ith her gaze riveted on the kitchen clock, Leigh forced down part of her breakfast while she tried to gauge how long it would take for Shrader and Littleton to determine if the state trooper had actually found the location of her accident.

In Brenna's office in the next room, the phone continued to ring incessantly, and each time Brenna answered a call, Leigh tensed, waiting… When Brenna finally reappeared in the kitchen, holding a cordless phone in her hand, Leigh jumped up from the table and nearly overturned her chair, only to have Brenna quickly shake her head and explain, "It's Meredith Farrell. They've just heard about your accident and everything. I thought you might want to talk to her."

Leigh nodded and took the call. The shipboard satellite hookup was poor, and there was the usual brief delay that caused both parties to either talk at the same time or stop and wait unnecessarily to see if the other person was finished speaking. Meredith volunteered to cancel their trip and fly back to New York, and Matt Farrell offered the services of a large investigative firm that was among the companies he owned. Leigh declined both offers and thanked them sincerely. She was certain the Farrells' offer to cancel their trip had been a courtesy that they knew she would decline, but she was surprised and touched by it nonetheless.

After that call, she went into the living room and sat down at her desk, waiting for something to happen. Within moments, Brenna walked in to give her news she didn't want: "Horace down in the lobby just called and said that Mr. Valente is here. I told Horace to send him up. Do you want to go into the other room and let me handle him?"

Leigh very much wanted to do exactly that, but she did not want anyone touching anything in Logan's study unless she herself was there. "No, I'll take care of it," Leigh said as a buzzer announced the arrival of her unwanted visitor at her door.

Brenna let him in and automatically offered to take his coat. To Leigh's dismay, he shrugged out of it and handed it to her, which evidently meant he intended to stay longer than the time it would take to find his papers and leave. Leigh had no intention of granting Michael Valente a social visit, but as he strode swiftly down the foyer steps and crossed the living room toward her, it was a little difficult to believe the tall, immaculately groomed, athletically built man striding toward her was a criminal. Dressed in an exquisitely tailored dark blue suit, pristine white shirt, and a navy blue and dark gold silk herringbone tie, he looked like an expensively dressed Wall Street banker. But then, so had John Gotti.

As he came toward her, he subjected Leigh to the same sort of intense scrutiny he'd focused on her the night of her party, and she found it just as discomforting and overly personal. She stood rigidly while he finished inspecting every feature on her face at close range, but she ignored his hands when he held them out to her and said quietly, "How are you holding up?"

"As well as can be expected," Leigh said politely but impersonally.

He slid his rejected hands into his pants pockets, an odd smile lurking at the corner of his mouth, and said absolutely nothing, which made Leigh feel awkward, rude, and ill at ease. In that state of momentary uncertainty, she felt compelled to add something. "I feel better than I look," she said.

"I'm sure you must," he said with his ghost of a smile. "I've seen faces that looked worse than yours—but their owners weren't breathing."

Leigh figured he'd probably seen a lot of dead people, at least one of whom he'd killed himself, and she turned abruptly toward Logan's study. "I'm not certain what you're looking for, but—"

"Leigh!" Brenna burst out, running into the living room, while Hilda and Joe O'Hara both crowded into the kitchen doorway. "Detective Shrader is on the telephone! It's important."

Leigh grabbed for the closest telephone, one that was on an end table next to the living room sofa. "Detective Shrader?"

"Mrs. Manning, we're pretty sure we've found the spot where you went off the road. There are some boulders near the top of an embankment with fresh black paint on them, and there's a path of broken branches down the embankment. There's a small clearing at the bottom and we've just determined there's water under the snow and ice there. We've also detected a large mass of metal in the water, and we've called for trucks with winches—"

"What about my husband!" Leigh burst out. "He has to be somewhere close to there!"

"We've got search teams on the way to the area; they'll start circling out over—"

"I'm coming out there. Where are you?"

"Look, why don't you just stay by the phone. It will take you several hours to—"

"I want to be there!"

Michael Valente touched her sleeve. "I have a helicopter—"

Leigh's momentary annoyance at his interruption gave way to dizzying gratitude. "Detective Shrader," she said into the phone, "I have use of a helicopter. Tell me where you are—" As she spoke, Leigh looked wildly about for paper and a pen. Valente reached for the phone with one hand and into his jacket pocket for a pen with the other. "I'll get the directions," he told her. "Go and get ready to leave."

As Leigh rushed for the bedroom, she heard him say into the phone, "Exactly where are you, Detective?"

It took Leigh several painful minutes to pull on her boots, and when she emerged carrying her coat and gloves, Valente was already standing in the foyer with his coat on, flanked by Brenna and Hilda. He frowned as he watched her walking toward him; then he took her coat from her. "Stand still, and let me do the work," he instructed, and then he drew each sleeve over her arm, rather than merely holding the coat behind her.

The procedure took only moments, but to Leigh it seemed much longer. She was already out the door with him when she called over her shoulder to Brenna and Hilda, "I'll phone you as soon as I know anything."

"Don't forget," Brenna said.

In the elevator, Leigh felt Michael Valente's eyes on her, but she was so grateful to him that she was able to ignore his scrutiny and even managed to give him a wan smile as she said, "Thank you very much for what you're doing."

He dismissed that without reply. "A couple of reporters were hanging around the entrance to your building," he said instead. "I had your secretary phone my driver and tell him to bring my car around to the service entrance. Where is it?" he asked as they stepped out of the elevator.

"Follow me." The elevators were blocked from the view of people on the street by a veritable forest of potted trees in the lobby, and Leigh carefully stayed behind them as she turned right, toward the rear of the building. They emerged into an alley blocked by two identical black Mercedes limousines with chauffeurs standing at attention beside each of the vehicles' open passenger doors.

Valente's car was in the rear. His chauffeur was a clean-cut man in his early thirties, who looked like a Secret Service agent who ought to be driving a dignitary's car. Joe O'Hara, with his bulky body and prizefighter's broken face, looked as if he should be driving a former convict's car. Valente started to steer Leigh toward his own car, but O'Hara stepped purposefully into his path. "I'm Mrs. Manning's driver," he informed Valente.

"I have my own car and driver," Valente said shortly, starting to step around him.

"Then you can take your car and lead the way, but Mrs. Manning rides with me."

At his confrontational tone and manner, Valente's chauffeur suddenly started forward. "Is there a problem here, Mr. Valente?"

"There is going to be," O'Hara warned with a surprisingly sharp edge to his voice.

"Get the hell out of the way—" Valente said in a low, explosive voice.

"Please!" Leigh cried. "We're wasting time." She looked at Michael Valente, her eyes pleading. Her life had become a dark, dangerous, unknown sea that she had to navigate, and at the moment, O'Hara was the only slightly familiar person in it. She rather wanted him with her. "My husband told Mr. O'Hara to stay with me. I'd like to let him do that."

To her surprised relief, Valente capitulated immediately, but the look he gave O'Hara was distinctly unpleasant. "Get in and drive," he said shortly, holding the door himself for Leigh