At two P.M. precisely the bell on the side door rang and my heart jumped.

Patients who've never been to my house usually remain down at the gate. The bell ring meant Lauren had unlatched the gate, mastered the route across the front drive and through the garden. No warning dog bark; Robin had gone up to Carpinteria on a wood-buying trip, left at daybreak, taking Spike with her.

I put down the coffee I hadn't touched, hurried through the house, opened the door.

New face on the other side.

Fresh, scrubbed, expressionless, clipped snowy hair stripped of product, brushed forward, falling in a soft Caesar cut.

No makeup at all. The same blue eyes— tougher, tempered. An untested face, except for the eyes.

At twenty-one Lauren looked younger than she had at fifteen.

A bleached-denim shirt and easy-fit jeans covered her from neck to ankle. The shirt was buttoned to the top and cinched with a turquoise clasp. The jeans managed to hug her frame, advertise the tight waist, soft hips. On her feet were white canvas flats with straw soles. A big calfskin bag hung over one shoulder— rich, burnished roan, gold-clasped, conspicuously expensive.

“Hello, Lauren.”

Gazing past me she offered her hand. Her palm was cold and dry. I didn't feel like smiling, but when her eyes finally met mine, I managed.

She didn't. “You work at home now. Cute place.”

“Thanks. Come on in.”

I stayed just ahead of her during the walk to my office. She moved fast— as eager to enter as she'd once been to leave.

“Very nice,” she said when we got there. “Still seeing kids and teens?”

“I don't do much therapy anymore.”

She froze in the doorway. “Your answering service didn't say that.”

“I'm still in practice, but most of my work is consultation,” I said. “Court cases, some police work. I'm always available to former patients.”

“Police work,” she said. “Yes. I saw your name in the paper. That school-yard shooting. So now you're a public hero.”

Still looking past me. Through me.

“Come on in,” I said.

* * *

“That's the same,” she said, eyeing my old leather couch.

“Kind of an antique,” I said.

“You're not— you really haven't changed that much.”

I moved behind the desk.

“I've changed,” she said.

“You've grown up,” I said.

“Have I?” She sat stiffly, made a move for the calfskin bag, stopped herself, started to smile, quashed that too. “Still no smoking?”

“Sorry, no.”

“Filthy habit,” she said. “Inherited it from Mom. She had a scare a few years back— spot on her X ray, but it turned out to be a shadow— stupid doctor. So she finally stopped. You'd think it would teach me. People are weak. You know that. You make a living off that.”

“People are fallible,” I said.

One of her legs began to bounce. “Back when I came to you, I gave you a real hard time, didn't I?”

I smiled. “Nothing I hadn't seen before.”