Doubts began choking him and his thirst grew. Harry didn't know if there was anything of quality left in him to give to her. He tossed his can of Coke in the trash, and thought of all the wasted days of the past year. Self pity had defined his existence for a long time. Now he found himself in unfamiliar territory, fighting for a reason to hope.

He needed a real drink.

Breathing deeply, Harry closed his eyes and rubbed his temple vigorously. His head was pounding like a timpani from lack of sleep. The sun-warmed brick of the building soothed the muscles in his back as he leaned against it and tried to remain calm. He let his mind drift, remembering the warmth of the shower and the path the droplets took down her neck and across her slender collar bone; the look in her eyes when he held her face in his hands and said her name.

"The guys inside giving you a hard time, Harry?"

Diane's voice broke in and he opened his eyes to see her standing next to him, gazing sympathetically. "Hey, thanks for waiting out here for me."

Harry stood up straight, shaking himself out of his daydream and cleared his throat. "I'm at your service, milady."

Gesturing to the door he said, "Into the fray then?" When she nodded, he fell in behind her, gently touching the small of her back as they ascended the stairs to the squad room together.

While Diane worked determinedly on filling out her police report, Harry had gone to Lieutenant Fancy and asked his permission to fill in Sipowicz on some of the details of their conversation with Martens. Harry knew that Andy was top dog around the squad room. He figured that if Diane had trusted Sipowicz with her confession about providing her apartment for Jill and Don's meeting, he could trust him to handle this information as well.

"What's this about, Denby?" Andy sat back, eyeing Harry with open suspicion.

Harry shut the door of the interview room and then sat down across from him. "We both know that those cartel boys didn't follow me to Diane's last night. I had assumed that they were there on bogus information from Don, but now, factoring in Don's murder, we have to accept that they may have been on an errand for someone else."

"No kidding."

Ignoring Andy's condescending tone, Harry leaned forward and continued. "IAB wasn't just lookin' to catch Jill with this. She turned out to be an incidental attachment. Fancy was right when he said they were after a bigger, meaner fish all along. Jill and Don just happened to be at the wrong place at the right time and well, they were easily used."