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door,” she said, “and see her in.” It wasn’t a suggestion.
    “Yes, ma’am,” Jacko replied. Suzanne acknowledged that with a hard look and a nod.
    Suzanne turned to smile at her. “It’s going to be a busy weekend, but I’ll call on Monday. Maybe we can have lunch together.” She shot a look to her right. “Allegra’s practicing for a concert but I think we can bribe her to take some time off.”
    “Alcohol and food? I think I can be bribed.” Allegra laughed and Lauren did her best to laugh, too. All that came out was a sick croak.
    She would give years off her life to make that luncheon.
    Suzanne mimed a telephone with her hands. “So I’ll call on Monday, then.”
    “Sure,” Lauren wheezed. On Monday she’d be in Denver or Cheyenne or Cleveland. Or North Dakota or Utah. If her mysterious friend who provided her with documents was able to swing a passport, maybe she’d be in Toronto or London.
    Lauren took a second, just a second, to mentally say goodbye to her friends in Portland. This was becoming her old life with every breath she took. She had an artist’s eye and she wanted to keep this picture in her head, take it out when the loneliness overwhelmed her in her next life. Right here, right now, she had a little living tableau of friendship and community in front of her.
    Suzanne and Allegra with their husbands, looking at her carefully in case she needed something they could give her. Willing to do that with every breath they took.
    Oh, damn. This hurt so much!
I have to go,
she thought.
Right now. Before I break down.
    She smiled, turned around and walked away before she said something dangerous. Jacko was right by her side.
    It was a crowded room but, again, walking with Jacko meant no jostling, no having to sidestep. He stuck out his elbow again at that odd angle and she slid her hand into that warm space between his huge biceps and his powerful forearm.
    It made her feel a little better. She was walking out of a life she loved, but it was in style, with an escort.
    She needed that support. Each step felt like her feet were made of lead, carrying her uphill where she desperately did not want to go—into a sere and barren new life, wherever that would be.
    She got her coat from the coat check, though Jacko didn’t seem to have checked any coat in. He had only the tuxedo jacket.
    They stepped outside and Lauren would have been nearly knocked over by a sudden gust of wind if she hadn’t still been clinging to Jacko. It was so cold her breath froze in her lungs.
    They were outside on the white ultramodern marble porch that had turned slippery in the icy wind. Shivering, Lauren started picking her way to the steps, but stopped, snagged on Jacko’s arm.
    “No.” Jacko hadn’t moved and Lauren turned to him in surprise. “It’s too cold out here.” He shrugged off his massive tuxedo jacket and put it around her shoulders. It was like being enveloped in a warm blanket.
    “What about you?” He was dressed only in a blindingly white shirt and black satin bow tie.
    “Not a problem.” Jacko turned her around, put a hand to her back and gently pushed her back into the warm lobby. “Wait here and I’ll bring my vehicle around to the front. Don’t move.”
    Her eyes widened. “Aren’t you going to be cold without your jacket? It’s warm here in the lobby. I can give you your jacket back.”
    “Nah.” Amazingly, he smiled. It was brief, really brief. A flash of white teeth in his dark face and it was over, but it had definitely been a smile. The first smile she’d seen on his face in the four months she’d known him. “I don’t mind the cold. Now don’t go anywhere.”
    She shook her head. No, she wasn’t going anywhere. Where would she go?
    Jacko disappeared around a corner. The second he was lost to sight, Lauren’s anxiety level rose. She was so exposed here.
    The vestibule was a glass-enclosed space with white marble floors, like a movie version of heaven. There was no one