Shakespeares Counselor Page 0,38

looked excited at the prospect.

So we began, and the first time I asked them to touch the floor right in front of their toes, I heard a chorus of groans and cracking joints. But gradually they improved, and since I'd insisted on discipline from the beginning, I heard no complaints. Linda and Byron were red and panting, but they made it through the rest of the class.

Now that I wasn't watching for a thief, I actually enjoyed being in the gym all day. And I was so thankful not to be loitering in Beth Crider's neighborhood that I was extra friendly all day.

Jack had thought he'd get home about ten, so I left some food out on a microwavable plate for him. I got ready for bed and read for a while, then heard the familiar snick of the key in the lock of the front door.

While Jack ate and brushed his teeth, I kept him company. He talked a little about the boy he'd found, about how halfway home the boy had decided he felt a little better and wanted to go back to the streets. He and Jack had had some conversation, and the boy had decided to stick to his original plan.

"What did you say to him to persuade him?" I asked.

"I just told him I'd carry him home, kicking and screaming if necessary. When he told me I wasn't capable of that, I pinched a nerve in his neck for a minute."

"I bet that shut him up."

"That, and me telling him I'd found and shipped plenty of runaways - just like him - home in coffins. And they never came back from that."

"You've seen a lot of runaways."

"Yeah. Starting back when I was a cop, I've seen way too many. The ones like him, the ones that started selling their butts, didn't last three years. Sickness, or a client, or self-disgust, or drugs... mostly drugs."

Every time Jack tracked a runaway, he went through a spell of depression; because the fact was, the kid often ran off again. Whatever grievance had led a child to leave home was seldom erased by life on the streets. Sometimes the grievance was legitimate; abuse, mental or physical. Sometimes it was based on teen angst; parents who "just didn't understand."

Catching a runaway often led to repeat business, but it wasn't business Jack relished. He'd rather detect a thieving employee or catch someone cheating on a disability claim any day.

"Did you get a chance to call anyone about the new detective here?" I asked, as Jack slid into bed.

"Not yet. Tomorrow," he said, half asleep already. His lips moved against my cheek in a sketchy kiss. "Everything tomorrow," he promised, and before I switched off the lamp by the bed, he was out.

The next morning when I returned from cleaning Carrie's office, Jack was in the shower. He'd already worked out, I saw from the pile of clothes on the floor. Jack didn't believe in picking up as he went, a tenet that my mother had instilled in me when I was knee-high. I took a deep breath and left his clothes where he'd dropped them.

When he came out of the steamy little bathroom fifteen minutes later, vigorously toweling his hair, I was working on a grocery list at the kitchen table. He was well worth the wait. I sighed when Jack pulled on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt and began to brush through his long hair.

"When I got up, I called this woman I know on the force in Memphis, and she knew someone on the job in Cleveland," Jack said.

"And?" I said impatiently, as he paused to work through a tangle.

"According to this detective in Ohio, Alicia Stokes was a rising star in the office. Her clearance rate was spectacular, she handled community appearances well, and she was on the fast track for promotion. Then she got involved in a case she couldn't solve and it all kind of fell apart." Jack frowned at the amount of hair that came off in his brush.

"What was the case?"

"One she wasn't even the primary on," Jack muttered, still preoccupied by his hair loss. "That is, she wasn't the detective in charge. She did some of the related interviews, that's all. No one knows what set her off the deep end about this case. Which," he added, seeing the exasperation on my face, "involved a woman who was being stalked."

I felt a deep twinge of apprehension. "Okay. What exactly happened?"

"I heard