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streetlight—but he’d bet they had the same odd sense of glow-from-within.
    “Holy who-the-hell-are-you?” he muttered at the camera image, staring at it a moment longer. He took a fortifying sip of surprisingly good coffee and set the mug back without looking. After a moment of frown, he cycled quickly through the rest of the night’s pictures. No sign of the hooker. But…didn’t that woman look familiar…?
    With deft movements, he pulled out the camera’s memory card and replaced it with the one he’d filled the previous evening. Again he followed his progress down the street—a shorter journey, photo-wise, because it’d been his first pass through and he’d been moving a little too fast, a little too worried about being spotted…knowing he stuck out like a sore thumb and didn’t have the nature to do otherwise. And at the end the attitudinal young woman had come gliding up on her skateboard to chase him off.
    The display on the back of his camera wasn’t huge. Generous, yes. Good enough, yes. But not huge. So he hesitated when he found the skateboarder, recognizing the clothes, the stance, the attitude. Not so sure of himself when he looked at the woman herself. Disbelieving what he thought he saw, wishing he had a better shot. Maybe when he got home, he could put it up on his computer and manipulate it in Photoshop.
    Because he thought it was the same woman. Thesame shaggy, coppery hair. The distinctive little notch in her chin. The same emphasis of expression. The light caught those same eyes, fired from within.
    But he distinctly remembered a nose ring. He remembered that the boarder had been young, still growing into herself and all soft around the edges. And the hooker—thin as a rail, bony and used up.
    This woman was neither. Vibrant and determined and self-confident as opposed to arrogant….
    Too bad she hadn’t actually ever been there.
    Digital cameras don’t lie, Jethro.
    Or so he’d believed. Now he wasn’t so certain. Nor could he imagine who would go to the trouble of deleting specific photos and replacing them with ringers. It seemed far too subtle for an underground organization, not to mention pointless.
    Unless the point was to convince Jethro he was crazy. Okay, that could work. He was already half-crazy with Lizbet’s disappearance.
    Crazy enough to go back there tonight and get another photo of that hooker. Crazy enough to hide out in that little niche revealed by his photos this evening. Just crazy enough to watch that street for another chance at the Captain—hookers, skateboarders and big angry pimps notwithstanding.

Chapter 2
    S am couldn’t believe her eyes. She, who spent all her time feeding illusion to the rest of the world, and secure in her quiet knowledge of what was and what wasn’t, stared at the dark figure crouched in the dirty little not-even-an-alley where half the street girls took their quickies and couldn’t believe what she saw.
    She tried closing her eyes, squinching them shut hard, and then looking again.
    Nope. He was still there. Persistent in his stupidity. She didn’t know whether to admire him or go give him a good kick. It was hard to think of him as someone who’d driven a woman into hiding, in spite of his current oblivious persistence. She kept remembering the way he’d put himself between her and the danger from the hookers’ “agent.” She’d just pushed him to the limit and she’d been expecting a blow, not a noble gesture. Contradictory, for sure.
    Oh. My. God. He couldn’t be leaving that scant safety for another less-than-stealthy approach of the house, could he? Not really. Sam closed her eyes, pinched the bridge of her nose, and muttered an especially foul string of words reserved for moments like this. Whatever his motivations, he risked the security of the underground railroad every time he drew attention to it.
    Which would be every time he showed his face.
    Oh, look. How inconspicuous was that, crouching at the back bumper