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daughter's love for her father.
    Kate's husband, Ethan Brand, slipped away from the director of the opera and found the rock hounds in the garden at the side of the house: Reto, the madman, Renate, the dark-haired beauty, Karl, who could tell a story better than anyone, and Wolfe, the German who had nearly climbed Eiger with Kate before breaking both his legs at the Spider. They were drinking white wine and passing a joint. By the glassiness of their eyes Ethan was guessing the joint was probably not their first.
    At the sight of him Karl cried out in Swinglish , 'Ethan! What's the los , man?'
    'There's a cop inside,' he told them in English.
    Reto laughed and said to send him out, maybe he wanted to get high, too. Renate wondered aloud if he had brought his handcuffs. Wolfe ignored the matter entirely and offered Ethan a toke. He knew Ethan didn't smoke. He did it just so he could sneer once Ethan refused.
    It didn't seem that many years ago when Ethan would convince himself he needed a joint just to get through his high school classes. Of course after he was high he had always felt like he would explode if he went back inside and listened to his teachers, so, inevitably, he went looking for a house where no one was home. At first Ethan had broken into places to see if he could get away with it. He would usually smoke another joint or two, watch TV, and then just take a look about to see what the people had and how they lived. If he saw any cash, of course, he would take it, but in his first few break-ins he didn't touch anything else. It hadn't taken too many times before he was seeing the world differently. He got himself a watch, his mother a microwave. Eventually he brought home a TV, a stereo, jewellery, and CDs. After a while he got a partner because it seemed a lot safer to have a lookout, but his partner was a talker and the two of them ended up getting arrested.
    The next eighteen months had changed Ethan's life. He got straight for one thing - scared straight as they liked to say in those days - and he had met a Jesuit priest who spotted something his high school teachers had missed: Ethan had a near-photographic memory.
    When he was released Ethan spent nine months in a Catholic school completing two years of course work and learning the equivalent of four years of Latin from the priest. In his spare time, he learned to climb - also with the help of the priest. The following year he entered Notre Dame on an academic scholarship, intending to join the priesthood after graduation. He had liked the course work, especially the history of the Church, and he was top in his class in Latin, but the more he studied the faith, the more his own began to falter. Finally, he realised he could give up the notion of becoming a priest - and ultimately his faith in God - without sinking at once into moral ruin. At least that was the plan. As it happened moral ruin only wanted a bit of encouragement.
    He got accepted to law school at George Washington University following graduation with honours from Notre Dame. Before he went off to D. C., Ethan wanted to spend a summer travelling in Europe, the last month of which devoted to rock climbing. A week into the climbing phase of the trip Ethan was at a rock with a couple of friends. They were laying out the ropes when Kate walked up. She offered Ethan a pretty smile and then started up the rock in a free climb. Ethan left his friends and the ropes behind and followed her to the top. It was his first ascent without any sort of security, but worth the risk, as it had got Kate's attention. A couple of nights before Ethan's flight back to the U. S., he and Kate were walking together when Kate jumped a wall and went into an estate. Ethan knew what she meant to do, but just the thought of Kate in his arms in a stranger's bed stirred him, and he jumped the wall as well.
    He had followed Kate over walls for the next seven years, making a good living in the process. Roland had fenced the