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“She’s a virgin.”

A chill shot down Rhage’s spine and nailed him in the ass. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Look in my eye. Do you think I’m jerking you off?”

V paused for a moment and then opened the door, releasing the smell of beer and human bodies along with the pulse of an old Guns N’ Roses song.

As they went inside, Rhage muttered, “You’re some freaky shit, my brother. You really are.”

Chapter Three

Pavlov had a point, Mary thought while she drove downtown. Her panic reaction to the message from Dr. Della Croce’s office was a trained one, not something logical. “Further tests” could be a lot of things. Just because she associated any kind of news from a physician with catastrophe didn’t mean she could see into the future. She had no idea what, if anything, was wrong. After all, she’d been in remission for close to two years and she felt well enough. Sure, she got tired, but who didn’t? Her job and volunteer work kept her busy.

First thing in the morning she’d call for the appointment. For now she was just going to work the beginning of Bill’s shift at the suicide hotline.

As the anxiety backed off a little, she took a deep breath. The next twenty-four hours were going to be an endurance test, with her nerves turning her body into a trampoline and her mind into a whirlpool. The trick was waiting through the panic phases and then shoring up her strength when the fear lightened up.

She parked the Civic in an open lot on Tenth Street and walked quickly toward a worn-out six-story building. This was the dingy part of town, the residue of an effort back in the seventies to professionalize a nine-square-block area of what was then a “bad neighborhood.” The optimism hadn’t worked, and now boarded-up office space mixed with low-rent housing.

She paused at the entrance and waved to the two cops passing by in a patrol car.

The headquarters of the Suicide Prevention Hotline were on the second floor in the front, and she glanced up at the glowing windows. Her first contact with the nonprofit had been as a caller. Three years later, she manned a phone every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night. She also covered holidays and relieved people when they needed it.

No one knew she’d ever dialed in. No one knew she’d had leukemia. And if she had to go back to war with her blood, she was going to keep that to herself as well.

Having watched her mother die, she didn’t want anyone standing over her bed weeping. She already knew the impotent rage that came when saving grace didn’t heel on command. She had no interest in a replay of the theatrics while she was fighting for breath and swimming in a sea of failing organs.

Okay. Nerves were back.

Mary heard a shuffle over to the left and caught a flash of movement, as if someone had ducked out of sight behind the building. Snapping to attention, she punched a code into a lock, went inside, and climbed the stairs. When she got to the second floor, she buzzed the intercom for entrance into the hotline’s offices.

As she walked past the reception desk, she waved to the executive director, Rhonda Knute, who was on the phone. Then she nodded to Nan, Stuart, and Lola, who were on deck tonight, and settled into a vacant cubicle. After making sure she had plenty of intake forms, a couple of pens, and the hotline’s intervention reference book, she took a bottle of water out of her purse.

Almost immediately one of her phone lines rang, and she checked the screen for caller ID. She knew the number. And the police had told her it was a pay phone. Downtown.

It was her caller.

The phone rang a second time and she picked up, following the hotline’s script. “Suicide Prevention Hotline, this is Mary. How may I help you?”

Silence. Not even breathing.

Dimly, she heard the hum of a car engine flare and then fade in the background. According to the police’s audit of incoming calls, the person always phoned from the street and varied his location so he couldn’t be traced.

“This is Mary. How may I help you?” She dropped her voice and broke protocol.