heila Winters's receptionist had already gone home, and the elegant little anteroom was empty when Sam and McCord arrived a few minutes ahead of their allotted time.

Since the door to Dr. Winters's office was closed, they sat down on a pair of tufted, green leather wing chairs to wait until Winters finished with whoever was with her. McCord picked up a magazine from the stack on the lamp table between their chairs, propped his ankle on his knee, and began leafing through it.

Sam picked up a copy of Vanity Fair and opened it, but her mind was on the interview they'd just concluded with Leigh Manning. The actress had been so badly disillusioned by the police in recent weeks that she'd stood beside, and slightly behind, Valente's chair with her hand on his shoulder the entire time she answered McCord's opening questions.

At first, Sam had thought she was subtly seeking Valente's protection. It was fully ten minutes before Sam realized the opposite was true—Leigh Manning was afraid for Valente, and standing with him against McCord and Sam.

McCord thought so, too, and remarked on it when they were in the ear on the way to Winters's office. "Did you notice Leigh Manning didn't leave Valente's side until she realized all our questions were going to be solely for her?"

"She reminded me of a lovely Irish setter trying to protect a dangerous panther," Sam confided, and McCord chuckled at her analogy. "I match up people with their animal counterparts," Sam admitted. "For example, Shrader reminds me of a rottweiler. I've nicknamed him Shredder—"

McCord's laughter cracked like a pistol shot.

The phone on Dr. Winters's receptionist's desk rang and the answering machine clicked on. McCord got up and restlessly studied a picture on the wall behind his chair.

"I'm surprised Dr. Winters doesn't use an answering service," Sam remarked quietly.

"She probably switches her calls over to one when she leaves," McCord replied, his voice lowered, too. "That's what my brothers-in-law do."

"Are they doctors?"

"Two of them are."

"Two of them? How many sisters do you have?"

He slanted her an amused sideways glance and silently held up one hand, the thumb folded back against the palm.

"You have four sisters?"

He nodded and shoved his hands into his pockets, his face toward the picture, his gaze slanted downward to her. "Until I was ten, I thought shower curtains always looked like legs with feet."

Sam grinned. "Panty hose," she concluded; then she said, "Did that brown tweed jacket you were wearing the first day really belong to your brother-in-law?"

Nodding again, he said, "The apartment above mine caught fire while I was on vacation. When I got home, everything in my place reeked of smoke and had to be cleaned and treated. The clothes in my suitcases were the only things of my own I could wear."

The phone rang again, and McCord turned, glancing impatiently at his watch and then the answering machine. "Dr. Winters is running almost ten minutes late. Shrinks are very clock conscious…" As he spoke he walked toward the door of her office.

He knocked.

No answer.

He reached for the knob and turned it as Sam put down her magazine. "There's nobody—" he began, standing in the center of the office; then he turned right and disappeared from Sam's line of vision. "Shit! Call for EMS!" he shouted.

Grabbing for her cell phone, Sam raced into the office, but all she saw at first glance was McCord's back as he crouched down near the back corner of the psychiatrist's desk.

"Never mind the ambulance," he told Sam grimly over his shoulder, "call Dispatch and tell them to get CSU over here."

Leaning over him with her cell phone to her ear, Sam did as he instructed, her gaze riveted on the corpse of the woman she had spoken to only hours before. Sheila Winters was sprawled facedown on the floor, her body behind her desk, her face peeking out around it, her eyes wide and staring, as if she were looking at the doorway. Her bright yellow dress was stained vermilion across the back where blood had poured from a gaping wound.

Careful not to alter the position of the body, McCord lifted Winters's left shoulder so that he could see the wound from the front; then he released his grip and stood up. "That's an exit wound in her back," he told Sam; then he gestured toward the blood spattered on the wall behind the desk. "She was probably standing near her chair when she was shot, and the impact slammed her against that wall; then she fell forward on her face."

Sam was about to answer him when McCord's cell phone rang. He grabbed it and opened it, and then listened for a moment, an odd expression crossing his face. "What's her home address?" he asked; then he said, "I'm at Sheila Winters's office, and she's a corpse. Get over here and sit on this crime scene until CSU arrives. I don't want any uniforms tramping through the place, destroying evidence."

He snapped his phone shut, and looked at Sam, his blue eyes restless and intent. "Shrader got a hit on Jane Sebring. She rented a car on Sunday and returned it Monday. Guess how many miles she put on it?"

"Enough to get her to the Catskills and back?" Sam speculated, her heart beginning to pound.

He nodded, glanced impatiently at Sheila Winters's body, and reversed his decision to wait there until Shrader arrived. Opening his phone, he ordered the closest patrol car sent to their address.

Two officers came running into the anteroom a few minutes later, and McCord backed them out of it into the hallway. "Stand outside this door," he ordered them, "and don't open it for anyone except Detective Shrader or CSU. You got that?"

"Yes, Lieutenant."

"And don't touch the damned doorknob!" he warned over his shoulder.

Sam kept pace with him, but even with her long-legged strides it wasn't easy in high heels, and she cursed herself for wearing them today, of all days.

In the car, McCord put his emergency light on the dashboard and slammed the car into gear.