Firstly, thanks again for all the reviews, and my apologies for the long hiatus. Life en la réalité alternativeis riotous at the moment. But here is your new chap - notice it's at least as long as the previous ones, to make up for the wait.

Secondly, in answer to a question posted for the last instalment: SOB = son of a bitch. And while I'm at it, MPDC = Washington DC police department, and US&R = Urban Search and Rescue. I think that's all the acronyms thus far; if not just ask.

Finally, many thanks to Sidney James TD Lemon 1900 for a critical eye.

Standard disclaimers, etc.

~W

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TRUTH HURTS

CHAPTER THREE

.

[Washington Post, Monday, evening edition]

OF TRUTH AND TERROR

Investigations into the matter of the culprit are underway, but have been fruitless thus far. 'It's very obviously someone with training,' avers an anonymous source, 'or else they [the perpetrator] wouldn't have been able to pull it off like that. Six bombs, all strategically placed, at just the time when the least possible people were in the building… there's something in that.'

Indeed there is. The Washington Post wires have been off the hook with speculations and demands for explanations. 'What sort of terrorist,' said the Vice President in a televised address last night, 'deliberately attacks a building with no people in it? What sort of message are they sending? Those are your questions today, and I answer with this: we are very close to unravelling this awful thing. Whoever took the lives of Cal Lightman and his two employees will see justice. You have my word on

Gillian stopped reading. She got the idea she'd blocked out the image of the body under that sheet. She could remember it in words - burned, raw, mottled, inhuman - but the picture was lost to her. All she could remember of it was the single patch of intact skin, sharply pale against the charred milieu, right below the collarbone on the left shoulder. Blank. Ashen as death, but blank.

It was six years after she'd met him that she first saw that tattoo. Four years after she'd started to drive over to Martin's Tavern in Georgetown. Once a year, every year.

This particular night had been a bad one. He'd been slumped at the usual booth in the far corner, nursing a whiskey on the rocks. Marty had nodded familiarly from behind the bar when she walked in the door, and she'd given him a half-smile over her shoulder.

''Lo, Foster.' Cal had said as she slid into the booth, without a greeting smile. He'd taken a drag on his cigarette. Gillian had kept up the no-nonsense guise she'd adopted for these occasions, making a face and waving the smoke away with one hand.

'I thought you quit those disgusting things.'

'Did.'

'Then what's that in your hand?'

'She told me she liked the way I looked. When I smoked.'

Gillian had been caught off guard, her hand pausing mid-flap. She looked closely at him. He was withdrawn, his eyes not really focussed on anything, and he was talking a little differently than usual - his accent slightly thicker, but not exactly slurred. He was drunk, but not very.

He'd meant to say that.

'When was that?'

'Ages ago. When we first met, practically. It was here.' He pointed at the table beneath his glass.

'At this table?'

He reached over to his left a bit and tapped the table roughly without even looking. Gillian squinted at a faded, shallow engraving, twisted her neck a little. C&Z, it said.

'Cal and Zoë.' She said. The image flashed through her mind: Cal with a cigarette and a glass, then as now, and Zoë with a slightly more delicate drink, probably, like a vodka with something, the two of them leaning over this particular spot of tabletop, watching as Cal's pocket knife scratched out the visage of something huge they were just beginning to comprehend.

'You did that the first night you met?'

Cal shook his head. Dropped his cigarette for a moment into the ashtray and downed the last of his drink. 'No. This was our place, though. The place we always came. Carved that on the first Valentine's Day.'

His lip twitched in the most fleeting of sneers. Contempt.

'Hello, miss, what can I getcha?' A chipper girl whose fitting top flattered a modest chest appeared out of nowhere, nearly making Gillian jump. Cal seemed to have heard her coming somehow, even though she'd popped up from behind him.

'She'll have a Rigori, and I'll have another.' He told the girl - Jenny, by the tag - and passed her his glass. Jenny nodded brightly, flashed something Gillian found utterly bemusing considering Cal's state, and vanished as quickly as she'd come.

Then again, a man with an accent and a cigarette who could hold his liqueur and still have the presence of mind to successfully guess exactly the drink his colleague was craving?

Not the right track. Not at all the right track. Cal was depressed, he was both drinking and smoking, and she was here to get him home before he got really plastered.

'You should stop now, Cal.'

Cal looked at her without any expression whatsoever. Except - wait - oh. Gillian looked away. She'd been about to give him the riot act. But the look on his face… not yet.

'Why do you keep coming, Gill?' He asked after a while. His voice was sad and tired. 'Four years now, and you always show up.'

'To pick you up when Marty takes your keys.' She said evenly, tracing a pock in the table.

'Liar?' She looked up at the tone in his voice, like a question, like a plea. For a second she just stared at him, stunned. He'd never talked like this. Never looked at her like that, practically begging, as quietly as he could, for something to grab onto before he went flying over a waterfall. Never. Was he drunker than she'd thought?

'Oh, Cal.' She sighed. He'd forgotten his cigarette; it rested against the rim of its tray, ash slowly consuming the tobacco. Without thinking she took his hand and squeezed hard. 'I come because I hate seeing you like this. I hate not being able to do anything, so I come here and I sit across from you at this same damn booth so that at least I can be near you while you drown.'

An hour later they'd left the bar together. Gill drove; they'd pick up his car sometime in the distant future. Cal had fumbled with his house keys for a solid minute while Gill waited patiently, and finally got them in. She'd taken him by the elbow so he wouldn't fall up the stairs, swaying dangerously as he was on a flat surface, and guided him up.

She'd felt it when he'd tensed, and let go so he could crash on his own into the bathroom. She never went after him when he did that, because she knew instinctively that he wouldn't want her to. She got a blanket and a fresh washcloth from the linen closet, and only when she heard him stop did she go in. He was shivering; she draped the blanket over his now bare shoulders. He was sweating; she swabbed his forehead with the cloth.

'All right?' She asked. He got to his feet and allowed her to steer him into the bedroom. He collapsed on top of the covers and went to take off his shoes, but she pushed him back and did it herself. She cajoled him into shifting a bit so she could get the coverlet over him.

She saw the tattoo then. A small one, very simple: two little squares with a couple of adjoining lines on them.

How he realized she'd been looking, she never could fathom. 'First one.' He said.

'What?' She asked. He'd tapped his shoulder, right next to the tattoo. He closed his eyes.

'Studying sculpture at art school in London. Just wanted to know what it was like. So I went to a real little sweatbox in South London, in Peckham — place where the tourists don't go. Little cubicle in the back of the shop… and I got this. In my head, it was about the De Stijl movement and Constructivist art movement from Eastern Europe… but really all I wanted was to have something. Just something. Just wanted to know what it felt like.'

He trailed off then, mumbling and soon falling silent. Gillian had stood there for a moment in the half-dark, looking at him as he slept, before bending down to pull the blanket over his chest so he wouldn't catch cold.

[Present day]

'H'lo?' Loker picked up on the fourth ring, voice groggy and thick.

'Loker, meet me at -- at Starbucks in twenty minutes.' She'd been about to say "meet me at the office." But there was no office anymore.

'Doctor Foster? It's… one in the morning.'

'It's important, Eli. I think Cal's alive.'

A static pause while her words sank in. 'But we saw --'

'I know what we saw, Eli, but it wasn't him. Get dressed and drive like a maniac. Seventh and E, twenty minutes. I'll call Torres.'

'Boss, are you --'

'Starbucks. I'll see you there.'

She disconnected and dialled Torres.

'Torres.' She announced on the second ring. Gillian blinked, having expected a similar greeting to Loker's, but Ria seemed wide awake.

'Torres, I need you to meet me and Loker at the Starbucks on Seventh and E in twenty minutes.'

A split second of that same white noise, but only split. 'Okay. Seventh and E, twenty minutes.'

Gillian hung up, grabbed her keys and left. Her thoughts spun around wildly in her head as she drove. It was certain now that Cal wasn't dead - or at least, the body they found wasn't him. But that left so many new questions. Like why would someone want the world to think Cal was dead? And where was he, if not in the wreckage of the building? Was he even still alive?

Yes. Yes, God damn it, he was still alive. And she was going to find him. She could call some --

Gillian nearly swerved out of her lane.

It had worked the first time. Maybe they could beat the odds twice.

She pulled over in front of a little diner and killed the engine. And sat there. Her cell phone lay on the passenger seat where she'd tossed it. She didn't pick it up. She imagined picking it up, imagined flipping it open and dialling his number and letting it ring and hearing his voice, but she didn't.

She stared at it.

What if he didn't answer?

She imagined that too. Imagined it ringing, once, twice, thrice, quatrice. Imagined the little click that meant it had gone over to voice mail, heard his voice say, 'You've reached Cal Lightman, leave a message.' Imagined knowing he was really dead.

For a second she felt paralysed, unable to breathe, unable to move, unable to blink. Her mind flashed back to the last time.

'I'm… burned pretty bad.'

'I'll be fine, Gillian.'

'I love you --'

And the scream. She'd never heard his voice contorted like that, twisted into something inhuman, a product of agony. Not Cal's voice, not him.

'I love you --'

She imagined him somewhere, in pain, alone.

'-- Be with you while you drown.'

She snatched up the phone before she was aware of what she was doing, punched in the familiar number with shaking hands and froze. The dial tone sounded, tinny and wavering in her ear.

Brrrrrrrn.

'I love you --'

Brrrrrrrrn.

'I'll be fine, Gillian.'

Brrrrrrrrn.

'Call me if you need me, love.'

Brrrrrrrrn.

'You've reached Cal Lightman. Leave a --'

'Hello?'

Gillian's heart hit the roof of her mouth before she realised it wasn't Cal. 'Who… who is this?' She tried to compose herself. 'Where's Cal?'

Static. Fucking static.

'Oh, God… Ma'am, I… hate to be the one to tell you this, but Doctor Lightman is dead. I'm a forensic anthropologist. I'm studying the remains.'

No. No, that wasn't possible. Gillian's head spun. 'Why… why do you have his cell phone?'

'Ma'am, we only got the body yesterday… we haven't turned over his personal affects yet.'

No, she didn't believe it. This guy had to be lying. The tattoo. She knew about the tattoo. Gillian pushed.

'Ho-how did he die?'

'Don't… don't you know, ma'am? The caller ID says you're Doctor Foster. I read in the papers that you work with him…?'

'Gillian? She's my cousin, I'm using her phone… What happened to Cal?'

'Uh… he got burned, ma'am. That's what killed him.'

'Is there a tattoo on his left shoulder?'

'Ma'am --'

'Please.' Her voice must have been so hard it scared him.

'Okay. Uh, just hang on.'

She hung on, listening to the white noise.

'Yes, ma'am, there's a tattoo on his left shoulder. Two little boxes with lines or something. Ma'am I really can't give out any more information.'

Gillian barely heard him. What was going on? She'd seen the body. She'd seen it. She'd seen it. Hadn't she? Had she imagined it?

'Ma'am?'

'I…'

He was dead. He was really dead…

'GILLIAN! HE'S A BLOODY LUNATIC!"

She dropped the phone with a cry - 'Cal!' - and scrambled to pick it up again. 'Cal, can you hear me? Cal!' But the line was dead. Gillian shook the phone, slammed it shut, threw it. It cracked against the glass of the passenger window and she looked at it, spinning a little where it landed on the dash, for a very long time. Her breathing gradually calmed and her thoughts eventually slowed. Finally she was left staring out the windshield at the car parked in front of her. She thought about praying.

That had been Cal. She knew it. Every part of her knew it.

Cal was alive.

She turned the key in the ignition and pulled out into the traffic.

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[Four years ago]

Cal was waiting by the doors. He stood with his arms crossed against the chill, taking everything in. The street still had that drowsy cool it only got in the mornings, still smelled incongruously of dew and earth. Traffic had already started up, though it was too sleepy still to offer up much blaring or screeching. Pedestrians power-walked, chatting or barking into Bluetooth sets, and MPDC employees streamed into the doors at his left. He watched them, some wearing uniforms and some not, nodding when one glanced his way but looking for one woman in particular… there.

'Detective.' He greeted.

'Doctor.' Grace Hallowell replied, stopping in her brisk tracks, surprised. 'Are you looking for Farish?' She was a good looking woman, well-dressed. But she wasn't wearing her detective face, her confident, authority figure face. Without it she was almost shy. Lightman could see why Ward liked her.

'No, no, I'm looking for you. Fancy a drink?'

Hallowell flashed confusion. 'Well, thanks, but I've got… you know, I've got work.'

'Not for another hour or so.' Cal pushed away from the wall and got in her space, establishing a link so that she couldn't walk away without being rude. It worked; her body turned toward him in little ways no one else would notice. Situations like this had always fascinated Cal - Hallowell clearly didn't want to talk to him, she'd been edging away not a minute ago, yet her subconscious had registered his move and automatically obeyed the laws of social behaviour.

But another time.

'I guess that's true.' She might be instinctively following the rules, but Cal was still seeing hesitation all over her pretty face… He thought about giving her date-me signals. She was too skittish, he was never going to get anything out of her this way. And he needed to know if he was right. This was big. But earning her trust would take far too long; time was of the essence. With the smallest of twinges, he laid into her. Right outside the station doors.

'Listen, Grace, I need to know what you were doing with Paolo Ricci last night.'

Shock. Incredulity, but not the innocent sort. Then anger. He spotted the moment her defence mechanisms cranked into gear: Hallowell's guard went up like a steel wall, and she put on her detective face. Cal watched the change in her posture, in the way she held her expression, in the energies behind it, and he marvelled internally. Her detective persona transfigured her completely. She'd become a bloody femme fatale.

She stepped forward, crackling angrily. Cal regarded her coolly and held his ground. There was no use in sending submissive signals at this point; he'd have to find an opening elsewhere. 'Listen, Doctor Lightman.' She said, voice low. The tips of their noses were virtually touching. 'I don't know who you think you are. I am an officer of the law, not a common criminal. You may think you know everything, you may think you're better than me and my people. But you will show me the respect I'm owed. Accuse me of trafficking again, and I promise you I will make your life hell.'

He almost didn't want to say it. It was way too elementary, too easy. Not to mention it would ruin this thing she had going; Christ, she was one of the best liars he'd ever met. Except.

'Detective,' he said, almost sadly, 'I never said anything about trafficking.'

Her reaction almost hurt to look at. He could almost feel the self-contempt -- there's no way I just did that, no way, I'm not that stupid, no -- before she stamped it out violently. A second or two passed in silence. Cal gave her a moment to decide what to do.

In the back of his head he's already worked it out. He had thought that the guilt she flashed whenever Guy mentioned 'Paul' was because she was dating Paul but shagging Guy, or something similar. Now he got it; she felt guilt because she only told her partner that Ricci was her boyfriend to explain away the flowers. And the affection she'd displayed, arranging those flowers so theatrically the other day when she hadn't known she had a two-man audience, had seemed off because it was fake.

Grace Hallowell wasn't moonlighting. She was corrupt.

'Before you turn me in,' she said finally. She was oddly businesslike under the circumstances. 'I'm going to tell you I slept with him. Once. It didn't mean anything really, but he seems to trust me. If you turn me in and I miss our next… date… he'll ask questions. He'll find out I'm a cop. He'll get very, very pissed - at me, for betraying him, and at himself for letting himself get conned. Now let me ask you: are you willing to get me killed over a couple ounces of heroin?'

Cal weighed all the factors carefully, staring through her. If he were Paolo Ricci, how would he react? He was a Mafia underboss. Cal knew something of the Mafia's workings. Enough to know that if he really wanted to, Paolo had the resources to make anyone disappear at any time, without so much as breaking a sweat.

'You tell your partner?' He asked eventually. Grace crossed her arms over her chest. No. No, she hadn't. He studied her briefly and nodded.

'How about that coffee?' He asked.

[Later that day]

The sirens were different in the eye of the storm. Distant, muffled by the metal box they rode at speed. A tire jumped, rocking the three of them forward. Two officers, one scientist, all silent. Oppressively silent, but there was no time to balk, Cal had a job to do. He calculated fast, analysed the situation from the very beginning.

1, Hallowell was Ricci's dealer. 2, Ward knew nothing about it. 3, He, Hallowell and Ward were all three headed straight toward Ricci in a police car.

This was going to be bad.

They parked a block away from the little restaurant, behind the second cop car. When the doors were thrown open and men and woman poured out, Cal seized the opportunity provided by the exodus. Grabbing Hallowell's wrist, he turned her around and hissed. 'Don't be seen.' She glanced back at her colleagues as they spread out around the building, disoriented by the sudden change of gear. Her detective face was on, with a slight difference; less analytical and more determined. A soldier face. She nodded curtly.

'I'll take any runners on the left field.' She muttered into her headset. With a final look at Ward's shrinking back, she set off, leaving Cal by the cars.

His job was done, then. There was no more reason for his engagement; Cal allowed his faculties to drop a notch. He leaned against the van to watch.

The footmen were almost invisible in the night, creeping around the building to cover the back and side doors. Two took down the front door and vanished inside. Cal watched the scene intently, but for a moment nothing at all moved.

And then a solitary figure appeared out of nowhere, sprinting across the blacktop to his left. His eyes flicked to the point at which he'd last seen Hallowell, and sure enough she'd leapt out of the night and was giving chase. The two would intersect just feet from the park. If the runner took a chance look back and saw his pursuer, all he had to do was alter his trajectory by a degree and he would be gone. Cal watched with mild interest as the two black miniatures raced toward collision. Suddenly he squinted. Leaned forward.

There was no way. No, no, the chances were miniscule -- the pursued man flashed beneath a parking lot lamp, and it was certain. Cal burst into a sprint of his own, shouting after Hallowell. But too late. The scene changed so quickly he didn't catch it, except to hear the bark of a gun.

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[Present day]

Loker and Torres were already waiting at Starbucks when she parked the car in the lot, standing outside the dark doors. It was closed. Gillian hadn't even thought of that.

'What is it?' Loker met her halfway to the café, his face a mess of emotions.

'Wait for Torres.' Gillian said calmly. They walked together.

Torres' face was composed, businesslike. There was even a little bit of happiness. Gillian got it: Ria had taken a huge personal leap for this company, rearranged her life to be part of it, and then it had gone crashing down around her ears and left her high and dry. After several days of brooding stagnation, even a call from the boss in the middle of the night was cause for a little smile.

'The body they found, it wasn't Cal.' Gillian said without preamble. Both of them flashed the same things: surprise, disbelief, comprehension, pity. Gillian curbed the urge to slap that off their faces; they were wasting time. Instead she let Torres ask the only question possible: 'Are you sure?'

'Absolutely. Cal has a tattoo on his left shoulder. A tattoo that wasn't on the body - I checked. I called Zoë --' She ignored Ria's flash of disapproval '-- and she confirms it.'

'The tattoo might have been somewhere else.' Loker said gently. 'It might have been… burned off.'

'I know where the tattoo was.' Gillian said rockily. 'Where it is. Zoë does too.'

'Zoë didn't see it.'

'It doesn't matter. I am five hundred percent certain that Cal Lightman is alive. There's nothing either of you can do to convince me otherwise, so please, don't try.'

'Why are we here, then?' Torres said.

'You're here to work. We need to pump every contact we have in every institution for information.'

The two of them looked at each other, and Gillian had to restrain herself again. 'Do you two understand?'

Loker took a breath. 'What are we looking for?'

'Enemies. I think someone kidnapped Cal.'

Surprise, disbelief. And this time, concern. For her. 'You think what?'

'I'm not going to say it again.' She felt her boss voice creeping in, her authority voice, her "listen to me, obey me, I'm in control" voice. 'I called his cell phone again. He didn't answer, but another man did.' She abridged the exchange for them, ending with Cal's crucial howl.

Neither of them knew what to make of that. Gillian gave them exactly two and a half seconds to let it sink in, and took over before they had a chance to formulate any arguments or questions. 'Now. I need you both to contact everyone we've got -- reporters, officials, cops, everyone. I want you to find out who planted that bomb, because I'm guessing that they're the ones who took him. Understand?'

Loker nodded speechlessly, looking like he was still trying to catch up. Torres was studying Gillian's face.

'Good.' Gillian said. 'Start as soon as we leave.'

'What are you going to do?' Torres asked.

'The same thing as you. Go.'

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Cal screamed. He hadn't known he had another one in him, but even in its current state his body still had the capacity to react. He panted and coughed.

Guy wiped his hands on his jeans, leaving red streaks. His face was still contorted with anger, but not like the fury of just seconds ago. 'That was really stupid, Lightman. Really fucking stupid. You're just asking to die, aren't you?'

The ceiling seemed to swirl. Cal watched, fascinated. It was like the concrete was insubstantial, like it was liquid. How was it staying up there? Shouldn't it be falling? The sky is falling, the sky is falling, big blue shards like glass tumbling out of the sky. The ceiling should be falling if it's liquid. Maybe there's some counter-gravity holding it there, a force-field, witchcraft.

'Lightman!' Guy snarled. It was an effort to focus on him, even when he grabbed the damp front of Cal's shirt and shook him. 'You want to die, fucker? You listening? Do you?'

Cal shook his head. Guy had blue eyes. Not a bright blue, not a nice blue like Gillian's, they were a dead blue. A murky, zombie blue.

He had a chant murmuring in the back of his head. The same words repeating over and over, like a mantra, but he had no idea what they were. They were gibberish. Code for something. Code for what? Gillian. He wanted Gillian. His rock, his best friend, his lover. Was she his lover? She should be. His Gillian. That was the word for her, yes, lover. She was saying the words, chanting those words in the back of his head, what was she saying? What was she trying to tell him?

'All right.' Guy's voice seemed to echo, and Cal lost bits of it, like a CD with a scratch. He heard Guy's boots thudding, walking away. 'All right, Cal Lightman, I'll give you what you want.'

He lost time. A few minutes drifted out of his grasp. He was looking at the liquid ceiling, only it was gaseous now because he could see through it. He was looking at Gillian. She had one of those orange slushies, she had her thumb in her mouth and one hand waving frantically. 'Brain freeze!' She laughed around her thumb. 'Brain freeze, aiiieee, brain freeze.' And then she was holding him at arms' length, looking at him seriously. She was saying those words again, the gibberish chant, and then she smiled. 'Roulette.' She said, and that made no sense either.

He came back. Guy was throwing water on him, greasy, oily water that stung his open wounds. Cal spluttered when Guy splashed it on his face and dumped it over his head.

'Is this good enough for you, Cal?' Guy asked, tossing the empty can away. Can? Can? Petrol. The water was petrol. 'Is this a good enough death?'

Something broke in Cal. His body and mind withdrew from each other with a snap like a rubber band, and for the first time in ages he felt nothing. Everything had gone clear as crystal, bright and defined as never before. He could smell the cold of the warehouse, he could see individual threads in Guy's bloodstained jeans. He could see the glassy texture of the lighter.

He watched, silent and still and utterly there, as Guy pulled a cigarette from a pack and lit it up. Cal thought nothing. Felt nothing. Watched. The lighter clinked metallically. Guy pulled on the cigarette and the end lit into orange embers in the half light. Snapped the lighter closed and slid it into a back pocket.

Neither moved. Neither breathed. Cal saw nothing on Guy's face, read absolutely nothing. And he knew.

Guy pulled the cigarette from his lip and exhaled. He hung his hand at his side. Cal watched his eyes.

'Will you make your peace with God, Cal Lightman?' Guy asked. His voice was like a priest's, and for an instant Cal pictured it: Guy in clerical black and collar, giving the dying man his last rites. Dying man. Cal said nothing. He thought of Gill. The slushie, the smile, the pink dress, the downward glance, the paperback romance, the twitch of the lip, the voice. The calm voice that matched her eyes, hypnotic and serene, the voice that soothed him just by sounding. Gillian, Gillian. Lover. Should-have-been lover.

'No last words?' Guy asked. His voice was hard, jarring after the memory of hers. Cal's eyes had wandered from Guy's. He looked back now.

Gillian, lover. Never-was lover. Cal closed his eyes and rested his chin against his chest, almost like going to sleep. Lowered himself back into the madness where he'd had Gillian. Found her voice again, chanting there, in the mist.

And then he knew what it meant. Smiling, he said it with her.

'אבי , סלח להם , משום שהם אינם יודעים מה הם עושים.'

Guy gasped, staggering back as though physically assaulted. Numb fingers dropped the cigarette. Cal's world erupted.

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I know this is going to get asked, so yes, that's Hebrew, and no, I'm not going to tell you what it means, because that would ruin everything. I'll translate in the next chap.

Reviews fuel my muse -- any takers?