pre-court skirmishes, he was rapidly becoming her nemesis. Still, context would work for him here just as it had momentarily fooled him with the photo. Maybe they’d have a talk before she came unglued.

And then—five minutes early—Maria Fischer entered the pub ramrod straight, her stride measured and steady, searching for a tall gentleman dressed in a herringbone sport coat.

This was not at all like the Maria Fisher he knew. Perfectly coifed, she wore gold earrings and necklace flat against her smooth, bronzed skin, complementing the smart-looking silk blouse and tan business suit that she wore with all the panache of the French model who first took it down the runway. Her dark hair, with the sheen of its reddish highlights, made the most of the brighter light at the center of the room. Even a casual observer would have recognized her immediately as someone on her way to something important. But for a careful watcher there was something more. It was vulnerability, a quality that, for Dan, had remained completely hidden in his observations of her at the courthouse and their encounter at the demonstration.

He’d heard stories about her. That she’d studied law with a correspondence school while living somewhere around Fairbanks, Alaska, in a one-room cabin. That in winter there was no way to access her cabin except by cross-country ski, snowshoe, or snowmobile. That she had came out of Alaska to save the forests and for that reason alone she had become an attorney.

People all agreed, friend and foe alike, that the woman’s power came from her absolute guilelessness. She could be accused of being a zealot, of being overly passionate and too serious about everything, but no one doubted her absolute sincerity. Since in Dan’s mind she was often sincerely wrong, that made her a particularly dangerous adversary.

She paused, searching, and Dan waved sticking his hand out of the dark corner, keeping his face back. Natural, unpretentious warmth lit up her face. For just a second he felt an odd pang of guilt.

“I enjoyed your lecture so much.” She spoke their pre-arranged code sentence with perfect ease.

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