanted to, he would certainly bring her out again.

"Can I ask what was so bad about your day at work on Friday?"

Katherine thought she would have been bothered by the question, but instead she found that she felt flattered by his interest. In the course of the past few hours, he had proven that he was the genuine article, a truly caring and trustworthy man. The easy way he talked, his smile, all those little details made Katherine feel incredibly comfortable. Not to mention the fact that he was one hell of a climber.

"Are you sure you want to ask? It's a big mess."

"No pressure. I'd like to know more. But I understand if it's the last thing you want to talk about."

"Well, in a way, there's a certain simplicity to it. In a nutshell, here it is. I dated one of the senior partners at the law firm where I work. For four years. Late last year, we fell apart, suddenly and bitterly. Since then, he's been trying to make my life hell. And on Friday, he finally succeeded."

"Tell me."

"He's accused me of embezzlement and a handful of other state and federal crimes. Basically, everything short of murder. He set me up at a board meeting on Friday and tore me apart in front of everyone. His timing was perfect, he whipped up a frenzy of anticipation in that room, and I think everyone there believed him. So I'm suspended until an 'internal investigation' is completed, whatever that might mean."

Ry was silent. He understood now why Katherine would have fainted dead away. He would have had trouble ever waking up again as well, having to face the destruction of your life and career in an instant. The woman sitting next to him kept most of her thoughts to herself, he had noticed, but he couldn't help being deeply impressed by her quiet resilience and courage. It had been Friday when everything had gone down. Today was Sunday and, with some help from her friend, she was out in the world, pushing herself to learn and adapt and conquer new challenges.

While Ry was thinking, Katherine would always remember the minutes that followed for what didn't happen. Unlike almost anyone else in his position, Ry never asked the obvious question. Katherine was preparing for it after she stopped talking, although she had no real answers to share. It was the question that would soon dominate her life.

But the question never came, at least not that afternoon.

Instead, Ry merely looked out at the world spread out below them.

"Well, Katherine," he said, "you've done yourself proud out here today. Quite a challenge for a first climb."

"Ry, I can't believe I'm sitting up here. I honestly thought I'd never make it past the first few feet."

"So, what do you think of this whole climbing thing?"

"I've felt the adrenalin rush all morning, Ry. And this view to top it all off. I feel like I'm on top of the world."

"Then just imagine what it's like at the top of the cliff."

"You don't think..."

"Yes, I think you can do it. I have no doubt, in fact. Something to aim for."

Katherine took a second sandwich and ate it in two bites. "You're on," she said.

By the time she rappelled back down from the ledge and crossed the river back to Ry's truck, she was exhausted. Enveloped in a warm, tired glow, she was asleep not long after they had driven out of Harpers Ferry.

She never noticed the tender way that Ry looked over at her. She never felt his lingering gaze on her. She never heard his unspoken thoughts. She slept, long and deep, and the miles passed and the mountains retreated behind them.

Instead, she woke up as the pickup truck pulled into Rosslyn on the way back to her condo. The two of them said a quick, pleasant goodbye. Katherine requested another training session and another ascent of the cliff. Ry promised that he would make sure he had time available.

Chapter 9

"I don't mean to scare you, Katherine, but I've got bad news." Jackie's voice was low and hard on the phone, fraught with concern. "Work is bad. Worse that we'd ever thought. I can't talk now, but it's bad."

"Okay, Jacks. I'll see you soon."

The line was dead. Jackie had already hung up. Katherine slowly replaced the receiver. It was a grim warning, but she felt ready. She knew what was coming would be tough. But, she thought, it still only came down to Richards and inexplicable motives. She could handle that. Having faced their past and finally accepted it, she could handle anything.

She looked around her kitchen, at the box of pens and legal pads stacked on the table. Crusts of bread and a banana peel piled on a breakfast plate. She had spent the morning calling defense attorneys. Response had been sluggish. The questions they asked quickly reminded Katherine how little she knew about the charges she might be facing, and how events would proceed.

"Why would a senior partner conduct a massive internal audit to expel one accountant?" asked one attorney.

"Have they threatened litigation?"

"Was there a board vote on your suspension?"

"How did you respond to the charges during the meeting?"

"What would be the basis for the charges against you?"

Katherine's answers felt small and inadequate in response. To the attorneys, it clearly seemed doubtful that a senior partner like Richards would go to such lengths for personal reasons.

"I'm sorry," one attorney said. "What you've got to go on here is too thin. At least for now. When you have more, please get back in contact with us." And then he hung up.

Each firm she contacted was dismissive of her claims or at best noncommittal. You're blaming the victim, Katherine thought in frustration. One attorney even advised that she move on quickly and start a job search. She knew, in reality, that it all came down to money. And it apparently seemed to the attorneys that her case could only be low profile, with a low return on time invested. There could be no glory, no multi-million dollar settlement for them unless she had compelling evidence with which to defend herself. As it was, she still didn't even know what she was defending herself from.

Images from the previous day suddenly flooded her mind, and Katherine relaxed. The raging river. The smooth, warm rock face. The easy conversation. The day's climb now seemed to exist only in an alternate universe in her mind. Had she ever really been perched on a rock ledge, high above the trees? Had she ever climbed forty feet into the air? No matter what happened with the firm, she knew she would go again. She had to. Ry had offered her the top of the cliff, and she wouldn't rest until her feet slid over that final ridge of rock.

Katherine sighed with regret as she let her daydreams fade. She turned back to the job at hand; it looked inevitable. The attorney search would take all day, and perhaps several days. The evening, with Jackie coming over, would bring only more discussion about the firm.

Still, she was curious to see what news her friend would bring. She didn't doubt that Richards continued to work behind the scenes, expanding his web of deceit. He was not an enemy to be taken lightly. She would, she decided, cross swords with him and beat him.

The afternoon, however, passed only with more frustration. Even firms recommended by friends were no different. By the time she had finished calling attorneys, it was past six in the evening, and still she had yet to find an interested lawyer. She had learned more, though. One junior attorney had painted the picture bluntly for her.

"Here's how it looks," he said. "A woman is facing dismissal and criminal prosecution for embezzlement. That woman also happens to work at one of the most powerful law firms in the city. In turn, she not only needs a strong defense, but also wants to go after one of Washington's most powerful attorneys."

He fell silent for a moment.

"It gives even the most headstrong attorney cause for pause," he continued. "A lawyer who took this woman's case and lost would never work in this city again. Maybe never work on the East Coast again."

"And if this woman won her case?"

"If... if she won, it would be national news. Millions in punitive damages for character defamation and so forth. If she won."

So there was an upside to her case, Katherine realized. It was just that the risks of taking on the challenge were too great for most attorneys. Career-ending stigma loomed.

"So, will you take the case?" Katherine asked. She liked the man. He didn't bullshit. He spoke directly to the matter at hand.

"Ms. Jordan. You get some evidence to fight with, you give me a call."

Well, that's something, Katherine thought. At least he didn't hang up on me.

And so, by the time Jackie bustled into her living room, Katherine felt like she had at least made a little headway. She was entirely unprepared, however, for what Jackie had to say.

"Katherine, you've got to be straight with me tonight."

"What are –"

"You've got to be straight with me," she repeated, cutting Katherine off. Jackie dropped her briefcase and laptop bag on the couch and strode past Katherine into the kitchen. "I need reassuring," she called out.

Katherine was amazed. She walked into the kitchen to find Jackie in a whirl of activity. The coffee machine was on and Jackie was clearing the kitchen table of paper and dishes with broad sweeps of her arms.

"Of course I'll be straight with you. I'm always straight with you," she said. "What's all this?" she asked, gesturing around the room.

"We need a war room, Katherine," Jackie said without looking up. "I'm converting your kitchen into a command center. From here, you and I will take on the world."

"Whoa there, Jacks," Katherine replied. "One step at a time here. Just what exactly happened at work today?"

Jackie stopped moving and looked up. "Katherine," she said in a quiet voice. "It was awful. Everyone thinks you're guilty. Word has spread far and wide. Remember, I didn't know what Richards had done to you until now. I found out in a hurry today. Embezzlement. Deceit. Money laundering."

Jackie's statement hit Katherine like a sack of bricks. Of course. She had not yet told Jackie the details of what had happened on Friday.

"So. Tell me none of it is true, Katherine," Jackie pleaded. "Just tell me once and I'll never ask again."

"Jacks," Katherine spoke as she moved to hug her friend. "I have never cooked the books. Never stolen money from the firm. Or anyone, for that matter. Friday was the first time I'd ever heard Stanley's charges against me. All I've ever done is my job, day in, day out. I give you my word."

"That's all I needed to hear."

"So, what is the news? What exactly did you find out today?"

"Everyone is saying you'll go to jail. But that's the least of it. Others are saying that the firm is going to charge you eight ways to Sunday, and that you'll be liable for losses that run into the tens of millions of dollars. Some are saying you've undermined the financial stability of the firm."

Katherine's breath was literally taken away. To actually hear the details, so far from anything approaching reality, was astounding.

"Is that all, then?" she tried to joke, but the attempt failed completely. The future had arrived. The fight of her life was about to begin.

"And is there any official news yet? Anything not carried on the winds of the rumor mill?"

"Nothing yet. I'm betting that it's Wellsey who's spreading all the rumors he can think of."

Suddenly, the condo's intercom buzzed. The two women looked at each other, confused. Katherine walked over and pressed the intercom button.

"Hello?" a familiar voice boomed. "Katherine, we need to talk. It's important." It was Ry.

Katherine was furious. She stared across at her friend. "Jacks, really? Not now, why would you invite –"

Jackie cut in. "I have nothing to do with this, I swear," she replied.

"Hello? Is anyone there?" came Ry's voice again.

"I swear to you, Katherine," Jackie continued. "I have no idea what he's doing here."

"Oh to hell with it," Katherine muttered under her breath before speaking into the intercom. "Hello Ry, yes, I'm here. I'll buzz you in. It'll need to be brief."

"Thanks a lot for this, Jacks," Katherine said, turning to face her friend. "Now I get to look like the jerk, turning him away from my door."

"Katherine, for the third time, I swear –"

"Yeah, right," Katherine cut in. "Little miss innocence. I'm not buying it."

The doorbell rang.

Katherine walked over and opened the door. There stood the man from the alternate universe in her mind. Dressed in blue jeans and a green t-shirt, his face was drawn and pale. He looked ill.

"Look, Ry, this is awkward," Katherine said, leaning against the door. "Thank you again for the rock climbing yesterday. I'm not sure why you've come over. Things are crazy, and I'll call to set up another climbing lesson when I get a chance."

Ry waited impatiently for her to finish speaking. "Katherine, it's not what you think," he said. "I'm here to help."

"Help? With what?"

"I have information about your job, about that Richards guy. I don't think you know about what I have to tell you. I thought it was important enough to come by rather than call."

"What are you talking about?"

"This thing may be a whole lot bigger than you know, Katherine."

She was nonplussed. How would this man know the first thing about her job or situation? And yet he looked genuinely, deeply concerned. It didn't look like he had an ulterior motive in stopping by.

"Come inside, Ry," Katherine replied. "My friend Jackie is here as well."

Ry stepped inside her condo and followed Katherine into the kitchen. Ry and Jackie said a brief hello to each other, and Katherine apologized to her friend. "Sorry about everything I just said. You didn't deserve my frustrations being dumped on you like that."

"No sweat. Apology accepted." Jackie was all business, a woman on a mission. "Now Ry, grab a seat and tell us what you know." Jackie gestured at the kitchen table. "I'm going to pour us some coffee and order in some food."

Ry took a seat and looked over at Katherine. "Thanks for having me in, both of you," he said. "Before I talk, Katherine¸ tell me again why you think Richards is trying to frame you."

"It's like I mentioned yesterday, Ry. Love turns sour, ex seeks revenge. Is there more?"

Ry leaned over the table and nodded.

"I think so. There has to be. You've got something, Katherine. You may not know what it is. But you've got it, and Richards intends to make sure that you never share it with anyone."

"But that's absurd. Accounting may be many things, but there's nothing mysterious or cloak-and-dagger about it. I don't have secret plans to rule the world."

"Katherine, look. I have a friend who's a security guard in your building and we got to talking. Late Saturday night, a team of twelve men dressed in all black walk into the building lobby. They flashed passes, took the elevators to your floor, and cleaned out your files. They were in and out and gone in under thirty minutes. On their way out, they told my friend to remember that he had never seen them."

Jackie turned from the sink when she heard this. "But that can't be right," she said. "I was in there today and everything looked normal. Just like it did on Friday."

"I bet if Katherine opened her file cabinets, she'd find things she'd never seen before. My friend reviewed the security tapes yesterday, and he said they were professionals. Quick, neat, and effective. He made a copy before the footage was mysteriously erased from the mainframe and all backup drives."

Neither Katherine nor Jackie spoke. They were both thinking the same thoughts. Ry had to be right. There had to be larger forces at work.

"Jackie," Ry continued, "your office is probably bugged, maybe even monitored by video. Only one thing is for sure. This operation is being run from the top. Someone wants you to take a really bad fall, Katherine."

Ry reached out his hand and touched her arm. "I don't think we have much time before we move again," he said quietly.

Listening to Ry speak, Katherine felt only one emotion bubbling deep inside her. Anger. She was not the one who had started this. She had never asked for Richards to leave her like he did. She had never sought out trouble.

"I've had enough of this. Ry, Jackie, can I count on you both?" The vehemence of her words took them both by surprise.

They both nodded. "Then we're going to war," Katherine continued. "I'm not going to take any more of this garbage. We've got to develop a plan. Ry, do you have any suggestions based on what you've learned?"

"I think we need to talk more. We need to figure out why you're so important all of a sudden," he replied. Why don't we meet tomorrow night and go back through every tiny detail of your time working there?"

"That sounds good," Jackie jumped in. "But there's one thing that's bothering me. Why haven't they gone public yet? Why no court papers?"

None of them could think of an answer to that.

"Here's the problem, then," Katherine said. "We need to know what they know, or else this is all going to blow up in our faces. The clock is ticking. We need two things. First, those files they put in my office. Second, anything we can lay our hands on from Richards' files or his computer. Memos, notes, anything that leaves a trail we can follow."

"That's a big step, Katherine," Jackie warned. "We're crossing a line if we do that."

"As far as I can see, I have no choice," Katherine replied. "They've already crossed that line themselves."

"Well, how can we get Richards' files?" Jackie asked. "I could try to sneak into your office at night..." Jackie's voice trailed off, uncertain.

"No." It was Ry. He had been quiet, lost in thought, for the past few minutes. "That would put you at risk as well. Something tells me that's exactly what this Richards guy is hoping for. He would leap at a chance to fire you with due cause, Jackie."

Jackie and Katherine nodded.

"So that's not the way to go," Ry continued. "We need to get the information in a way that doesn't draw any attention to either of you. Something they're not expecting. I'll need a few days to study the blueprints and I'll go in myself."

Katherine and Jackie both protested.

"What?"

"That's impossible."

"There's no way I'd risk you..." Katherine's words slipped out from her subconscious. Ry didn't seem to have heard her. Jackie, however, heard her friend's words and smiled to herself. Maybe even now, she thought, there could be some sparks.

"It's the only way," he continued with single-minded determination. "I can climb that building and get in and out and no one would know."

"But how?" Katherine asked.

"I need to work out the details. But trust me, it can be done."

"What about the security cameras?" Jackie demanded.

"Remember Frank at the security desk? He can switch the cameras to other floors or even loop some footage. He's a clever guy and he's on our side, remember. I can be in and out in an hour or less, I think."

There was silence in the kitchen. Neither Katherine nor Jackie wanted to agree to Ry's plan. It seemed like events were moving uncontrollably fast. But they couldn't think of an alternative. They had no choice. Their silence confirmed their agreement.

"Katherine," Ry spoke up again. "I'll head home and leave you and Jackie to talk. Please keep thinking hard about the past few months. People acting strangely. Richards acting differently. Anything, any details at all from the time when you two were an item. If I'm going into that building, I have to know what it is I'm looking for."

"I promise, I will," Katherine replied, looking into Ry's calm, crystal blue gaze. "Let me walk you to the door. And we'll meet back here tomorrow night?"

"Sounds like a plan," Ry replied. "And goodnight, Jackie. It was good seeing you."

"Goodnight Ry," she replied. "And thank you."

Katherine and Ry walked out of the kitchen and down the hallway to the front door. Ry opened the door. As he turned to leave, Katherine put her hand on his shoulder. "Ry, why are you doing this for me?" she asked quietly.

Ry looked into her eyes for a long moment. "Please don't ask me that," he replied, looking away. "Not yet."

And then he was gone, leaving Katherine to close the door and rejoin Jackie in the kitchen. She walked there, slowly, trying to make sense of his words. What had he meant? When would be the right time for her question? Her own words – there's no way I'd risk you – came back into her mind. She blushed as she truly heard her words for the first time. Had she really said that?

Though she never would have admitted it to herself, her heart was trying to break through with an obvious message. At least for those few brief moments, however, Katherine ignored the most powerful impulse of all.

"Should I stay over and take the day off tomorrow?" Jackie asked, dispelling her muted musings as she entered the kitchen.

"Thanks, Jacks, much appreciated," Katherine replied. "But I'm thinking we need to keep up all appearances at the moment. I think you should act as if everything was normal. Give me the day to think and then let's regroup tomorrow night."

"You're ready now, aren't you, Katherine?" Jackie said, impressed by her friend's quiet resolve.

"Jacks," she responded, "I'm angry and ready to fight. And with you and Ry with me, I'm going to give it my best shot."

The next day, Tuesday, came and went in a blur for Katherine. She spent the day racking her mind for memories, sifting through the past, scribbling ideas down on pieces of paper. She looked up from her work to find that it was nearly 5 p.m. She hadn't showered and had barely eaten all day¸ lost deep in the past searching for clues. Perhaps toughest of all, she still had very few answers. Her memories seemed useless, commonplace. Even after a day's effort, she couldn't tease out any patterns of hidden deceit or corruption.

When Ry and Jackie arrived that evening, they reassured her that her memories would hold the key to unraveling the cause of the crisis.

"Let's work through your time at the firm," Ry ventured. "Remember, Katherine, you've lived with these memories and gotten used to them. To Jackie and I, they're a goldmine of fresh material."

"Here goes," Katherine replied. "You asked for it."

The storytelling began. Having made peace with her recent past, she found it wasn't as difficult to share the intimate details of her life as she thought it would have been. The events of the past came alive in her apartment.

"When I met Stanley Richards, I worked as an accountant in the firm's basement offices. I worked hard. I'm sure our relationship may have facilitated several promotions as well. I managed the business files of increasingly lucrative clients and accounts."

"What kind of clients?" Ry asked.

"Mostly corporate, European companies with commercial interests on the East Coast. I developed a specialty in international tax liability issues. Not thrilling. But it was important for the firm."

"And did you work with Richards during this time?" Ry probed.

"Yes," Katherine replied. "I'm not absolutely sure, but I think he hand-picked which clients I worked for."

"Did he represent those clients as well?"

"Yes."

"So you and he had close ties professionally as well as personally?"

"Yes. He and I worked together all the time, Ry. All the time. Shall I continue?"

"Yes." Ry and Jackie responded in unison. Their faces were pictures of fierce concentration.

"So, over the next several years, Stanley and I continued to date, becoming increasingly serious, and I was promoted to senior accountant. That meant I generally policed all of the firm's European accounts, advising and researching. And yes, again, I worked mostly on the accounts of Stanley's clients."

"And there was never anything amiss about the accounts?" Jackie asked. "Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing suspicious?"

"Nothing," Katherine replied. "I ran a tight ship. So, until last December, when Stanley broke off our relationship, that was my life. And from December until last Friday, people in the office began to act strangely toward me. They were downright bizarre at times."

"Like how?" Ry pressed.

Katherine's mind shot back into the tangled mess of memories from the past six months. Voices surfaced, faces blurred and blended, and she tried her best to make sense of it all.

"People I thought I knew well no longer talked to me," she said. "I wasn't informed of important meetings. E-mail correspondence was lost. Saved voicemail messages were deleted. All as if Stanley had suddenly snapped his fingers."

"Katherine," Jackie said in a quiet voice. "I think you need to tell Ry about the man in the elevator as well."

She sighed. "I guess you're right, Jacks," she said. That was truly bizarre. Deep down, she hadn't wanted to share this one particular memory with the man sitting next to her. She had hoped it was irrelevant, unimportant, but she knew that it was probably a significant clue.

"Ry, just before Christmas," she began. "I was in an elevator at work, going from my office to a meeting. The only other person in the elevator was a man I'd never seen before, well-dressed, with slicked-back hair. That wasn't what was strange, though. It was what happened next."

She shuddered as she though back over the details of those moments in slow motion. The man had moved suddenly. In one fluid motion, he had hit the elevator's stop button, spun to face Katherine, and walked straight up to her. The elevator screeched to a halt and the man's face pressed within inches of hers. He was tall and well-built and he radiated aggression.

"Leave!" He hissed at her. Spittle flew from his lips as he spoke.

"I've come to warn you," he continued. "Leave or they will get you. They are preparing even now."

With those words, the man stepped back and began to look rapidly around the elevator. He pressed the sides of the elevator with his fingertips, looked up at the metal ceiling overhead. Katherine pressed herself into one of the corners of the elevator, willing the man to leave.

"You see," the man spoke again. "Even now we're being watched. I've said too much. It's too late as it is. Leave."

With that, he moved again for Katherine. She screamed, but his hand clamped over her mouth, and he slammed his body against her. She could feel every inch of his body moving, grinding. His free hand roughly caressed her arms and neck. Worst of all, she had to look into his face, pressed mere inches from hers. His eyes seemed unnatural, unnerving. The pupils were hugely dilated, and seemed not to focus on Katherine at all. A sick, broad grin was plastered across his lips.

Katherine continued to struggle for several agonizingly slow minutes. Then, the man turned from her, hit another button, and the elevator shuddered into life once more. He looked back only once, as he stepped off of the elevator.

"I had to hide why I spoke with you," he said with a leer. "Otherwise, they would have seen." Then he was gone.

Katherine's body shook uncontrollably. She tried to return to her office and focus on work, but found it impossible. The man had brandished no weapon. He had wielded the sheer power of his own strength to overwhelm her. She hated feeling defenseless more than anything. The man could have killed or raped her in an instant.

She called security, the building was searched, but the man was never found. People sympathized with her for a day or two, but then it was like everyone forgot it had ever happened. And then, just after the incident, the snubbing started. People walked past her office without stopping in to say hello. She wasn't invited to a fellow accountant's baby shower. Her phone was mysteriously disconnected for a morning.

At the time, Katherine had focused entirely on the horrible physicality of the encounter. She could still smell the man's foul breath, still see his oily curling hair. But now, repeating the details for Jackie and Ry, the emphasis changed in her mind.

The man's words were what stuck with her now. What had he known? Where had he come from? Looking over at her two friends, she could tell instantly that they too saw the incident as a crucial turning point.

Jackie was dumbfounded. She, too, had considered it entirely as a horrible event to be forgotten as quickly as possible.

Ry remained silent. He stared directly into Katherine's eyes and sighed.

"Well," he said eventually. "It looks like we've got something."

"Ry," Katherine replied. "It looks like the break-in will have to go ahead."

For the rest of the evening, the trio plotted strategy. Katherine provided Ry with a list of the firm's clients she had worked for. Their names could be crucial pointers once he began searching Richards' office for files. For her part, Jackie would begin walking around the building's upper floors on a regular basis during the work week, sweeping for any details or conversations between the senior partners that might prove relevant. She had no doubt that Richards and Wellsey watched their words at all times, but there were others who liked to talk. Finally, Ry pulled out a blueprint of the firm's building from his bag and showed the two women how he would break in on Friday evening.

The plan, in theory, was simple. He was scheduled to wash the building's east-facing windows that day. So, he would just never leave after he finished. He would hide on the roof until 10 p.m., the pre-arranged time when, twelve floors below, Frank would change the sweeps of the security cameras throughout the building.

At that moment, Ry would use special glass clamps – "they're basically like large suction cups," he said – to literally walk down the building to Katherine's sixth floor office. From there, using a laser knife and good old-fashioned strength, he would be able to cut a small opening in her window and slip in. Hopefully, no one would be the wiser for his unexpected entrance.

The plan was to be in and out in an hour or less, which involved both emptying Katherine's office of the new "planted" files, whatever they might include, and quickly accessing Richards' office and computer as well.

"It should all be fine," Ry said. "I'll be wearing a full-size mountaineering pack to carry the files. I'll download his computer's files onto a series of USB drives. I'll leave the way I came in. I'll replace and reseal the window's cut glass as I pull out. Unless you're looking closely, you'll never know I was there. The only tricky part will be disappearing once I get near the ground. Passersby could look up, drivers might see me, that kind of thing."

"Ry, I'll be waiting for you when you come down." Katherine said firmly.

"Kath –"

"That wasn't a request. It's a fact. If you're risking your life, the least I can do is wait for you."

It was Katherine's turn to look directly into Ry's eyes. Neither of them flinched. They met each other's gaze for a long moment.

Jackie broke the silence with an exaggerated yawn. "Well," she said. "I think I'll be on my way."

"Yeah," Ry replied. "I should be going, too."

"It might make sense for you to stay and talk this all over with Katherine some more," Jackie said. "Meet you both here tomorrow night again?"

Katherine nodded. "Thank you, Jacks. Thank you for everything."

Jackie smiled and winked at her friend before walking to the front door. "I'll let myself out," she called out.

The door closed, and Ry and Katherine were alone at the kitchen table.

Katherine felt a little nervous for a moment. Then, Ry began to talk, and she began to relax. She knew this man. She had climbed with him only two days ago. He had walked into her life and now, somehow, she had managed to entangle him deeply in her past, present, and future.

"Katherine, how are you holding up?" he asked her gently. "Does it seem like our plan makes sense?"

Katherine nodded, but she was torn. On one hand, the plan to defend her life and career over the next few weeks was solid. They had come up with an approach that surely even Stanley and Wellsey had not considered. But on the other hand, where was this approach leading? Why was this man helping her? It was supposed to have been a purely professional relationship, teacher and student. But now this man was personally involved in her future. What did that mean?

Katherine looked over at Ry, who smiled back at her. Should I be direct and ask him again why he was helping her like this, she wondered. Katherine suddenly froze. He might answer, she thought. And she didn't know what his answer would be. Years earlier, a man had walked into her life and offered her everything. Six months ago, that man had taken everything away without a word. The parallels were just a little too painful to think about.

But her heart was saying something else. She continued to try to ignore her emotions, but they were unmistakably soaring. The only remaining question: why? This time, at least, she was able to bury the thought before it surfaced. Each time she saw Ry, however, it was becoming more and more difficult to hide her feelings away.

"Katherine? Katherine, are you there?" Ry touched her arm with his hand. The warm softness of his touch jolted her back from her thoughts.

"Wow, you were gone there for a moment," he said. "You were far, far away."

Katherine blushed furiously, embarrassed. "Sorry about that," she replied. "I guess I just have a lot on my mind."

"Well, that's what I was asking about just now. Taking you away from all of this from time to time."

"What do you mean?"

"I was offering to take you climbing tomorrow and Thursday, out for half days at Harpers Ferry."

Katherine's mind spun. She couldn't wait to return to the rocks. But she could feel her grip on her emotions slipping even further away with his offer.

"But what about your job?" she protested.

"I make my own schedule and work weekends, remember? This week anyway, those are my two days off."

"And you'd take me out there again?"

"I just thought it might help ease the stress. We could leave early, be back by early afternoon."

"Yes, I'd love that. If you're sure you don't mind." Katherine replied. The offer felt so right. She felt like climbing would only make her stronger for the fight to come.

Ry looked like he wanted to say something. His eyes scanned Katherine's face, and he leaned forward in his chair. Katherine waited, watching his face nervously for answers.

Instead, all he said was "okay, then, I'll be by a few minutes before 7 tomorrow morning." He got up to leave, and Katherine walked him to the door.

In that instant, she knew she had to ask him again. As he turned to leave, she put her hand on his shoulder.

"Why are you doing this for me, Ry?" If she had listened to her feelings, she would already have known his answer. This time, though, his eyes did not seek hers out. His gaze rested on the door frame as he spoke.

"Please, Katherine, give me time. I'll tell you soon." And again, he was gone.

Chapter 10

As darkness fell, Katherine realized she could no longer turn back. It was Friday evening, and the sun had just disappeared below the skyline. The roads were filled with rush-hour traffic, people returning home or running errands like it was any other day. For Katherine, everything was about to irrevocably change. While she paced around her condo, nervously adjusting the window blinds and washing dishes, Ry Austin was perched high on the roof of an office building in the city. While she cooked up a chicken stir fry, he would be eating the sandwiches she had prepared for him the night before. And in several hours... she couldn't bear to imagine what would be happening, how Ry's activities would diverge from her own.

She watched the hands of the living room clock move slowly toward six o'clock. Even, then, it would still before four hours before she left to drive downtown. According to their plan, she would pull up at McPherson Park, close by the firm's building, at 10:30 p.m., early in case anything had gone wrong, and wait.

Katherine knew this time would come, but had hidden in the climbing sessions and Ry's calm, steady guidance over the past two days out at Harpers Ferry. She remained dedicated to her defense of her life and career, and would see it through, but to stand at the precipice, waiting to plunge down, was more than she could stand. There were still so many unknowns. How would Richards react to their infiltration? What were his plans in the first place? And all the questions about what had really gone on while she loved and worked with Richards remained unanswered.

She felt like, at any moment, her life would be revealed to her and she would find nothing recognizable. Was the accounting work of which she had been so proud nothing more than a front for treachery and illegal activities? Truth and lies no longer had clear boundaries – it was instead a question of who held the power, of who had all of the information at hand. Stanley, you are a bastard, she thought. I will fight this to the end.

Katherine ran through the latest developments, over and over again, in her mind. While she and Ry had been mountain climbing, Jackie's forays into the senior partners' floor had produced no information, but had been noticed by Wellsey. He seemed to be everywhere.

"What brings you up here again today, Jackie?" he had asked her on Thursday. "We usually don't see so much of the public relations department." He had appeared from nowhere, walking out suddenly from behind a filing cabinet.

"Pulling the Oracle accounts, John," Jackie replied, deploying her planned cover. But it was obvious that his suspicions had been raised, and Jackie doubted that she would be able to continue with her surveillance routine.

"I just felt like walking into Richards' office and confronting him," she said to Katherine that night. "Clearing the air and having him beg for our mercy."

Katherine agreed wholeheartedly with her friend's sentiments, even as both knew that it was naïve to think that the man would ever come clean of his own accord. It gave Katherine a small amount of pleasure to think that, tonight, Ry would help her strike back for the first time. It felt good to imagine Richards' surprise and shock when he heard the news. Even if the records they found were useless, it would still send an important message that Katherine Jordan would not be intimidated.

Her thoughts flew back to Ry. She wondered if he was nervous up there, alone. She doubted it. He had been unflappable during every moment she had spent with him, whether climbing or talking strategy over Katherine's kitchen table. He was always reassuring and easygoing. The only time he had looked uncomfortable had been when she questioned his motives. Otherwise, he had quickly become a rock-solid anchor in her life.

Katherine looked again at the clock, but time continued to crawl. Only minutes had passed, and hours still stood between her and Ry.

Where did those words come from? She wondered. She couldn't believe how her mind had slipped. It isn't like that. It just isn't like that.

Still, thinking of Ry drew her back into the memories of the previous two days. Climbing had been exhilarating once more. Harpers Ferry was quiet. The only people around were teenagers tubing and canoeing down the rivers, busy skipping school.

On Thursday, she had made it halfway up the cliff face before climbing back down the rope. The cliff face above had seemed to extend to eternity, while the height was dizzying. She was nearly four times higher than the trees that usually towered over her. They looked like small green heads of broccoli far below.

"Ry," she called out, "I'm finding it pretty scary up this high."

Above her by about twenty feet, Ry was watching his student carefully. As Katherine's climbing lessons continued, he climbed ahead of her, making sure that her support ropes extended as she climbed. Accordingly, Katherine was able to use a simple fireman's rope to go as high as she pleased.

"That's perfectly normal," he called down to her. "When you're ready to go down, just start the descent as usual, nice and easy. You're still perfectly safe, I promise."

So she had, and everything, just as Ry had predicted, was fine.

For Katherine, the successful completion of Thursday's climb was a good confidence booster. Wednesday's climb had been tough. For the first time, her footing had failed, and she had fallen.

In an instant, her life flashed before her eyes. Her body seemed to accelerate like a bullet, gathering immense speed in the span of a few seconds. She heard Ry gasp, and then, rudely and roughly, her climbing harness caught her, jerking her upwards in the air. Then, there was nothing. She swung in the air without moving for a few seconds, waiting for her heart to jump back into her chest. She was afraid to move, in case it resulted in some horrible, life-ending slide.

"Put out your feet and find the rock face," she heard Ry say. "You're safe." Within minutes, he was by her side, reassuring her and joking about how falling a few feet could feel like falling into the Grand Canyon.

For the rest of the afternoon, her surroundings seemed suddenly dangerous, her rope a thin, weak connection to safety. Once she had caught her breath, she and Ry rappelled to the base of the cliff, and that had been it for the day. Strangely, Katherine found, even hours later, it was difficult to think and focus. Her mind only wanted to wander and relive those few moments of bracing terror.

When she asked Ry about her situation, he had a reassuring answer, as usual. "That's absolutely normal," he said. "When you wake up tomorrow, you'll be able to put on your thinking cap without any trouble." His gaze, resting easily on her face, put all of her troubles to rest.

The next morning, Katherine found he was right. And so, despite her fall, she went again to the cliffs later that day, and put the terror squarely behind her.

She felt awkward talking to Ry about his impending night climb, but he did not seem bothered in the slightest. As they drove between Katherine's condo and Harpers Ferry, it was the main topic of conversation. Ry explained in more detail how he could enter the building and move around seamlessly, and they both endlessly inventoried what he should look for in both offices.

"How's memorizing my list of clients coming along?" Katherine asked

"I'm getting there."

"What will you do if the cabinets are locked?"

"A locked cabinet is one of the easiest things in the world to open if you know how."

"And how would you know?"

Ry fell silent. He had not yet shared all the chapters of his life with Katherine. His days as an Army Ranger remained an as-yet unopened book.

"It's probably from my alternate life as Spiderman," he joked, a broad smiling creasing his face.

"Oh yes," Katherine played along. "It's so easy to forget your superhero past sometimes." She wondered later if she had hurt his feelings with her words. Why this would be the case, she didn't know, but something had not felt right. The awkwardness had eventually lifted, however, and they continued plotting the strategies that would prove vital in the weeks ahead.

She could never have realized that she had touched a nerve, that she had directly touched a pulse deep within the man sitting next to her.

"Damn, that sun takes a long time to go down." No one heard the words uttered by the solitary man. He was sitting, hidden behind a heating vent, on the roof of a large office building in the heart of the city, high above the mass of moving humanity below. Once darkness fell, his black clothing would render him invisible.

He looked directly into the sunset throes of the giant flaming orb in the distance. It was a clear night, and long orange and red fingers of fire stretched eastward across the sky. The sun was in no rush to disappear on this evening.

As the crow flies, it was only six miles between where he sat and where Katherine paced in her apartment. Both of them, however, felt hundreds of miles apart. Neither could know that they were thinking the same thoughts, that both were wishing time to speed past.

Ry looked again at his watch. He still had nearly three hours to go. Left alone with his thoughts, they drifted, as he knew they would, back to the woman he had seen so much of lately. The time was coming when he would have to tell her, but so far he had waited. He wasn't quite sure when the ideal time would come, but he couldn't let it happen too soon. He didn't want to smother Katherine, or overwhelm her. But it was hard, so hard to keep it all inside. For his part, he needed time to get to know her as well, to make sure for himself. Climbing was the perfect way to build their friendship, and he remained deeply impressed by the woman's courage and determination. It had gotten to the point that Ry would have preferred taking Katherine out for a climb instead of his usual weekly class. The reason for that difference was obvious as well, and he knew it. This was personal.

For the next few hours, Ry daydreamed about possibilities and thought about what the future might hold. He ate the sandwiches that Katherine had prepared for him, checked his equipment one last time, and ran through the plan again in his mind. The time slowly passed.

By 10 p.m., the night around Ry was lit only by the lights of the city. He peered over the edge of the roof. Apart from the ground floor and the occasional office, the building was dark. From that moment on, time was now his enemy. He had a lot to do, in a very short period of time.

"We're looking good, Houston," he said to himself. "We are a go."

The first part of the job was the only part that took Ry's breath away. It was one thing to work with a rope, and quite another, even as an experienced climber, to literally lean over a giant chasm and clamp yourself to a wall with suction cups. But a rope was out of the question – it would leave a trace. This was the only option. So Ry took a deep breath, and swung his right leg out over the edge.

"Here goes nothing," he said, gritting his teeth. His body tensed, prepared for the strong, whipping winds created by the narrow spaces between tall buildings. Wind tunnel washouts, as he called them, could slam into an unsuspecting climber or window washing crew without warning.

He began his descent slowly, his feet facing toward the ground that waited for him more than a hundred feet below. Looking down, he could watch the ebb and flow of traffic. The occasional pedestrian strode past. Hopefully, none of them would look up.

Once Ry found his rhythm, he moved quickly, almost passing Katherine's office in his haste. The winds remained calm. Luck had been on his side, so far.

Working carefully, he cut a large circle of glass from the window with the focused red beam of his hand laser, then pushed inward and gently lowered it to the floor of Katherine's office. In an instant, he was in the building.

Slipping off the suction cups and regaining his feet, he walked quickly to the room's light switch and flipped it on. The layout of Katherine's office matched exactly with her description and his memory of his previous visit. Her file cabinet stood six feet away, against the wall, facing the window. The top drawer opened without resistance – it was empty. So, too, were the middle two drawers. The bottom drawer, however, was locked.

With the drawer's resistance, Ry's suspicions grew. Katherine had told him that she never locked her file cabinet. In her absence, things had apparently changed.

He slid off his mountaineering backpack and pulled out a sharp retractable blade. Reaching into middle drawer, he cut away the metal bottom, revealing the contents of the locked drawer underneath.

He glanced at his watch. 10:20 p.m. There was no time to lose, no time to dawdle over whatever he had just found. There was a stack of printer paper, wrapped tightly in rubber bands and sealed in a large Ziploc bag. Ry slid the bag into his backpack, rested the cabinet bottom back in place, and turned to leave the office.

So far, so good, Ry thought. Since he had left the roof twenty minutes earlier, years of training and experience had kicked in and everything was going to plan. Just as when he was climbing, he focused only on the moment. All other thoughts, all other emotions were irrelevant.

However, his concentration began to splinter slightly as he found the building stairwell and climbed up to the senior partners' floor. He began to think about what Richards had done to Katherine, how he had put his own agenda ahead of her entire life without a moment's hesitation. Anger flushed his cheeks.

Ry slammed open the stairwell door and stood in the darkness. He walked the building's blueprints in his mind, pinpointing the man's office, and walked directly over to the closed door. His rage built as he walked. After trying the locked door handle, his emotions took over. He raised his left leg and, with one massive kick, the door ripped open, torn off its hinges.

Just wait 'til you see what I'm going to do to your office, Ry thought to himself. You've asked for a lot worse than this.

He flipped on the light switch and went to work. The files that they needed were forgotten. He moved around the office, tearing down pictures and calendars, shattering glass frames. He leaned across Richards' broad oak desk and sent his flat screen monitor crashing to the ground. There was no sign of Richards' laptop. Then, with a giant heave, he sent the desk crashing after it as well. There were no thoughts in Ry's mind, just pure adrenalin coursing through his veins. He scanned the office, looking for more targets of destruction.

He found only a few items untouched.

In the far corner, stood a small but elegant wooden bookshelf that held what looked like trophies and other personal mementos. Ry strode over and looked down at it. He raised his hand to strike, only to notice at the last minute that there were scraps of an image lying on the floor nearby. Picking them up and piecing them together, he realized that a fractured picture of Katherine was looking back at him. He couldn't believe it. After all this man had done, he still had the nerve to keep Katherine's picture, and then tear it apart?

With that, Ry's rage boiled at fever pitch, and he snapped. The bookshelf was reduced to matchsticks in seconds. He ripped down the one remaining bulletin board and tore down the window blinds and looked for more. There was nothing left. Richards' office looked like it had been attacked by a pack of savage dogs.

In truth, the office had been attacked by an animal. Neither Ry nor Katherine would have recognized the man who tore apart the office that night. Deep growling emanated from his throat, his veins pulsed, visible in his neck and forearms, and his eyes were blinded by bloodlust. Reason and thought had been eaten alive by primal instincts, and the animal sought more.

Alarm bells suddenly cut through the silent office – their volume was ear-splitting. Jolted and jarred, Ry awoke as if from a dream, to be greeted by the scene of complete and utter destruction that surrounded him.

The files, he thought. What about the files? Fear, an emotion almost entirely unknown to him, hit him like a sledgehammer. He stumbled over the ruined pictures and smashed glass to the only object that still stood intact. He grabbed the drawer handles and pulled with all his strength, but they stood firm. He shook the filing cabinet, lifting it entirely off of the ground, but to no avail. The locks held.

His mind refused to focus on solving the problem, returning instead to the alarm bells that shrieked outside the office. How long until someone comes, his mind kept asking, and do you want to find out the answer to that question?

He looked at his watch and stared, uncomprehending. 10:45 p.m. That couldn't be right, surely. He had no time. How could it be 10:45 already?

He turned back to the filing cabinet, cursing under his breath. He fumbled for his knife, trying at the same time to clear his mind.

"Come on, dammit," he said to himself. "Get a grip."

He decided he would make one final attempt to open the cabinet and then make his escape. Gritting his teeth, he turned to the task.

His knife made short work of the top drawer's lock, but he kept looking over his shoulder, expecting teams of armed men to pour in at any moment. As he yanked open the file drawer, his knife clattered to the ground and was lost in the piles of debris. So much for trying any of the other drawers.

As Ry opened the top drawer, he realized he faced larger problems than a lost knife. The cabinet was literally full to overflowing. Stacks of tightly packed papers sat jammed in dozens of manila folders.

In that moment, the list of Katherine's clients that he had memorized was rendered completely useless. He had perhaps only minutes to spare, and needed hours to examine what lay before him.

He had no choice and he knew it. Grabbing and opening his backpack in one swift motion, he set it next to the cabinet and dumped in as many large handfuls of paper as he could manage. There was no careful logic, no way of knowing what he had chosen. There was no choice.

As each second passed, Ry knew he was living on borrowed time. Frank might have been able to slow down his pursuers for a minute or two in the lobby, but not much more. Those pealing alarms would have raised the hackles of security guards within a five-mile radius.

He looked over his shoulder. Still, no one. He closed his backpack and swung the heavy load onto his back. Those few papers would just have to do. Turning to survey the destruction one last time, he found it unrecognizable. Had he done this?

But Ry knew he had, and even now, only a small part of him regretted his actions. Richards' had had this coming for a very long time. Satisfied, he ran out of the office to the stairwell. As he left, his hip slammed into the doorframe, sending a small blue support caribiner flying off of his belt. Unnoticed, the piece of shiny metal skidded across the floor, embedding itself in the chaos of the office floor. Ry never even turned his head to look behind him.

Opening the stairwell door, he found that the building alarms were even louder in the small, enclosed concrete shaft. As he descended, jumping rapidly down the stairs, he could make out voices far below him, yelling out directions. Security was sweeping the lower floors.

In an instant, he was back on Katherine's floor. He opened the stairwell door, half expecting to be greeted by an army of guards. There was no one there. The offices remained dark, and the alarms were the only obvious hint that something was wrong. He ran back into Katherine's office, stopping only to pick up his climbing pads from the floor. Sliding them on quickly, he eased carefully out the circular opening, picking up and replacing the cut circle of glass as he did so. He deftly took out a small tube from his waist pouch and ran a crystal-clear bead of caulk around the cut. It would be enough to hold the glass in place. Any closer inspection would reveal how the intruder had managed to enter and exit the building, seemingly without a trace.

Ry adjusted his pack and began the downward climb. He would have liked nothing better than for the final floors of his climb to pass in a heartbeat, but he struggled to control the fear that still gripped his body. He forced himself to descend slowly, reminding himself that a mistake now would be just as fatal, and everything would have been for nothing. He tried to focus on the warm evening air, on the movements of his arms and legs. He tried to count each floor as he climbed down past them, but he failed at each attempt. He was now shaking slightly as he moved – the fear was spreading.

He looked down and almost cried out in relief. There, barely twenty feet below him, was solid ground.

Control, he thought. I must control myself.

He stopped moving and waited. The last few feet could prove to be the most important. Just below him, the occasional pedestrian still passed by on the sidewalk, a steady stream of cars and trucks pulsed along the road. Though he was afraid the tension would kill him, he had to wait for the most opportune moment to drop to the ground, unnoticed.

At least security hadn't thought to search the outside of the building, he thought. He would have been caught for certain within minutes. Several possible moments to move came and went, but Ry waited. The moment had to be perfect.

Ten minutes later, it came. Traffic was sparse, and no one was walking within a city block of Ry. He lurched into motion, his heart racing once more. His legs sought out the ground, tentatively at first and then firmly, and he made it the few final feet.

His mind clung to their pre-established plan. He tore off his climbing gear and black clothing¸ stuffing it into his already full backpack. Underneath, he was wearing shorts and a t-shirt. Just like that, Ry Austin transformed rapidly into a normal passerby. He looked exhausted, but now had more in common with pedestrians than building-scaling thieves. That was all that mattered.

Ignoring his exhaustion, Ry lifted his heavy backpack onto his shoulders once more and turned to his left, toward McPherson Park. Only two blocks away, the pre-arranged meeting spot beckoned. He willed his exhausted body to move, taking one step at a time, and it worked. He stumbled across one intersection and then, there she was. She was supposed to wait in the truck, but that part of the plan had clearly changed.

Alone on the sidewalk, lit by the orange glow of a solitary streetlight, Katherine was standing with her hands on her hips. Was she angry, he wondered. Was something wrong?

But as he finished that thought, she was running toward him. Ry, in turn, broke into a limping run, and he collapsed in her arms at the edge of the park's gates. He was aware of being held by a soft, strong presence, but not much else. He tried to hug her, and felt the woman holding him squeezing him in return. He felt her lips on his face, lightly brushing his cheeks, her eyes looking over him with concern.

She was talking as well, but Ry couldn't make out much of what she was saying. He nodded at intervals and kept trying to hug her. Even in his haze of exhaustion, however, he knew one thing – the sensations of warmth and softness and caring were overwhelming and wonderful. It had been a very, very long time.

Neither of them quite realized what was happening between them.

Eventually, Katherine managed to steer the collapsed man in her arms toward the truck. Ry barely seemed to notice that they were moving, and she helped him slide off his massive backpack for the last time. With that, she opened the truck's passenger door and guided him onto the seat. So far, so good.

She continued to scan the area for anything suspicious as she walked around the truck, staring into the shadows, sure that, at any moment, the police would descend on them. She backed the car out of its space and pulled away. There was nothing. The coast was clear.

As she drove, she tried repeating all of the questions she had asked Ry on the sidewalk as he rested, but he clearly wasn't up to responding to them. He just looked over at her and smiled.

The car sped through the dark Washington night.

From the instant when she'd first spotted Ry walking toward her, Katherine had been deeply worried. He was late for their scheduled meeting time, but the biggest shock came when she first saw him appear in the night air. It was his face. Ghastly pale, his skin was drawn and tight, causing his eyes to look withdrawn and his cheekbones to jut out. He still had yet to make a coherent statement.

She knew it then. Beginning out on the sidewalk, and then on the drive back to her condo, something had changed in her soul, and she knew exactly what it was. It was the first time that she was seeing Ry with his defenses down, wrestling with forces larger than him. She had seen his greatest strengths on a near-daily basis over the past week. He had always seemed untouchable, unflappable, no matter what the odds. But whatever had happened in that building was different. He may have won, but it had exacted a terrible cost.

The insight meant the world to her. She could see Ry's true character and strength now as plain as day. Unwillingly, her mind flashed back to Richards for an instant, and then she knew. The mold was broken. She had been well on her way to idealizing the man sitting next to her, just like she had done, with a certain attorney, that evening over drinks years ago. She had been about to repeat the patterns of the past, and the thought scared her to death. Ry's exhausted, haunted eyes burnt the lesson into her. She would not soon forget it.

"Here," she said, reaching down by his legs for a large bottle of water that she'd brought for him. "Get some of this inside you."

Ry barely whispered thanks, and unscrewed the bottle top. In a minute, it was gone, poured down his throat in several giant gulps.

"Ahhh," he croaked. "Now that helped." He even managed to crack a weak smile.

"Ry, do we need to get you to a hospital?" she asked.

"No, Katherine," he managed. "I'll be fine. That water did wonders."

Twenty minutes later, when she pulled the truck up outside her condo building, she felt reassured. It looked like Ry was resting well more easily. He was even able to keep up an increasingly steady flow of conversation.

"What are we doing here?" he asked as Katherine parked the truck.

"You're sleeping here," Katherine replied. "I'm keeping an eye on you overnight. Jackie has always rated my couch very highly as a bed."

Ry said nothing. He was clearly embarrassed by Katherine's offer. "Are you sure?" he asked.

"Look. You risk your life for me, this is the least I can do in return," Katherine opened her door as she spoke, then walked around the truck to help Ry move.

"Thank you."

"Plus," Katherine added. "We've got a lot to talk about. I mean, when you're feeling up to it. What happened inside the building, what you found in there. Everything."

"No," Ry said firmly. He gripped Katherine's arm fiercely with his hand. He looked into her eyes and spoke vehemently. "It is time. It can go no further." He coughed. "Tomorrow, I would like to take you climbing –"

"What? Are you crazy?" Katherine cut in, not believing the words coming out of Ry's mouth.

"Please, let me finish. We can start late, or something, I don't know. But I'll be fine. Before we worry about tonight, or those papers in my backpack, we have to go climbing one more time. I have to give you an answer to your question. Now is the time. I feel it."

Katherine didn't know how to respond to a statement of such strong conviction. She wanted to pretend that these were the words of an exhausted friend, but she knew otherwise. She thought she knew what he had to say to her, and wanted more than anything for the moment to arrive.

There were several long moments of silence. Ry's eyes blazed fiercely, seeking out Katherine's face, seeking her agreement.

"Okay, Ry," she said quietly. "If you feel that strongly, and your body is up to it, let's go climbing tomorrow."

"Thank you," he replied.

"Now let's get you inside and find you some food and a good night's sleep."

"Thank you," Ry said again.

The two of them walked slowly toward the lobby doors of Katherine's condo building.

"This has been one of the longest nights of my life," Katherine sighed. "This morning already feels like last week."

"Thank you."

What –, she was about to ask, but stopped herself in time. She knew. He was saying everything there was to say in two words.

"Thank you," he said again, as Katherine helped him into the elevator. The doors closed, and the day ended.

Chapter 11

"I want whoever did this found and I want them found several minutes ago. Is that clear?"

"Crystal, sir."

"What do we know?" As he spoke, Stanley Richards stepped carefully across the destroyed rubble that had once been his office. An hour earlier, he had been enjoying a symphony at the Kennedy Center. Now this. He shook his fist in anger at Wellsey, who stood in the doorway, looking in at the complete devastation.

"Sir, security first arrived a little over an hour ago. I arrived in the past thirty minutes. We're reviewing the security camera footage now."

"Dammit, John. This couldn't have been anyone other than Katherine Jordan. But how the hell is that possible? She's not exactly a demolition expert or a world-class thief."

The thought had crossed Wellsey's mind as well. There was only one suspect, yet no way that she could have pulled this off. Still, he reminded himself, it hadn't been his idea to leave her alone for two weeks. In truth, he was quite impressed with the strength and cunning of their adversary. He hadn't thought that Ms. Jordan would just roll over and play dead. But he didn't dare voice that opinion to the enraged senior partner standing in front of him.

"It has to be her, somehow," Richards continued. "I never would have believed it possible. And we knew she had help. There was a strong man or a group of men in here. I'm guessing Katherine Jordan never entered the building. We're not going to find her on any security camera footage."

"I would agree, sir."

"Most interesting to me, John. Nobody knows how this happened. Security downstairs didn't notice anybody coming or going. The camera system shows nothing. Hell, it took some guy working later in the building next door to call it in."

Richards found that their conversation was only making him more angry, if that was possible. He wanted nothing more than to lash out, to cause someone direct and immediate pain.

Each time he looked around his office, he could not believe what he saw. Not only was the office destroyed, but it had been destroyed by someone with a personal vengeance. He doubted that John had noticed, but his bookcase was reduced to splinters, his photographs and personal mementos were smashed and ground into the carpet. This was personal.

Even more frustrating, he couldn't yet piece together how it had happened. Could Katherine have hired someone? And just how did they disappear back into the night?

His eyes continued to slowly survey the damage, like a hawk looking for pretty. They caught on a glint of blue metal out on the hallway floor. The thought hit him like a bolt of lightning.

"John," he said, nearly falling in his excitement as he moved toward the remains of his office door. "What the hell is that on the ground behind you?"

Wellsey turned and picked the piece of torn metal off of the floor.

"Don't know. Looks like one of those things they use for rock climbing."

Richards grabbed the piece of metal from Wellsey's hands and held it up to the light. That was indeed exactly what it was. A caribiner. Judging from its chipped veneer, it had been well used.

"Has anyone checked out Ms. Jordan's office yet?" he demanded.

"No, sir. Shall I send someone?"

"No, dammit, John! You and I will go." Richards practically tore the junior attorney down the hall with him. "I think I've got our answers. This –" he brandished the caribiner in his hand like a weapon "– is the key."

Wellsey had no idea what Richards was talking about, but he played along. He did, in fact, have some news for his boss, but he wasn't quite sure how to bring it up. There was no way he would take the information well.

The two men stormed downstairs and burst onto the floor of the accounting and public relations departments.

"Just you wait and see if I'm right," Richards cursed. Reaching Katherine's office, he flung on the lights.

Upon first glance, nothing seemed out of place. Walking over to the window, however, Richards found the point of entry. He traced his finger around the faint traces of the circular opening and the fine line of glue holding the glass in place. Opening the locked bottom drawer of her file cabinet, he found only empty space – the planted files had been removed.

"Dammit!" Richards screamed, slamming his fist down on his ex-lover's desk. "How could she do this? How could she even know how to do this?"

He was already thinking ahead to the censure he would face when the other partners were informed of this little escapade. It was bad enough that he had picked an inadequate candidate and now had to dispose of the "problem." Now, this. In recent years, Katherine Jordan was the only candidate the partners had turned down. Unanimously, in fact. So he had to take care of everything, tie up all of the loose ends, ensure that there were no breaches of security.

But what was this? This break-in was only going to suggest that he was on his way downhill, on his way to failure. He could hear the mocking laughter already, echoing in the partners' offices and hallways. They'd called him a fool when he tried to use romance as the means to bring Katherine in. Now, in retrospect, he could do nothing but agree with them. Damn that woman! Damage control was the only option remaining. The office had to be spotless by Monday morning.

Carefully, tentatively, he walked to the window and looked again at the precise incision in the glass. There was no rope, no marks, no indication at all that anyone had ever forced entry. There was only the perfect circle of cut glass.

"Looks like a professional job," Wellsey commented behind him. "The glass looks like it was cut by a jeweler."

Richards sighed and slowly stood up. "Well, now we've got something to go on," he said. "It could be several people, but I have feeling that it's a single intruder."

"That would make sense. Get in, get out, keep it a small operation. Whoever it was, they did a lot in a short period of time."

Richards walked over to Wellsey and stood close to him, leaning into his personal space. "I want this intruder found immediately," he said. "There can't be too many spidermen in this town." He rested the caribiner lightly in the palm of his hand, then slowly curled his fingers into a tight fist.

Wellsey knew that he had to share his information with Richards. Now was as good a time as any. It had to be done.

"Sir," he said, "we also have another source of information."

Richards stepped backward in surprise. "We do? What the hell are you talking about?"

"Well, the security cameras didn't catch anything, right?"

"Right. Get on with it."

"There's another source – audio. From your office, I mean."

Richards leered down into Wellsey's face, his mind processing what his accomplice had just said. "Do you mean my office has recording equipment in it?" he asked.

"It's just as a precaution, in case of a situation like –"

Richards cut in. "I don't believe we ever discussed this, did we, John? I don't believe I ever said, 'hey John, let's wire up my office and test out the spying apparatus,' did I?

"No."

"We'll talk about this later now. Right now, I want those audio recordings as soon as possible."

Richards moved toward the door, ignoring Wellsey as he passed him to return upstairs. In the short term, he knew that the digital audio files were a fortunate asset. Who knows what they might have captured? But Wellsey's secret installation of a recording system in his office, in his office, could only have negative consequences over the long term. Could he really trust the man walking behind him? He had always counted on calling the shots himself. This time, anyway, it looked like serious moves had been made without him.

Within minutes, Wellsey had downloaded the audio files from a small recording device on Richards' overturned desk, and the men pulled two chairs into the ruined office to listen.

"How will we find anything on these recordings?" Richards demanded. "Won't there be hundreds of hours of me talking, after all?" A thin veneer of politeness covered the hard threat of bitter retribution in his voice.

"It's easy to find what we're looking for," Wellsey replied quickly, trying to appease Richards' increasingly apparent anger. "It records only after hours, and only when activated by sound. So, there's probably some material from when you've worked late, but that would be it."

"Hmm," Richards growled in reply. Could he believe the man's words? If it was true, the information made him feel slightly more secure. Perhaps there was no double-crossing involved. He resolved to redouble his efforts to be completely self-sufficient. From now on, Wellsey would know only what he had to know. Everything else would stay in a lockbox in his mind.

Richards' thoughts were interrupted by loud scraping sounds and bangs. Wellsey had turned on the audio for one of the recordings on his laptop.

"What the hell is that?" he demanded.

"I'd say it's the sound of your office being torn apart," Wellsey replied. "I think we've got what we're looking for."

The unmistakable sound of shattering glass soon followed, followed by a loud thud that had to be his desk being overturned. Suddenly, a human voice blended into the cacophony of sound. Unclear at first, the words were like the wind, whipping past in a confusing gale of syllables.

"What is that?" Richards asked, leaning in to hear better.

"I'd say that we have our spiderman on tape," Wellsey replied.

"Great, but what use is that if it's unintelligible?"

As if in answer to Richards' question, the voice suddenly became much louder. The intruder must have unwittingly moved near one of the microphones.

"– goddamn that man how could he do this to her," the words poured out into Richards' office, interrupted by crashes and grunts of physical exertion, "she'd be everything for anyone... why... goddamn... why... set her up, bastard, I swear... didn't ask for any of this... you've got this coming... got this coming and how... I swear... goddamn... don't spend your life working to be treated like this... why would you..."

"Turn it off," Richards ordered. "I think we get the idea."

"But –"

"Turn it off, John!"

"Yes, sir." The words were cut off. Silence fell between the two men for a long moment.

"I think it's easier that we thought," Wellsey said finally, beating Richards to the same conclusion. "We find Katherine Jordan's new boyfriend and we find our problem."

"John, I want our problem terminated. Is that clear?"

"As in –"

"As in ended, finished, washed up, removed, deleted, alright? If you want it said plainly, I want a corpse. Katherine made her move. Now, we respond. With overwhelming force. I gave her these two weeks to prepare to fight fairly. She's taken another route. So, we're back to the original plan. Brutalize her."

"When?"

"File the court papers on Monday morning. Leak it to the press in the afternoon. Find a judge who will freeze all of her assets. Kill her boyfriend. Let's end this."

As he heard those words, Wellsey felt a chill run down his spine. He was pleased. Finally, there would be action. He disagreed with the termination of Katherine's boyfriend, whoever he might be. It struck him as heavy-handed and irresponsible. But still, if that was the price for action, that was better than waiting any longer. It was time to act.

He stood and shook Richards' hand before turning to leave. Time to coordinate the details and grab a few precious hours of sleep. "I'll take care of everything," he said. "I'll be in touch tomorrow."

"One last thing," Richards replied. "I want our boys in here, and I want these offices cleared up tonight."

"Yes, sir. That's already been put in motion." Wellsey said as he left the office, a broad smile spreading across his face. He'd had to sit on his hands for the past week, knowing that, at any time, Katherine Jordan might spring something on them. She had. What had Richards been thinking? Giving her time to fight fairly? When they were up to their armpits in mud? It had to be personal weakness on Richards' part, Wellsey thought. It was the only answer that made any sense.

Now he could put this week behind him. He had full pemission to go on the offensive, to use all the tools at his disposal to create a scorched-earth policy for Katherine Jordan's life. She'd never know what hit her. He just hoped that Richards had finally toughened up as well. Weakness was an inexcusable trait in any man.

"John, there's one last thing," Richards called out to him.

"Yes?" Wellsey asked, walking back down the hallway. What else could Richards ask of him?

Richards words were short and terse, his tone cool, unperturbed.

"If you ever make another move without me, John," he said, "you'll be terminated as well. Is that clear? Is that clear?"

"Crystal, sir."

This whole thing is about control. Whoever has it, wins.

Chapter 12

"I thought you'd be dead to the world. What on earth are you doing, Ry?" Katherine had expected to find him still deeply asleep on the couch in her living room, where she had left him the previous evening. But he was up and moving. All the blankets were neatly piled by the couch.

"Well, it's almost noon," Ry replied, smiling. "I don't sleep much, I guess. But I told you I'd be fine, and I am."

"What makes you so sure?"

"Katherine, I've been waiting for today for a long time, and that would make anything okay."

"What –"

"No, not yet. No answers yet. We're going climbing, remember?"

Katherine smiled and found herself blushing like a schoolgirl. "Would you at least like some breakfast before we scale the heights?" she asked.

"Breakfast would be wonderful," Ry replied. "Lots of fluids and carbs, please."

Within the hour, she and Ry were once again on their way to the cliffs at Harper's Ferry, stopping briefly at Ry's apartment to collect the climbing equipment from his pickup truck. For Katherine, the rides now, if anything, seemed too short. The sharp contrast between city and country was over too soon, it felt to her like the fields and barns and small towns of western Maryland had barely appeared before they were again left behind. She wanted to stop by the roadside, get out, and pull her fingers through the fast-flowing current of the Potomac River. There would be time for all of that, she told herself. Today, of all days, was not a day for distractions.

It was a strange feeling. On the one hand, she was pretty sure what Ry would say to her, and the thought, imagining his words, sent warm waves of happiness through her. At the same time, she wasn't ready to admit to herself what the implications of his words might be, so she kept trying to push him from her mind as the car sped westward. She decided to distract both herself and the man sitting next to her with conversation.

"I hate to talk business here, Ry," she began, "but I just want to get the next few days set in my mind."

"Okay, shoot."

"Well, first, I should ask if you still want to be involved with all of this. Last night was more than I ever should have asked of you."

"Katherine, you've never asked me to do anything. I went last night because I told you I was going, not because I was invited, remember? I'd still like very much to be involved, whatever comes, over the next few weeks."

"Thank you, Ry." She felt like a fool thanking him again and again, but she couldn't think of any other way to express her gratitude. She didn't dare imagine how difficult this would all be if she didn't have him and Jackie behind her.

"It really has been my pleasure," he replied. "It's no sweat."

"Well, then, if you're sticking with this, the next step is to talk about next steps," she said. "For all of that." She gestured at the back of her car, where Ry's backpack still lay across the seats.

"I'm ready."

"Here's what I've got. I'll need to hear from you about everything that went on last night, and I mean everything, every little detail. I need to review all of the material you pulled out of the offices. And then I need to find a lawyer with a backbone."

Ry was silent.

"So, what do you think?" Katherine pressed.

"Katherine, I hadn't thought of this before, but we can cancel this little trip if you'd like to focus on what's really important here, the big picture. It's really selfish of me bringing you out here like this."

"No, Ry, no," Katherine nearly tripped over her words trying to speak fast enough to dissuade him. "I just need to update the road map in my mind for the future, that's all. Then, I can relax. The mess can wait, and if I have anything to say about it, it's not going to be around for very long. Today is our day, although I'm not sure where it's headed."

Her last few words were daring and she knew it. She smiled mischievously as she spoke. It was the first time she had hinted that perhaps she knew what was coming.

Ry looked over at her in surprise and smiled. "Okay, then," he said. "I'll just have to pretend I didn't hear that."

"Good luck, super-climbing man."

"One thing, Katherine, returning to the mess for a second. I think your plan is a good one," Ry said. "Why don't you pick my brain tonight, look at the backpack papers tomorrow, and then take your findings to an attorney."

"Done. Now let's find us a cliff face to climb."

"Sounds good to me."

Silence fell between them. This time, it was delicious, tinged and laden with possibilities.

"Ry," Katherine said suddenly, "you're holding back something else as well. I can feel it."

Ry started laughing in relief. "You're absolute right, you've caught me... but it's only a little thing. I have a challenge for us today."

"Oh yes?" Katherine replied, playing along.

"If you're up for it, what do you say we tackle the entire cliff this afternoon?"

Katherine's mind spun – Ry's suggestion was completely unexpected. "Uh, are you sure about that?" she managed.

"As your trainer, I think you're ready, using the fireman's rope, to climb to the highest heights if you so desire."

As she thought the situation over, Katherine began to laugh helplessly. This man was simply incredible, she thought. Less than twenty-four hours earlier, he had looked weakened and helpless, like he had faced indescribable challenges and barely made it back. Now, sitting next to her, his body was tensed with energy, animated, his face flush with color.

"Oh, nothing," Katherine managed to reply. "It's just you that's so funny. One night's sleep and you're as good as new."

"I told you I'd be fine last night, didn't I?"

"Yes, but I put those words down to delirium. I was expecting to have to put on my best imitation of Clara Barton this morning. Instead, now we're preparing for the greatest challenge of my fledgling climbing career. It's quite a turnaround."

Katherine's laughter subsided just as the now-familiar sight of Harper's Ferry came into view. It was developing into a perfect afternoon to climb, she thought, for more reasons than one. The day was hot and humid, with blue skies and the occasional puffy cloud hanging in the sky like cotton balls. As they pulled into the parking lot, she noticed there were a few other climbers for the first time. Of course. It was a Saturday... and if Ry hadn't cancelled his class for the week, there would have been a dozen other people out here as well.

But, almost as if fate was serving as a guiding hand, the other climbers were packing it in for the day by the time she and Ry had strapped on their climbing harnesses and checked the ropes. After some brief conversations with the other climbers, they were alone on the cliff.

"Uncanny, isn't it?" she commented to Ry. "How we keep getting this place to ourselves."

"Give it two more weeks and it'll be crawling, trust me."

Standing at the base of the cliff, Katherine looked up once more at the massive expanse of rock, as she had many times in the past week. As usual, the cliff towered over her, reducing her to the size of a pebble next to its immensity. Somewhere up there, though, the rock face ended and the surface once again flattened out into solid ground.

The view from up there must be incredible, she thought. And so few make it up there to enjoy it. Even when she had made it halfway up the cliff on Thursday, she thought she was looking down from the heavens. Now, she was about to try to go even higher. Much higher, in fact. With a man who had something to tell her. Warm excitement washed over her once more.

She turned to Ry, who was tugging out old climbing knots from the ropes. "Ry," she said directly, "when do I get to hear what it is you have to say?"

"Katherine, I could tell you now, if you asked me to," Ry looked up and over at her, "but I've waited this long, so I'll try and see it out. How about at the end of our climb? Either at the top, or at whatever point we make it to on the cliff, I'll talk. I promise."

In a few more minutes, they were ready to climb. Katherine then had to wait a few minutes while Ry climbed ahead and belayed out her rope for her. With Ry high above her on the cliff face, Katherine connected her harness to the line and began what could become the longest climb of her life.

She could tell quickly that she had made significant progress in the course of the past week. The rock ledge that she had fought so hard to reach on her first climb now passed by in a matter of minutes. She was far above the trees in no time, and her energy felt boundless. It was hot work climbing, sweat poured off her in the sun, but she still felt like she could go on forever. She simply had to reach the top of the cliff.

"Easy there, tiger," Ry called down to her from above. "Don't go too fast or you're going to catch me and run out of rope."

"Sorry!" Katherine shouted back at him. "It's going great down here."

"Make sure you're drinking water as you go. The heat will take over if we're not careful. Then I might not be able to say what I have to say, you know."

"I think you're just bluffing so that I don't make it to the top and you don't have to talk," Katherine called back playfully.

They were both making the most of these long, anticipation-filled moments. Both felt pretty sure they knew what was inevitably going to happen, but neither did they want to rush it. The climb was the issue at hand.

Katherine looked at her watch. It was nearly 3:30 in the afternoon, and she judged she was halfway to the top. If the rest of the climb continued like this, she might even be able to make it all the way up. They'd have to hustle to get up and down before dark, she thought. Then again, every step upward from this point represented a new height for her.

Every few steps, she kept reminding herself to look back over her shoulder and enjoy the moment. It wasn't every day, after all, that one found oneself privileged enough to be looking down at planet Earth. Everything, from the weather to her energy to the man high above her on the cliff seemed to blend together perfectly. Everything was right, and that was all that mattered.

"Meet up me up here," Ry called out, "and we'll stop for a break."

As far as Katherine could tell from her vantage point, Ry's rest stop was nothing but a different expanse of smooth, vertical granite.

"Why stop here?" she asked.

"Take a closer look," Ry replied, as he moved his hands over the rock.

There, letters were chiseled roughly into the stone. Names. Abraham Jugston. Thomas Mann. Joseph Icranus.

"Where did they come from? How old are they?" Katherine was fascinated. The ghosts of hundreds of other people seemed suddenly to surround her where she hung in her harness. She, of course, was not the first to climb the cliff. People had been in her exact spot before, in different weather, in different lives, over years and years and years.

"I don't think anyone knows much about the older ones," Ry replied. "There's hundreds like this all over the cliff. Climbing graffiti. Some are recent. There are some from the early twentieth century, and even a few that go back to the Civil War."

"People were climbing then?"

"Surveyors or maybe miners would be my guess. But who knows? Sometimes we think we're the first generation to do something, while instead we're reinventing the wheel. I figure that people all that time ago wanted to get up here just as badly as we do."

Katherine ran her fingers over the cuts in the stone. "Ry, this is wonderful."

"Ah, but that's not the only reason I showed them to you. Would you like to join them on the cliff?"

"What do you mean?"

"Let's climb a little higher and find an untouched spot. I wouldn't want us to crowd in on these old-timers."

A few feet further up, Ry reached into his backpack for a small chisel and hammer.

"You have tools for every occasion, huh?" Katherine smiled as she spoke.

"Well, let me show you how they did it."

Ry began tapping the chisel on the cliff face with the hammer, and the granite literally began to chip away under his touch. Before long, Katherine was looking at a small but neat version of her first initial. Her second initial soon followed.

"You've got to put yourself there as well, Ry," Katherine pushed. "We'll both be on the record so that someone a century from now will know we were here."

Ry seemed a little embarrassed by her suggestion, saying nothing, but then began to chip his own initials into the granite just below hers. When he was finished, a thin grey dust from the chipped rock had coated his fingers.

"There we are," Ry said as he finished. "Now we can both always look down from up here, whenever we want to. We're up here for as long as forever lasts."

Katherine had the impulse at that moment to hug Ry, but resisted. The ropes and harnesses just weren't designed for human contact. Safe human contact, anyway.

"I'll race you to the top," she said instead. Above her, for the first time, the edge of the cliff no longer seemed like a distant dream. It existed almost within reach now, perhaps a hundred feet above where she hung in her harness.

"I'd like to see that," Ry said, smiling. "Remember, your rope ends unless I'm above you."

"Oh details, details," Katherine replied, smiling back at him. "You better get a move on, or you'll be in trouble."

With those words echoing in his mind, Ry scampered the rest of way up the cliff face. Katherine followed. Her legs still felt strong, her breathing was not at all labored. She climbed confidently, following the rope up the rock with firm steps and a smile on her face.

Almost before she knew it, Ry was helping her slide over the rugged lip of the cliff onto solid ground. She tried to speak, but there were no words to express how she felt at that moment. She turned to look down at where they had come from. Below them, the cliff face seemed to stretch downwards to infinity. Her car was a small dot on the surface of the Earth far below; so too were the trees and houses of Harpers Ferry. While that was impressive, she had not yet lifted her eyes to take in the glory of the horizon.

The view from the top of the rough-cut granite cliff was simply amazing. The sun hung low in the sky behind them, casting the valley below in a golden light. The horizon blurred with distant mountain ridges; the silver, silken thread of the Potomac seemed to pour down from the sky across the landscape. Katherine felt like she was part of a larger world she had never imagined, standing high on a rock outcrop soaring into the sky. It was a moment like no other in her life.

She stood up carefully and joined Ry to take in the full, monumental expanse that surrounded them. They were both silent for a long time, watching and listening to the world below.

"I can't believe we've made it up here," Katherine said finally. "I can't believe we were actually able to do this. We're here, and everyone else is down there, living their lives as usual."

"You did this, Katherine, not us," Ry replied. "It was you, all you. You've shown more courage as you've learned than anyone I've ever taught. You earned this, and it has been a privilege to watch you."

Katherine felt Ry's right arm slide lightly around her waist as he spoke. She wasn't sure what the gesture meant, but she found she didn't mind the closeness of their bodies.

She turned her head to survey more of their surroundings. Behind them, the cracked cliff gradually transitioned into a thin layer of soil and grass before disappearing into dense woods threaded thick with large, glaciated boulders. They were alone, perched high on a warm rock outcrop, looking out at the world.

The moment felt right, and they both knew it. "Katherine, it's time to tell you what I've been hiding," Ry said. "I have a confession."

Katherine took a deep breath. "That sounds a little scary."

"I can't hold this inside anymore. It may be too much for you, but –"

"Just say what's on your mind, Ry. I'm listening."

He looked out over the valley below them and began to speak. "I've honestly tried to be your friend out here, just friends, like we said. But I've been in love with you since the first time I saw you."

"Wait, Ry, what are you talking about?" As Katherine spoke, she wondered why she was protesting. She had felt deep inside for days that a moment of transformation was coming.

Ry's words poured out. "Do you remember when you were still at the firm, do you remember some window cleaner slamming into your office window?"

"Yes."

"Katherine, it was me." Ry's hand left Katherine's hip and he turned to face her. His crystal blue eyes sought out hers and his gaze rested there, unflinching. "I'd fallen in love with you as I washed the windows, week in and week out," he continued. "I was hoping, I don't know, you might instantly profess your love for me as well, right then and there. But of course that didn't happen. You walked out to go to a meeting. I had no idea how to get in contact with you. Which led to why I was down on the street that day when you left the office. I was waiting to try to introduce myself. I had no idea that my timing was so bad."

"Or so good," Katherine replied without missing a beat. "Ry, I've known you cared for me from those first moments. I didn't know what to do with it, but I knew." In that moment, Katherine felt just like she had all afternoon climbing the cliff face. Strong, confident, ready. Everything felt right. Ry's words meshed seamlessly with her thoughts, and she gave herself over to them. The time had passed for worrying about or protesting over how they were beginning to feel about each other.

Ry took Katherine's hands in his, slowly stroking and caressing her fingers.

"I can only hope this isn't too much when I say these words. I love you. I've loved you from the first moment I washed your windows and saw you at your desk. I've never felt like this about anyone." Ry paused for a moment. "That's what I had to say, Katherine. I understand if it's too much, if you want to climb down this cliff and walk away. I understand. I had to tell you about how I feel. My heart cannot lie."

The late afternoon sun felt warm on Katherine's back, and her surroundings grew more and more distant as she looked across at the man speaking to her. Her eyes floated over Ry's face, his broad chest, his brown, freckled forearms. She leaned in and placed her lips next to his ear.

"Ry," she whispered. "I want you to make love to me. Here. Now." In the warm, humid afternoon air, her entire being called out for Ry's touch. She wanted their bodies to flow together, to hold him and to be held, to feel his manhood sheathed deep inside her.

She stepped back slightly, took one of his hands and placed it against her heart. She held it there for several long moments, saying nothing. Then she turned, leading Ry behind her to the soft earth not far from where they stood.

She laced her arms around his neck and slid her body against his. Ry brushed the hair from Katherine's face, and his lips rested on hers for a long moment. Katherine could hear him breathing, low and hard, and she ran her hands slowly across his chest. Ry's lips suddenly parted, and they were as one, the warm, soft moisture tenderly holding them together.

From that moment, Katherine's exact memories of what happened next began to blur. Ry followed her down to the ground, and she lay there, looking up to meet his steady gaze. At some point, their climbing harnesses had fallen to the side, and she felt him unbuttoning her shirt and sliding off her shorts, until she lay naked, hungering, for the man gently caressing her breasts and stomach. She, in turn, nearly tore off his shirt and pants, lacing her tongue lingeringly along his taut muscles, stopping to explore the wisps of chest hair that flecked his nipples and stomach. He was beautiful, just as she was, and the time had come for their union. The time had come.

"Are you okay? Is this all right?" Ry whispered to her. Katherine nodded wordlessly. She felt Ry's warm chest rub against her breasts, and then, further down, she felt his legs gently pushing hers apart. They moved together, rocking slowly, the sweat streaming off of their bodies, long and slow, until it was time. Ry crouched slightly lower and thrust forward gently, moving tenderly inside her, his intense warmth sliding deep into her essence. Katherine gasped and arched her back to meet him, pressing her clenched hands into the cool earth to support herself. His soft tongue raced down her neck to her breasts and nipples, while his gentle touch sought out the soft folds of her clitoris. Katherine moaned with pleasure.

As their bodies moved together, Katherine used her strength to roll Ry over on his back. Sitting astride him, her thighs gripped his waist tightly while her hips bucked and pushed and pressed, grinding his rock-solid manhood deep inside her. Their eyes remained locked in a smoky, passionate embrace while his strong hands caressed her gently swaying breasts. The intensity of their lovemaking built steadily to an overwhelming crescendo. Oblivious to the distant world below them, they both cried out, quietly at first and then with abandon, their words swollen with ecstasy.

"Yes..."

"Please..."

"Oh Ry..."

"Yes, Katherine, yes..."

As their cries hung in the air, Ry's thrusts beneath her quickened. She looked up at the sky, basking in the late-afternoon sun, and accelerated her own powerful thrusts. Waves of passion began to crash upon her innermost shores. In same instant, she felt Ry's warm heat surge deep inside her. Her own waves grew stronger and stronger, until fierce explosions rocked her body and the world began to fade away.

It would be dusk before Katherine's senses returned. She once more turned to caress and explore, with sweat and tears and emotion, the man who lay beside her. He, in turn, met her body and they slid together again, without words, without time.

Both of them eventually noticed that darkness had swallowed their surroundings and enveloped them. Neither cared. Katherine rested on Ry's chest for what seemed like a long, long time, listening to his quiet breathing, running her fingers lightly back and forth across his tightly muscled stomach.

"Ry," she asked, "should we be worried about this?"

"About what?"

"Oh, being stranded up here in the dark."

Ry raised his head slightly so that he could look at the woman he loved. "Katherine," he replied. "I'm going to carry you down off this cliff, drive you home, and make love to you all over again."

"What? In an actual bed?" Katherine smiled and giggled.

"A novel idea, I know," Ry replied, smiling back at her. "We could always stay here, you know."

"No, I think I'd like to see what you look like in my bed."

"That's quite an offer, one I'm not going to refuse."

Katherine reached up and kissed him, long and slow. Their bodies yearned for more contact. But it would have to wait, at least for an hour or two.

Eventually, they rose from the ground, brushing off the dirt clinging to their bodies, and helped each other to dress.

"Don't button up all of the buttons. I want to be out of these again as easily as possible."

"You can leave my shirt untucked. Easy access, you know."

The chatter between the two of them was relaxed and loving. Had they been in a more domestic setting, it might have qualified as pillow talk. As it was, their words swirled in the empty darkness. To the east, a crescent moon was slowly rising above the mountains, casting a silvery light on the landscape.

On this night, for the climb back down, it was clear that Ry would not be the patient teacher, or Katherine the student. Ry was going to lead, to do things in his expert way, and Katherine would be along for the ride.

It was exhilarating.

After securing the rope in the rock, Ry adjusted Katherine's climbing harness and asked her to climb onto his back. Ry then attached his harness to the rope and they left solid ground behind. Katherine was instantly aware of Ry's immense strength; they took giant leaps at a time, rappelling down the rope. The night air flew past as they traveled; to Katherine, it felt as if they were flying. She was so close to him that she could feel the contraction and expansion of his muscles, sense his concentration, press her body tightly against his, echoing their perfect fit from just a short time earlier. Neither of them spoke during their descent. They were too busy trying to process their overloaded senses. They both hoped they would never actually need to reach the ground.

Two hours later, after pulling up outside Katherine's condo building, they chased each other inside. As the elevator door closed, Katherine pressed herself against Ry, feathering his face provocatively with her tongue. She stepped back for a moment to remove his shirt, and then went to work slowly kissing and massaging his chest.

When the elevator door slid open on Katherine's floor, she took Ry's hand and once again led him. Fumbling with her keys in the lock, she managed to finally push open her apartment door, and they could both finally give in. Closing the door with one hand, Ry pressed Katherine up against it with the other, leaning in for a long, slow kiss. Before he had finished, his strong hands had torn off her clothes, and she stood naked before him.

He fell to his knees, his hands caressing her soft, lightly freckled skin. His kisses moved lower and lower, lingering around her belly button, before his lips and tongue pressed into the soft, moist flesh of her sex.

"The bed, Ry, the bed," Katherine managed to gasp.

But there was no reply from the man who was ravaging her body. His tongue moved in lazy, elliptical circles, surrounding the engorged flesh, pulsing gently, pushing Katherine further toward ecstasy. His hands gently massaged her legs and back, surrounding her with warmth. Katherine reached out to caress his hair. She moved her legs further apart and arched her back, and Ry did the rest. His movements gradually became stronger and more rhythmic, matching the rising tide of Katherine's heat. His fingers slid inside her, lightly rubbing, then pulling out, then returning, over and over again, trading places with his warm tongue.

Overtaken completely, Katherine barely noticed when Ry stood and picked her up in his arms. Carrying her upstairs to her bedroom, he laid her down on her stomach on the bed.

"Shhhhh," he said quietly, and went to work once more.

His fingers traced her spine, rubbing in circles as they descended from the nape of her neck to her waist. His kisses traced the sprinkled freckles across her shoulders, while his strong legs rubbed against her soft thighs. Eventually, he moved on top of her, tearing off his own clothing as he changed positions. Soon, their flesh blended once more into union, as Ry laid his broad chest across her arching back. Katherine shifted onto her knees, looking back over her shoulder at the man she loved, and nodded that it was time.

There were no words – Ry nodded in return, reaching out his hand to caress her face, and he thrust deep inside her. They came together, rocking at first like a small storm, then like a hurricane, sweat mingling with tears and the fierce passion of fulfilled emotion. Their lovemaking carried them to the shores of rest long after the midnight hour.

Chapter 13

Katherine greeted Sunday morning slowly, drifting in and out of consciousness as the sun rose outside her window. She snuggled in against Ry's sleeping form for a long time, breathing in his scent, before finally sitting up and stretching.

It was Sunday. All too soon, the rest of life would now be threatening to push in on their private paradise. Thoughts and details were trying to crowd into her mind. She doubted that the firm would care much about her newfound happiness.

She would get up and make her lover breakfast, she decided. A feast. Pancakes, omelets, mimosas, the works. Imagining the extravagance, she realized how much she still had to learn about Ry. Even the little things. She didn't know what he ate for breakfast, or even if he liked pancakes or eggs. So much was in the details. The thought thrilled her.

She grabbed her robe from the bathroom and crept quietly out of the room. There was no reaction from her partner lying in bed. Unlike the previous day, it looked like Ry might sleep well into the early afternoon.

She had meant to call Jackie the previous night to let her know that all was well, but at the time, it hadn't been practical. In truth, only sensations, not thoughts, had coursed through her being the night before. She found her BlackBerry and dialed Jackie.

"Mmmmmmhhhhhh," came the response.

"Hey Jackie," she half-whispered into the phone. "I'm sorry I just woke you up."

"Nnnooo problem. It's good to hear your voice. You could have called sooner, you know. I haven't heard anything since Friday, not even about –"

"No, Jacks, I couldn't have called sooner." Katherine's voice had an unmistakable tinge of excitement.

Jackie's voice suddenly brightened. "Wait a minute... something's up... it's you and Ry, isn't it?

"Might be, Jacks. It's been quite a weekend."

"Was he good?" Jackie cut straight to the chase.

"Oh, he was good. We were good, Jacks. We were great. It was amazing."

"Katherine, I'm so happy for you. I bet that man is quite something in bed."

"Jacks!"

"I'm just saying."

They both broke out in peals of laughter. When it subsided, Katherine knew that it was time to bring up a more serious topic. "Jacks, I was wondering if maybe we could sit down together this afternoon and look through everything from Ry's trip on Friday." She chose her words carefully. She had learned never to be surprised by the reach of the firm.

"Will Ry the Love Machine be joining us?"

"I don't know... I'll ask him and see. Right now, I'd just get a snore for an answer."

"Cool. See you around four?"

"Sounds good, Jacks. And thank you."

"For what?"

"Oh, you can stop playing little Ms. Innocent now. You've been working quietly on getting us together since you first met Ry."

"Well, maybe just a little bit."

"Maybe it'll just have to be my turn to play matchmaker next time."

In the end, Katherine and Jackie sat down together to review the materials. After a suitably decadent breakfast, Ry had recounted to her all of the details from Friday evening. He left nothing out, admitting to the rage that had overcome him in Richards' office. But he couldn't stay much longer than the early afternoon.

"I've been away from my business and I need to catch up," he said. "I need to figure out what the week coming up holds. I hope that's okay?"

All around them, much as they both hated it, the concerns of the world pressed in.

"That's fine, Ry" she replied. "Of course I understand. Let me just change and I can drive you –"

"Well, there is just one more thing," Ry cut in. He pulled Katherine into his arms, his eyes seeking out hers once more. "I think we're onto something good here, you know."

"Oh, I know," Katherine whispered in reply. "I know."

Her robe fell to the floor under Ry's guiding fingers and, for a few more lingering moments, they kept the world at bay. Once more, under his soft touch, Katherine's body opened like the petals of a flowering rose.

When she drove Ry home an hour later, neither of them noticed the two men sitting in a parked maroon sedan across the street. They didn't notice as it pulled out behind them, and they didn't see it pass by Ry's apartment in Alexandria as they kissed goodbye.

"Call me soon, please. I'll call you tonight if we have any questions as we go through everything."

"If I make it through the night alone, I promise your phone will ring first thing in the morning. I can't stay away any more."

The maroon sedan unobtrusively circled the block again while they spoke.

Returning home, trying to force all distracting thoughts from her mind, Katherine lugged Ry's massive backpack into her living room and flung it down unceremoniously on the floor, spilling out piles of paper.

Her intercom buzzed. Jackie was downstairs.

Well, Katherine thought, now it's time to really let the world back in. She knew her time with Ry had to end, but it was hard to let go. Still, it wasn't like Ry was going anywhere. He was only a half-hour away, and they had barely begun to explore each other's lives. The weekend, she reminded herself, was only a taste of what was to come.

There was a sharp knock and Jackie walked straight in, opening the unlocked door.

"What have we got here?" she asked, gesturing at the papers covering Katherine's living room. "There has got to be something useful in there." Jackie looked around the condo. "So," she whispered, "is he still here?"

"No, Jacks, he had to go. He's left us to it for the evening."

"Good. I want all of the details." Jackie crossed the room and gave her friend a big hug.

In the hours that followed, there was not much casual conversation between the two women. Katherine made a large pot of green tea, they sat down to sort through the backpack papers, and that was it. It was slow, tedious work, and they barely spoke. Ry had warned Katherine that he had no idea if the papers from Richards' office would be any use at all. After all, he'd had only a few minutes after the alarms had first been set off.

"I feel like we'd need an insider to help us with this stuff," Jackie said after reading through several hundred pages of material. "These are just billing statements and memos. I'm not sure how we could tell if there was anything suspicious about them."

"We'll just have to keep looking, Jacks. Hopefully, something will stand out. Maybe we'll notice patterns as we get deeper in. And maybe when I finally pin down an attorney, they'll have some ideas."

And so the reviewing went on and on, until the late evening. They sorted the pages by client in neat stacks on the floor, but still had no leads.

There was one strange thing. Many of the papers had her name, "Jordan, K." typed in the upper right hand corner. The slightly uneven typing suggested that her name had been added later, by a typewriter, rather than existing beforehand in an electronic format. Did anyone even use typewriters any more, she wondered. There were no other marks, no indications as to why her name should appear on files that she had never seen.

As the night wore on, their fatigue grew; their concentration began to weaken. The job at hand felt increasingly difficult and hopeless.

Then, something different. They turned to the Ziploc bag that Ry had found in Katherine's file cabinet. A stack of printer paper, each page covered with mesmerizing – and unintelligible – patterns of dots, squares and triangles. There was no key, no clue as to what the symbols represented. The age of the paper – old dot-matrix printer style, with tractor-feed edging and stripes of light green ink – suggested if the information had ever been important, that day was long past. The printout pages reminded Katherine of her standardized testing sheets in high school, back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth. But she doubted that they were anything so straightforward. Why had Richards planted these bags in her office? She had never seen them before. They needed a clue, a hint, a key of some kind to unlock the secrets held by the printout. They started looking through the pages, willing the symbols to reveal their secrets. Nothing.

The night wore on.

"There's nothing else here, Katherine," Jackie said grimly. "I just don't know what to look for. Maybe we should call it a night."

"Two more minutes, Jacks. Let's push a bit more." Katherine forced herself to continue, using the cliffs of Harpers Ferry as inspiration. If I could make it up that rock, she thought, I can make it through these papers.

She pulled the printout pages closer. As they slid across the floor, a tightly folded square of paper emerged from between the pages. Katherine leaned over to pick it up. Folded neatly four times into a small, six-inch square, the paper was sealed with packing tape. Holding it up to the light, she could make out only blurred patterns of ink on the inside.

She stood up and walked into the kitchen, stretching her cramped legs. Taking a pair of scissors from a drawer, the paper opened easily with a few strategic cuts. The firm's familiar letterhead curled out from within.

Looks like another memo, Katherine thought, but then stopped. Her heart raced as her eyes scanned the message. She could not believe what she was reading.

This was not another memo.

This was about her. The words were vague, no names were mentioned. But everything fit precisely.

The Law Offices of Allen, Sheldon, Richards, and Jones

3832 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W.

Washington D.C. 20036

November 30

From: the Otters

Re: YOUR EYES ONLY

Checking in on the situation. You said that everything will be under control. We do not share your confidence. This is a gentle reminder that we're out here, around you, all of the time. We remain supportive, to a point.

None of us wanted a mistake. Even if the mistake was yours in the first place, with her selection. We can't dwell on that decision. But you must move now, in accordance with the rules we set in place for an occasion like this.

We trust everything in Europe was as it should be. We heard only good things from them. However, it's become clear that using distance as a weapon hasn't been very effective. Finish it, now. Hit her before she understands, before she has any idea about the forces at work.

It makes us uneasy to think how this situation could make all of our work unravel. Years of work. We are anxious that the situation be resolved as quickly as possible.

Welcome home. We look forward to your debriefing on our status in Europe. We trust that the time abroad has given you clarity and peace of mind.

Cordially yours,

The Otters

Everything fit. Everything. The memo dated from the night when Richards had flown home; they must have left this little note for him at his house. The Europe references fit perfectly. And how many other "situations" did the firm have? She had to be the woman, she had to be the "situation" that they were so concerned about.

Jackie read over the note and agreed. These "Otters," whoever they were, meant business. And Katherine, apparently, was a thorn in their side.

"Ry's been right all along," Katherine whispered. "He's been right the whole time."

"How do you mean?" Jackie asked.

"Remember, during the week, when we were all in here, talking? I swear, I remember his words exactly. He said I have something, even though I may not know what it is."

"And?"

"And now I know. It's everything. Everything I ever did at the firm. They want it back, all of it. They want to erase me. I'm a record that shouldn't exist."

Katherine was concerned, but also elated. In her hands, she held the first concrete evidence that she was innocent. And that Richards was guilty.

It was more than that. She knew now, for sure, that this wasn't just between her and Richards. That day at the airport had been coming for a long, long time, perhaps since the first time they had met. This wasn't just a case of a relationship gone bad. This was a massive cover-up, involving a group known only by a nickname. She would bet money, she thought, that Wellsey was one of them.

So, she had screwed up somehow. They, whoever they were, had had plans for her, and she had not followed the path they wanted. The man from the elevator floated into her thoughts. Leave or they will get you, he had said. But was that true? Would they let her just walk away? Maybe they were trying to scare her into silence, and that would be it. There would be no charges. No trial. She would just leave quietly and everyone could return to their corrupt games.

She knew it would be wrong to give up without a fight. Her career would remain in tatters, her integrity clouded forever. She would have to take the blame, scapegoated by a secret organization for others' sins.

But she also knew that fighting back would take an immense toll on her and on Jackie, Ry, and her father. Rebuilding her life after all this would be difficult enough. And who knew how far this group might go? If she fought back, would they fight back, too?

She would wait and see, she decided. Keep all of her options on the table. If the firm backed off this week, she would consider keeping her silence. She had friends and family and new love, and that might just be enough.

Even as she reached her decision, Katherine had forgotten that she had already made a much larger choice. When Ry broke into the firm's offices for her, her fate was sealed. She could never walk away now. The choice had been made. The paper she held in her hands only confirmed it.

Still, she did have a weapon of her own now: knowledge. They didn't know what she knew, and she could stay one step ahead of the game. They might go after her. But with Ry's backpack papers and this memo, she could defend herself and perhaps even shift onto offense.

She knew more now, although far from everything. What was the purpose of the old-school printout? Who were the Otters? And who or what had Richards been working with in Europe? As the evening wound down, she reemphasized to herself that she would wait and see. She would consider keeping her silence. She refused to admit to herself that everything was already in motion.

She looked over at the clock and sighed. It was past midnight, too late to call Ry and tell him the news. It would have to wait until the following day.

"Where do we go from here?" Jackie asked, almost as if she was reading her friend's mind.

"I'm going back to that attorney tomorrow with this, and see what he has to say. And you're going to have to go back into work, and be Ms. Perfect all week, not so much as a hair out of place, okay?"

"You think they'll be watching?"

"I know they'll be watching, Jacks. Something tells me they don't like having an ally of their enemy in their midst. They'd love to have a reason to make you disappear as well."

After she said goodnight to Jackie, Katherine's tentative hopes soared. She knew now, for certain, that there was a conspiracy at work at the firm. She was a pawn in a larger game. It would remain to be decided, she thought, how this particular pawn would move on the chessboard.

As she slipped into her dreams, two strong arms held her close. She could almost feel his breath on her cheek. She slept deeply, at peace. Thoughts of fledgling love kept all other concerns at arm's length.

Chapter 14

Monday was going to be an ordinary day.

Katherine woke up, ate breakfast and tried calling Ry, but there was no answer. Of course, she realized, he was already out at work. It was bright and sunny outside, and dirty windows waited for no man.

She left him a message, half-romantic, half-serious, letting him know what she and Jackie had found the previous evening. Hanging up the phone, she sat at the kitchen table and made a list of the day's errands. Food shopping. Attorney visit. Something special for Ry.

Her body thrilled when she thought of that last item on the agenda. What could she get for him? Something small, but special. She would save that trip for last. She dressed, checked the day's weather on her iPad, and headed out the door.

Given it was a weekday morning, the supermarket was deserted. She bought with two in mind now, and picked out some new seasonings to try out, thinking ahead to a candlelight dinner in the next couple of weeks. A half-hour passed while she walked the aisles. At the check-out, her pleasant morning abruptly fell apart.

"That'll be $62.38, please, ma'am," the cashier said.

"Thank you," Katherine replied as she handed her credit card to the woman. She turned to look at the nearby magazines, and then turned back. The cashier was speaking to her, although her words weren't making much sense.

"I'm sorry, ma'am, but I've been instructed to destroy this card. It's been flagged by the credit card company." The cashier kept her eyes averted as she spoke, then cut the card into three pieces with quick snips. She tossed the credit card pieces into the waste basket behind the counter.

"Do you have another means of payment, ma'am?"

"Um, sure." Katherine slid her ATM card out of her wallet and handed it to the cashier. She was too taken aback by their exchange to be angry. Or to sense the coming storm.

"I'm sorry, ma'am, this card has been rejected."

Katherine mumbled an apology, took her card, and walked outside to a nearby ATM. She entered her PIN number on the machine keypad and requested two hundred dollars. The machine whirred and clicked as usual, but nothing else happened. There was no release of funds. No printing out of a receipt. Nothing.

ALERT! suddenly flashed on and off on the screen several times. "The account to which this card belongs has been frozen," read an ensuing message. "This card will be confiscated until access to this account has been reactivated." The ATM had no further messages for her. It had returned to its welcome screen as if nothing had ever happened. Her card had been swallowed.

Katherine stumbled backwards, concern growing quickly as her mind considered the possibilities. She walked quickly to her car, the groceries forgotten. She tried to think calmly, but her mind was racing. Get home and make some phone calls. Return to base.

By the time she had struggled home through busy morning traffic, she could no longer avoid the uncomfortable truth. It was starting. And she was about to find out how far they would go.

As she parked her car, her mind moved into battle mode. She could borrow money from her friends or her dad. Getting at her would never be as easy as just freezing her bank accounts. But wasn't a court order required in order to do that?

Stepping into her building, she was met at the door by a stranger, a tall, thin man dressed in a tan, full-length rain coat.

"Ms. Katherine Jordan?" he asked in a reedy voice. "Are you Ms. Katherine Jordan?"

"I am," Katherine replied, steel in her voice. "Who's asking?"

He thrust a sealed package into her hands and spoke rapidly. "I am a subpoena server from the ninth district court. You have just been served..."

Katherine stood and waited while the man continued speaking. So, they had a series of opening moves, she thought. What next?

"You are required to appear... a preliminary hearing..." The man's voice droned on and on. "You stand accused... after this hearing, you may be remanded into custody... if you are deemed to be a flight risk, travel documents including your passport may be taken from you –"

"Thank you," Katherine cut him off. "I assume all of the information is in here." She patted the thick packet in her hand.

"Yes, ma'am. However, I am required by law to –"

"You've done your job." Katherine cut him off again. "You're done. Now leave." She walked past him to the elevator and left the man standing, in shock, by the front door.

As she opened her condo door, she was already thinking of what needed to be put in motion. The man downstairs was already history. She threw the package of material down on her hallway table and strode into the kitchen. Her eyes swept over the morning's headlines on her iPad, before she noticed the flashing red light of her home phone's answering machine. She had three messages.

Her eyes, however, returned to her iPad. Something seemed strange. As she walked over and picked it up, she realized just how thorough her adversaries were. The phone messages could wait.

Top Area Law Firm Cleans House screamed a Washington Post headline. Embezzlement Charges Threaten to Paralyze Finances. Inset in the article was a photo of the firm's offices and one of the senior partners. The story's tone was unmistakably smug, reveling in the apparent difficulties of the city's elite legal unit. "How one person could manage to pull off a heist of this size without triggering alarm bells remains a mystery," the story concluded. "The alleged perpetrator remains unnamed, although the firm has scheduled a press conference for Monday afternoon. A knowledgeable source inside the firm said late on Sunday that the firm is promising swift and overwhelming litigation, including criminal prosecution, and extensive inculpatory evidence."

Katherine had heard that those in power in Washington had some reporters in their back pockets, but she'd never believed it, until now. Her name hadn't been leaked, at least, but that was surely a matter of another couple of hours. She figured her name would be public knowledge before lunchtime, now that the court papers had been served.

Still, despite the swirl of the day's mounting events, Katherine felt remarkably calm and poised. She had said that she could handle whatever they could throw at her. Now, she had to prove it. They were firing all of their guns at her, that much was clear. But it was what would come after the smoke that would matter most.

So, she would not be able to wait and decide. Any illusions that Katherine may have harbored regarding her choices were stripped away. It was going to be war, fast and furious, and she would aim to give as good as she got.

She suddenly remembered her answering machine. Three messages. What could they possibly contain? In what felt like slow motion, she walked over to the machine and hit play.

The first message was from Ry. Her heart leapt as she heard his voice, but her joy quickly faded. The connection was poor; the phone line was scratchy, his voice distant. She could tell he was tense, in a hurry, overwhelmed, from the first word he spoke.

"Katherine, it's Ry. If you're there, pick up... okay, you're not there. I've got news. The line's bad. I'm calling from the roof of the firm's building. Don't mind what I'm doing here, that's not important. I've learned something. It's bad, Katherine. It's bigger than you or I or Jackie ever guessed. My friend George has been fired... I've found..." There was suddenly a cacophony of voices, shouting, in the background. Ry fell silent for a moment, and then the line sprang back to life. His voice was high-pitched, angry, worried, scared.

"Katherine, they've found me... I'm running... Get out of there... I've found out –"

There was an ear-splitting electronic screech and the phone went dead. Katherine gripped the edge of the kitchen table tightly in her hands. What was so important? What had Ry been doing, why had he been risking his life? What had just happened to her love?

Her first thought was to tear out of her office and head to Richards' office for a showdown. She wanted Ry back, now. The war was between them and her. She would not allow Ry to be drawn in by their evil plans; she could not bear the thought of risking his life and their love.

But, before she could move, the machine's second message began, and she stood there, rooted to the floor.

"Ms. Jordan," the voice slid in like a snake, slithering and searching, menacing. "It's your friend here. I'm calling to remind you that I'll be by to pick up the papers this afternoon." Katherine had never heard the man's voice before, but he clearly knew what he was talking about. "Please leave the papers in bags by the front door between three and five o'clock this afternoon, while you're out, and I'll take care of everything else. Thank you."

Katherine began to grow frantic. Her love had been cut off while screaming about new information, and now veiled threats were apparently part of the game as well. What had they done with him?

The third message clicked on. It was her father. Katherine almost rushed to pick up the receiver before she remembered that it was just a recording.

"Hi Katherine," his gentle, familiar voice called out. "I saw they finally made their move. I'm here when you need me. Please call me as soon as you get in."

Her father's words made her want to cry, but her emotions were knotted in rage. How dare they sink to this level. They could have their stinking conspiracy for all she cared. She had never asked for any of this. What had they done with her love?

Her surging energy and anger threatened to tear her apart. She reached for the nearest object and threw it across the kitchen. The glass pitcher exploded against the far wall, shattering glass skittering over the tiled floor. Her logic, however, surged above the tide of her anger. She knew what she had to do.

She called her father, telling him that she was fine, but would need to borrow some money. "I'll be by soon to see you, Dad. I love you." She tried her best to keep the tone over her voice even and level.

Grabbing a duffel bag from a closet, she filled it with the papers from the living room, ruining the neat piles that she and Jackie had filed. She hauled the bag to the door, then went into her bedroom to pack a suitcase. In went clothes, a cell phone charger, toiletries, and she slammed the lid shut. She didn't know when she would be back. But it wasn't safe at home any longer. Her "friend," after all, would be by that very afternoon.

Yeah, Katherine thought, I'll leave you some papers all right. You want to take my money, hurt my friends, threaten my life. I'll leave you some papers. She rolled her suitcase down the hall and went to work on the last order of business on the home front. All the while, a single question hung in the back of her mind. What have they done with him?

Her final act had one purpose. To inflict pain. She took Ry's empty backpack into her study and filled it two-thirds full of old tax documents that she'd kept on file from work. Then, to the kitchen, where she dumped in several jars of honey and two large bags of flour, shaking the backpack vigorously to make sure that the paper was well-covered with the sticky mixture. They'd have to peel the solid mass apart, only to find nothing. Lastly, she reached under the sink for the final touch. Rat traps. Her dad had given them to her when she first moved in. She had never needed to use them; the building didn't have a rat problem. Until now, she thought. The traps were simple and brutal. Coiled steel waiting to strike. The slightest triggering of the mechanism and they snapped shut. It could be a rat searching for cheese, or a larger, man-sized rodent looking for proof of his own guilt. It didn't matter. A mangled hand would be the result.

She carried the backpack to the front door, then placed each of the traps carefully inside. She returned to her study and located two old gym locks. Their combinations forgotten, she clicked them shut on the pack's zippers and looked over her handiwork.

She would make them earn their pain.

Finally, she scrawled a brief note on a sheet of paper and taped it to the front door. It read simply: "Papers for pickup are inside."

"Thanks, friend," she cursed under her breath as she turned to leave. One trip out to her car for the suitcase, one for the duffel bag and the subpoena package, and she returned to lock up and double-check that she had everything. She grabbed her iPad and BlackBerry from the kitchen table.

Surveying her condo, Katherine was struck by how normal everything looked. The place was clean. Rays of sunlight shone through the living room windows. You would never know, she thought. Today is anything but normal.

She had almost forgotten – there was one additional detail to clear up. She dialed the building's supervisor. He was out, but that didn't matter. She knew the man checked his messages every hour or so.

"Hi, Mr. Jones, it's Katherine Jordan from Unit 7-F here on Monday morning. I don't mean to alarm you, but I've had some threatening phone calls over the past week. A stranger calls and tells me that he's going to break in and rape me. He called this morning and was very specific. He said he was coming this afternoon to hurt me."

Katherine paused for a moment to emphasize her point, then continued. "I've of course called the police but they say there's nothing they can do. I'm leaving as soon as I can here. I'm hoping you might be able to post a couple of security guards on my floor. If it's possible, let him break in and then call the police. That would give them what they need to put this stranger away. I'll call you when I'm in a safe place. Thank you."

There. It was done. Everything she could think of, for the moment, was taken care of. She took a final walk through her condo and headed for the door. Ry's backpack sat nearby, waiting for the stranger's arrival.

Katherine turned to leave, locking the door with a twist of her hand, when her home phone rang. Anger and fear swept over her simultaneously. Was it them? Was it Ry? With that thought, she knew that she couldn't ignore the call. It could be him. She ran into the kitchen and practically tore the phone from the wall.

"Hello?" she gasped, breathless. "Who is this?"

"Ms. Katherine Jordan, please?"

"This is she," Katherine said tentatively, afraid that anything she might say could give new ammunition to her enemies.

"Ma'am, I'm calling from the emergency room at Sibley Hospital." Cold bolts of fear shot through Katherine's body.

"We've taken in a new patient, a Ry Austin. We've been unable to locate any next of kin, but your name and number were in his wallet. Are you family, ma'am?"

"Yes," Katherine managed to say. "I'm family." The words sounded strange in her ears.

"Well, would you please come right down. This man is badly hurt. They brought him in about fifteen minutes ago, and we don't know if he'll make it."

Katherine felt the world begin to slide from her grasp. The walls of the kitchen seemed to bend and curve, the floor seemed to yaw under her feet. What had they done to him?

The woman's words fell like bombs.

"I don't mean to alarm you, ma'am, but he's in critical condition. The paramedics said he fell off the roof of a building. His fall was broken by a store canopy. Without that, he would never have made it."

"Where did this happen?" Katherine stammered. She sought out the kitchen counter with her hand, seeking support before she collapsed.

"Looks like the building was located on Massachusetts Avenue..."

Katherine was trying her best to fight it, but her grief took over. "Is he going to live?" she sobbed into the phone. "I don't understand how this could have happened... are you sure about what you're saying?"

"Please, ma'am, please just come to Sibley. When he was conscious, he did nothing but repeat your name. Please get here as soon as you can."

Katherine placed the phone back with trembling fingers. Tears poured down her cheeks. Objects swam in and out of her vision. Thoughts jumbled in her mind. One thought, however, kept cutting through with searing clarity. What had they done to him?

She forced her legs to move, one step at a time, leaning against the hallway walls as she walked. She grabbed a coat and pulled the door closed behind her. Lost in tears of unspeakable sadness, she never looked back.

Chapter 15

"What's the latest, John?" Richards demanded. He paced back and forth in his recently reconstructed office. There was a new desk, a new bookcase; everything was designed to look exactly as it had before Saturday evening. "Are we taking care of business?"

John Wellsey stood just inside the door, holding an expensive Italian leather briefcase in his hands. "It's all here, sir, ready for your briefing with the others," he replied, patting the briefcase with his hands.

"I want you to tell me the latest, dammit!"

"Are you sure it's secure to talk here, sir?" Wellsey gestured around the office.

"I don't care if your recording system is on, if that's what you mean," Richards roared. "We're going to talk, and that's it."

"Very well, sir." Wellsey could tell that his boss was nervous. Richards was pacing rapidly, back and forth across his office, and his voice was strained, on edge. In an hour, he would be facing the other partners to discuss how the resolution of the "Ms. Jordan problem" was progressing. Wellsey would not be allowed to be there. Apparently, he was too new to be let in. Untrusted was the word he preferred. A growing bitterness was slowly overtaking his thoughts. But he knew he had to keep up appearances, or he'd be next on the problem resolution schedule.

"Here's what we have," he started. "Ms. Jordan's boyfriend was taken care of this afternoon. He fell off the roof of our building while working today. An accident. No witnesses. We've been in contact with Ms. Jordan and appropriate parties are picking up the stolen papers shortly. And we're in full-court press on Ms. Jordan. Her accounts have been frozen, court papers have been served. I think she'll be willing to go to jail quietly. It'll be a relief after what we'll have done to her."

Richards continued to pace. He didn't trust the simplicity of Wellsey's summary. It couldn't be going this well. There had to be difficulties. But if not... his mind wandered... wouldn't it be wonderful if the situation really was near resolution? As near as a quick court case and conviction? The possibility was almost too much to bear.

"What are our loose ends, John? It can't all be roses."

"True. Still, stage one is going as well as we could have anticipated. Our dead climbing friend found out about the codes before he died this morning."

"How the hell did he manage that?" Richards' face was turning dark purple with rage.

Wellsey looked uncomfortably around the office, trying to ignore the question. "It was a breach, sir."

"What kind of breach?" Richards clung like a pit bull to his line of questioning. In the courtroom, it was one of his greatest strengths.

Wellsey looked directly at his boss. Well, he thought, you asked, so I'll tell you the truth.

"You left your office unlocked last night, sir. He got in here before dawn this morning, before anyone knew anything. You had actually left the codes on your desk last night. So it wasn't too difficult for him."

Richards' jaw dropped. He had nothing to say, there was no way he could respond. It was an error of massive proportions. If the stranger hadn't been killed already, reading those codes would have instantly signed the man's death warrant.

"Did he have a name?" Richards asked. "Our intrepid intruder?"

"Ry Austin, sir. Seems his company held the contract to clean the building's windows. Climbed like a cat. Or used to, anyway."

"What else?" Richards was anxious to shift the conversation away from his egregious error the previous evening. He looked at his Rolex. It wasn't long now. Just as Wellsey was briefing him, he had to brief the rest of the partners in the Otter group. But he had the tough part.

The group wanted to hear that the situation was taken care of. They didn't care how it was accomplished, as long as the name of the firm was never involved. So, he had to weigh what to tell them, and what to keep secret. Mr. Austin's death was certainly going to be an innocent accident, unrelated to the matters at hand, and they had no need to know that the account codes had been left out in the open. He decided to focus on the bottom line – that they were waiting for Ms. Jordan to crack, and that everything would be in and out of the courts in a few months' time.

Deep down, he knew it wouldn't be that easy. One didn't rise to his position without making enemies. There were senior partners who would like nothing more than to see him go down in flames, with Wellsey following right behind him. They would be asking questions to tear him apart. He would be on trial, in a way, as he was every damn time he stepped before the Otters. He wanted this over, now. He wanted his name cleared and the group to move forward. He had chosen badly, everyone knew that. Would it have to haunt him forever? It had already taken so long.

"There's not much else, sir," Wellsey's comment cut into Richards' deepening line of thought. "I don't believe that anyone knows about the break-in. The cleanup was seamless and airtight."

At least there was that, Richards thought. If the group ever got wind that Ms. Jordan was fighting back, had perhaps even scored a direct hit, there was no telling what they might do. They might move on their own, they might remove him entirely. The group had no need to know about the stolen papers, the break-in, Mr. Austin's fate, or indeed anything beyond the basics.

Everything else would be taken care of soon anyway, he told himself. There was no need to introduce irrelevant worries into the group. Increasingly, he wanted to believe in Wellsey's statements of simplicity. Perhaps everything was going to work out just fine.

"Thanks, John. You can leave me alone now."

"Certainly, sir. Call if you need anything. Good luck." The door closed behind Wellsey after he left. It was Richards' turn to be alone.

Chapter 16

"I'm looking for a Mr. Ry Austin. Where is he, please? Mr. Ry Austin? Can you tell me where I will find him?"

Please oh please please just let please oh just let him be alive...

"Can you tell me, please? Am I in the right place?"

Please just let please oh god please...

"Ma'am, we're going to need you to slow down a little and relax. Let me check on which room Mr. Austin is in."

The orderly scanned a logbook, scanning the lines with her finger. She looked up into the face of the distraught woman.

"Ward 37, ma'am, right down this hallway on the left. He's in critical but stable condition."

Katherine turned and began to walk down the hallway. One step at a time. He was still alive. Breathe in, breathe out.

She barely remembered the drive across town, thankful that she hadn't plowed into other traffic in her distracted state. She had parked the car somewhere outside and run in through the electric doors of Sibley Hospital's main entrance.

The hospital itself did little to calm her frazzled nerves. Each room and hallway was lit in brilliant white light. Color was absent, everything felt sterile and cold. As she walked down the hallway, nurses in green scrubs hurried past, carts of instruments and IV bags were pushed along by tech assistants. Several patients shuffled past.

Katherine looked in the windows of each room as she passed. Some were covered by curtains; others opened onto wards of children and the elderly, some alone in their beds, other surrounded by family, by balloons and cards and well wishes.

The ward numbers slowly went up as she walked... 19... 21... 25... 29... until, in the corner where the hallway bent sharply to the right, she reached the door to Ward 39. The room's blue curtains were drawn.

Katherine took a deep breath, grasped the door handle, and pushed. She was expecting a full ward, perhaps a dozen beds, and the same blinding white light.

She found something else altogether. The room was only dimly lit by a single lamp over by the window, and the patient was alone in the room. Hidden in the shadows, held in by the metal bars of the hospital bed, she could make out a human form, but little else.

"Ry?" she whispered.

A hand clamped on her shoulder and a man's form moved in front of her.

"Shhhh," he was saying, stopping Katherine from screaming out loud in terror. "Don't worry, ma'am. He's safe there in the bed. I'm the assigned security. My name is Joe. Joe Meagro. I'm sorry that I scared you like that."

"Security?" She managed to whisper. "Ry needs security?"

"It's the same reason he's alone in this room, ma'am. Mr. Austin didn't say much to the paramedics, but they could make out that he had been thrown off of that building where they found him. The case is being treated as attempted murder. He'll be under police guard for the foreseeable future. Assuming..." The guard looked away.

As the guard's voice trailed off, Katherine knew what he was trying to avoid having to say. Assuming he lives, she thought.

"Ma'am, I'm required to ask you," the guard continued. "Are you family?"

"Yes, Joe," she replied, growing more comfortable with the man in front of her. He was short, stocky and powerfully built. He was protecting her love, and it looked like he was up to the job. "I'm family. My name is Katherine Jordan. I'm in love with Ry Austin."

Joe paused for a long moment. "So, you're Katherine," he said finally. "It's nice to meet you. You're the lady he was asking for." He gestured to a chair near Ry's bed. "Please, make yourself comfortable. I move around the room to stay sharp. I'm sure the doctors will tell you this, but he's not supposed to be touched in any way. His body's in traction, and they've inserted metal pins in most of his joints."

Hot tears brimmed in Katherine's eyes as she listened to Joe's words. Metal pins. Traction. What was left of the man she knew and loved?

"Ms. Jordan, there is one other thing," Joe called over to her from his corner.

"Please, call me Katherine."

"Okay, Katherine, then. Mr. Austin kept repeating one thing, meant for you, I think, before he lost consciousness."

"What was that?"

"He said that the Ziploc package has bank account numbers. Does that make any sense to you?"

"Thanks Joe. That makes sense to me." Katherine felt no elation, no interest at the news. She had only one concern now.

She turned back to Ry's bed, dragging a chair over to where he lay. In the dim light, she could make out very little. What she could make out worried her profoundly. Deep purple bruises cast along the sides of his jaw, while his forehead was swathed in thick white bandages. Stitches zigzagged along one of his cheeks, up to his ravaged ear. He still looked like the man she loved, however. Battered, bruised, nearly destroyed, he was still alive and still hers. She knew she loved him, then and forever, although they had had the time to share those words only once. There had been such little time for anything. They were so close to losing everything.

She began whispering to his prostrate form, hoping in some way that her words would soothe his broken bones and ease his turbulent dreams. "Everything is going to be okay, Ry, I'm here and they're taking good care of you. You're going to be just fine, and I love you. Do you hear me? I'm not going anywhere, and I love you."

There was no movement in the shadows, no flicker of recognition, but she knew he was listening. He had to be. They couldn't lose what they had found together.

"Ms. Jordan?" An unfamiliar voice called out behind her. Her eyes, adjusted to the dim light, made out a woman in a white lab coat over by the door as she turned.

"Yes."

"I'm Sue Allen, Mr. Austin's doctor. Could I speak with you for a moment?"

"Of course. And please call me Katherine." She took a long, lingering glance at Ry, then followed the doctor out into the hallway.

The prognosis was grim and tough to listen to.

"Katherine," the doctor began, "I'll try to be as direct and straightforward here as I can. We've still got more questions than answers at this point. If Mr. Austin comes out of the coma, we'll have a much better understanding of his brain function. There are only limited flashes of brain activity at the moment. With his injuries, there is a significant likelihood of long-term mental impairment."

Through the medical jargon, Katherine listened and understood, sobered by the doctor's update.

"And physically?" she asked. "Will he ever get out of that bed?"

"Again, more questions, I'm afraid. His left leg is broken. His right arm and collarbones are shattered. All of his ribs are broken. If he comes out of the coma, it will eventually depend on his willpower. If he wants it badly enough, he could be able to regain most of his prior motor movement."

Katherine, despite her best attempts to present a calm exterior, gasped as she spoke. The extent of damage to Ry's body took her breath away. Painful thoughts and possibilities inundated Katherine's mind after their discussion. Ry would perhaps never climb again. He might never feel a warm summer breeze riffling through his hair. Simply bending to pick up a baseball might be too much. Caressing her face might cause only pain.

Stop Katherine, just stop, she told herself. One step at a time. It had to be. First, Ry had to wake up, and then they could go from there. She looked at her watch. It was mid-afternoon, but she felt like the day had stretched out into weeks. Exhausted, she slipped back into Ry's room, retaking her place beside his bed. One step at a time. Ry had to wake up, and she would be waiting for him when he did.

She suddenly realized that she didn't even know how to contact Ry's family. Their time together had been so intense, so personal, that they had yet to share their relationship with anyone other than Jackie. That would change when Ry woke up, she vowed.

She sat quietly for a few minutes before her eyes began to close. She leaned, then rested her head on the cool sheets near where he lay. Cloaked in the shadows with her love, she fell asleep. Buried in a deep, dreamless quiet where nothing could bother her, the hours passed.

When she awoke, her inner calm remained. Everything would work out, somehow. The truth of her feelings seemed rooted in the core of her very being.

There was light now in the room now as well, streetlights outside the windows illuminating the hospital's urban surroundings. She was quietly aware of the presence of someone else in the room, and turned to face the door. It was Jackie, sitting in a chair, a small suitcase beside her. Her friend waved to her, before rising to join her by Ry's bedside.

"Katherine, I'm so sorry," she said, rubbing Katherine's shoulder as she spoke.

"Thanks, Jacks. I'm adjusting and coping as best I can," Katherine replied, looking up at her dear friend. "I'm past hoping that this is a bad dream that will be ending soon. How did you know where to find me?"

"I put two and two together when I heard that a man had fallen off of our building. A little detective work and I tracked Ry to Sibley, figuring that I'd find you when I found him. I'm here for whatever you might need. They said you'll be able to sleep in the room for now, so I brought you some clothes." Jackie gestured to the suitcase.

"We're lucky he's still even breathing, Jacks."

"They will pay for this, Katherine," Jackie's voice was low and even. "A man broke into your condo this afternoon and he was caught. Or rather, a rat trap caught him and the cops did the rest."

"That's good news, Jacks." Katherine was listening to her friend, but all of that, from her court date to the booby-trapped backpack she had left behind, seemed distant and irrelevant. Ry was her main concern now, surely, and everything else could simply disappear as far as she was concerned.

But Jackie was having none of it.

"Katherine, you need to listen to me. I know that being here with Ry is very important. But there are also things that have to get done. With the papers we have, maybe we can fight back enough so that the firm will back off. With the guy they arrested –"

"Jacks, I don't care about any of that anymore," Katherine cut in. "Okay? I just don't care."

Jackie grabbed Katherine's shoulders firmly and looked directly into her bloodshot eyes. "Katherine," she said, "you don't have a choice on this. We need to think, and we need to act, or else they could move again. Have you thought about your dad? Or yourself? Or me? Or even another attack on Ry? We need to stop this, and I think what we know is enough to do that. You have to listen. You have to believe me. As we speak, everything you hold dear is still in immediate danger."

In that moment, Katherine hated her friend. She just wanted to be left alone, was that too much to ask?

"Listen to what I'm saying, Katherine, please," Jackie pleaded. "We have to do this."

She was right. Katherine hated her for saying it, and she hated the firm for making it so. She knew that she had to act, and that time was of the essence.

"Okay," she sighed. "I hear you. Let's find the cafeteria and get some coffee."

They walked to the cafeteria and talked for several hours. As they spoke, Katherine felt herself being drawn back into all of the awful details of her life, or rather, the mess her life had become. However, there was also a growing sense of relief. Jackie was right. With the information they now had in their possession, they could indeed move against Richards and the firm. They would have legal standing.

With hindsight, it seemed that Richards had made several major blunders. They should never have been able to learn how or why Richards was framing her. Without that information, they never would have had a chance. But the account codes planted in her office had provided part of the answer, and his secret office memo from the Otters provided the rest. They had run her for several years to see if she would fit in the Otter group, and she had failed to meet their still-secret criteria, so they had to get rid of her. The account numbers and the papers with her name stamped on the top of each page were supposed to be the evidence of her massive embezzlement scheme.

It might have worked, if they hadn't been sloppy. That was the scary part. And then Richards had moved to extremes. Breaking into her condo. Trying to kill Ry. Underestimating their opponent in every possible way. Richards had left tracks behind, and she and Jackie intended to follow them all the way through the halls of power. The more noise they made, the better.

Jackie and Katherine made a shortlist of key next steps. Jackie would take the stolen papers from her car and store the materials in a bank lockbox. Jackie would call and meet with the young lawyer who had been interested in her case. Now, there were grounds for action.

"Jacks, if you could set the stage for him, give him the key to the lockbox, then let him go to work, I'll meet with him when he's familiar with our case," Katherine said. "Tell him I would like to prosecute the burglar who broke into my condo to the fullest extent of the law. If he snaps under pressure, we could have an even stronger case with his testimony."

"When are you due in court?"

"One week's time, Jackie. Next Wednesday. What should we do about security in the meantime? For you? For my dad?"

"Your dad's apartment is under 24-7 police guard, Katherine. My bodyguard has been quietly sitting over there while we've been talking," Jackie subtly gestured at a nondescript man who had been reading a newspaper less than twenty feet away. "The police have been incredibly responsive."

Katherine was profoundly relieved to hear that the firm's tentacles did not extend to controlling the city's police force. The two women were silent for a few moments, both yearning for sleep after one of the longest days of their lives.

"Katherine, there's one other detail I should mention," Jackie said. "I'm no longer an employee of the law firm of Allen, Sheldon, Richards, and Jones. I quit this morning."

"What?"

"Someone up high suddenly suspended all funds for my department. So I quit, citing a hostile workplace, and told them to expect a lawsuit ASAP."

"I think we might be able to get them, Jacks."

"I think so too, Katherine. I think so, too."

Katherine's evening ended with a final few minutes at Ry's bedside. Then, she settled into the makeshift hospital bed beside him. The sheets were cold, antiseptic, the fold-down mattress hard and unforgiving, but it was a place to lay her head, and she was so tired that she would have accepted a park bench. She said goodnight to the overnight guard who had replaced Joe and was gone.

As the sun rose the next morning, so began the first day of an entirely new routine. For the next five days, Katherine barely left the hospital, taking only an occasional morning or late afternoon stroll outside. Her meals were usually in the cafeteria, unless Jackie brought by Thai food or home-cooked lasagna. It got so that she began to recognize the faces of the doctors and nurses, and could predict the hours they worked.

There were other people as well, people who looked like her. Whether they slept in the hospital or not, they had the same drawn faces, the same distant look in their eyes, that came from having a loved one near the brink of death.

It was difficult when one of the usual faces disappeared, or even when new ones walked in. Was it good news, or a setback? Salvation or despair?

Jackie and her father kept her close to the side of salvation and hope with constant visits. Jackie usually came by in the evenings. Her father's visits calmed her nerves and helped her feel guardedly optimistic about the future.

"So, this is the first time I get to meet the man you've been hiding from me," he joked on his first visit. "You didn't have to go to such lengths, you know."

Katherine was initially taken aback by his words, but then realized what he meant. She had never mentioned Ry to her father, not even in passing. There had been so much going on. "I think you'll like him, dad," she replied, her voice cracking slightly with emotion. "He's a very nice guy."

"I can tell from your voice that I'll like him, Katherine." In truth, he was pleased. He had privately had misgivings about Stanley Richards since the first time Katherine had brought him over for dinner. He had struck him as slick, insincere, and ambitious to a fault. But from what Katherine told him as they talked, this man Ry could be a different story. He knew they had only seen each other for a short time, but perhaps this man could be the one to break the spell of bad relationships that hung over his daughter's life.

He had talked with Jackie as well several times in the hospital's waiting area, gauging her feelings about the man. She too, spoke glowingly of Ry and how he and Katherine made a natural couple.

If only, he thought, if only he can make it back to the world. It had been so long since things had been different. Since life had been good for his daughter.

Katherine spent most of her waking moments by Ry's bedside. The doctor checked in every morning, and the nurses every few hours. She gently caressed his right hand as it lay there, unmoving, memorizing every wrinkle, every small scar on his skin.

Still, there was no change in his condition. His chest rose and fell regularly and evenly. Once, Katherine thought his body shifted slightly, but it happened so fast, she couldn't swear that it wasn't just her imagination. In the full light of day, she could make out more of his injuries, the thick plaster around his right leg, the bandages wrapped tightly around his chest. Strangely, even these wounds were reassuring to her.

Her greatest fear had been that she would not recognize him, that his broken body would have carried him a stranger into a lingering death. But the man she loved was still present in front of her, and she knew, just knew, that if she sat long enough, if she just talked quietly to him for enough days, he would come back to her.

Several days passed. It was Sunday.

Katherine woke up early, feeling little different from when she had fallen asleep. Her first thought, as always, was to check on Ry. The nurse had even let her help change the dressings on Ry's arms the previous day. He still rested as she had left him the night before, breathing, wounded, and unconscious. Another quiet day of hope had begun.

As with each other day, her mind slowly turned from the man in the bed in front of her to her own future, as it had to. Her court date awaited, looming dark and sinister, on Wednesday. She knew it was possible that the court might remand her into custody pending trial in three days time. She could lose her freedom in a heartbeat. What then? Who would watch over this man?

On other fronts, Jackie had met several times with the lawyer, but Katherine had yet to sit down with her to sort through the details. She didn't know yet whether she would even have an attorney to represent her in court. At this rate, the court would have to appoint one for her, as no one would touch her case. Going up against the firm was like dousing your career with gasoline and lighting a match. There was nothing to gain, and everything to lose.

If only the lawyer would look at their documents, at the hard evidence, for a few minutes, they could blow the case wide open, she was sure. Ry's life had to mean something. His actions had to save her future. Anything short of complete vindication would be a travesty.

Katherine was so lost in her thoughts that she didn't notice the change at first. She didn't process the slight movements of the sheets within inches of her face. It wasn't until she rested her hands on the bed that the movements registered, and an electric shock of happiness surged through her.

The sheets were moving. Her eyes scanned frantically across the cotton creases, seeking out the source of the movements. He was moving. She stood, leaning over the bed, reaching out across the sheets. His eyes sought out his face. Were his eyes open? Was he was aware of his surroundings?

At first, Katherine's desperate eyes met only Ry's closed eyelids. She almost turned away for a moment, disappointed, but then it happened. It happened. Almost imperceptibly, one of his eyelids quivered. It remained closed, but then quivered again. Another moment. Another slight movement. This time, in both eyes.

No. It was something else now. His pupils were moving. She could see it, clearly. Under his eyelids, Ry's eyes were making sudden, jerky moves. Jerking toward consciousness, perhaps.

Katherine yearned to reach across, to help in any way that she could, but she held back. Her man was coming back from somewhere far away and he was doing it himself. He had to complete the journey he had begun deep in his unconscious, lost deep in the quiet springs of life. He had left her far behind for almost a week, and was slowly, painfully, returning.

She began whispering to him again, then, like she had been doing for so many hours and days. She would do what she could. She gripped his hand fiercely, daring to hope that his fingers would clasp around hers once more. It had been only days, but each minute of waiting had felt like a lifetime for her.

Behind her, she heard the security guard scramble out the door, looking for the doctor. "Help is here, Ry," she whispered. "Please come back to me. Come back to the world."

He seemed to hear her words in that instant. His head moved slightly, his lips parted, but no sound emerged.

"Ry, I'm here," she tried again. "You're back with us now. I can feel it. Keep traveling on your journey back." His initial, fluttering movements grew stronger as she spoke.

And then, it happened.

Like a moonflower slowly uncurling after a long day of dormancy, Ry's eyelids creased open. His eyes stared vacantly straight ahead for a moment, then began to focus. His brow wrinkled with the effort, and confusion swept over his face.

"Where am I?" he managed to croak in a dry voice.

Katherine started with the basics. "You're in the hospital. You're safe. I'm here with you. Everything is going to be okay."

As she uttered these words, Ry turned his head in the direction of the sound. His eyes once again struggled to focus. Eventually, they settled comfortably and clearly on Katherine's face.

"Katherine," he managed to say. Tears brimmed in his eyes.

"Oh my love, I'm here," Katherine replied, overwhelmed with joy, wiping her own tears from her cheeks. "Don't worry about speaking. Just be alive, please." She could no longer hold back. She leant over the bed, peppering his wounded face with kisses. Her fingers stroked his bandaged forehead and, all the while, she kept up a quiet, whispered flow of words to soothe and heal.

It was not until the doctor touched her arm that she realized she and Ry were no longer alone. Behind her, stood several other doctors and nurses, rushing in to help as news of Ry's return from his coma had spread throughout the hospital.

"I'm still here," Katherine whispered a final time, and then stepped back so that the medical personnel could work. In minutes, all of his vital signs had been double-checked and fluids were taken to be analyzed. Most importantly, the doctor was talking to Ry. After giving him a glass of water, she asked only questions with yes or no answers, resulting in slight nods and smiles from Ry.

As they spoke, he kept looking over the heads of the nurses as best he could, seeking out the one familiar face in the room. The soul who had kept the faith, who had waited for him. His vision was blurred, he could barely move, but he she was there, waiting for him.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the nurses and doctors withdrew. The doctor took Katherine aside momentarily, shaking her head in disbelief.

"It's early days," she said, "but Mr. Austin's brain function seems close to normal. We'll know more when the latest tests come back. We'll leave you two alone now."

Katherine shared a heartfelt thank you with the doctor, before floating across the room to look into Ry's eyes. They were still sky-blue pools, warm and welcoming, into which she could dive. He tried to speak, but she rested her finger gently on his lips to let him know that there was no need. They looked into each others' eyes, speaking without using words, finding each other once more.

Once again, the details of the grim world outside the hospital's doors had been rolled back. The Wednesday court date was a distant place in Katherine's heart and mind. What mattered most to her in that moment was the life in this small square room, bandaged up on the hospital bed next to her.

Or so she thought.

Minutes or hours may have passed, she didn't know, but suddenly the door to the room was flung open. She turned, half out of fear that some overzealous news reporter had found their way down the hospital's hallways. Instead, she found Jackie racing across the room toward her. She was gasping for breath, her face flushed from running. She stopped only inches from slamming into Ry's bed.

"I've got news," she gulped. "Just hang on ... a minute... I got a call." Her eyes were sparkling, her body a blur of excited kinetic energy.

What on earth was this? Katherine wondered. Was Jacks simply amazed at Ry's awakening, or did she have other news to share?

She got her answer soon enough. After taking a brief walk around the room, Jackie walked back to the bed, giving Ry's hand a gentle pat. "It's so good to have you back, Ry," she said. "I wasn't quite sure what we were going to do with this woman without you." She paused for a moment, then continued. "But that's not why I'm here," she said hurriedly. "No, that's not it at all. I got a call."

While they waited patiently for more information, Jackie dug into her bag. "Where did I put it?" she murmured to herself. "Come on, Jacks. Where did it go?"

Ry and Katherine looked at each other as Jackie's rummaging continued. Ry managed another smile. Whatever news Jackie had, it couldn't be much better than the gift they had just been given.

"Got it!" Jackie suddenly exclaimed. She clutched a sealed manila envelope in her hands. "I told you that I got a call this morning... it was from the lawyer we contacted."

"On a Sunday morning?" Katherine was incredulous.

"What can I say," Jackie replied, trying to smooth out the folded paper. "This has got to be hot stuff. Couldn't wait until after coffee and the Sunday Times, I guess. He called and told me he'd had a delivery at his house that was for your eyes only."

Katherine stood, placing her hands on her hips. She was dumbfounded.

"So, here it is." Jackie held out the envelope in her trembling hand. "I think you'll recognize the seal."

Katherine took the envelope, turning it over slowly in her hands. It was from the firm, of course. The familiar blue letterhead and embossed gold seal stared back at her. Her name was laser-printed on the front of the envelope.

Still, she couldn't even begin to guess at its contents. What were they trying now? She sighed, trying to prepare herself for whatever new stage in the saga was about to be ushered in. Following a quick tear, she pulled out a single sheet of paper. Again, the letterhead leered back at her, its precision and professionalism proclaiming the supreme power of the firm.

The Law Offices of Allen, Sheldon, Richards, and Jones

3832 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W.

Washington D.C. 20036

Ms. Jordan,

This is not an offer.

It is clear that an impasse has been reached. One of our members has taken truly regrettable actions. He has acted without our knowledge or blessing. For the pain and suffering it has caused you, we are sincerely sorry.

As a result, you now hold materials in your possession that concern us. We would like them back. In obtaining these papers, we trust that the only reason you acted in this extraordinary manner was in response to the inexcusable actions mentioned above.

Any other explanation would be insufficient and we would need to consider alternative courses of action. We hope that we are making ourselves clear.

This is not an offer. It is a binding agreement with strict, non-negotiable terms.

For our part, the case pending against you will be dropped. Access to your bank accounts and your credit history will be restored. As former employees, you and Jackie Rebens will receive severance packages that will be deposited in your bank accounts on Monday morning. You, Ry Austin and Jackie Rebens will be permitted to live long, healthy lives.

For your part, you will return all materials, both originals and any paper or electronic copies, to your lawyer's residence by this evening. Further, you, Ry Austin and Jackie Rebens will never contact the firm or attorney Stanley Richards again.

The terms of the agreement are simple. If you break the terms of the agreement, now or in the future, or retain a copy of this message, we will track your family and friends and end their lives before we end yours. We trust that we do not need to further illustrate our capacities.

Please sign below to indicate your acceptance and return this form to your attorney by 6 p.m. this evening. Lack of an answer by this time will render this agreement null and void. If you do not sign this agreement or move against us, you and those you love will never be safe again.

____________

Signature

____________

Date

Katherine turned the letter over in her hands, struggling for breath.

It was simply too much.

Just beyond where she stood lay her love, alive. And now this. An ultimatum that offered, at a significant price, to take away all of the pain in an instant.

Could she do it? She wondered. Could she walk away and let the firm win? Wasn't that against everything she knew to be right? They were on the ropes, after all, as the letter implicitly suggested. They claimed otherwise, but in reality they had written to her only because they had been forced to. Only because she and her friends had dared to fight back.

If she gave in now, the world would never know anything more about this secret, far-reaching and immensely powerful group of people. The Otters. She herself would never discover more about the group's role and purpose. Was it much larger than the firm, in fact? Was it perhaps a global conspiracy of some kind? She would never know anything more about a secret world that she had almost, unknowingly, been accepted into and swallowed alive.

She turned the paper over and over in her hands, agonizing over its contents. She had a few hours to decide her future, and perhaps the fate of everyone she knew and cared about as well. Would they follow through on their threats? If she didn't deliver the papers tonight, would she wake up the next morning only to hear the sharp crack of gunfire?

Recent events suggested that they would be true to their word.

She looked up. Looking back later, she couldn't have said why she did so. Perhaps it was a slight shift in the light streaming in through the windows. Perhaps Jackie moved. Her eyes left the paper, and ran directly into two of the faces of the people she cared about most deeply in the world. Both Jackie and Ry were waiting patiently, concern and curiosity evident in their expressions. Neither of them had made a sound while she read the letter. Now, they were waiting to hear what she had to say.

And in that moment, she knew. It wouldn't take hours to make this decision. It would take seconds.

She had come so close to losing Ry only hours earlier. She could never bear to let tragedy brush so close again, not if she had a say in the matter. Imagine losing Ry and Jacks and my dad, she thought. They could leave me standing and destroy my entire world.

She could act now and put everything behind them. Everything. She could leave them to play their sick games among themselves.

"Well, Katherine?" Jackie finally asked. "What did the firm have to say?"

Tears of happiness slid down Katherine's cheek.

"They said we could have our lives back."

Chapter 17

"One step more. Now another. We're heading for those doors."

Katherine never would have believed it was possible. She and Ry now had time. They had weeks together, not hours. It was more time than either of them could ever have hoped for before the accident.

"I think it's better today, don't you?" Ry said. "I'm walking more and not limping as much."

It was another day in Sibley Hospital's rehabilitation center. Katherine's day-to-day routine from when Ry had been in a coma had been transformed. Six weeks had passed and her love was still beating even the most optimistic predictions of his doctors and specialists.

"Do your ribs still ache?"

"Yeah, but not as much." Ry winced as he spoke. Katherine could tell that they likely hurt like hell, but he wouldn't be admitting that to anyone.

It was a weekday morning, and she and Ry were beginning another full day of physical therapy. Each week had brought major improvements. Within days of regaining consciousness, it was clear that Ry had not lost any brain function Within two weeks, he had demanded to leave the confines of his bed behind.

"Mr. Austin, you can't just do that," his doctor protested.

"Either I have your help or I don't," Ry replied. "But I'm getting up. I've got a lot ahead of me, and I want to start now."

He had been transferred to the other end of the hospital, where the clinical white rooms and surgery departments were replaced with floor mats and exercise and training equipment. The rooms were carpeted and brightly colored. It was an optimistic, forward-looking place with staff committed to helping people regain their strength, range of motion, and confidence.

The center had thirty beds. People with minor injuries and low-grade chronic pain came and went on a daily basis. Others were like Ry. In for the longer term. This crew encouraged each other relentlessly, pushing each other to make progress and reclaim their lives. Making it through the sometimes blindingly painful exercises was a team effort. It was an inspiring atmosphere and Ry quickly became an inspiration to staff and patients alike.

"Come on, Zach. Come on, Suzanne," he would call out when his new compatriots struggled to make it through their exercises. "We're all in this together. We can do this. You can do this."

They listened because Ry led by example. His body was the most damaged, his wounds the most comprehensive. Yet his willpower and growing strength were incredible to behold. Six weeks into therapy, Ry was walking. His right leg was still swathed in thick plaster, but with crutches and Katherine's support, he was able to carry his own weight. His doctors said that it should have taken seven to nine months to reach that stage.

Now, Ry was beginning another day's routine, with Katherine by his side. She went home in the evenings now, returning in the morning when visiting hours began. They moved slowly down the hallway from his room to the exercise area, limbering Ry up for what lay ahead.

Following his walk with Katherine, he was in the hands of two physical therapists, or "physical terrorists," as he sometimes half-jokingly referred to them. Each day, the focus of the routine was similar, even as the exercises varied. To rebuild muscle. Flexibility. Fine motor skills. Coordination. Range of motion. Ry's goal, on an ever-approaching horizon, was to restore his body as closely as possible to the finely tuned mountain climbing machine that he had honed over the years.

The sessions were brutal, punishing. Katherine had almost walked out during the first one, unable to watch Ry in such pain. But Ry had talked to her afterward, explaining that he had to work through the pain to make progress, and reminding her that he needed her there, every step of the way.

"It's just pain," he said. "And I know I must seem oblivious to everything else, but your presence makes a huge difference. I know you're there, going through it with me."

And so she had stayed.

After the morning workout came some respite. She helped Ry into a nearby whirlpool bath, wrapping his cast carefully in a specially-designed waterproof bag. The warm water soothed his strained muscles and nerves.

These were the moments they most enjoyed. Hidden in the water, Ry felt he was almost healed, that their lives were almost normal again. He and Katherine talked about little details, the big picture, and everything in between. Katherine finally found out what foods he liked – asparagus was out, artichoke hearts were in – and Ry learned more about the inner strength of the woman he had fallen in love with. They pondered their future together, delighting in the possibilities.

Then, always over too soon, the brief respite ended and Ry returned for his afternoon session. It was a return to the steady rhythms and repetitions of the exercises, followed by a second, treasured spell in the whirling water.

They both wanted so badly to take each other in their arms, but it was simply not possible, yet. They kissed and held hands in the meantime. It would take more time before Ry would be ready for anything more. Despite Katherine's assurances, he wanted his strength to return and his body to be able to move fluidly before they made love.

"I'll be out of here in two more weeks," he said. "Then, we can go from there. We need to take this slow." In truth, he found it incredibly hard to restrain himself from touching Katherine, but his wounds and the center's lack of privacy made him self-conscious.

At night, alone in bed, he imagined how it would be in just a few weeks' time. A cool summer night, the windows open as they lay together. The lingering touches, the soft sound of Katherine's breathing. Katherine, too, often fell asleep at night dreaming about what was to come. She pictured Ry, his body whole once more, taking her in his arms. His touch firm yet soft, confident of her needs.

The therapists had told Ry that he would likely be able to regain much of his former "motor movement," as they insisted on calling it. But not everything would be the way it had been. His climbing ability would be hampered by the extensive damage his knees had suffered. His arm muscles would likely never be able to support the extreme strains created by hanging from the sides of cliffs.

Ry quietly ignored their predictions. He focused on accomplishing each small stage, step by step. First, he had struggled to walk. Now, he struggled to bend and touch his knees. Tomorrow... well, tomorrow would bring new challenges. Above all, he wanted to hold Katherine as he was meant to, to flow into her seamlessly once more, their bodies joining, free from pain, free from inhibition. That drove him through the pain like nothing else. That pushed his body until it gave out from sheer exhaustion. The specialists had not quite figured Ry's level of motivation and drive into their predictions.

Meanwhile, Katherine also had to deal with life outside the hospital. They had managed to contact Ry's family, letting them know that their son was alive and well. They had wanted to fly out immediately, but Ry had asked them to wait.

"I don't want you to see me like this," he told his mother. "Please let me do this on my terms. In a few weeks, I'll be ready."

His parents waited patiently, calling regularly, and Katherine found she soon liked both Ry's father and mother. His mother was talkative where his father was quiet, reticent, but both cared deeply about their son. They even called her at home occasionally in the evenings, to ask her opinion on their son's progress. Before long, they were talking like old friends.

"We can't wait to meet you," his mother said to her one night on the phone. "We've heard so much about you, about Ry's beautiful and whip-smart girlfriend. Ry is just crazy about you. And I've told him, he needs to bring you to Colorado for a visit."

Despite the miles, Katherine blushed. She was thrilled that Ry's parents were so warm and caring. "I've never been out to Colorado," she replied. "I've only ever seen the Rockies from a plane window. I would love to come and visit."

"Perhaps sooner than you think," his mother said mysteriously. "Sooner than you think."

And so the weeks flew by.

If Katherine had been worried, her mind was eased almost immediately after she had delivered the papers to her lawyer's home on that climatic Sunday afternoon.

"You must have friends in very, very high places," her lawyer said after opening his front door. "I'll remember this situation for a very long time."

The next morning, her bank accounts were functioning, her credit history restored. An unlisted $250,000 deposit – the firm's severance payment, she assumed – had been credited to her savings account. Similar deposits showed up in Ry and Jackie's accounts, she learned later, while Ry was informed by hospital staff that his medical bills were being taken care of by an anonymous organization.

Similarly, court papers were delivered to her at the hospital the following afternoon, declaring that all charges against her had been dropped. In return, Katherine declined to press charges against the "friend" who had broken into her home. The newspaper coverage of the firm's purported financial crisis vanished. The pieces fell into place so quickly that it almost took her breath away.

They were safe, the details taken care of, and she could focus her energies on helping Ry regain his strength. From there, everything would take care of itself. The choices facing her and Ry now were wonderful. They had each other, and they could do anything. Jackie seemed ecstatic as well. She was looking to change careers, moving into social networking. "I like the idea of bringing people together," she said. "It's such a refreshing idea after the legal world, where everyone is working to beat the other guy at all costs."

At the end of Ry's seventh week of rehabilitation, she joined him and Katherine for an occasion they had all long been waiting for. It was Sunday afternoon, and the physical therapists had indicated that when Ry was ready, he could walk outside.

Ry's eyes were afire with determination. "It's one more step down the path," he said. "Time to leave these rooms behind and get back out there in the world."

So, accompanied by the two women, he swung on his crutches toward the bright sunlight. Katherine walked ahead, holding the door for him, and that was it. That wasn't so difficult, he thought. Just a few steps and I'm back in the world. A few more steps and I'll be running.

From the moment he left the building, he was nearly overwhelmed by the newness of what would normally have been ordinary smells. The lingering sweetness of recently cut grass, the honeyed scent of nearby honeysuckle vines enlivened his soul, feeding his drive, his quest to restore his body.

None of them noticed a shiny blue sports utility vehicle as it pulled up in a nearby parking lot. Jackie was the first to notice that there was a man running toward them, waving his hands in the air.

"Dude!" the man shouted, his long mane of blond hair bouncing in the air. "Ry, man, it's me!"

"Ry, I think that man knows you," Jackie said, pointing over his shoulder. "And he looks extremely excited to see you."

Ry turned to see his friend Cobie bounding across the sidewalk. Stunned, a broad smile broke across his face. "Come here, man," he shouted joyfully. "I can't quite make it over there yet." It was definitely his best friend from home. The same loping walk, the same goofy grin. He hadn't changed a bit.

"Am I allowed to hug you, or what?" Cobie asked, gesturing at Ry's crutches.

"Gently, man. In a few weeks, we can wrestle or go mountain biking." Ry laughed.

The two men embraced, and then Cobie took a step back to examine his friend. He looked tired, worn out, but the familiar fire was still alight in those crystal blue eyes. He knew in an instant that Ry would be fine. His cross-country trip had been worth it.

"What are you doing here?" Ry asked, delighted. "You didn't drive here, did you?"

"Heck yes, I did. Four days of nonstop hauling ass since I left Colorado." Cobie took a small bow as he spoke. "Everything was fine until I hit traffic in this snarled-up town of yours."

Caught in the moment, Ry suddenly realized that he and Cobie were speaking as if Jackie and Katherine were invisible. "Cobie, let me introduce you to Jackie Rebens, one of my close friends," he said.

The two strangers smiled at each other and shook hands. "It's nice to meet you," Jackie said. "We've heard some pretty interesting stories about you."

"Well, hopefully now I'll be able to turn the tables a little bit," Cobie replied, grinning. "I've got some good stories about this man here as well."

"Yeah, right," Ry cut in gently. "Over my dead body. And this..." he paused, "is Katherine."

"It's great to meet you, Cobie," she said, smiling. "We were going to walk inside and sample some of the hospital's remarkably untasty cuisine. Would you like to join us?"

"Maybe for a minute or two," came Cobie's curious reply, "but we don't have much time to waste, you know."

Jackie, Ry and Katherine stared at the man in confusion. What was he talking about?

"Well, I know that you know nothing about this," he continued. "A slight technical detail. I've hatched a plan to get you all to move out to Colorado. At least for awhile. Seems like everything's gone south around here. New place, new vibe."

The trio simply stared at him. He could see their minds struggling to process his words. "I'm just going to keep talking until someone says something," he continued. "Ry, I figure you might need to talk to your doctors, make sure that you can make the trip. Jackie and Katherine, you'd need maybe a week to pack stuff or put it in storage. And then, we should be good to go, don't you think?"

Katherine was the first to speak. "One minor question," she said. "What are you talking about?

"What does it sound like? Let's hit the road. Move on. Find the future, all of that good stuff. I'm here to propose that you three move out west."

Katherine's mind initially protested strongly as he spoke. What about your life here? What does this man think he's talking about?

But another voice was speaking to her now, louder than the first. How wonderful... it was saying... why not?... that could really work out. Then her mind replayed her earlier conversation with Ry's mother. So, Ry's parents were in on this as well. How fantastic, she thought.

"Don't think about it," Cobie said suddenly. "Then you might not go. We're just going to have to do it. I have to admit I'm being a little selfish, but there it is."

"Selfish how?" Jackie asked.

"Well, I figure it would be amazing to share Colorado with you and Katherine and see Ry back on his home turf," Cobie replied. "But I was also thinking that this was too good an opportunity to pass up. Two high-powered women, and this guy here? Sounds like we've got a business to put together."

"Whoa there, buddy," Ry replied. "You're way down the highway. I'm taking things one step at a time here." But he was smiling as he spoke. As Ry looked around the group, he saw that Jackie was smiling as well and Katherine's eyes were sparkling.

From where Cobie was standing, the answer was written brightly across their faces. He couldn't believe it. His plan was working!

"I'll go talk to those doctors," Ry said. "It's about time they took off this cast, anyway."

"I'll look into shipping and storage options," Jackie volunteered. "And I should be able to lease out my condo."

"I'm in," Katherine said, bursting with excitement. "It's time to move on. It's time for all of us to move on. I'll work on leasing out my place as well. And I hope it's okay if my dad comes out to visit."

Chapter 18

"There's just a little snow on tops of the peaks. You really have to see the mountains in the winter to get the full effect."

Cobie was talking over his shoulder to Katherine in the back seat of his Jeep, but she was only barely paying attention to what he was saying.

All around them, the sprawling, towering spires of the Rocky Mountains soared into the sky. From the plane window years earlier, she remembered, the mountains had been beautiful in a calmer, smoother way, like a landscape painting. Now, heading west from Denver on I-70, Katherine was aware of the violence with which these massive ridges and peaks must have ripped upward from the Earth millions of years earlier. All around her, it seemed like the Earth had tilted. Only minutes earlier, the flat plains surrounding Denver had disappeared, the highway snaked sharply into the foothills, and now full-fledged mountains appeared in the distance. Lush green meadows flashed past and bubbling streams poured down nearby gullies. It was breathtaking.

Next to her, Jackie was having a similar reaction. She was in awe. To Cobie and Ry in the front seats, however, the majesty merely meant that they were nearly home.

Two hours later, they were there, pulling off of the interstate onto a network of small valley roads. Cobie guided the Jeep toward its final destination, pointing out the local supermarket and pizza place.

"This is where my folks live," Ry called out a few miles later. "We've made it."

As the truck slowed to a stop, Katherine couldn't wait to get out, to breathe the mountain air, to meet the parents of the man she loved. Her feet had barely touched the driveway gravel when the front door of the ranch house in front of them opened and Ry's parents ran out to greet them.

"Oh, you've made it," they cried. "We've been counting the hours." They huddled around Ry where he sat in the Jeep, looking in on their son, who had been from life to near-death and back since they had last seen him.

"You look good, son," his father said. "You'd never know how much you'd been torn up two months ago."

As Katherine looked over at them, she realized how right Ry's father was. Ry had come a very long way. Under his clothes, of course, were the scars that would never go away. Internally, though, his body had largely healed. His ribs were no longer bandaged, his face was almost back to its usual friendly cast, and his leg was now in a small, mobile cast that allowed him to walk without crutches.

Katherine turned away from the family reunion to enjoy the moment. She took in the amazing view, trying to take in all of the beauty that surrounded her. The Austin ranch was at the end of a long, broad valley, hemmed in both sides by forested mountain ridges. From where she stood, at the end of the long driveway that sloped uphill to the ranch, no other homes were even visible. The house itself was palatial, yet still seemed to blend effortlessly into the landscape, with a wraparound porch that extended into a large vegetable and flower garden. Broad meadows filled with yellow, purple and orange wildflowers extended in all directions, extending to fenced boundaries edged by the dark green of fir and spruce trees. Part of the property was fenced for horses, Ry had said, but most of the nearly three hundred acres was left as open pastureland. He had promised to take her horseback riding, and give her a proper tour when they had settled in.

A large cottage stood to the left of the house – the guest house where she and Jackie would live for the time being. Cobie and Ry were planning to share a more rustic cabin set back on a distant hill, near the horse barns.

As she opened the Jeep's back door and stepped out, a hand gently tapped her on the shoulder. She turned in surprise, running straight into Ry's father.

"It's nice to finally meet you, young lady," he said in a dry western drawl. "Thanks for taking care of our boy."

"I love your boy, Mr. Austin," she replied boldly. "So it was my pleasure. Thank you for having us out to stay."

"Ah, that's nothing," he said, smiling. "You all can stay here as long as you see fit, until you figure out what comes next."

As he spoke, Ry's mother walked over and echoed his words. "That's about right," she said, reaching out to hug Katherine. "We're here as a base for anything you might need."

Everyone moved inside, leaving the Jeep and their small trailer to be unpacked later. After a tour of the house came dinner, as the late afternoon sun disappeared behind the mountains. It was Katherine and Jackie's first night in Colorado, and they were completely enthralled by its charms.

"You know, Jacks, at the moment I just don't mind too much what happens next," Katherine said to her friend when they were alone later that night in the cottage. "Having space and time to breathe used to be a luxury. Now, out here, it seems like a giant opportunity."

"No arguments here. I still like the idea of the four of us working together, if we could swing it," Jackie nodded her head vigorously as she spoke. And I'm thinking I might like the idea of Cobie and me working together as well..." her voice trailed off suggestively as she spoke.

"I knew it!" Katherine could barely keep her voice down. "I've been watching you. Seems like there might be some chemistry there?"

"Could be." Jackie laughed and winked at her friend. "Fingers crossed. Meantime, looks like and Ry are on the fast track."

"What do you mean?" Jacks' comment caught Katherine by surprise.

"All those not-so-subtle references from Ry's parents at dinner? To future plans and wedding bells? They've barely met you, and they want you in the family already! I think they're trying to corral you like those horses they run out back."

Katherine had to laugh. It was true – subtlety had not been Ry's parents' greatest strength since they arrived. Still, she found their attention and interest flattering.

"Well, I think we'll need to keep them on their toes for a while then, Jacks. I wouldn't want to jinx whatever is coming next."

Her words rang true in her heart. She and Ry still had not had much of a normal life together. Now that he was well on the road to recovery, there was no need to rush. Her heart still melted when she looked at him. She loved his quirks, his sweetness, his inner strength. And she knew that he felt the same way about her. That wouldn't go away.

Now, all they needed was time. Everything would follow from that. And in the short term, she and Jackie and Cobie and Ry were on the verge of creating a strong partnership, ideas about how they might all work together had been bubbling up ever since Cobie's arrival on the scene. Now, Washington, D.C. felt like a recently finished chapter of her life. For Katherine, final closure had come before they left the city, during the crazy days of packing up their lives.

Checking Washington Post headlines on her iPad one morning, the news made her flinch. "Corruption Uncovered by Junior Partner at City Firm: Senior Partner Unexpectedly Fired" ran the headline. Underneath the byline, a few words filled the space between online ads. It was small story in the Metro section, relegated to a quiet, unnoticeable death. Katherine never read beyond the headline itself. She felt nothing. So, Stanley Richards had taken the fall. The mastermind had become the victim. His career would be over, she knew. He would be shunned. Wellsey would be the fresh face on the scene.

At that moment, Katherine truly turned the page. A new chapter awaited. In particular, now that they had arrived out west, there was a pressing detail that needed to be written on a fresh page. She had almost forgotten in the rush of meeting Ry's parents and unpacking. She and Ry had a fundamental need. After two months of waiting and promising, they needed to return to each other, to gaze into each other's souls and linger there. They needed to bring their bodies together in physical and spiritual union. They hungered for each other. It was time.

The following morning, Ry's words came to her as if from a dream. It was early, the sun barely lighting the sky, when she heard his whispered voice by her bedside in the cottage. "It is time, Katherine. It is time."

She awoke to find Ry kneeling next to her, his familiar words echoing back to the cliffs of Harper's Ferry. His eyes sought out hers, and she knew. Throwing the veil of sleep aside, she nodded. "I'll be outside in a minute," she whispered back, running her finger along his cheek. She took a quick shower, put on a dress, put her hair in a ponytail, slid on her hiking boots, and was out the door in minutes.

She had been saving the dress for the occasion. A light-yellow cotton slip that rested softly on her naked brown skin, the summery dress came down to just above her knees. A quick look in the mirror, a glance at the curve of her hips and breasts lightly outlined in the delicate cloth, and she knew she was ready.

Stepping outside into a peaceful summer morning, she found Ry zipping up a small backpack. "Is everything in there?" she asked, surprised and pleased by his preparedness.

"I think so," he replied. "And if not, I don't think it really matters much, do you?" With a sweep of once-again strong arms, Ry slid Katherine close to him, feeling her warmth pulsing through the dress. "You look beautiful," he said.

Katherine's eyes smouldered as she kissed him. She said nothing. It was time.

In fact, time seemed to slow as she closed the door behind her. Her senses were heightened, electrified in the early morning air. It felt like she could see every blade of vibrant green grass, every pebble on the ground. She felt like she could drink in the few early rays of sunlight that had pierced the valley. Each step she took could be savored, leading on and on, to another step, and then another, leading eventually to where they would be together.

Katherine followed Ry as he led her along a narrow path through the ranch's western meadows. Waist-high grasses parted as they walked, grazing her bare legs. As they descended a gradual slope, the horizon was lost in the grass. Katherine could see nothing but millions of thin stalks waving in the slight morning breeze. Aside from the buzz of an occasional insect, they were completely and utterly alone.

Their daydreams were coming true. Surrounded by a few solitary trees, they were alone in their own private meadow. Ry stopped and took off the backpack, pulling out a large plaid blanket that he laid on the ground. There were no words, only longing glances between the couple. Ry took out the lunch he had prepared and placed it to one side. Two bottles of water followed, and the backpack was empty.

This time, it was Ry who led Katherine to the ground. They sat, facing each other, waiting for the moments to begin. Ry slipped his hands under the thin straps of Katherine's dress, tugging them gently off her shoulders. She stood briefly as Ry removed the soft yellow cloth. Underneath was nothing, and Ry's strong hands went to work.

He started slowly, attending to her arms and feet. She begged for mercy, but he merely nibbled on her ankles and massaged her hands and fingers. In revenge, she tore off his shirt and then barely touched him, passing over his skin like the wind.

"Ry," Katherine moaned, "Are we forever?" She knew the answer, but wanted to hear his words.

"As long as there is a sky and an Earth and a sun and a moon," came his answer.

As she gave herself to him, she never even noticed a plain and obvious fact – Ry's physical rehabilitation was complete. He moved fluidly over her, like they had both dreamed might once again be possible one day, stopping to lick the soft blonde hair that ran across her belly, then shifting to part her lips with his hot, moist tongue. He teased, he tantalized, while the sun rose in the sky, warming the earth beneath them.

"Please, Ry," she begged. "Come inside me... I'm ready."

For the moment, he resisted. Barely. "I've still got some work to do, my love," he whispered. Ry turned to the backpack, drawing out a folded red bandanna. Through the haze of her erupting passion, Katherine saw the cloth and sighed in relief. It was almost time.

Ry carefully and gently placed the bandanna over her eyes, whispering words of love as he did so. He could tell that Katherine was about to explode, as was the heat rising from deep within him. He ripped off the rest of his clothes and savored the moment, his body able to respond as he had dared hope might be possible again one day.

It was time for a small erotic surprise, time for a shock that would ripple through Katherine's body. According to their imaginings and daydreams over the past months, now was the time to bring their bodies together. But Ry had one final ingredient to add to their fiery mix. He reached for one of the water bottles, loosening its cap. He poured the cold liquid over Katherine's body. The fluid gushed across her breasts, washing down her soft skin, clear droplets sprinkling across her thighs and stomach.

She had barely finished gasping for breath when Ry made his move. He slid on top of her, the liquid heating the contact of their two surging bodies. Ry slid the blindfold off Katherine's face so that they could once more look into each other's eyes.

"I loved that," whispered Katherine. "But I think I love this more."

Ry went back to work on her body. His warm kisses swarmed over her chest. Sometimes, he lingered, his mouth sucking and swirling. Then, he parted her legs gently with his hands and his fingers traced gentle paths down and around the soft pink flesh of her sex. His fingers moved rhythmically inside her, rocking, reaching, soothing.

Katherine began quietly moaning as their love-making continued, losing all track of the world around her. Ry poured the second bottle of water over her, soaking her completely. When Ry's massive warmth moved over her again, this time he stayed. Parting her legs further with his hands, his hips moved against hers and his mountain ridge slid deep inside her fertile valley.

There they stayed, together, holding each other for a long moment, until finally, completely, they abandoned themselves. It was time.

Their muffled cries carried out over the meadow, mingling with the bird calls and cricket chirps that surrounded them. Minutes and then hours passed, but little changed where they lay. The moved slowly at times, then fast, consumed by passion; their bodies' capacities proved to be limitless. They climaxed together, rested for a few minutes, and came together again and again.

They both watched each other as they moved together as one, amazed once more by how well they fit together, how tight and soft and right if felt. Katherine saw her smooth skin vanish into Ry's body, her thighs gripping his hips as if it was always meant to be. Ry noticed how the curve of Katherine's hips fit perfectly against him, rocking slightly, and how her taut, wet skin arched to meet his chest.

The sensations were so much more than they had imagined. There were no worries to hold them back. Heightening their passion and their freedom, they made love to celebrate the dawn of a new chapter in their lives. They made love to welcome each other into a new future. They made love to make permanent everything that had developed between them. From those moments on, it would always be the right time.

Late in the afternoon, as the sun finished its day's journey overhead, they finally began to slow. The future was beckoning. "Isn't everyone going to be a little concerned about where we've been?" Katherine asked as they dressed. "It has been most of the day, after all."

Ry smiled broadly. "I wouldn't worry," he replied. "I think they probably know exactly where we've been." He took her hand and turned toward the path that would take them back to the ranch.

He is so free here, so at peace, Katherine thought. His face so alive with happiness, his body once more able to lead the way without restraint.

As Ry led Katherine down the path, he looked back over his shoulder at her, marveling again at her beauty. She looks like the dawn of a new day, he thought as they walked. Lovelier than all of the wildflowers all around us. I must be the luckiest man on Earth.

And so they walked. As the ranch appeared in the distance, they could see Jackie and Cobie riding horses on a distant hillside, following a mountain brook to the tree line. Ry's parents were mixing drinks and grilling steak and corn out on the deck. Katherine and Ry's thoughts flowed together naturally, and everything felt right, in a profoundly new way.

The late-day sun cast their silhouettes far across the field in front of them, leading them on. As the grass rustled in the early evening breeze, the meadows faded in the dusk behind them. Katherine and Ry walked hand in hand into their new lives.
*****

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jasmine Winterson is the author of three novels. She lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.

If you enjoyed Climbing to Freedom, check out Roost and Power Play, the books in Ms. Winterson's Uncertain Ground series.

*****

Praise for Jasmine Winterson's novel Roost

"Winterson's novel is swiftly paced and engaging thanks to the intriguing mystery at its core ... this is enjoyable fiction that offers a fascinating view into life in rural Colorado." – Publishers Weekly

"A strong second novel by Ms. Winterson!" – Bibliophilic Book Blog

"An easy, fun and exciting read. It made my heart race." – Interested in All Blog

"I've never been to Colorado ... I felt like I was there experiencing the natural beauty of Grand Valley ... I plan to check out the other book in the series." – I Feel So Unnecessary Blog

*****

ROOST (preview)

Chapter 1 ~ Falling Flat

She had seen some crusty old-timers get hopping mad, all bloodshot eyes and fists clenched after nights of fruitless coyote hunting or peeling rubber after rustlers cannon-balling through Grand Valley. She'd seen others pull compassion out of a hat during drought, giving away the last of a poor harvest to families in need. Unpredictable as a rule – it was a crapshoot at best figuring out whether kindness, the back hand of Old Testament justice, or occasionally both was waiting – the old-timers did have one thing in common. They could all spot bullshit before it drove over the horizon.

"Young lady, if I had the time and inclination, I could set you straight on a few things," she heard him say, leathery hands on his hips, his blue eyes hard as flint. There had been no need to wind down the window and catch his words when he finally fastened on to them. Still, she had nothing better to do.

Anna felt a little sorry for her new employer. She couldn't fault the earnestness or desire to save the world. Problem was, this part of the world didn't need saving. If brushfires were raging, the earth opened up and a plague or two swept through, Mac Birnum still would not be looking for help. I offered to talk to him for you.

"You've come out a good ways and I appreciate that," he continued. "I'm old fashioned. Been taking my livestock to market since before you were born. Since before your parents were born, for that matter. I do not require your services."

Finally... the slam, Anna thought. He took his sweet time working around to it. Katherine's shoulders were slumped, her ponytail fraying as she walked back to the pickup. Anna had made sure she was driving – no need to die in a fiery wreck to end the day. She watched as her boss walked around to the passenger side. The door heaved open with its usual tired sigh and she stepped up into the cab.

"That was a complete success." Her voice flat, Katherine tossed her clipboard onto the floor and stretched out her long, limber frame. In the right clothes, she could pass for a ranch hand. She just needed to lose the clipboard... and the back east attitude, Anna thought. Scuff up some boots and denim. Start listening instead of talking her way into dead ends.

The engine coughed to life as Anna turned the key. They bounced and jolted down the rutted farm road, the truck's ailing blue exhaust trailing behind them. Unsure ground here, Anna thought. Should I say something? Mac and I go back a ways. It was her first full week on the job. She wasn't looking for it to be the last.

She pointed the truck south on the state road, driving against the steady flow of afternoon traffic chugging out of Grand Junction. Now isn't the time or place. Her boss was staring out at the fields and farms flying past, her brow furrowed. Flying Turtle Dairy. Swan Song Farm. Kettle Orchards. Westbrook Nurseries.

When Katherine reached for the phone resting on the truck's dashboard, Anna knew who she was calling. Whoever said no news is good news, she thought, didn't know what they were talking about.

"Hey Jacks," Katherine said after a moment. "We're heading back. No dice with Birnum." She traced patterns on the window glass with her fingers as she spoke. There was no doubt – it was a striking landscape. Anna could almost read her mind. The fertile green fields. The small working farms. The desert rock of the Bookcliffs and the Grand Mesa in the distance. It seemed like a little slice of Eden, tucked away on the Western Slope. After several decades, Anna's eyes read the landscape differently.

"No luck there, either," Katherine was saying, her voice low and strained. "We're not making any headway."

Anna tried hard to focus on driving. Don't get involved. She turned left on Route 50 at the light in Loma, leaving the farm fields behind. She thought ahead to the evening. Pick up Paul from Francine's. Fix dinner. Spend a few minutes at the table. Make sure he was doing his homework. Get to class. Head home. Pay the babysitter. Go to bed. Start all over again. She felt tired just thinking about it. That was why this had to be a straight shot, nine to five, answering phones and running errands. In and out. The last thing she needed was a job like her last one, or the ones before that. But I still need to know what they're thinking, she thought. It couldn't hurt to listen in. Her fingers relaxed on the steering wheel.

"They're just not getting it," her boss was saying. "You'd think they'd be lining up. If I was a farmer in the valley, I'd be looking for better ways to reach my customers." Her tone had changed from frustration to exasperation and was headed for rightful indignation. She was singing to the choir now.

"I know." Katherine responded after a pause, jabbing a finger sharply in the air in front of her as she spoke. "Exactly, that's what I mean." The choir was clearly swelling on the other end of the line as well.

"We're not going anywhere. The Grand Valley Farm Connection is here to stay," Katherine said a few moments later. It was the crescendo, sure to be followed by applause.

But... something different was happening. There was more quiet discussion and then her boss turned in her direction, muting the phone with her hand. "What was your last job again, Anna?" she asked. "Before this?"

"An organizer, for the Colorado Migrant Worker Coalition." Anna replied. Her body tensed. The job had been rewarding. And worn her out completely.

After that, for several miles, there was little that Anna could make out in their conversation. Katherine "mmh-hmmed" several times. Once she said, "You're right, Jacks, she might be ... In ways we hadn't ..." More mmh-hmms followed.

Uh-oh. Anna's fingers resumed drumming on the steering wheel. Where was this heading, she wondered. It didn't sound good. She listened closely for any other tidbits. Her fingers drummed faster on the steering wheel, switching from a U2 anthem to Pearl Jam. They shot through Fruita and hit the I-70 business loop in record time. She accelerated west on North Avenue, moments from the office. What were they brewing up?

A few seconds later, about the same time that Katherine looked over in mild concern at the speedometer, Anna saw flashing lights in the rear-view mirror. She downshifted and slowly pulled into a restaurant parking lot.

What a crap sandwich.

"Sorry, Katherine." Anna gestured over her shoulder in answer to raised eyebrows from her boss. They watched the approaching lawman through the truck's rear window.

Katherine snapped her phone shut. "No worries," she replied. "It's the perfect end to a perfect day."

No worries? Whatever her boss said would freak her out, Anna realized. Angry response = job in jeopardy. Casual response = something larger afoot. Either way, she had to deal with the man wearing a state trooper's hat and metallic sunglasses outside her pickup door. She dug for her license and rolled down her window.

"I wouldn't have thought a '70s F-Series Supercab could haul ass like that." He leaned in, nodding at her passenger.

"I'm sorry, sir?"

"Your pickup, ma'am. I thought I recognized you. Thought I could do you a favor before you blew by the trap several blocks down."

Recognition dawned and her face flushed scarlet red. "Rafael, that's you behind those shades?" Anna couldn't help laughing. She smacked the steering wheel with the palm of her hand in delight. She hadn't seen her downstairs neighbor in uniform. She might perhaps have noticed, in passing once or twice, that he was a good-looking guy, parking his vintage Honda Hurricane or out taking a walk. They chitchatted sometimes at the apartment pool.

"I'm going to let you go with a warning this time, Ms. Garcia. I suggest you get your vehicle checked out. It shouldn't be able to move like that."

"Thank you, officer. I mean, Rafael. I mean, you know what I mean. Sir." Tongue-tied. Great. Apart from family and Tariq – who was more of a walking curse than a man – she hadn't spared a thought for a male of the species in months.

"Have a good day now."

"You've made that possible." She tried out a sultry tone, batted her eyelids, experimented with lightly tossing her sandy brown hair so that it cascaded across her shoulders. If her neighbor slash stud cop noticed, he showed no sign. He turned and walked back to his bike. She wound up her window, slid her license back in her pocket. Making a living as a tired caricature in someone's romance novel didn't appeal much anyway, she decided.

Anna pulled the truck back out into traffic. "Do you know everyone in town, or am I just catching you on a statistically remarkable day?" her boss asked.

Anna smiled and tried to remain calm. I just need to make it back to the office without Katherine springing some half-baked idea on me, she thought. She and Mac Birnum had a history, it was true. She'd grown up sweating in those Arcadian fields that Katherine and her partner kept going on about. She knew most folks along that entire road, all the way up to Rangely. She knew most farmers in the western part of the state, for that matter. She and Rafael meeting up, though, was just coincidence. One she could get used to.

"How are your boyfriend's plans for the bike store working out?" she asked. It was a desperate, in-your-face attempt at distraction. Her boss looked worryingly like she was mulling something over once again. Whatever Katherine and her partner – her bosses, Anna had to remind herself – had been talking about earlier, it involved her. It sounded like they were thinking about rapidly expanding her job description.

Silence. No nibble on that line. Time to bait some other hooks and keep fishing. Start innocent – favorite movie stars, weekend plans. Then, go for what she had been wanting to ask since day one. Why did four people decide, out of the blue, to move to Grand freakin' Junction, Colorado?

She didn't get a chance. Jam band noise blasting from a tailgating jeep trailed them for several blocks, wiping out the possibility of conversation as well as basic thought processes. In no time, they were pulling up out front of the offices of the Grand Valley Farm Connection. There was the garish green and white barn-and-farm logo on the front door, the outrageously chipper tag line – "We Bring Food and People Together in All Weather" – clashing with the dull brick of the converted medical office building. They worked out of a former dentist's office on the first floor.

Almost home. Keep it casual.

Katherine tugged on the door handle and stepped out of the truck. She poked her head back in the truck, beaming.

"Anna, Jackie and I would like to bring you on as a partner," she said. "Frankly, I'm not sure how we're going to get this thing off the ground without you."

"Wha –" Anna's heart sank.

"Let's talk more tomorrow. I know you've got to get home. Say hi to Paul. And thanks for driving." Katherine fluttered a quick wave and closed the door.

Damn. Anna threw up her hands in frustration. She sat there, waiting for the universe to step in and somehow rewind and fix the end of their conversation. No dice, indeed. She reluctantly shifted the truck into gear and pulled away. Her boss had played her perfectly. I knew I should have moved to Albuquerque.

Stepping inside the door, Katherine looked around at the old waiting room and sighed. Worn red carpet underfoot. The once-white walls were turning gray and brown with dirt and dust. A tapestry from the previous tenant hung on the far wall. Circus animals were marching along a mountainside. They were headed for some kind of temple in the distance. Or maybe it was a volcano. They looked happy enough in their travels, but they had a long way to go.

Jackie popped up suddenly and leaned out the old receptionist's window. "And how can we help you today, madam?" she asked, feigning deep interest in her imaginary patient's dental future. "A cleaning? No, wait... a root canal?"

"It felt like I had one with Mac Birnum today," Katherine replied, walking across the room to join her friend. "I was pulling teeth all afternoon." She cast a weary eye over the rest of the office. No sign of the men having been there. Not sure I need to see them right now. There were three rooms in the back. Whoever had up and pulled out of Dodge before they leased the place had been in a strange, partial kind of hurry. The back room – now their all-in-one kitchen, photocopying and storage area – had been cleared out completely. The middle room still had the red padded swivel chair in place, awaiting its next victim. The room on the right retained its blinding overhead dental lamp. A shoulder-height beige file cabinet full of Entertainment Weeklies and People magazines stood in one corner. A wire mesh trash can stuffed with puffy animal stickers and soft, palm-sized baseballs and basketballs was in the other.

Ry and Cobie had moved their stuff in there. Not that it amounted to much more than a desk with piles of bike magazines, a beat-up television, and a video game console. Their office did have one unique feature – a window, looking out over an empty parking lot and yet more abandoned office space. The downtown hospital had moved south of the river, to Orchard Mesa. Katherine had seen the commercials and breathless coverage. Lots of burnished wood and slate flooring. Beautifully lit hallways leading to beautiful diagnoses. A news segment showing what had been left behind, she thought, now that might make some real news.

"What a day," she muttered. "Working hard and getting nowhere fast." It had started with a call from her dad. The basics: long-lost wife and mother returning from arctic research station, seeking long-abandoned ex-husband for dinner and companionship. Offer accepted. Visit to daughter in Colorado postponed. You couldn't make this stuff up.

"I understand, dad, of course I do." Katherine had done her best to mask her feelings. Her mother was completely unworthy of the hope and excitement in his voice. "Really, it's not a problem. Let me know when you have new dates for flying out."

The outcome, she knew, was guaranteed – her dad would be out to visit with his heart in a sling and her mother would be back on a boat to study more polar bears.

She tossed her keys and phone and bag down on an empty part of the speckled pressboard countertop that wrapped around the reception area. Most of the desk space was already covered with Jackie's signature flood of papers, post-its, paper clips, and the occasional unfinished, half-buried snack.

"Looks like you need to take a load off," Jackie said, reaching for a pile of paper near the phone. "Pull up a chair, hoss."

"Wow, Jacks. Hoss?" Katherine gave herself a mock once-over before sitting down. "You really know how to make a girl feel special."

"The lingo might need a little work," Jackie replied, slipping her ever-wayward bangs behind her ears. Maybe just a little. Jackie had committed early on to working on her western ways. It seemed to Katherine like she cooked enchiladas verdes every other night. She wore denim as if it was manufactured fresh daily in her living room and had more plaid long-sleeve western shirts than Annie Oakley, if Annie Oakley could have shopped at Miller's Western Wear.

"Did you hear from Ry?" Jackie asked. She finished shuffling another pile of papers into something resembling order.

"Nothing." Katherine rolled her eyes in mild exasperation. They had been gone ten days. "Heard from my dad, though. He's not coming on Saturday. Mom's back on the scene."

"Your mom? Wow, Katherine. It's been what, a decade? At least?" Jackie asked.

She nodded. The forecast calls for pain.

"I swear, my parents stopped speaking to each other the moment the ink dried on the divorce papers," Jackie said. "You and I, we've got to make sure we never get on either of those merry-go-rounds."

"You know something crazy? I don't think my mom and dad ever actually got divorced," Katherine said. "They've just been separated forever." Hearing her own words made her cringe. Like I'm one to talk about relationship stuff being black and white, she thought. I don't know where Ry and I are in the fairgrounds at the moment. I'm still pulling myself out of the dunk tank.

"That's incredible!" Jackie exclaimed. "I had no idea... I've got to get you drunk sometime and hear all about it."

Katherine smiled. "Yeah, and you can finally tell me about that tattoo."

Jackie blushed a deep red. "Deal... I think, anyway," she replied. "Oh hey, before I forget, Ry left us a message." She reached for the answering machine. After the beep, Ry's rich tenor boomed across the office. "Hey ladies," he said, "Hope all is well. Cobie and I are back from Utah. Well, kind of. We're in Cortez. Everything is going well, so we'll be a few more days. We've met some amazing people. And Cobie taco'd a wheel in Moab. See you soon."

"I swear, pretty soon I'm going to need a dictionary to follow the bike speak," Jackie said.

Katherine didn't respond – her mind had taken off down a different path, only too happy to leave thoughts of Ry and her parents behind. "Jacks, where is Cortez?" she asked. "Is that in New Mexico?" She remembered the name from long ago history classes. A Spanish explorer perhaps, consumed by ambition and looking for streets paved with gold, as usual. The description reminded her of someone in her own past.

"It's in the southwest part of the state, near Four Corners," Jackie replied. "Mesa Verde Country. Another mountain biking mecca."

"Sure seems like there's no shortage of places to worship bikes out here."

"Right? Their research rolls on."

The research. Katherine smiled wryly at the term of art. She and Jackie had the pleasure of paying for oh-so thrilling market research and finding refrigerated storage space and leasing delivery trucks to open shop. Ry and Cobie dusted off their mountain bikes and took a plunge down another gully and tore through more scrub brush to refine their business plan.

"Hey, changing subjects yet again," Jackie said, "how'd it go with Anna?" Her question brought Katherine back from unfolding visions of flying wheels and mesa-top views.

"We may have stunned her into it." Katherine tugged out her hair band and ran her hands through her dry, dusty hair. "I shared our idea as I stepped out of the truck. She had no chance to respond."

"Nice." Jackie reached for another stack of papers. "I didn't know what you were going to say on the phone. I was afraid you'd think I was crazy."

Katherine shrugged. "I'm done ranting about how the world should work." She looked up at the cracked ceiling tiles. "This is clearly not working. Time to try something new." Her voice trailed off.

"You're not sold on Anna as the answer?" Jackie twirled a pen gingerly in her right hand. Horseback riding lessons had rubbed her palms raw.

I'm not sure if there is an answer, Katherine thought. "I like your hunch, Jacks," she replied. "She sure knows people here." But has our greatest asset been hiding in plain sight since last week? I don't know.

"I think she might be special. We just need to be careful."

"Careful?"

"She's got history here. Good and bad." Jackie's pen started to move more rapidly, swirling emphatically through the air. "Remember how badly we wanted out of Washington? How we felt we were trapped in a dead end?"

Katherine flinched. I locked that door and threw away the key. "I guess. What's the connection?"

"She's trying to move on." Jackie put down the pen and looked directly at her. "Like we are."

"Where was that on her resume?" Katherine asked, her face clouding over. "I thought she was a working mom taking night classes at the local community college." Her tone surprised both of them.

"Katherine, all I'm saying is –"

"Point taken, Jacks." Her voice was low and hard. "Anna is looking for a fresh start. And if we don't handle it right, she might move on. Does that about cover it?" She couldn't stop the words from pouring out.

"That's about the size of it." Jackie's response was a whisper.

"I'm with you. Just please don't make that comparison." Katherine looked down. Her hands were shaking. She could feel her pulse surging. Ry was the one who kicked the door open. Jacks has no idea. A panic attack, she realized. That's what this is. I'm not angry. I'm terrified. She bent over, closed her eyes, and focused on breathing. In and out. Steady.

When she opened her eyes, Jackie was gently rubbing her back. "I'm sorry, Katherine," she said. "What you and Ry went through was –"

"No, Jacks," she said quietly. I'm sorry." Breathe deep. "I promised myself I would never look back. Then it all came back up again." She couldn't bring herself to share anything more. Best of intentions, blah blah blah. Ry playing the hero.

"My goodness, Katherine, I'm so sorry. Are you guys okay?"

"I think so." I don't know. It wasn't exactly the high point of their relationship, especially given that he'd tried to play it off as no big deal. "They threw me off a building, Katherine," he said matter-of-factly. "The least I could do was to keep something they value... just in case."

"In case what?" she had asked.

"In case they decide our agreement isn't sufficient. In case they come for us." His words sent a chill down Katherine's spine. But what if they found out? They seemed like people who would notice if carpet fiber was out of place. The absence of vital information that doubled as damning evidence seemed likely to cross their radar. Still, she thought, that doesn't mean I need to freak out at my best friend.

"I was there too, Katherine," Jackie said. "Those were dark times. We don't need to pretend we're living happy rainbow lives in a cloud of pixie dust."

"I know." But I thought we had turned the page. Now I can't be sure. "But neither did I need to bite your head off. Let's take a walk. Get some fresh air."

"You bet." Jackie stood up. In spite of herself, Katherine had to smile. There were the boots. They went everywhere. Dark brown leather, with climbing roses working their way up to just below Jackie's knees.

"What's funny?" Jackie asked, looking around the office for an answer.

"Nothing, Jacks," Katherine replied, but her glance didn't waver. A smile spread slowly across her face.

Jackie looked down and laughed, swiveling one foot and then the other, modeling her most treasured pieces of western gear. "Of course I'm wearing them," she said. "I never leave home without them."

"I had a feeling." Katherine's smile broadened. "Maybe we could grab some dinner as well?" She found her friend's boots strangely reassuring. They were dusty western proof that times had changed. They were waiting for Jackie in an old general store when she drove south to get chiles in Hatch in the fall. She came back a week later with the boots and no chiles, wearing a t-shirt with crossed Colt revolvers across her chest, and a man's first name tattooed somewhere on her body. "It's like Vegas," Jackie told Katherine when she returned. "Except I'll tell you everything."

Talk about change. Katherine had to admit Jackie's boots made her a little jealous. Not that she had a wandering eye or wanted to light out for the territories. But maybe she needed to be the one picking potters' clay out of her fingernails on Monday morning. Or soothing unfamiliar muscles after a kayaking trip. She just didn't want to feel like some kind of imposter, a walk-on in someone else's western.

One step at a time, she reminded herself. Everything we're doing out here is new. Even the fact that ye olde Grand Valley Farm Connection is in the toilet.

As the two women reached the office door, Katherine's stomach growled loudly. "Wow, Katherine," Jackie said, "You know how to make a girl feel special too. Maybe we should skip the walk and find some food."

"Sounds like a plan." She opened the door and they stepped out into the late afternoon sunlight.

"What are you feeling like?"

My turn to toss out some lingo, Katherine thought. "Back to you, Jacks," she said. "Red or green?"

"I like how you think." Jackie replied, sliding on her sunglasses. "I know just the place." The office door swung closed behind them.

The church potluck, please let it be tonight. Let the long red van have come by. May Elsie have bestowed the gift of her companionship on others. Francine opening the door was a good sign. So was the lack of a walker in the hallway. Her son was quietly working at Francine's kitchen table.

In the same instant, she heard a muffled toilet flush and saw Elsie's shawl askew on the back of one of the chairs. No luck with the potluck, Anna thought. She's here. Hide any signs of personal weakness. Bubble wrap all interests. Shields up and man the battle stations. "I'll talk fast," she muttered. Mrs. Bladensworth made slow progress on carpet.

Walking over to the table, she ruffled Paul's hair and planted a quick kiss on the top of his head. "Hey kiddo. Good day at school?"

"Hey mom. It was fine." He didn't look up from his algebra textbook. It passed as a detailed answer from her son these days. Two months into being 13, he was the same great kid, just with 90 percent fewer words.

"Would you like to stay for dinner?" Francine asked, reaching for a ladle. She had walked over to the stove, where the contents of a large cast iron pot were steadily bubbling. "Beef stew and potatoes."

"Goodness, thank you, Francine," Anna replied. "That's very kind. We should probably be going. I've got to get him home and I've got to get ready for class." This was their dance.

"I make it special for Paul. I know how he loves the stew." Francine said.

"You spoil him, and us. But you know we don't mean to impose. You do so much for us." Sometimes they stayed. Sometimes Elsie tipped the scales in favor of a quick exit.

"Please, stop it. You know I love to feed people. Stay."

Even the strenuous rattling of the bathroom doorknob and the cry of the door's hinges would not dissuade her this evening. "Thank you, Francine," Anna replied.

"It's a pleasure... grab some bowls."

Anna opened drawers and reached familiarly in cabinets for the yellow yarn placemats, speckled brown-and white bowls, and a tan pitcher for water. In another couple of decades, Francine's kitchen could be designated as a historic landmark. It was like stepping back into the mid-1970s, from the dark wood cabinets and avocado green refrigerator to the mossy-olive-green dish towels. Patterned with woodland scenes, they hung from wooden pegs on the wall next to the phone. A lone towel with large, psychedelic-looking mushrooms looked like it might have hitchhiked in from the 1960s.

Anna moved carefully and cautiously. The central island behind her obstructed any kind of efficient movement. Standing up suddenly likely meant a cranial collision with the massive silver fruit bowl – now stuffed with partially opened mail and well-aged coupons – that hung overhead. In addition to the four-ring stovetop where the stew was now cooling, most original appliances remained in use, including a tired coppertone double oven and the dented harvest gold dishwasher next to the sink. Above, running along the back of the warm orange formica countertops, a massive black and silver pressure cooker lurked near a matching bread box and a square wooden knife block. Any empty sections of flower-and-fruit wallpaper were filled in with framed pictures of what looked to be beach and farming scenes, made out of grains and dried beans. Anna was never quite sure whether she was looking at an ocean or a field ready for harvest.

She squinted as she walked around setting the table. With light from the room's two windows barely making it past the kitchen table, someone had bravely installed a large, downward-angled band of sparkling, reflective material that ringed the room, masking where the ceiling and walls came together. Covered with red stars and radical geometric shapes, it added a certain interstellar flair. It didn't help with the lighting. On the sunniest day of the year, the room remained in a state of permanent dusk from morning to night. Anna loved it.

"Come and get it." Francine settled the stew pot on a stack of frayed pot holders in the middle of the table.

"Thank you again, Francine." Anna sat down at the table and watched her older neighbor ladle out the soup. Paul stuffed his textbook into his backpack and attacked his bowl with wild abandon.

Anna sighed. No time like the present. "Francine, I was hoping to ask for your thoughts on something." She figured this was as good as the timing was going to get.

"Shoot."

She spoke fast. "I got an offer at my new job today. Things aren't going well. They need a lot of help. And not with the small stuff." Must cover as much ground as I can. She could hear the walker's rubber feet steadily negotiating the living room's thick shag carpet.

"Uh-huh." Francine shook open a napkin and looked over her shoulder. "Mother!" she shouted. "Dinner's ready." No response was expected. Steady walker progress was the only sound from the living room.

"They asked me to be their partner." Anna blew on the still-steaming soup. She savored the texture of the shredded beef and the rich broth as it coursed down her throat.

"What would that be like?" Francine dabbed at her whiskers with a napkin.

"Not sure. If I had to guess, a whole lot of everything. They're on the outside looking in, and they think I'm the way in."

The walker broke the plane of the kitchen doorway. Mrs. Bladenworth surveyed the scene. "Is this about those lesbians again?" the diminutive woman asked loudly. There was nothing wrong with her hearing. Just her mind. "Get clear of them. That's my advice."

"Thank you, Mrs. Bladensworth. It's nice to see you." Anna smiled.

"Bullshit," Francine's mother replied. "Don't try to bullshit a bullshitter." She pulled up to the table and started backing awkwardly into her chair. Everyone knew better than to offer to help.

Okay, Anna thought. Let's try something different. "Tell you what, Hazel. This is now a bullshit-free zone," she said, her hands resting on the table. "I'm not looking for your advice. I need to talk to Francine. I don't have much time before I have to leave for class."

The old lady's face lit up. "That's more like it," she said, rapping the table with her knuckles. "Finally, someone telling me like it is."

Across the table, Francine rolled her eyes. "Mother, eat your soup," she said, trying to look stern.

"Up yours, Francine."

"Mother."

Next to her, Anna noticed that Paul was quietly trying to get her attention. "Are those puppy dog eyes for me?" she asked. "So you can go home and play Halo?"

"I've done most of my homework," he said, speaking into his shirt. A complete, mid-length sentence, thought Anna. Barely intelligible. Still, I'll take it.

"Three or four games, that's it. Just until Kaitlyn gets there."

"Okay, mom. Thanks Francine. Thanks Mrs. Bladensworth."

"You're welcome, Paul," Francine replied. "Fire a bazooka for me, or whatever it is you do in that game. Kill some zombies too."

Paul creased with laughter as he stood up. "There are rocket launchers," he said. "The needler and the battle rifle are the other good weapons. No zombies." He placed his napkin on the table and headed down the hall.

"See you after class," Anna called after him. "I'll be back after ten."

The front door clicked closed. Paul's footsteps faded on the concrete outside.

Anna looked at Francine in amazement. "How do you do it?" she asked. "Those are the most words I've heard from him in months."

"Easy," she smiled. "I'm not his mother... Now, where were we?"

"Oh, right... I was saying that it feels like they're asking me to do some heavy lifting," Anna said. They resumed their conversation over empty bowls. Francine's mother loudly slurped down her stew in the background. "I've done that and gone nowhere before."

"Not sure I remember that."

"You know what I mean."

"There's maybe some distance between saving the world and what you've done. But you're young, Anna. Your work wasn't nothing. It was headed in a good direction." Francine ladled out another go-round of the stew.

"You're kind to say so, Francine. It doesn't feel like that sometimes. I feel like I mostly pissed off a lot of people." She had tried to imagine many times what went on when she pulled up. Lock the doors. Draw the shades. That brown-skinned lady with the green eyes is trouble.

"Making the right people angry can be a good thing. There's families out there with more rights and a living wage because of you."

"You're saying I should give the offer a chance?"

"Only you know if they're worthy."

"They're a little clueless, but the goal is worthwhile. I can get behind people eating more food from the valley."

"Sounds like you might have your answer, then." Francine stood up and walked over to the refrigerator. "Ice cream? Popsicle for the road?"

Anna appreciated the gentle nudge. She looked at her watch. "You're right, Francine. I should be going. Thanks for being my lifesaver... as usual."

"I'm getting all misty over here," Francine's mother said, jumping back into the conversation. "I need to find some tissues."

"Eat this." Francine walked over with two bowls of ice cream, sliding one in front of her mother. "And keep your mouth shut."

Anna placed her napkin on the table, pushed her chair back, and picked up her bag. "Macroeconomics, here I come," she said, headed for the front door. "I can let myself out. Thank you!"

"This doesn't mean you'd be quitting school, I hope," Francine called after her.

"That's not happening." Anna paused in the entranceway. "Two more semesters and I'm there, Francine. I'm seeing it through if it kills me."

"No need for that, honey. Keep on living, please."

"Don't be too hasty, Francine."

"Mother."

"What? There are seven billion people on Earth today. Someone's got to say 'stop' sometime. How nice if some people..."

Anna pulled the door closed, missing their last exchange. She walked quickly, stepping across a mulched flowerbed, past the pool and across the grass to her pickup. She fished out her keys. Time to shift gears once again.

*****

To Read the Rest of Roost and Learn More about Jasmine Winterson, Visit:

www.smashwords.com/profile/view/cameradobooks

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