“It’s more accurate to say I don’t believe in anything. Possibilities.” Did his eyes become darker, or was it her imagination? “There’s no limit to possibilities, Lenore.”

His eyes were too dark to read. If he was playing with her, baiting her, she couldn’t tell. Uncomfortable, she shifted the topic. “When you sit down to write a story, you craft it, spending hours, days, on the angles and the edges, the same way a carpenter builds a cabinet.”

He liked her analogy. Hunter sipped at the strong black coffee, enjoying the taste, enjoying the mingled scents of burning wood, summer and Lee’s quiet perfume. “Telling a story’s an art, writing’s a craft.”

Lee felt a quick kick of excitement. That was exactly what she was after, those concise little quotes that gave an insight into his character. “Do you consider yourself an artist, then, or a craftsman?”

He drank without hurry, noting that Lee had barely touched her coffee. The eagerness was with her again, her pen poised, her eyes fixed on his. He found he wanted her more when she was like this. He wanted to see that eager look on her face for him, for the man, not the writer. He wanted to sense the ripe anticipation, lover to lover, arms reaching, mouth softening.

If he were writing the script, he’d keep these two people from fulfilling each other’s needs for some time yet. It was necessary to flesh them out a bit first, but the ache told him what he needed. Carefully he arranged another piece of wood on the fire.

“An artist by birth,” he said at length, “a craftsman by choice.”

“I know it’s a standard question,” she began, with a brisk professionalism that made him smile, “but where do you get your ideas?”

“From life.”

She looked over again as he lit a cigarette. “Hunter, you can’t convince me that the plot for Devil’s Due came out of the everyday.”

“If you take the everyday, twist it, add a few maybes, you can come up with anything.”

“So you take the ordinary, twist it and come up with the extraordinary.” Understanding this a bit better, she nodded, satisfied. “How much of yourself goes into your characters?”

“As much as they need.”

Again it was so simply, so easily said, she knew he meant it exactly. “Do you ever base one of your characters on someone you know?”

“From time to time.” He smiled at her, a smile she neither trusted nor understood. “When I find someone intriguing enough. Do you ever get tired of writing about other people when you’ve got a world of characters in your own head?”

“It’s my job.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“I’m not here to answer questions.”

“Why are you here?”