He lots of free time--too much. He actually went to New York to visit Lorraine. That was a mistake. She was interested . . . but Tiggs found he wasn't. She was what she was: somebody who needed taking care of. Charming in a child, but not in a woman he could stay interested in.

He wrote to the woman who'd claimed to be his wife. He chose writing because it maintained distance; calling her would be more personal than he wanted to be. It would also mean listening to her voice, which he hadn't heard the like of. He didn't say much, really. The real message was, "Are you interested?"

After several weeks, a reply came. There was a little news about her friends, especially about her ward, who apparently had had a shotgun wedding. Also that his old boss was going to be a father about the same time. But the part that mattered was this one:

I will cooperate if you wish to end our marriage. I am, after all, no more than a stranger to your mind. But would you allow me to spend some time with you first?

She sent a photograph. She was sitting on her bed, completely dressed and modestly posed. She was holding a little flowerpot in her hand, with a single blue rose growing from a tiny bush.

He kept that picture. In two days, he bought a frame for it, and wrote back. The gist of that letter was:

Maybe.

Before Setsuna's next letter arrived, he was transferred to Cleveland. Two months later, Denver. Six weeks later, Anchorage. It was then that Martin Tiggs had to admit that he was "on the bicycle." This was a time-honored way to encourage resignation. Before he signed away his career, Tiggs made some calls to people he thought were his friends in the bureau.

A month after that, he was surprised to get a lunch invitation from one. Very surprised, because his friend worked out of Miami.

The lunch was at at, appropriately, the Miami Lounge.

"Vic. Long time no see," said Martin Tiggs.

Victor Ballin replied, "Hi, Marty. Too damned long . . . Just coffee for now," he said to the waitress.

"I thought we were having lunch," said Tiggs.

Ballin said, "I don't have much appetite . . . Marty, I'm here for the Bureau."

Tiggs said, "Oh . . . too bad, the salmon steak here is the best in town. Well, go on."

Ballin said, "Marty, you have to get out. There's no way around it." He pulled a folder from his inside jacket pocket, and presented it to Tiggs, along with a pen. "If I don't bring this back, the Bureau is going to suspend you. You don't want that, Marty."

"Why wouldn't I want my hearing?" asked Tiggs.

"Because you'll lose, Marty," said Ballin.

"What am I supposed to have done?"

"Marty, don't bullshit me. You whacked Van Huff. There is no way Marvell Jones would have let you live if you didn't! I don't know if that 'amnesia' of yours is real--"

"It's a real steel plate in my head," said Tiggs.

"Well, then, maybe you don't remember. But you did it. We can't use any of your work against Jones in court. We're never going to be able to get another one in as close as you. Marty, it's over. Get out before they find the money."

"Money? You think . . . " But of course, they thought.

He took the pen, and signed. But he held the papers back. "Vic, I didn't take money. Marvell must have made me . . . maybe from the first. You've got a leak in the Bureau, and I wasn't it." He handed over the papers. "Remember that."

Victor Ballin took the papers, checked the signatures, and put them back in his jacket. "I'm sorry, Marty . . . sorry." He finished his coffee. "Got any plans? I know some hotels that could use a good security chief."

"No. I think I'll just go home to the wife."

The only way his exit from the Anchorage office could have been made faster was to use an ejection seat. Getting out of Anchorage itself was another matter; the airport was shut down for five days, not by winter weather, but a strike by equipment operators. On the third day, he gave up, and bought a bus ticket. Driving was not a sane option. He found a bus down the Alaska highway was not a significantly saner one.

He kept trying to call Setsuna. He kept getting the same answer, variations on "Sorry, she's not here. But come anyway. You are welcome."

Some hours less than a week after "lunch" at the Miami Lounge, near the end of one of the more miserable Januarys in the memory of the Bay Area, Martin Tiggs waited for a ride from the bus terminal. He had thought of taking a cab--but refusing a courtesy was a bad way to start in his new home. If he really had a home here. He actually thought about taking out the picture, but he had burned the image in his mind. Setsuna, on her bed. A place for you here.

He didn't remember anything of their time together, really together, if it had really happened . . . except the images of her body, and he was not sure they weren't dreams. But he was starting to remember dreams . . . old dreams. Long ago, he had dreams of a lady . . . dark against light bright behind her. When he was a boy, just after his mother died . . . he could never really see her in the dream, but the voice was soft, yet clear . . . he had never understood any words, but he had been comforted by the voice.

That could be it. Coincidence. Setsuna had a voice like the one he thought he remembered from the dream.

"Excuse me, sir. Are you all right?"

It was a cop--a white one, a woman. Her partner was a woman, but black.

He started bring out his Bureau shield--but of course, he didn't have one. They tensed, and he would have been in real trouble in another second. He stopped his hands, and said, "Sorry . . . I was thinking about something. I didn't notice you here."

"Could we see some ID?"

"Yes . . . here."

"Alaska?"

"Yes, Alaska. Too cold for me."

"What brings you here, Mr. Tiggs? If you don't mind my asking."

Before Tiggs could think about an answer, or whether he would give one, the cops were startled by a horn. Mrs. Chiba had driven up in her van. A tall, strong woman got out as soon as the van stopped. The cops melted away from her. So did Tiggs, for a moment . . . though he couldn't say why. She seemed in a much better mood than Mrs. Chiba.

Tiggs prompted the cops, "If I could have my license? My ride is here."

Mrs. Chiba did not talk much on the way back, and she set the tone for her friend. Tiggs already knew the answer to the most important question of the day: would Setsuna be home? Maybe tomorrow night.

But Martin Tiggs could not help asking, "How's Marvell's war going?" He hadn't followed it for a long time, since it had become clear the Bureau didn't want him involved with the Marvell Jones investigation any further.

Mrs. Urawa started to say something, but Mrs. Chiba barked something in Japanese, and that seemed to be the end of that. He didn't say any more about Jones or his war. Tiggs had not come back to hunt down Marvell Jones on his own.

Then he noticed that Mrs. Chiba was taking a different route. He found out why when they passed the place Jones had set his mother up in. Or rather, the place where that house had once stood.

It was a burnt-out ruin. Mrs. Chiba began explaining at last. "Old Mrs. Jones is still in hospital. His wife's mother was killed, the lady who liked you so much. His wife is staying with us now, and that is why the police watch our place all the time. Probably our phones are all tapped now."

As they came up on the mansion a few minutes later, and he spotted what could only be a surveillance van parked just where it could watch the front and side entrances of the place.

He asked, "What about Marvell?"

Mrs. Urawa answered that one. "He wasn't hurt much. He was lucky, again. Mr. Marvell Jones is a very lucky man."

"Yeah . . . well, his luck will run out someday."

"Yes, it will," answered Mrs. Chiba as she turned up the side street. As she made the turn, Tiggs was close enough to actually recognize a man standing outside the van. Not someone from the Bureau; OPD. An older plainclothes cop he remembered seeing a lot in his rearview when he was driving Marvell. He was talking to someone inside, while keeping an eye on Mrs. Chiba's vehicle.

Tiggs had not spotted a tail on the van, but he hadn't been looking for one. There were better ways to keep track of a car now; a tail was really a message, at least from the Bureau. The OPD was behind the times, though, even for a city police department.

When they went inside the house, Martin Tiggs looked out to see if his most familiar tail was still there. He wasn't, at least in sight, and the van was probably federal--after all, this wasn't Oakland.

Tiggs put that in the back of his mind for now, and began to feel his way around the place, and the people who were letting him share it.

Unsurprisingly, Marvell's wife didn't want anything to do with Tiggs. This was especially awkward, because the tiny woman, despite her pregnancy, was very energetic. She cooked, she cleaned, she mended clothes, she tended children. She was liable to turn up anywhere, making it even more difficult for Tiggs to establish himself.

Kevin Jones was harder for Tiggs to understand.

It was impossible to read his face, of course: Kevin Jones didn't really have one. He did have something resembling a nose now, a piece of flesh to cover the hole he breathed through. Otherwise, he looked through the same frightful mask Tiggs remembered.

Marvell's brother hadn't figured much in the case, at least as far as Tiggs had been allowed to know. While Tiggs had been undercover, he'd met Kevin only a few times. He'd seemed to be a civilian, although Tiggs knew he had been working for Marvell before his terrible injuries. Martin Tiggs did not think the AG had laid off Kevin because she had been feeling merciful. She must have looked at Kevin and decided he wasn't a profitable target.

As the days passed with no sign of Setsuna, Tiggs discovered only one definite change in Kevin Jones: he'd picked up enough education to use a computer. Tiggs found him using a scheduling program, to juggle appointments and activities for the other people living in the house, especially the children. Marvell's brother took most phone calls, and he was always reminding people that it was time for this and not to forget that.

Since Kevin seemed to be the scheduler, Tiggs thought he would probably be the first to hear when Setsuna was really coming back. Tiggs found it took more from him than he had expected to ask Marvell's brother for some help, even as slight as he was asking. The response he got was his second surprise from the crippled husk who had won the trust of Setsuna's friends, even the love of one of them . . .

"No, I don't have word," Kevin replied to the question. "Might be tonight, but I wouldn't bet. You marry one of the girls, you gonna be waitin' alone a lot. Get used to it."

"Thanks."

Tiggs started to leave; it was rare to catch anyone alone in the mansion, and Jones' stepdaughter was already approaching him. The child, older than he had first thought from her size, stopped to regard him, and for a moment seemed even older--reminding him of Mrs. Chiba, the one who unsettled Tiggs the most.

Suddenly the ache he had for Setsuna swelled into something unbearably sweet.

He felt a hand on his shoulder. Kevin Jones had somehow stood up without Tiggs noticing. Jones said, "She'll come. Maybe tonight, maybe not for awhile, but she'll come back."

The little girl spoke to him. "Auntie Setsuna wants to be with you, Mr. Tiggs. She wants to a lot."

But then Marvell's wife came along with Mrs. Chiba, and Tiggs retreated.

Hotaru Tsukino, who had been Setsuna's ward, was now married to Mrs. Chiba's brother. Tiggs found her harder to approach than anyone, though not because she was hostile to him in any way.

She never seemed to be alone, and for good reason. While pregnancy didn't seem to slow down Marvell's wife in the least, it put Hotaru in bed for most of her day. Sometimes it put her in a hospital bed--she was gone his second and third nights. Someone was always keeping an eye on her--and quite often that someone was Mrs. Chiba or Marvell's wife. Or Michiru, the violinist, or Mrs. Kumada--hard to tell which had the worst temper, but he never wanted to meet either of them armed!

Unfortunately, that someone was never her husband, or almost never. He was going to M.I.T. The boy had flown back for the crisis, but Hotaru had insisted he return; Tiggs had actually heard them talking. She did not talk very much at all, but Tiggs observed that when she did talk, people listened, even Mrs. Chiba, who seemed to have the final decision in all matters in the strange household.

Tiggs was very surprised when, early one afternoon, as he returned from a walk during one of the breaks in the weather, the quiet young woman said to Mrs. Urawa, "I would like to talk with Mr. Tiggs, Auntie."

The tall woman protested, but not long. She left Hotaru alone with Tiggs, taking in fresh air under the eaves of the open back porch--no longer stylish, since half of it had been taken away for the wheelchair ramp and a space for Mrs. Chiba's special van, but a nice place to spend a quiet while, even on a drizzly day. Hotaru was in her own wheelchair, a motorized monster that emphasized how delicate she was, and so bundled up she was all but lost in the blankets and winter clothing.

Tiggs sat in one of the chairs, though they were all damp enough to soak through his pants, because it seemed more polite. Then he asked, "Is there anything special you want to talk about?"

"Yes. I want to talk about Mama Setsuna."

"Oh . . . I guess I must be hard for you to accept, being with her. I am not sure at all that I should be . . . but I have to see. I'm not trying to take her away from you."

"You are wrong."

"No, I'm not. I'm not going to take her away from you or any of her friends here."

"That is not what I meant, Mr. Tiggs." The girl extended a slender hand to manipulate the joystick, and swiveled so that she faced him more squarely. "You are wrong about feeling that you are not the one for her. She has waited a long time."

Tiggs felt like he was being lectured by a child. "Yes . . . but that does not mean we are right for each other. You will find that love is never that simple."

"You do not need to teach me that!"

"I . . . I'm sorry . . . should I go?"

"No, stay. You are important to Mama Setsuna, so you are important to me." She paused a moment. "You must not give up. It will be difficult. But you are the only one for Mama Setsuna. You will not have to share her, really."

"Share her?"

Her eyes had a dark liquid look. "Mama Michiru's heart is breaking because she must share Papa Haruka with a man, or lose her. Auntie Ginger loves Uncle Mamoru, but he belongs to Auntie Usagi and she will not do anything to hurt Auntie Usagi . . . but Auntie Usagi knows how her friend hurts, and she hurts because of it. Maybe they should share . . ."

"You said 'really.' Who do I have to not really share Setsuna with?"

"She has always loved Mamoru . . . but Auntie Ami and Auntie Minako and Auntie Rei love Mamoru too. That does not mean they do not love their husbands. Auntie Setsuna is the same for you."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"I want you and Mama Setsuna to be happy together. You will never be happy if you are not together. Please remember that. It is so easy to come apart, so hard to come together."

"Thank you . . . you wouldn't be sharing your guy, would you?"

Her eyes grew sadder and more liquid, but she did not cry. "I think so . . . Shingo had a girlfriend before me, when he was very young. They grew apart after he moved here, and she stayed in Japan. Then I came to live here, and I found I loved Shingo. I kept them from getting back together. But now I must stay here because of the baby coming. And his old girlfriend, Mika, is at the university Shingo is at . . . I cannot blame her. She is doing to me what I did to her."

"Why didn't you let him stay, then? I heard you arguing. I understood the English parts."

"Because I promised Shingo's mama and papa that this baby would not hold Shingo back from school."

"I don't think anyone would hold to you that now, with all the trouble you have."

"There is no honor in a promise you keep because you are forced to keep it . . . That is what Mama Setsuna taught me." She waited a few moments, looking at him, and beyond him at the drizzle turning into real rain. Then she said, "I think it is time to go inside."

Martin Tiggs slept well enough in Setsuna's room, but he didn't like to spend time there awake. It was so empty. He fell into the habit of reading late, or sometimes catching late news in the lounge, after the kids were all chased to their beds in the basement. That was a precaution . . . the dormers the children had been sleeping in were thin-walled, outside the steel-and-concrete shell of the main house.

He wasn't really ready for sleep when he left the lounge; he was full of thoughts that Hotaru had started. But there was nothing worth staying up; he didn't want to get into the habit of staying up nights, and sleeping days. However it went with Setsuna, he was going to have to build a new life, and keeping reasonable hours was a part of making sure he didn't give up. He did stop to look out at the moon, full, just past its zenith for the evening, out of one of the south-facing windows along the walkway. There was a short break in the weather; there should be another line of rain-laden clouds coming in from the sea before the sun was properly up. But just now, the sky was wonderfully clear, and the skyglow was muted enough to see a fair number of stars.

He heard footsteps behind him, padding on the hardwood of the walkway. No one wore shoes in this house, not even the most Americanized of the children. He wasn't curious enough to look away from the moon and stars as they could rarely be seen from the Bay.

But then, instead of falling away as the walker turned to go into a room or down the stairs or across to the other side, the footsteps stopped. And a soft, clear voice said, "I am here for you, Martin."

Tiggs turned around. In the moonlight, he saw that it was really her, Setsuna.

"You're wearing just what you wore in the picture."

"Yes. It seemed right."

"When did you get here? How did you get in?"

"I've been here for a little while . . . how I got in isn't important now. Martin?"

"Yes?"

"May we go to bed now?"

"Yes . . ." He eased forward, putting her arms around her. She slowly and rather awkwardly responded, but her kiss was guileless. But then she pulled back a bit.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Nothing . . . Let's go to our room."

He kept silent until they were behind the closed door. Tiggs tried to break the ice by saying, "I hope I don't disappoint. I don't remember what we did before."

"You need not worry. This is the first time."

She started getting out of her clothes, and that was the end of words that he would remember for awhile. And he soon had evidence that, whatever Setsuna felt for Mamoru or any other men before him, she had indeed waited for him, and given to him what she could give to no other. And later, at one point, he was almost sure he was floating on air . . .