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you’re institutionalized now?”
    Finally she sat down. “Don’t worry, Rachel. I’m not going to take the plea agreement. I was just trying it on for size.”
    “Well it’s too big.” By then, I had a headache and wanted to leave.
    “Okay,” Emily said, recognizing as usual when the interview was over, “you’re the one with the eye.”
    I stood up to go. This one has to turn out right, I told myself.
    Emily smiled reassuringly. “I have complete confidence in you.”
    Although I rarely drank, that night I was tempted to stop at one of the liquor stores on 28 th Street and buy a bottle of something with a high alcohol content. But then I remembered it was Sunday and decided to go home and eat some leftover tofu and vegetables instead. When I finally crawled into bed, Vickie spooned me until she fell asleep. After that, I was on my own, just me and my worried mind.
    ***
     
    During the following month, I settled my sexual assault case, tried a hopeless burglary and won it, and thought about various pre-trial motions—all of them losers—that I could file on Emily’s behalf. Donald, meanwhile, had located a couple of witnesses who were willing to testify that Hal used excessive force when he’d arrested them. Two more bricks, but still not enough. If Emily was going to risk her life, I needed something more to tip the balance solidly in her favor: a missing witness or some crucial piece of evidence.
    I started waking up in the middle of the night imagining the looks on the jurors’ faces when they found out Emily hadn’t actually been attacked on the night she stabbed her husband. I’d seen those looks when I was a baby lawyer, before I figured out that jurors wouldn’t acquit my clients just because I begged them. Reasonable doubt involved crafting a strong understandable defense that would hold up against the worst facts in the case. Without something more, Emily’s claim might get overrun. Finally, on a cold February morning, while Vickie and I were making love on our king-sized bed, I found it.
    Eureka! I would get an expert who could testify about battered woman syndrome, someone who would educate the jury about the general characteristics common to women who have been psychologically and physically abused over a lengthy period of time. I could then ask my expert a series of questions about Emily’s behavior and ask her to explain why Emily may have acted the way she did. If I called the expert before my client took the stand, the jury would be much less skeptical during Emily’s testimony. Yes, it would work!
    Of course, I still had to find an expert and convince Judge Thomas to let me put her on. It was 1986, about ten years since the first battered women’s shelter opened in North America. Although a few states had already recognized battered woman syndrome, Colorado wasn’t one of them. But these were merely obstacles. What was the name of the psychologist who wrote the book on battered women? Lenore Walker, that was it. She lived in Denver, didn’t she?
    “Rachel?”
    “Huh?” I said.
    Vickie’s head was about six inches below my navel. She’d stopped doing what she was doing and was now looking up at me. “Where did you go?” she asked, sounding slightly petulant.
    I was so ashamed, I told the truth. “I’m sorry, Vickie. I was thinking about my case.”
    She slid her strong slender body all the way back up until our faces were only a couple of inches apart. Her eyes were glazed and her lips were the color of pink coral. With her jet-black hair tucked carelessly behind her ears, she looked especially beautiful.
    “I’m so sorry,” I repeated.
    “I want you to come back,” she said, brushing her breasts against mine.
    “I’m already back.”
    “Because,” she continued, pressing her pelvis into mine and then gently grinding herself against me, “this is the last refuge we have against the world and all its sorrows.”
    “I understand.” I attempted to kiss her, but she