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hour or take shut-ins out for groceries or a visit to a park or theater.
    And at that other apartment building across town she was known as a wealthy, somewhatmysterious woman with a chill manner. A woman, it was also known, whom the police would have given much to question at length and without the limitations of law. A woman representing those who trafficked in human lives and who was herself invisibly but unalterably tarred with their evil brush.
    A woman who might or might not be Leon Travers’s mistress.
    Abruptly, Raven hurried through the apartment toward the shower. She felt dirty.
    When Zach came into the den, he walked even more lightly than usual. For the past several days he had walked lightly even for him. It was not that Josh had been throwing objects or roaring his displeasure; Zach could have accepted that, though it would have surprised him, since open temper was not a part of his friend’s personality.
    No, what had been happening these last days was much quieter and far more devastating than temper. Josh was not given to excess, but Zach had watched him drinking steadily; what was sounnerving about it was that he never got drunk. He had eaten what was put before him without seeming to notice his actions, yet had lost several pounds and it all showed in his face. He was, Zach thought, finely honed, sharpened, stretched almost to the breaking point.
    Zach had seen men under stress of battle who looked like that, and he knew the dangers of it. But he was powerless. Josh had faced too many unpleasant truths in his life to allow someone else to cushion a blow for him—even if that were possible.
    But now, moving lightly into the den, Zach was relieved to find something had changed. Josh was freshly showered and shaved, and he was talking on the phone, asking the hotel to pack a picnic lunch for two. Zach waited, and since he was not a man who had to be brained with a two-by-four to see something that would have been obvious to a blind man, he was not surprised by his friend’s flat statement to him.
    “I don’t believe it.” Josh stood by his desk, one hand still resting on the phone, and his eyes were clear for the first time in days. “I can’t bethat wrong about someone. Zach, pull in the team. Pull every string you can find, call in every favor. I want every fact in that damned dossier verified by a dozen sources, and then I want
them
verified. Don’t take anyone’s word for anything. Get our investigators checking her background in person.” He drew a deep breath. “This is a very personal matter to me—and I don’t care who knows it.”
    Zach opened his mouth to speak, but Josh was gone. The big security man stood frowning for a moment. He had never known Josh to miss a point, but Zach thought he might have missed this one because he was too close to the problem.
    Still, Zach got on the phone and began calling out the troops. But he had reservations. If Raven Anderson’s background somehow had been fabricated, the question uppermost in Zach’s mind was
why
.
    Why would she need a background like that?
    During the first hour he was with Raven again, Josh was conscious of a feeling of unreality. Shewas the woman he’d met in the hallway of a hotel, lovely and cheerful, with a wry sense of humor and laughing eyes. With little help from him, she kept the conversation going, never referring to her absence or betraying, by so much as a flicker of her eye, the double life she might well be leading.
    And his body, at least, didn’t give a damn whether or not she
was
leading a double life. The increasingly familiar aching throb of desire intensified the moment she opened the apartment door, and grew steadily moment by moment. Tension wound tightly within him and his mouth was dry.
    The stress of the last days had left his emotions ragged and painful, and the growing desire found a firm hold. He was half out of his mind with wanting her, and he was dimly aware he needed some kind of reassurance