nce Leigh had publicly announced two nights ago that she was having dinner with Michael, the number of reporters hanging around outside her building, hoping for something inflammatory to print, dropped abruptly. She'd handed them their inflammatory story and they were running with it.

There were only two reporters huddling in their coats outside the lobby windows when Joe O'Hara pulled the limo to a stop at five P.M., but he escorted her inside anyway.

"Hey, Leigh!" Courtney Maitland called, rushing inside right behind her. When Leigh turned to talk to her, O'Hara touched Leigh's elbow and said, "Hilda has some things she needs me to pick up. I'll go on upstairs, get her list, and run her errands so I can get back in time to take you to the theater at six-thirty. Is Mr. Valente going to ride with us?"

"No, he's going to come later from his place. I have to be at the theater at seven, and there's no point in him waiting around there before the show starts. Jason Solomon will only make both of us crazy. He's in rare form today. Oh, and, Joe—" Leigh called a moment later as he headed around the potted trees in the lobby toward the elevators. "I have a ticket for you tonight, too."

He grinned at her and saluted, and Leigh turned to talk to Courtney, who was wearing an oversize coat that looked as if it came from a thrift store and a long red wool scarf that dropped below her hem.

"I'm absolutely going to use Michael Valente as the subject of my interview," Courtney explained in a rush. "Do you think you could get him to talk to me about really important things? I mean, I've already got some good personal stuff about him, but it's mostly from eavesdropping and playing cards with him that one night. I'd like to write about the man he is instead of the way other people see him…"

Upstairs, Joe turned his key in the lock of the apartment's side door and walked into the kitchen. "Hilda?" he called, surprised that the apartment was dark. "Hilda?" he said, walking down the hallway that led to her room. He tapped on her door. "If you want me to do your errands, you'd better give me your list."

When she didn't answer his knock, O'Hara headed back into the kitchen, then through it, turning on lights as he went. He flipped on the dining room chandelier and saw the housekeeper's prone form near the table, blood seeping from her head into the carpet. "Hilda. Oh, no!—" Bending down, he felt for a pulse; then he straightened and ran into the kitchen. He picked up the phone and pressed nine-one—

His entire body seemed to explode with a pain radiating from his chest. With a groan, Joe O'Hara slid down the wall, clutching the receiver while the world turned black.

LEIGH put her key in the front door, opened it, and walked into the living room, pausing to hang her coat in the closet. Anxious to lie down for a few minutes before she showered and got ready to leave for the theater, she headed directly to her bedroom.

The bed was already turned down, Leigh noticed as she walked into the bedroom from the hallway. Hilda never forgot anything, she thought with a smile, including Leigh's habit of grabbing a late afternoon catnap when she was performing. Intending to undress and put on a robe, she walked past the bed and glanced ahead of her at the large mirror above her dressing table. A woman was coming toward her in the mirror, a woman who was wearing the same red dress and ruby pendant Leigh had worn to her party. Except the woman was standing behind her, raising a heavy stone vase…