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physical in the beginning, but the longer she lived with him, the more she had come to respect his decency and humanity. It also aroused her no end that he thought she was one of the sharpest detectives he had ever known.
    But she couldn’t escape the sense of unease that twisted her insides now. The sensation of eyes watching her under a microscope.
    Danger
.
    She had learned to listen to her intuition. Back in Vegas, there had been a stretch of weeks when she got the same feeling, that something was wrong, that she was sharing her life with a secret stalker. Later, she discovered that a predator named Tommy Luck really had been watching her all that time, and she wound up with a narrow escape.
    That was then, she thought, and this is now. Tommy was history. The past was behind her.
    Maybe it was simply that she couldn’t escape her demons so readily. She was still haunted by memories of her teenage years in Phoenix, before she ran away to Las Vegas. Her mother had descended into a life-stealing addiction to cocaine and begun living with a sadistic drug dealer named Blue Dog who used Serena as his personal whore. She had fought long and hard to get past the helplessness of those days and still saw a psychiatrist every month to help her cope. It was over, but it was never really over. It only took a strange, disconnected sensation of danger to reawaken the scared child.
    I’m not fifteen anymore
, she told herself.
    Serena continued through the park to the courthouse. She took the antique elevators to the top floor, where Dan Erickson had his office as county attorney with windows overlooking the lake. She introduced herself to the receptionist, hung up her coat, and took a seat on the almond-colored sofa. Serena wore black dress slacks, heels, a burgundy blouse, and a black waistcoat with gold buttons. It was a conservative outfit but didn’t hide her figure. She noted the sideways glance from the receptionist and wondered if the girl had pegged her as the next in the long line of Dan’s conquests.
    The inner door to Dan’s office opened.
    A woman in her forties appeared in the doorway and gave the receptionist a cold smile that barely crinkled her lips. She had wheat-colored hair crisply pulled back behind her head, leaving only a few strands free to carefully graze her forehead. She was small and elegantly thin, with ruler-straight posture that would have made a Catholic nun proud. She had a Coach purse slung over her shoulder and wore a knee-length charcoal skirt and ivory jacket. Pearls dangled on inch-long gold chains from her ear-lobes, and a matching necklace glinted discreetly in the hollow of her neck. When her lake-blue eyes latched onto Serena in the waiting room, her brows arched into perfect twin peaks. She marched over and cocked her head.
    “
You’re
Serena Dial?” she asked.
    “That’s right.”
    The woman took the measure of Serena from head to toe. “Well, good for Stride. I didn’t realize you were such a gorgeous creature.”
    “And you are?” Serena asked.
    “Lauren Erickson. Dan’s wife.”
    “Oh, sure, of course. I’m sorry, we haven’t met before.”
    Serena recognized her now. Lauren was in the papers regularly, tangling with the city council over zoning issues on her real estate properties. She rarely lost; it helped to have the power of the county attorney quietly behind you and enough money to grease itchy palms. She was the banker and brains behind Dan’s career.
    “You’re from Las Vegas, aren’t you?” Lauren asked.
    “That’s right.”
    Lauren clucked her tongue as if Vegas belonged to a different solar system. “Duluth must be quite a disappointment for you. No Elvis impersonators. No topless chorus lines.”
    Serena stood up. She was nearly a foot taller than Lauren, and the other woman’s small mouth puckered with annoyance as she tilted her chin upward to look at Serena.
    “I was always a fan of the Liberace museum,” Serena replied, smiling.
    The receptionist