“You’re not driving,” she says. “Give me the keys.”

“I’m fine.”

“You took at least ten blows to the head. Your nose is bleeding. I’m driving you to the hospital.”

“My father can check me out when I get home. Get in the car!”

She scrambles over the driver’s seat to the other side. I crank the car and pull slowly out of the lot. Ike’s cruiser is already gone.

One circuit of the block takes me to Caitlin’s green Miata, and I park in the street beside it. Double-parking is an old Natchez tradition.

“I can’t believe you bit that guy,” I tell her, rubbing the back of my skull. “You fight more like a bar girl from Breaux Bridge than a blueblood from Boston.”

“When in Rome, right?” She slaps her thighs and yells, “Whoooooo, what a rush! That’s the most fun I’ve had with my clothes on in a long time.”

“Yeah, loads of fun,” I mutter, but her excitement is contagious. Her face is flushed like a sprinter’s, and her breath comes in short gasps.

“I assume that deputy was a friend of yours?”

“I’d say he’s a friend of ours.” I give her a hard look. “We still have a deal, right? No story about that little altercation in tomorrow’s paper?”

“Absolutely. No story.” She pokes me in the shoulder. “I told you I could hold my own.”

“I’m afraid that was just the first round. It’ll get a lot worse.”

Her smile doesn’t waver. “We can handle it.” She gets out of the car and closes the door, then leans into the open passenger window. “Would you be furious if I asked a personal question?”

“Go ahead.”

“Have you thought much about our kiss since last night?”

I’m glad for the dark. The black veil of her hair gleams in the window, framing her porcelain face, setting off her lips and eyes.

“Please tell me to drop dead if I’m out of line,” she says quickly. “It’s just . . . I’ve been thinking about it. It literally curled my toes. And I wanted you to know that.”

A pulse of pure pleasure spreads outward from my heart. How do I answer? Yes, I’ve thought about it a hundred times, in a way that’s not even thought but a constant awareness of how your mouth opened to mine, the coolness and knowingness of it—

“Would you like to go to Colorado with me tomorrow?”

She opens her mouth but makes no sound.

“I’m flying up to talk to the lead FBI agent on the Del Payton case in 1968. But part of your job will be baby-sitting Annie. She’s coming along.”

Caitlin is shaking her head in confusion. “Is this trip business or pleasure? Or a baby-sitting job?”