Marshall hoped that when Treena Morris handed Mary her opt-out card his partner would forget the entire fiasco. Mary instead amused herself by challenging him belligerently to kiss her at even the slightest workplace disagreement for the next two weeks. She never did so in front of Stan, but even without the embarrassment of his boss knowing about their misadventure, she forced him to relive his humiliation over and over.

After an hour-long argument about whether or not due process allowed her to detain a suspicious florist degraded into name calling, Mary began making kissing faces at Marshall whenever Stan turned his back.

He hit his limit the fifth time Stan walked past her. Marshall raised his hand and threw a pen on his desk. "Stan," he called, keeping his eyes on Mary, "I'm going to need the day off tomorrow."

Stan didn't look up from the faxes he shuffled. "You got it."

Mary exploded. "That isn't fair – when's the last time I got a day off?"

"You've had your fair share of personal time." Stan dropped the remaining papers on her desk. "I'm sure you can coordinate something with your partner. Hey, I have a thing in fifteen minutes. Finish those for me, will you?"

Mary glared, but accepted the papers. "Why can't Marshall do this? His stuff all cleared already."

Stan gave Mary an innocent, slightly bewildered look. "Marshall has the day off tomorrow. I thought it'd be nice to give him a head start."

"Besides," Marshall said, "I did my work right the first time."

Mary made a strangled noise and slammed her own pen to her desk.

Marshall gave her a broad, malicious grin.

No further kissy-face was attempted.

Marshall thoroughly enjoyed his day off. After a morning reading favorite passages from the first volume of the Rise and Fall of Rome, he spent the afternoon hiking out at Petroglyph National Monument. He kept his phone off – Mary would not accede to his little vacation graciously.

Despite the clarity of the day and the desert, everywhere he turned he saw Mary. He saw her face squinting in the sun, the pout of her lips, the flush of her cheeks when she really lost her temper. He caught himself imagining caressing her shoulders, hands sliding down her body. Then he would catch himself.

When he cleared his head from Mary, he caught himself wondering whether he might find any witnesses in fetal position in the corner of the conference room again.

If he didn't think about Mary, he still wound up thinking about Mary. This was no way to live.

That evening he checked his Blackberry for information about a witness transfer in Arizona. The tally of calls, texts and emails came to 37; 35 of the communiqués were from Mary.

He briefly glanced through the texts, in case she said something important. The majority were one-line insults. "Nerd." "Doofus." "Jackass." "Donkeyhat" – that one was interesting. "Numbnuts" was used twice. A few of them strung together American swear words with some rather nasty Spanish that Raphael probably imparted.

After he flagged the witness transfer data from Stan, he tossed the Blackberry on his bed and pulled out his suitcase. Once he packed for the trip to Mesa, he meant to send out a few texts of his own. None of those texts or emails involved Mary or Mary's constant demands. This was for him, and him alone.

He needed to get away from her.

The Bank of the West tower looked bland and stoic to Marshall, even more so on the inside. Despite its flavorless appearance, the building housed some of the most influential businesses in New Mexico history. Marshall tried to recall them as he rode the elevator to the 15th floor: a frozen foods business, the offices of an equestrian riding and breeding outfit, the bank itself, of course, and Petersen Consulting.

Petersen did all sorts of interesting things in private security, with clients that included casinos, banks and certain branches of the Federal Reserve. Marshall could enjoy seeing firsthand the creation and execution of new technologies to prevent theft, preserve the safety of specific clients and to sometimes out-con certain con artists. The consultant position also offered full health insurance, a 401K that vested after six months and three weeks of vacation plus moving holidays in the first year. No consultant ever worked more than fifty hours a week.

Marshall's eyes misted for a moment at the idea of all that free time to read.

Petersen, as it turned out, was actually a man named Simms. He was as tall and wiry as Marshall, but with blond hair and paler blue eyes. "We just liked the name," he explained, shaking Marshall's hand firmly without attempting a show of finger-crushing strength.

As Simms ushered them along to a conference room, Marshall observed, "A name just memorable enough to forget?" Marshall knew all about that.

Both men were forced to duck beneath the door frame to avoid knocking their heads on the way into the conference room.

Simms grinned, looking directly into Marshall's eyes. "Marshal Mann, I like how you think!"

Marshall grinned back. He wondered for a flickering moment what Mary would think of Simms.

Simms offered the job at Petersen on the spot. Marshall knew from studying up on civilian job hunt strategy to refuse that first offer. "I still have some loose ends to tie up at my current job," he explained. He did. If he took the consulting job he could not leave all of his witnesses to Mary's care. Their individual caseloads were already too much for one person, and no matter how he felt about her, he would not leave all of his work for her to do. Although a resentful thought about how often he wound up doing her work did sneak into his mind.

Simms shook his hand and assured him, "You'll hear from us! Where can we contact you?"

Marshall took a moment to deliberate. "Send it to my office." He left the address with Simms' administrative assistant.

Marshall felt great about the interview, and enjoyed the glow of a really good talk with a human being who was not in danger or a danger. He got into the lot at the Sunshine Building, all the way up the elevator, and all the way to his desk, before the feeling was ruined.

"Where the hell have you been?" Mary snapped at him without waiting for an answer. "Let's go!"

Marshall sighed, pulled his gun from his drawer and followed his partner. As always, Mary's work came first.