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PROLOGUE

I hate hospitals. I hate the smell of them and the shiny glow on long, empty-looking corridors. I hate the ominous swish of white clothing that precedes nurses as they bustle down hallways or march unannounced into rooms. But most of all I hate waiting. Even for supposedly tough-guy homicide cops, there's nothing in the world that makes you feel more powerless than cooling your heels in some obnoxious waiting room while a person you love goes under the surgeon's knife.

When I couldn't take it any longer, I escaped outdoors, retreating to the relative safety of a concrete bench next to an overflowing ashtray. There I sat, exiled to the smoker's outdoor dungeon, even though I don't smoke and never have. There was no tree to keep off the worst of southern Oregon's blazing late June sun, but then I wasn't looking for shade. I felt chilled. From the bones out. The 90-odd-degree weather could neither penetrate nor melt the ice floe building up around my heart.

Ralph Ames, my attorney, followed me outside. He glanced in my direction but left me alone. Instead, he walked over to the other pair of worried people, the one made up of Karen, my ex-wife, and her present husband, Dave Livingston. As Ralph spoke to them, I noticed that, periodically, Dave would reach over and pat Karen's shoulder or pull her close and let her lean against him. Karen isn't the "helpless female" type, not by a long shot, but she was taking it hard. Real hard. I was thankful she had Dave there to lean on when she needed it.

I could have had someone with me as well if I hadn't been so damn stubborn. Alexis Downey was willing. In fact, she had offered to come outside with me, but I had sent her back into the waiting room to stay with Jeremy. He needed someone there with him, too, and God knows I wasn't it. How could I possibly comfort him when I could barely stand to look him in the eye?

Ashland Community Hospital. Why did this have to happen here in a little Podunk town like Ashland, Oregon? I fumed for the hundredth time. Why couldn't it have been in a big city like Portland or Seattle? Someplace civilized, where the number of hightech doctors outnumber high-priced lawyers. Someplace where, in spots like Seattle's Pill Hill, glass-and-concrete hospitals stand cheek by jowl, stuck so close together that you can walk from one to another in a driving rainstorm without ever wetting your feet. I had suggested hiring a helicopter to fly Kelly to Portland, but the doctor nixed that idea. He shook his head and said there wasn't time. Not for either one of them.

Alexis stepped outside then, too. With the highlights in her auburn hair gleaming in the afternoon sun, she walked over to where Ralph Ames stood huddled with Dave and Karen. The murmur of their conferring voices carried through the still, hot air even as far as my stand-offish bench. If I had tried, I suppose I could have made out what they were saying, but the way I felt, not knowing was better than knowing. Ignorance may not be bliss, but at least it allowed a slim margin for hope.

I glanced down at my watch. Two-thirty. The minister, a determinedly cheerful woman from the yellow Unity Church, had spent the better part of an hour at the hospital, sticking closer to Jeremy than to anybody else. Now she had gone off to Lithia Park to make sure all the guests knew the wedding had been canceled due to lack of a bride rather than lack of interest.

I saw Alex turn toward me, her eyes questioning, but I ignored her. I didn't want to talk to anybody right then, not even Alex. In my case, misery most definitely does not love company. Coward that I am, when she started toward me, I abandoned the bench and beat it down the hill. For what seemed like hours, I wandered aimlessly through Ashland's boiling midday heat, thinking about the unlikely chain of events that had conspired to bring us all here together.

As I walked, I brooded. I wondered if, after all this was over, anything would ever again be the same.