Rachel made an noncommittal sound. ~He's cute.~ Rachel shook her head in surprise and grimaced, massaging the back of her neck. Where had that thought come from? Since she and Joshua had broken up three years ago, she had scarcely spared a thought for men, no matter how attractive they were.

“Does your neck hurt, Ms. Wainwright?" Although the question was polite, Rachel could hear a faint tone of suspicion threading through his voice, and immediately understood. As a lawyer, she had seen evidence of the depths to which people would sink when confronted with temptation. Bogus cases of whiplash were among the most prevalent of nuisance lawsuits that people used to try to squeeze money out of other motorists in rear-end collisions. Or, occasionally, police and fire departments.

“Don't worry, Dr. Augustine," she said. Her mouth quirked.

“I'm an attorney." She smiled as his eyes widened in alarm.

“But I like to think I'm one of the good ones. I'm not going to take the Village of

Woodridge to court on a whiplash case.”

“Well, you'd have a hard time against me or the police," Dr. Augustine said, his dark eyes glinting in the dim light of the police flashers. He really is good-looking, Rachel thought, to her faint astonishment. "You might have a better case against the estate of that poor bastard over there." He nodded his head towards the cloth-covered lump in the road.

“Or maybe the bus company," he mused.

“Bite your tongue," she said. ~Or use it to kiss my ass.~ a voice said, deep in the recesses of her mind. ~Or fuck my ass. That would be even better.~ She blushed suddenly. God, I must be even more tired than I thought. "Are you ready to cut me loose?"

Augustine stood, extending a hand to help Rachel to her feet. "Go on home," he said. "If you need me, here's a card. I know you're not acting like it," he said, his voice suddenly serious, "But you've gone through a terrible trauma. It's not every day you see something Like this, Ms. Wainwright. If you need someone to talk to, I'm available."

~0h, that sounds promising.~ She dropped her eyes to his left hand. ~No wedding ring. He is available.~

Rachel took the card and slipped it into her purse. In just a few seconds, she was on her way home.

She parked in the multi-car garage, noting that both Alex and Sarah were home. Both their cars were parked neatly in their spaces. She slipped through the entrance from the garage into the house, calling out, “I'm home!"

“Hi, Mom," called Sarah. Inevitably, the voice came from the kitchen.

She followed it, walking across the polished dining room floor.

Despite the tension which seemed to follow every conversation with her children these days, Rachel loved her house with the fierce, possessive passion that only came when one saw one of the foremost goals of their lives achieved. She had been raised by her parents in a series of small apartments in Oak Park, one of the near-west suburbs of Chicago. Then, when she went to college, she and and her boyfriend (later husband)

Joshua had lived in a succession of crummy apartments and rented houses.

When she won her first big case and had been elevated to partner in what was now the environmental law firm of Chihiro, Pelligrini,

Buchanan and Wainwright, she had used her bonus on a down payment for her dream home. A massive, sprawling structure built on two acres of land, it backed up against the DuPage County Forest Preserve on the west side. Two stories tall, it had five bedrooms, three baths, and a fully-finished basement. The interior was as well-furnished and decorated as good taste and her money could make it, with restful colors, good, solid furniture, and state-of-the-art home-theater systems both on the main floor and in the basement.

“It's more than we need," she had admitted to Joshua when they talked about buying it.