CINDY, CLAIRE, AND I had finished most of our Coronas and a plate of wings by the time Jill arrived. She hung her coat and came up warily to the booth, the nerves easy to read in her thin smile.

"So," she said, dumping her briefcase, and tossed herself next to Claire, "who wants to be first to prod?"

"No dissection," I said. "Wings... and here..." I tilted what was left of a beer into her glass.

We all raised our glasses, Jill a little hesitantly. We had this moment of quiet, everybody trying to figure out just what was right to say. How many times had we met together before? At first, four women with tough jobs who had come together just to pool our resources, solve a crime.

"To friends," Claire said. "Ones who will be there for one another. That means for anything, Jill."

"I'd better drink this," Jill said, her eyes starting to grow moist, "before I run my nose in it."

Jill drained about a third of the glass in a deep swallow. She drew a breath. "Okay, no reason to beat around the bush, right? You all know?"

Everyone nodded.

"Telephone, telegraph, tele-Boxer." Jill threw a wink my way.

"If you're in pain, we're all in pain," Claire said. "It would be the same for you if the roles were reversed."

"I know it would." Jill nodded. "So I guess what happens next is that you guys tell me I don't exactly fit the profile of the typical battered spouse."

"I think the only thing that's next," I said, wetting my lips, "is for you to tell us how you feel."

"Yeah." She drew a tight breath. "First, I'm not battered. We fight. Steve's a bully. He's never hit me with a fist. He's never struck my face."

Cindy moved to object, but Claire held her back.

"I know that doesn't exonerate him, or justify anything. I just wanted you to know." She bit her bottom lip. "I guess I can't describe how I feel. I've tried enough of these cases to know the range of emotions. Mostly, I'm ashamed. I'm ashamed to admit that this is me."

"How long has it been going on?" Claire asked.

Jill leaned back and smiled. "You want the truthful an-swer to that question, or the one I've been telling myself the past few months? The truthful one is, from before we were married."

I felt myself clench my teeth.

"It was always something. What I would wear, something I would buy for the house that didn't fit his style. Steve's very big on telling me I'm stupid."

"Stupid?" Claire gasped. "You run intellectual rings around him."

"Steve's not dumb," Jill said. "He just doesn't see a lot of possibilities. At first, he would just squeeze me, like here, in the shoulders. Always pretend that it was inadvertent. Once or twice he threw things when he had a fit. My purse. Once, I remember" - she started to laugh - "it was this slab of Asiago cheese."

"Why?" Cindy shook her head, incredulous. "Why would he do these things to you?"

&............