The coffee ran out and the sun came up at about the same time. "I gotta go," Mickey said regretfully. "I've got to go home and pack."

"Where you going?" Anne asked. Then she caught herself. "Oh, wait, I remember, it's Geneva for the early skiing, isn't it?"

"Something like that." He stood up and stretched. His throat hurt from talking so much. He reached down and helped Annie to her feet; she looked as stiff as he was. They were getting too old for this all-night stuff.

The thought made him grin unexpectedly. Too old for all night on the living room floor, maybe.

"What?" Anne demanded.

"Hmm?"

"I know that grin, Kostmayer. What were you thinking?"

He evaded the question. "I should be back in two or three weeks, but don't worry if it's longer than that. Can I call you?"

"From Geneva? Sure. Just don't reverse the charges."

"When I get back. You have Robert's number?"

"Yep." They drifted toward the door, neither quite sure how to end this evening that had become morning.

"Keep your door locked. Stay alert. And don't be alone with this Daly guy."

"Yeah, yeah."

He took her arm lightly. "Annie, I'm serious about this. I want you to be careful."

"You're flying off to God knows where, to do God knows what, and you want me to be careful?"

"Yes," Mickey said emphatically. "Because I want you here when I get back."

She softened. "I'll be careful. "You be careful - out on the slopes."

"I will." Then they were right beside the door, and they still didn't know what to do. "Um, can I, um, can I kiss you good-bye?" Mickey asked.

Her quirky smile came back. "I don't see how. You haven't even kissed me hello yet."

"Oh." He kissed her very quickly, lightly, the barest brushing of lips. "Hello." And then before she could make some smart-ass comment, he swooped in, gathered her tightly in both arms, and kissed her soundly, slowly and deeply, dipping her back over his arm as he did. "And good-bye," he finished, sweeping her back to her feet.

Anne blinked and gulped. "Wow." And when she'd caught her breath, "When did you say you'd be back?"

"Couple weeks," he answered offhandedly. "Can you wait that long?"

"No." She took his face between her hands and kissed him again. "God, I'd forgotten how good that was."

So had Mickey, but his whole body was remembering by the next time they kissed. "Cut it out, or I'll have to call in sick."

"Can you do that?" she breathed.

"Uh . . . " Kostmayer actually gave it some thought. Control would be acutely pissed, but Mickey had never backed out of a mission, so maybe just this once . . .

Which was, he realized, mostly just hormones talking. He needed to go away and think about whether he wanted to get back into this relationship. And he really needed to go away and let her think, what with his chosen profession and all. He knew that was the right thing to do, the cautious thing, and he'd had no doubt about it until he'd kissed her . . .

But damn, it was tempting. She was right here and she smelled so good and she was so warm and familiar and new at the same time . . . "No," he said firmly. "I have to go, Annie."

Nodding, she let him go and stepped back. His body ached everywhere she had been and now wasn't. "Okay."

"I'll call you when I get back."

"Okay."

"You be careful, lock your door."

"You said that already."

"I know, I just wanted to make sure."

"Mickey, if you don't go right now I'm gonna make you miss your plane."

And now Mickey nodded. It was so very tempting. "I'm going."

"Okay."

"One more kiss?"

"One."

It was as fleeting and light as the first one had been, but then they hugged for a long moment. Finally they broke and he slipped out the door, into the cool morning air, trying to catch his breath, walking quickly down to the corner where he knew he could catch a bus, if not a taxi. Not looking back.

Anne stood on the steps and watched him out of sight. As much as she'd wanted him to stay, she was in a way glad he had gone. Mickey was right, they needed to think about this. A lot, for a long time. Lots of history to deal with, if they were going to have any future. But watching him go, all she could think was, 'Damn, he still has a fine ass.'

Laughing at herself, she went back inside and, for once, locked the door. She glanced at the living room, the pile of cups and leftover cartons and such, decided to leave them for later. She was halfway to the bedroom, peeling her shirt off over her head, when there was a knock on the door.

She pulled her shirt back on and went to open the door. Well, they could always think later. She unlocked the door and threw it open. "Mickey, what took . . . "

The boy stood there all in black, wearing a Halloween mask and carrying one of those big squirt guns. "Little early for trick-or-treat, isn't it?"

"Traitors to the Cause must be punished," he said squeakily. He raised the squirt gun and sprayed her face.

Kostmayer was nearly to the corner when he heard her start to scream.

McCall stopped at the information desk, then took the elevator to the third floor of the hospital. Mickey was standing in the waiting room, against the wall in exactly the same posture he'd adopted in the apartment. "How's Anne?"

"She'll be all right," Mickey answered. "They taped her eyes for a couple days, but it's mostly to keep her from rubbing them." He still hadn't stirred. "Bleach. Ordinary household bleach. Diluted, fortunately."

"I know," Robert answered. "I've been down to the police station. They're inclined to dismiss it as a very poor juvenile prank - publicly. But they're going to put a twenty-four hour watch on her, just in case."

"She could have been blinded," Kostmayer answered tightly.

"It's fortunate you were there," Robert answered. "I take it your reunion went well."

Mickey moved just his eyes to glare at him. Then, finally, he straightened up. "They're going to keep her overnight. Will you drive her home tomorrow?"

"Why? Can't you do that?"

"I've got a plane to catch, McCall."

"You what?" Robert demanded. "You're not seriously thinking of leaving now, are you?"

The younger man held his hands up. "Anne understands . . . "

"But I do not. This woman was your wife. I presume you loved her at one time. Yet now, when she's in danger, when she needs your help most . . . "

"You help her," Kostmayer snapped. "You're better at it anyhow."

He started out. McCall grabbed him by the arm and spun him around. "You are not going to walk out of here like this. Not without an explanation."

Mickey yanked his sleeve away. "You want an explanation, McCall? I don't have one. All I know is, every time I get within a mile of that girl, she ends up hurt, she ends up in a place like this. I don't care if you understand, McCall, just get this: She's a lot better off without me."

"That is absolutely the most . . . " McCall stopped there, because Kostmayer could no longer hear him through the elevator door.

Bewildered, and deeply indignant, McCall walked slowly down the hall.

Anne Keller was sitting up in bed, looking toward the window, though the heavy bandages wound around her head certainly blocked out any light. McCall knocked gently on the open door, to alert her to his presence. "It's Robert."

She smiled, turning blindly toward him. "Come on in."

He went all the way to the edge of the bed and took her hand. "Well, you've had quite a morning."

"I do my best work before lunch."

"We're going to find the person that did this, Anne. I promise you that."

She kept his hand, but turned her head back toward the window. "I don't think it'll happen again."

The response confirmed what Robert had already guessed from the police report. "You know who it was, don't you?"

"Of course not."

"Anne."

"He was wearing a mask."

"Your neighborhood is a fish bowl, you said. You didn't recognize a neighbor, even in a mask?"

She bit her lip. "Maybe he wasn't from the neighborhood."

"It wasn't a man, was it? It was a child, a boy."

Her head snapped back around. "Who told you that?"

"I'm right, aren't I? And you know which boy."

Anne shook her head. "I don't know."

"You don't know, or you don't want to know?"

"I don't know," she repeated firmly.

"Anne, please . . . "

"I'm kind of tired," she announced.

McCall nodded grimly. "All right. We'll let it go, for now. But if you change your mind . . . "

"I didn't recognize him." And now her voice had a pleading tone to it. Despite her apparent good spirits, she had had one hell of a morning.

"All right," Robert repeated, squeezing her hand. "All right." His tone grew deliberately lighter. "Then tell me, what can I do for you? Can I bring you anything?"

"No, thanks. I'm fine."

"The police are putting a guard outside your door. And they have my number, if there's anything at all that you need . . . "

"Robert, I'm okay," she assured him. "I had a pretty rough morning, and this is no fun," she indicated the bandage, "but it's just a temporary inconvenience."

"And thank God that it is."

"I was scared, but I'm better now. Really. You don't need to fuss over me."

Robert smiled gently. "Well, as it happens, I do my best fussing before lunch. But you do sound as if you need to rest."

"Thanks."

He released her hand and was half way to the door before she spoke again. "Robert?"

"Yes?"

Very quietly, "Mickey's gone, isn't he?"

McCall closed his eyes, biting back his anger. Took a deep, slow breath. "I don't think he's gone very far. I can get him, if you like."

Anne shook her head. "No. Just . . . don't be angry with him. It's okay."

"It's not okay," Robert answered strenuously, moving back to her side. "He should be here with you. How he can . . . "

"He's afraid, Robert."

"You're the one who's been blinded. What has he got to be afraid of?" He tried vainly to keep his voice down. It wasn't Anne he wanted to be yelling at.

"Of . . . life," Anne answered simply. "Of us. Of everything ending up like it did last time. We haven't been back together for twelve hours and I'm in the hospital again. He's freaked, Robert. I would be too, if I hadn't had a whopping big dose of tranquilizers. Don't be mad at him. Please."

She stretched her hand out to him, and Robert had to take it, to at least pretend to relent. "I do not understand any of this," he admitted. "I don't understand him, I don't understand you." He sighed deeply. "I'm sorry. It's just that I thought I knew Mickey, that I knew all about him. And to suddenly learn that he had a wife, that he had a ch-. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to . . . "

"Like it's been off my mind since he showed up," Anne said wryly. "Sit, Robert. Tell me what you want to know."

Tentatively, Robert sat on the edge of the bed. "You're tired . . . "

"The child?" she prompted.

"Y-yes."

She hesitated a long moment, licking her lips, deciding where to begin. "Our families lived right across the street from each other. There was this whole pack of kids that all ran around together: me and all my brothers and sisters, Mickey and Nick, a couple other families. There was always somebody to play with." She hesitated again. "And then we got older, we all saw each other, but we weren't so tight any more. When I was sixteen, the first day of school, this bully grabbed my butt in the cafeteria. Mickey saw him do it, and he about took the guy's head off."

McCall nodded, then remembered she couldn't see him. "That sounds like the Mickey I know."

"We all got suspended for fighting. I was scared to death my parents would find out, I'd never been in trouble before. But Mickey showed up the next morning to walk me to school . . . and we just kept right on walking. Every day. They never did find out. So we had those ten days to get to know each other . . . " She let that trail off. "We had this plan. We were going to get the hell out of Texas, either together or separately, we were going to get out." Her voice dropped a little. "And then I got pregnant."

"So you got married."

Anne nodded slowly. "Mickey had all the credits he needed to graduate anyhow, so he just, he joined the Navy, to support us, the three of us. But while he was in Basic the baby died, he was stillborn, and then I almost died . . . it was just a mess. And we were so damn young."

"So the marriage was annulled."

"Waived. Yeah. Everybody knew it was the best thing - well, everybody but Nick. But Mickey and I both knew that if we tried to stay together, we were always going to be stuck there. We didn't even have to talk about it, we both knew. But it was hard then, and it's still hard now." She squeezed Robert's hand. "So cut him a little slack, will you?"

Against his will, McCall saw her point. To face a crisis of that size, when you were not yet twenty years old - McCall knew all about that. All things considered, Mickey had handled it well. And if he wasn't handling the current situation as well, maybe it was just because of the cloud of ghosts around them. Anne had said it: Mickey was 'freaked'. The fact that Robert had never seen Mickey freak before said more about his young friend's feeling for this woman than it did about his character.

And things were under control here, even without Mickey . . .

Anne forgave Kostmayer. Who was McCall not to?

"All right, my dear. All right." He stood up. "I'm going now, but I'll come back later. Get some rest."

He looked back from the door. She was staring blindly toward the window again.

McCall tried to focus on the real issue: the identity of Anne's attacker, and his motivation. But his thoughts kept straying to her, the child, and Mickey. Small wonder, really, that Mickey never talked about it. For his tough exterior, Robert knew that Kostmayer had a tender heart, deeply loyal, unfailingly true. For him to have suffered such a loss, so early - well, perhaps it explained a lot about that tough exterior.

Mulling this over, Robert nearly fell over one of the reporters that were crowded into the lobby. There were three networks there, with camera crews, plus a number of others taking notes and photos. Hospital security and New York police surrounded the crowd loosely, containing them but helpless to disperse them. And in the center ring of this impromptu circus, standing on a folding chair that substituted for a soap box, was Dennis Daly.

" . . . is unfathomable," he was saying loudly, in a deep Irish brogue. "This young woman has received many many threats, because of her photographs of Ireland. Now she has been attacked in this brutal way and your police are saying it's just a prank. This is not a prank. Blinding a photographer who has seen too much is not a prank. This is a deliberate attack, a terrorist attack under the direction of the IRA. Now if your police don't want to admit that terrorists are operating in this city, if they don't want to admit that they're powerless to protect their own citizens, then I can't blame them - but the people have a right to know the truth!"

Robert stood at the back of the group, frowning deeply. What the hell was Daly up to? It was obvious to McCall that this was the man who had instigated the attack. What did he hope to gain by blaming the IRA? If he was, as Control hinted, trying to get back in their good graces, what did he hope to gain by blaming them for this senseless - and ultimately unsuccessful - attack? Publicity for Keller's book? As Robert skirted around the edge of the crowd, Daly indeed raised a copy of the book over his head, to a rain of flashing bulbs. But how did that benefit him?

"I am an Irish Catholic," Daly announced. "I have lived my whole life under the oppressive rule of the British government in Northern Ireland, and I have opposed it. But terrorism is absolutely not the answer. When we attack those who are trying to help us, when we kill and maim in a futile attempt to get our point across, then we remove all possibility of reason, of negotiation, of compromise. We cannot expect the world to take us seriously when we behave like barbarians. That is why I have severed my ties with these terrorists, and worked for years to promote peace from the very earliest ages . . . "

He went on about his Peace Camps, about the boys he brought out of the war zones to the relative peace of America, about how these lads went back and taught their brothers and sisters how to get along with children of all religions . . .

He was beginning to sound like a fund raiser, but McCall didn't think that was really his goal either. The longer he listened to Daly, the more confused he became. What in the world was this man up to?

When it became clear that Daly was not going to say anything useful, Robert slipped out the front doors into the street. He could not make what he knew about Daly and what the man was saying gel. He had to admit, he simply did not know enough about the whole Irish situation. Mostly because he had chosen to ignore it for many years. No, not just to ignore it, but to consciously exclude it from his knowledge base. Because there was no solution, and because it bothered him in ways he was not comfortable facing, and because, living in New York City, he could chose to ignore it.

But now - he needed to know more.

And thanks to the book Daly had held up, he knew a good place to start.