"Mrs. Samuel Ward?"

She didn't have to admit to that name.

"Mrs. Ward, I'm a detective. A private investigator. Your husband hired me to find you. He's very worried about you."

He didn't look like a detective, Leigh thought. He looked like a druggist. He was plump, with baby-pink skin and scalp which shone through his carefully combed strands of hair. Cold, watery blue eyes peered out at her from behind thick glass.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Mrs. Ward, I could have simply alerted your husband as to your whereabouts. Instead, I thought I'd come and talk to you first. To give you a chance to reassess your motives in leaving Mr. Ward so abruptly. To give you a chance to decide to go home again."

She turned the key in the lock, opening the door. "Leave me alone," she said.

He followed her into the room and, after glancing quickly around the sparsely furnished room, sat on the edge of the unmade bed.

Leigh looked at him with distaste, then grudgingly shut the door. Still standing beside it she said, "So you're going to tell my husband where I am?"

"It's what I'm paid to do, Mrs. Ward."

"It won't make any difference," she said. "He has no more power over me than you do."

The detective looked around. "I don't understand it; I sure don't. You have a nice home, a husband who loves you, and you ditch it all for a crummy room like this, with roaches on the walls and junkie kids out on the corner ready to knife you for a buck. What made you do it? You don't have a lover. What's here for you? What are you doing in this crummy little room?"

Leigh clasped her hands. She was taut with anticipation. Something was about to happen--her son was near, she was certain. She needed only a little more time. Only a little.

"I'm waiting," she said tensely. "That's what I'm doing here."

"For what?"

"Look," she said. "Just go away. Forget you found me."

"Oh, I couldn't do that, ma'am. You're much too pretty to forget." She was repelled by his wet grin.

"Mrs. Ward, I have to tell your husband something. And what I've got to tell him, I'm not sure he'll believe. It doesn't make sense. But he'll come out here and see for himself."

"I'll be gone before he gets here."

He shifted around on the bed, settling in. Leigh realized the backs of her legs were aching. She wanted to sit down.

"That's entirely possible, Mrs. Ward. And I'll probably find you again if I have to. Uh, just why did you leave your husband? Just out of curiosity, I'd like to know."

She walked across the room and sat beside him on the bed. She had no lie to tell him, so she told the truth. "I'm looking for my son."

He shook his head ponderously. "Mr. Ward didn't say anything about a son. Just your daughter."

"He doesn't know. It happened before I met him. I have a chance now to get to know my son for the first time--to be together with him."

The detective looked at her, his eyes swimming like fish behind the distorting glass. "I get it," he said. "A youthful indiscretion. Something your husband wouldn't understand. Something you don't want him to know."

Leigh nodded. "He wouldn't--he couldn't--understand."

"But I gotta tell your husband something," said the man, letting one plump hand fall on Leigh's leg. "Like, are you gonna go back to him? And what happens when you get your boy? How you gonna explain him away to your husband? What happens then?"

"I... hadn't thought things out that far in advance. The important thing right now is just to find him. Perhaps... perhaps he'll be able to tell me what to do when we're together."

"Your little boy'll tell you?" He laughed, and moved closer to her, his hand squeezing her leg above the knee. "Listen. You're going to need help. Adoption is a complicated business. You'll need a good lawyer, at least. I've got friends who owe me favors, including one good lawyer. Now, if I owed you a favor..."

"I haven't got any money," Leigh said.

"Who said anything about money, sweetheart? We're talking about human kindness."

Leigh wasn't certain who moved then, but suddenly they were kissing, and either he was pressing her down onto the bed, or she was pulling him with her. For just a moment, as she responded without thought to his demanding kiss, she couldn't remember who he was--that nameless artist? someone who had followed her up from the street? her husband?

His glasses pressed painfully into her face, and she couldn't breathe. She twisted her head to one side to escape the pressure (he obligingly transferred his attentions to her chest) and opened her eyes.

The wide, accusing stare of her son met her gaze. He was there--right there--beside the bed. She could have put out her hand and touched him. But as she struggled to be free of the body that pinned her to the bed, the boy turned and ran out of the room.