Again, great thanks to my reviewers. Sorry this chapter took me longer to get out. The LSAT is EVIL. And, back by popular demand...the Talking Heads.

She trudged down King, a black gig case securely held beneath her left arm.

"Good job tonight, Jones." Anderson's voice was bright and cheery. "You sounded especially depressing. I know we were playing the blues, but damn." He paused and flicked a cigarette to the ground. "Is it the case that's bothering you?

They stopped walking, prepared to part ways. The case to which her colleague referred was an especially heinous one; Lee couldn't figure out why the DA had assigned her to it.

"Naw, well, yeah, maybe…a little. It's just, I guess I've been a little distracted the past couple weeks, I mean…well, can't you feel it?"

"Feel what, Jones?"

"Fall. Ah, forget it Anderson; go home and practice; your fills sucked."

They laughed and he lit up another smoke. The six foot tall, blonde-haired, brown-eyed attorney was one of the few true work friends she had. The other two, a pair of twins, Beatrix and Sam, or BS has everyone liked to call them, joined Lee and Anderson to form a highly unusual band.

The group, Passed the Bar, rarely practiced, and hardly ever got any gigs; in spite of this they were actually quite good.

"I'd offer to walk you home, but what's the point? Be careful Lee, and cheer up. It doesn't get that cold down here."

"Yeah, yeah, get home to your kids, married man."

"Until Monday…"

"Later, Blake."

She turned down George, sucking in the crisp air. It was a subtle difference. Another might not have noticed, but she did.

Sharper, cooler, the breeze carried different spices; the stars twinkled more brightly, less hampered by heavy humidity. It brought to mind Friday night football games, and camping ventures made upstate; the smell of steaks cooking over the glowing coals of a warm fireplace.

Lee paused by Great Wall. The place had been closed down since she could remember; on the wall of the building beside the former Chinese restaurant, someone had neatly painted "Disappear Here".

When she'd come home from Lexington for Thanksgiving, during her first year of law school, Lee had stood in that spot and prayed. Nothing had happened.

A curious sensation swept through her. The hairs on the back of her neck pricked up and an uncomfortable feeling slid down her back.

Someone was watching her.

She walked as casually as she could; her concentration entirely devoted to assessing her surroundings and pinpointing the location of her impossibly quiet stalker, she was unable to think past the dull pain in her leg and successfully eliminate her limp.

"You're limping."

She'd turned around and laid him out, a quick move her grandfather had taught her, Lee's leg connected with his shin…before her mind processed the fact that she recognized his voice.

"Holy shit, I'm sorry."

Lee extended her hand to help him, but he only scowled and pushed her away. It had been almost two weeks since she'd seen him. After he'd gotten his car he up and left.

He brushed off his slacks and frowned, his soft lips folding sadly. "I thought you'd be happy to know I hadn't killed myself."

"I said I was sorry. Wait, shouldn't you be apologizing to me? And how did you learn to stalk so well? More importantly, what are you doing here?"

"You're limping badly; what happened to your leg?"

"What? Oh, it, it just starts to bother me a bit when the weather changes; that's all." Lee couldn't help but think that he was avoiding her question.

"Yes, but why?"

"Old, college football injury. Torn ACL."

"Oh yes, I should have known. I bet you were a regular Reggie Bush."

"More of a Barry Sanders."

"My mistake, forgive me."

"Only, if you tell me why you were following me."

"Only, if you tell me what really happened to your leg. I remember that day in the hospital; you had a brace on it. You limped then too, but not like tonight."

"Why pretend to care?"

They stood at the corner of Meeting and George, staring each other down in dual of wills. He was the reason she'd been so distracted.

He took two quick steps toward her; his long stride amazingly graceful. Before she could blink he was right in front of her, standing close enough to touch, and yet somehow, miles away.

He smelled of pure temptation, an alluring combination of anise and masculinity; if bottled, it could have been sold as pure sex.

Lee couldn't stop the blush from rising to her face at the thought.

"You played beautifully, Lee." His breath caressed her ear with ungodly heat; his voice, unnaturally enthralling, only tempted her further.

She had to snap out of it. "I didn't think you frequented…public. It seems like more than mere coincidence; how'd you find out?"

"I saw a flyer while sight seeing one night. Passed the Bar featuring the music of Phil Woods. It might as well have said, 'Lee Jones is in this band'."

He'd moved back, giving her precious inches of space. "How very astute of you. So what now, you've kicked the suicide thing and decided to become a groupie?"

He snickered and stepped around her, dare she say, playfully? "I gave you a compliment, Lee; where are your manners?"

"My, my, Erik, do you practice bastardly behavior? Or does it just come naturally? I hate to admit, you're very good."

He leaned toward her again; his lips hovered above her neck and she was certain he knew the affect. "Maybe I wasn't pretending."

The comment threw her off. He was so damn enigmatic. She needed something drastic to counter his offensive.

The light bulb went off. "What are you doing tonight? Other than, stalking me, that is?"

For a second his face, barely visible in the light of scattered street lamps, contorted into confusion. "Why? Is your bed available?"

Oh, low blow, low blow. She chose to ignore it and stilled her retort. A sly smirk turned up the corner of her mouth. "It's the perfect night for a drive out to IOP." With a skilled wrist she pulled out her keys and tossed them at him. "You should drive."

A bemused expression upon his lips, he caught the keys effortlessly and followed her across Meeting Street.

The worst smell known to man was surely the acrid stench of a burning clutch. She winced, unsure if it was in deed possible to burn out a CenterForce.

"Ease up off the clutch, no, not that fa…Not that fast." The car jerked to a halt and he threw a frustrated fist into the dash. "Hey. This car is a priceless classic; now start it back up and try again."

He let out an irritated sigh and did as she said. It was nice to have the upper hand on him, especially after his little display. "You said this would be easy."

"So I overestimated your hand-foot coordination. Would you shift into second already?"

Shift-shock was a vast understatement. "I don't see what's so great about this anyway."

"Stop sign. Brake. CLUTCH!"

"Damn it. Why the hell am I doing this?"

"Because everyone should know how to drive a stick. Ease off the gas, good, see? Let's get onto East Bay and head toward the bridge."

"You're kidding right? What if I stall out in the middle of an intersection and someone t-bones us, and your car is totaled?"

"It's just a car, Erik. They make them everyday." She tried to sound sincere; the truth was they did not make 1957 Ford Thunderbirds anymore…at all.

"You just said that this was a priceless classic."

Damn. "Just, shift for Christ sake. You'll get this baby into fifth yet."

He was actually picking it up very quickly. Lee was impressed; God knew it had taken her weeks to get from neutral to first, but she wasn't about to tell him that.

An epiphany struck. With a crooked grin, she turned on the CD player, and forwarded to the tenth track.

"I can't seem to face up to the facts…"

"Could you turn that down? It's atrocious." She turned it up.

"Don't touch me I'm a real live wire. Psycho Killer, Qu'est-ce que c'est. Fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa far better run run run run run run away…"

The car jerked violently as he attempted to down shift. Erik frowned and turned right onto the IOP connector.

And everything had been going so well. Then, with a flick of her wrist and mischief on her lips, she'd turned the tables on him.

Not that he'd exactly planned on that little tryst. His resolve had been absolute; he'd buy a house and never leave the seclusion of its walls, never see any of them again. Not his angel and her love slave, not Lee, not Lee's little pseudo family, no one.

But the two women chaotically screwing up his life just wouldn't let him be. Unable to stop thinking about them, comparing them, dreaming about them, he'd gotten too restless to keep still. And a late Thursday night, or really, early Friday morning, had him marauding around downtown.

When he'd seen the flyer he could no longer bear his curiosity, and eight hours later found him giving in to temptation.

Erik might have been able to leave it at that, but then he'd heard her play, and damn was she good. If Christine's bright, crystal clear voice was that of an angel, then the dark, haunting tone Lee produced from her horn was surely the voice of a ghost.

She gave new definition to the blues, and he was willing to bet that she was even better with classical melodies.

As soon as he'd heard that first F, slightly sharp, but it was a sharp note for an alto-sax, he saw all the things he'd been unable to see before. Beautiful, intelligent, witty, and a completely real person, with a life and history, values and indiscretions, happiness and heartbreak, perfectly imperfect; she could understand him. And he could understand her.

He'd followed her out of sheer need, the inner workings of his mind consumed already by a new composition, a concerto exclusively for her, and his body moving of its own will.

Even as she had kicked him to the ground he wanted to tell her, needed to tell her, needed to make sure that what he had heard wasn't a fluke. But, protected by an untrusting sub-conscious, the first words out of his mouth had been cold and ambiguous, and before he'd become aware of it he was impossibly close to her, whispering into a delicate ear, his voice laden with seduction.

When he'd spoken like that to Christine she had instantly succumb to him, but not Lee. Lee took the ball and ran, now it lay on her side of the court, daring him to come after it.

And that wasn't going to happen so long as she kept putting him in such unfamiliar situations.

The unmasked side of his face was suddenly blasted with sand.

"Whatever it is, stop sulking."

Erik knew his jaw was agape but couldn't, for the life of him, do anything about it. "Did you…did you just throw sand in my face?"

She stepped lightly through the water, long, black skirt flowing gently in a cool sea breeze.

Erik moved toward her, intent on vengeance, but she side stepped him in a dance-like manner and drew him closer to the water. It soaked through his Italian loafers and crept up the legs of his pants.

She was knee deep, lulling waves reaching upward to her waist. "Come and get me."

He took a step forward and stopped, knowing that his mask wouldn't stay put if doused with water. Instead he picked up a handful of wet sand and launched it toward her.

A successful hit, the sand clung to her hair. "Fine. Fine. Truce?"

"Truce." He held up his hands and backed up toward the dunes. The night really was beautiful. The smell of the ancient ocean brought to his mind the ramblings of one J. Alfred Prufrock, and suddenly he was aware of nothing but the repetitious waves.

"I should have been a pair of ragged claws, scuttling across the floors of silent seas." He muttered quietly, unsure if she was able to hear.

Erik sat down on the sand, watching her as she tentatively sat next to him. "The mermaids will never sing to you, and Apollo's not going to chase after me."

She had inadvertently given him an opening. "They wouldn't understand us anyway." He said it quietly, nervously anticipating her response.

"Don't I know it. Been down that road before, and it ain't pretty. People think love is some beautiful thing that's wrapped up in a box of hugs and kisses. It's not. Nothing in life is that simple, least of all love."

The honey-dipped drawl and molasses coated cadence of her speech made her words sound all the more profound, but subject of love was not one he wished to discuss, and her comments only made him question further the feelings he'd had for Christine.

And the way he was starting to feel about her.

"It was stupid." He looked away from the ocean and back at her, a slender hand massaged her left thigh.

"What?" He wasn't entirely sure if he wanted to know.

"An alligator bit me."

"What?"

"Yeah, an alligator bit me, clamped down on my leg. I was twelve, and some kids double dog dared me to jump into this pond…and I did, and an alligator got me. That's what's wrong with my leg."

She said it like it was nothing, an everyday occurrence. Erik was slightly flabbergasted. "An alligator, tastes like chicken alligator?"

"Oh don't say that. Now I'll be craving gator tail."

He stared at her. Her dark curls blown wildly by the wind. "I…I've never met anyone like you."

"Coincidentally, I've never met anyone like you." She paused and frowned. "Are you planning to mysteriously disappear again?"

He sighed. "I don't know." It was an honest answer. "Would you care?"

"Erik," the way his name rolled off her tongue brought him to attention, like it was the most important thing in the world. "You are a world famous composer, hiding away from the world in Charleston, who wears a mask, and is absolutely genius. My life has been much more interesting since you…dropped in; of course I'd care."

"How'd you know? I never compose under my real name." He'd deal with implications of the other things she'd said later.

"I wish I could say that I used my unlimited district attorney's office resources, but really I just googled you."

He should have known his alias would have leaked somehow. Damn internet. "Oh, that's…typical." He'd never thought to google himself. Erik debated. "Would you…Oh what that hell, would you like to go out for dinner tomorrow night?"

The worst thing she could do was say no, call him a freak, and laugh in his face, but even as he braced himself for rejection, he knew she'd accept. "Water's Edge, pick me up at seven, I want to drive the vette."

He opened his eyes. "Fair enough."

It really does say "Disappear Here" on that particular building. There are actually several places around the city where those words are spray painted.

Concert F D on an alto-sax

"I should have been a pair of ragged claws..." allusion to The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, by T.S. Eliot. Lee also alludes to an Eliot poem in the first chapter.