TEN

      As I pass through the wrought-iron gate of the Perry garden, I see a figure standing at the foot of the steps leading to the side door of the mansion, and the orange eye of a cigarette burning in the dark.

      The shrubs and trees in the garden are lighted with white Christmas lights, like little stars. Nearing the steps, I realize that the figure is Caitlin Masters. She’s rocking slightly to the rhythm of “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore” wafting from the back of the house. I stop a few feet from her.

      “I didn’t know you smoked.”

      She blows a stream of smoke away from me. “I don’t. You’re hallucinating. Is your father okay?”

      “He had an emergency call. So, you only smoke at parties?”

      “Only when I’m bored.”

      She doesn’t look bored. She looks like she’s been waiting for me. “Are there many people in town your age?”

      She cuts her eyes at me. “You mean men?”

      “I guess I did.”

      “Nada. It’s a desert.” She stubs out the cigarette with her sandal and takes a sip of her drink. It looks like white wine, but it’s not in a wineglass, and in the dim light has a tinge of green.

      “Is that Mountain Dew?”

      “God, no. It’s a gimlet. Gin and Rose’s lime juice. Raymond Chandler turned me on to them.”

      The Chandler reference surprises me. I’m starting to suspect that Caitlin Masters is full of surprises.

      “You know the book?” she asks.

       “The Long Goodbye.”

      “Very good. For that, I’ll tell you a little secret I learned today. Interested?”

      “Sure.”

      “Remember I told you about the Sovereignty Commission files? How forty-two of them are sealed for security reasons?”

      “Yes.”

      “One of my reporters requested a Sovereignty Commission file today, and I was more than a little surprised to learn that it was one of the forty-two.”

      I think for a minute. “Not Del Payton?”

      She nods. “I thought you’d be interested.”

      “Surprised, anyway.”

      “I saw you talking to the D.A. inside. Anything I should know about?”

      “He’s just an old school friend.”

      “He didn’t look too friendly.”

      Caitlin Masters doesn’t miss anything. I wonder what she would do if she knew her story had got me shot at tonight. Probably tear into the story like a bulldog.

      “You’re dangerous, aren’t you?”

      She laughs softly and pulls a loose thread of linen from the front of her strapless dress. Her shoulders are lean and ghostly white in the shadows, accenting the long, graceful lines of her neck.

      “I try to be. You’re sure you won’t reconsider lunch tomorrow? I promise to show a little remorse about the articles.”

      Her tone is casual enough, but there is more in it than hunger for a story. Her steady gaze has nothing to do with the words she spoke. Whatever I felt when we touched after the interview yesterday, she felt too. Between us floats a curious longing to feel that shock again, that aliveness. Without preamble she reaches out with her free hand and takes my right, her eyes unwavering. Her hand is cool, but a rush of warmth runs up my arm.

      She smiles. “Feels good, doesn’t it?”

      It’s only her hand, but the intimacy of her touch is undeniable. It’s been so long since I’ve had any physical contact with a woman that it almost paralyzes me. Sarah’s illness made it impossible at the end, and in the months since her death I’ve felt no response at all to the flirtations of the women I’ve met. It’s as though the sexual component of my personality, once dominant, has been wrapped in so many layers of guilt and grief that the prospect of having to work through them with someone new discourages me from even trying. But with one simple gesture Caitlin Masters has cut through all of that.

      “I suppose I’m being forward,” she says. “By Southern standards anyway.”

      The urge to kiss her is a living thing inside my chest, and with it returns the guilt I felt yesterday, magnified a hundred-fold. I close my eyes and squeeze her hand, fighting and savoring the pleasure at the same time. As though bidden by my thoughts, her lips brush mine.

      When I open my eyes, hers are only inches away, green and wide, full of curiosity. She closes them, rises on tiptoe, and presses her lips to mine, sending another thrill of heat through me. From the first moment it is a knowing kiss, not the timid tasting of strangers, but the self-assured encounter of lovers who recognize each other. Her tongue is warm against mine, her lips cool. My senses read every curve and valley beneath the linen, and my arousal is immediate. Immediate and obvious. I slip my hand into the small of her back and for a moment kiss her as I truly want to, and the passion of her response explodes the boundaries I had perceived around us. As she kisses me, I feel something shift deep in my soul, a heavy door, and whatever stirs behind that door is too powerful to set free here, in this place. I break the kiss.

      “Well,” she says with a laugh, “I guess that answers that question.”

      “Which question?”

      “Did we really feel something yesterday.”

      Her cheeks are flushed, and part of her hair has fallen around her neck. She points at the edge of the flower bed beside us, where her gimlet glass lies in the monkey grass. “I dropped my drink.”

      “I’m sorry, Caitlin.”

      “I can get another one.”

      “I mean for getting so … you know.”

      She shakes her head. “I liked it. Hey, you didn’t break any laws here. You look like you saw a ghost.” Her smile vanishes. “You did see a ghost. God, I’m such an ass sometimes.”

      “It’s all right.”

      She takes my hand again. “This just happened, okay? Nobody’s fault. We’ll just be friends, if you want.”

      “This is unfamiliar territory for me.”

      “We’re the only ones out here, Penn. Everything’s fine.” She reaches behind her neck to pin her hair back up. “Do you need a ride home?”

      “No. I need to talk to Sam Jacobs. He’ll give me a ride. Thanks, though.”

      She releases my hand and gives me the kind of encouraging smile you give a sick friend, then walks up the steps ahead of me. As she turns the doorknob, I reach out and touch her elbow. “I do think