Sacred Sins by Nora Roberts

your case and choke on it. Do you think I want to waste my time arguing with some narrow-minded, self-appointed judge about the morality of my profession? I have enough problems in my life without you adding to them.”
    “Problems, Doc?” He took a slow sweep of the room, the flowers, the crystal, the soft pastels. “Things look pretty tidy around here to me.”
    “You don't know anything about me, my life, or my work.” She walked over to her desk, leaning her palms on it, but still didn't regain control. “Do you see these files, these papers, these tapes? There's a fourteen-year-old boy's life there. A boy who's already an alcoholic, a boy who needs someone who can open him up enough to see his own worth, his own place.” She whirled back again, eyes dark and impassioned. “You know what it is to try to save a life, don't you, Detective? You know how it hurts, how it frightens? Maybe I don't use a gun, but that's just what I'm trying to do. I've spent ten years of my life trying to learn how. Maybe, with enough time, enough skill, enough luck, I'll be able to help him. Damn.” She stopped, realizing how far she'd allowed herself to be pushed by a few words. “I don't have to justify anything to you.”
    “No, you don't.” As he spoke, he crushed out his cigarette in the little china dish. “I'm sorry. I was out of line.”
    Her breath came out with two hitches as she struggled to bring herself back. “What is it about what I do that makes you so bitter?”
    He wasn't ready to tell her, to bring that old, fleshed-over scar out in the open for inspection and analysis. Instead he pressed his fingers to his own tired eyes. “It's not you. It's the whole business. Makes me feel like I'm walking a very thin wire over a very long drop.”
    “I guess I can accept that.” Though it wasn't thewhole answer, or the one she'd wanted. “It's hard to stay objective right now.”
    “Let's take a step back for a minute. I don't think much of what you do, and I guess you don't think much of what I do.”
    She waited a minute, then nodded. “Agreed.”
    “We're stuck with it.” He walked over to her desk and picked up her half cup of coffee. “Got any of this hot?”
    “No. I could make some.”
    “Never mind.” He brought his hand up to knead at the tension just above his eyebrows. “Look, I am sorry. It seems like we've been running on this treadmill, and the only progress we've made is a leak to the press.”
    “I know. You might not be able to understand, but I'm as involved as you are now, and I feel as responsible.” She paused again, but this time she felt an affinity, an empathy. “That's the hard part, isn't it? Feeling responsible.”
    She was too damn good at her job, Ben thought as he leaned back against her desk. “I've got this feeling I can't shake that he's about through waiting to hit again. We're no closer to finding him, Doc. We can bullshit the press some tomorrow, but what we have to swallow is that we're no closer. You telling me why he's killing isn't going to help the next woman he homes in on.”
    “I can only tell you what he looks like inside, Ben.”
    “And I have to tell you I don't give a damn.” He turned away from her desk to face her. She was calm again. He could see it just by looking at her eyes. “When we get him, and we will, they're going to take this psychiatric profile of yours. They're going to get other ones done, then they're going to put you or some other psychiatrist on the stand, and he's going to get off.”
    “He'll be confined to a mental hospital. That's not a picnic, Ben.”
    “Until a team of doctors diagnose him cured.”
    “It's not as simple as that. You know the law better.” She dragged a hand through her hair. He was right, and so was she. That only made things more difficult. “You don't lock someone up because he has cancer, because he can't control the disintegration of his own body. How can you punish someone without taking into