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“So,” Debbie said. “How was she?” her tone was conversational, as if the previous altercation had never happened.

“She’s gone. They moved her somewhere. They wouldn’t tell me where.”

Debbie plucked a cigarette out of the pack wedged under the sun visor. “Drug rehab,” she said positively as she popped the cigarette lighter in.

“How do you know that?” DeWayne said.

She lit the cigarette, then shifted it to one corner of her mouth. “ ‘Cause they wouldn’t tell you,” she said through the cloud of smoke. “It’s a law. They can’t even say if a person’s had drug treatment. So when they get all secret-like--then you know.”

“Well, I got no way of finding out where,” DeWayne said.

She smirked. “I bet I can,” she said.

“How?”

She reached over, put a hand on his thigh and squeezed. “Tell me you need me again.”

She really does have a screw loose, DeWayne thought. “I need you, baby,” he said. The patent insincerity of his voice seemed to make no difference to her. She gave his thigh another playful squeeze. “Wait’ll we get back to my place. Then I’ll show you. I’ll show you why you need me.”

CHAPTER TEN

“You know, Keller,” Berry said, “life is kind of funny. I don’t hear from you for five years, and then I hear your name twice within twenty-four hours.”

They were walking on a grassy lawn in front of a large white Victorian house. The home was the main building of Rescue House, the drug and alcohol rehabilitation facility where Doctor Lucas Berry, Major, US Army Medical Corps (Retired) was director.

Berry was a huge man, almost six-seven. His close-cropped hair was streaked with gray. Combined with his broad, square, brown face, the gray hair gave him a distinguished appearance. The feeling of mass that Berry gave was complemented by Berry’s deep, resonant voice.

Keller thought for a moment before realizing Berry’s meaning. “Crystal Puryear called you.”

Berry nodded. “Yes. Or at least her doctor at the hospital did. But he was careful to mention your name. Fortunately we had a bed coming available. Otherwise I would have had to bump someone off the waiting list.”

“You’d do that just because someone used my name?”

“You don’t hit the panic button easily, Jack. If you thought enough to call for help for someone, they’re in bad shape.”

Suddenly, incongruously, Berry grinned, which robbed his chiseled brown face of some of its accustomed sternness and made him look almost impish. “Maybe I should put you to work recruiting for me.”

“Thanks,” Keller said. “I like the job I have.”

“Hmm.” The sound was neutral, but the meaning unmistakable.

“You don’t approve of what I do.”

“It’s not up to me to approve or disapprove, Jack. I just wonder why you keep putting yourself in dangerous situations.”

Keller shrugged. “It’s what I do.”

Berry grunted. “Obviously. But that’s not an answer. Why do you do it?”

Keller stopped and looked away across the lawn at the neatly kept white guest cottages that served as the center’s dormitories. “Why does anybody do what they do?” he said. “Why’d you go from treating shell-shocked grunts to drug and alcohol rehab?”

“It’s a growth industry,” Berry said. “But you’re still ducking the question.”

“Maybe because I don’t know the answer. The job needs nerves, adrenaline. If I stop to think to much about what I’m doing and why, it could get me killed.”

“Not thinking about it is just killing you more slowly.” Keller didn’t answer. Berry sighed and started walking again. Keller followed. They walked in silence to the porch of the main building and sat down in a pair of rocking chairs on the front porch. “Nice place you got here,” Keller said. “The money must be good.”

“The house was donated,” Berry said. “The place was a wreck when we got it. No one had lived here for ten years.” He ran a hand along the immaculately varnished rail of the porch. There was obvious pride in his voice. “We worked our asses off to get the place in shape.”

“I can tell.”

Berry turned to him. “So, Jack, you ever thought about killing