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"I printed this out for you. Like I said, no one has seen the whole thing yet or even knows I finished it. It's my first draft. I still have a lot of work to do. Not to mention disguising the guys I write about much better..." She smiled. "But I really want you to read it”.

"Does Caesar know you're giving it to me?"

"No." She stood up.

Even though she was getting ready to go, I didn't want her to miss what I thought might be a moment of insight for her.

"Does keeping that from him make you feel good or bad?"

Her head tilted to the side and a half smile played on her lips. "Good. And. Bad." She sighed. "But here's the thing. If we are going to talk about whether or not I can really go through with publishing this book, you have to read it. I mean, if I do this, I need to be able to give Caesar a really good reason why. I want to publish my book, but I don't want to lose him in the process. So. .."

She took the last step to the leather chair where I sat.

Holding out my hands I took the package from her.

It wasn't light and somehow that surprised me. Everything about Cleo Thane was. From the lilting voice to the blond hair to the pastel-colored clothes she favored--so different from the almost all black uniform most of us New Yorkers wore--to her pale gray eyes and barely pink lips. Even her perfume, which reminded me of spring and had a base note of lilacs, was light.

There was nothing heavy or dark or ominous about the woman who handed me her confession.

Nothing except for what was actually in that envelope: all the secrets she hadn't yet told me, or anyone else, but that would, in the end, be like the pins collectors used in the process of "pinning" a butterfly's body to a board after they have captured and killed them.

Chapter Three

After Cleo left my office I pushed the play button on my answering machine, and while the morning's messages repeated, I walked to the window, opened the door to the balcony, stepped out and looked down.

The first message was from my divorce lawyer, telling me that the papers had been signed by the judge and my divorce was final. We'd expected it to happen that day, but there was always a chance that the paperwork would be delayed.

I rubbed my fingers against the gritty stone surface of the balustrade. I was conflicted about having ended my marriage.Yes, it was the right thing to do, and I would have championed this divorce if it were for any one of my patients. But, despite our problems, I had liked the calm of my life with Mitch. That we had wound up at a place where there was a lack of passion hadn't been a surprise to me. Many marriages wind up lusterless. But it depressed my husband and he couldn't live with it. Ex-husband, I re-minded myself.

The next message, from an insurance company, droned on while the sun disappeared behind a cloud and peeked back out. It was early June, and the scent of the climbing rose bush that winded through the railing and up the side of the brownstone perfumed the air. I leaned over, looked down.

Below me, on the street, Cleo emerged, stood in front of the building and lit a cigarette, her gold lighter flashing in the sun. Cleo worried me.

No one who did what she did for a living, who had been with so many men, who had made money having sex with lonely or worse--with disturbed or sexually addicted men--could remain as untouched and blase as she appeared.

Despite how long it had taken for us to get to the heart of her problems, I didn't feel manipulated. I didn't see any deception. I didn't feel--in that intuitive way that a therapist sometimes does--that she had been holding back. She just needed more time to open up. So then, what didn't I trust?

My own preconceived notions of what someone who did what she did for a living must feel?

I had other patients who were prostitutes. None, however, who had their own businesses, or who got paid what Cleo did.

One day a week I did my duty and visited women behind bars to counsel them so that when they were released they would stay off the street. And pigs can fly and there is a Santa Claus. But occasionally we did help. And for that one patient a year who didn't go back to where she just was, I could give up fifty-two days.

Cleo had never even been near a prison. And to look at her, you would believe that. With her lustrous hair, refined clothes and shining eyes, she presented a very pretty picture. I knew better than to assign personality traits based on appearances. But there was a real guilelessness about her. Were her defense mechanisms so strong that she just did not allow the reality of her life to bruise her?

Or was she disturbed in a deeper way? How buried were the fissures and flaws? How long would it take us, working together, pulling and pushing, to find them? Was she just an excellent actress playing one role with her clients, another with me? I didn't think so, and I knew a little about actresses. My mother had been one. Not a very famous one, though. She never became a bright star, except for a short time, in one little girl's eyes.

My machine beeped and another message started.

"Dr. Stone, this is Officer Tom Dignazio from the Twenty-fourth Precinct," the somber voice said. I stiffened. This was the last message, the one I had ignored while Cleo had been in my office.

"Someone who we believe was a patient of yours has been found. A young girl you were seeing earlier this year when she was in prison. I'm afraid she's been murdered. And we need you to identify the body."

He rattled off his phone number and requested I call him as soon as possible.

"The body?"

Which one of those girls whom I'd been seeing was now just "the body?” I knew I would call him back, but not yet. Not that fast. I was too stunned.

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