ow did you dispose of the body?"

"Drove his rental car over into Mississippi, put him in it, wiped it down. We made it look like a robbery. Someone will find him in a day or so."

"What?" The first man sat forward in his huge leather chair, which had cost almost as much as the average car. "Why in hell didn't you dump him in a bayou so a gator could get him?" He was incensed.

The man standing before him patiently shook his head. "You don't want a bunch of spooks losing one of their guys and starting to nose around looking for him. Strange shit can happen."

"Medina was CIA. The Agency isn't allowed to operate inside the country."

Like rules—and laws—weren't broken every day, the second man thought wearily. Sure, the Agency wasn't supposed to operate within its own borders. Did anyone who wasn't naive as hell think it didn't happen anyway? Unofficially, of course. He didn't even bother to reply to that nonsense, just said soothingly, "Looking for Medina isn't the same thing as running an operation. And Medina was a contract agent, not a Company guy, so he worked for other people, too. The CIA is the least of my worries. Give them the body so they know what happened to him. You said Medina was a real hard-ass, but from what I've heard, he didn't hold a candle to his son. I'd just as soon not have Junior snooping around looking for his old man."

"I haven't heard anything about a son," the first man said, frowning in concern. He glanced at the framed photo sitting on his desk, at the beloved, smiling faces. His own family was of paramount importance to him. As a young man, he had wanted nothing more than to win his father's approval and make him proud. He didn't dare expect less from Rick Medina's son.

"Not many people have. I've only heard a few whispers about him myself, and that's because I've done some work in the business."

"Can you find out where he lives, what he looks like?"

"No can do." The second man shook his head. "I don't have the contacts, and even if I did, a request like that would have me dead within an hour. I'm telling you, let it drop here. Don't do anything that will draw attention to us."

"What if you made a mistake, missed a fingerprint or something?"

"I didn't. We wore gloves, got rid of the guns, burned our clothes. There's nothing to tie anyone to Medina. If you're that nervous about it, you should have used someone else to make the hit on Whitlaw."

"No one else was even getting close to him. He was too good. I needed someone just as good." That someone had been Rick Medina. Pity. An unencumbered piece of muscle would have been much simpler—no family who cared much; no cops who cared. Medina came with complications, but that couldn't be helped, especially now. At least he had gotten the job done, something all those other clowns hadn't managed to do. He had concocted a good story to put Medina on the hunt, but once the kill was made, Medina had had to be removed, because if he ever found out he had been used—well, it would have been nasty.

The first man sighed, getting up to pace slowly over to the floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over the carefully manicured lawn. There was nothing in this visit to excite interest, because he normally had a constant stream of visitors, people coming and going, asking favors, performing duties. Still, this whole business made him uneasy. He had thought it was finished years ago. He had learned a lesson, though: tie up all the loose ends. Medina had been a loose end; he regretted the necessity but didn't back down from it.

"What about the men you used?" he asked, wondering if they were more loose ends.

"I can vouch for them. None of them even knew a name; they were just doing a job. I've kept everything quiet."

"Good. What about the book?"

"No sign of it."

"Damn." The word was softly breathed. As long as that book was unaccounted for, he couldn't feel safe. What sort of madness had prompted Dexter Whitlaw to record the hit, anyway? It was evidence against himself, and it wasn't as if he could include it in his body count. But Whitlaw had evidently decided he had less to lose than someone else if the truth came out, and that the someone else would pay any amount to get that book. He had almost been right. When one had other options, one wasn't bound by the rules. "Where could he have put it?"

"I doubt he would have used a safe deposit box," the second man said, thinking. His name was Hayes. He was big, stocky, unremarkable in looks, just one more slightly overweight, slightly unkempt man who hadn't kept in shape. His gaze was remote and intelligent. "He moved around too much, and he would have wanted it where he could get to it fairly easily, plus you have to pay for the boxes every year. Same thing with lockers in bus stations. Most likely, he left it with someone he trusted, maybe a friend but probably someone in his family."

"Whitlaw was estranged from his family." This was said with distinct disapproval. "He walked out on his wife and daughter twenty years ago."

"What was their last known address?" Hayes asked promptly.

"Someplace in West Virginia, but they're no longer there. I learned they moved to Ohio years ago, but I haven't located them yet."

"Whitlaw might have known where they live. He could have sent the book to them before he started trying to blackmail you. Set everything up in advance."

"That's true, that's true." Clearly disturbed by that possibility, the first man turned back from the windows.

"Have you traced their social security numbers, checked for tax records?"

"That would leave tracks—"

Hayes sighed. Yes, it would—if done officially, through the proper channels, which was the stupid way to do anything. "Give me their names and birthdays. I'll get the information—and I won't leave tracks."

"If you're certain—"

"I'm certain."

"Don't take any action without talking to me first. I don't want two women to be needlessly killed."

After Hayes had left, Senator Stephen Lake left his office and climbed the wide, curving staircase that swept in a graceful arch up to the second floor. The luxurious thickness of the carpeting silenced his steps; the polished ebony banister gleamed like jet in the summer sunlight. The air was sweet with fresh flowers cut from his own lovingly tended gardens—lovingly tended by the gardener, that is—and he paused a moment to inhale the wonderful, indefinable essence of gracious living.

He loved this house, had from the moment he was old enough to appreciate the beauty of it and everything it represented. He remembered, as a child, watching his father stoop and trail his fingers across the glossy, newly inlaid marble in the foyer, relishing the stone for both its own beauty and its testimony to his wealth and, more subtly, his power. Stephen's chest had felt full and tight with emotion as he'd absorbed his father's emotions and known he felt exactly the same way. He still did. He appreciated the lead crystal chandeliers, the exquisite furniture handmade by Europe's finest, the exotic woods from Africa and South America, the paintings in their gold-leaf frames, the ankle-thick carpeting that kept the chill of the Minnesota winters from his feet.

He had grown up playing on the beautifully manicured lawn, he and his older brother, William, taking turns being cowboys and Indians, pretending long sticks were rifles, and yelling "Bang bang!" at each other until they were hoarse. Those had been great days. The cook had always had fresh, cold lemonade to refresh them after a day of hard play in the hot summer, or hot chocolate to warm them after romping in the snow. Inside, there had been the rich smell of their father's cigars, a smell the senator still associated with power; the sweet fragrance of his mother's perfume as she hugged him and William and kissed their cheeks, and he had wriggled with delight. "My little princes," she had called them.

Their mother had loved them unconditionally. Their father had been more stern, harder to please. A frown from him could ruin the boys' day. William had found it easier to please their father than Stephen had. William was older, of course, but he was naturally more careful, more responsible. Stephen had been a little shy, more intelligent than his confident brother but less able to show that intelligence. William had often stepped between Stephen and punishment, deflecting the scoldings and loss of privileges that would have come his brother's way, because their father had often been impatient with Stephen's shyness.

Stephen had grown up wanting nothing more than to please his father, to be the kind of man of whom he could be proud. He wanted to be his father, a man people both feared and respected, whose smallest frown brought instant obedience but whose word could be trusted implicitly. William, however, had always been the crown prince, the heir, and so William had garnered most of their father's coveted attention. Stephen couldn't say their father's trust was misplaced, because William had been… wonderful. That was the only word for him. There hadn't been a mean, nasty bone in his body, and he worked doggedly to overcome his perceived failings. Even with all the responsibility on his shoulders, he had always been cheerful, smiling, ready to enjoy a joke or to play one.

William's death at the age of twenty-seven had devastated the family. Stephen's mother had never recovered from the shock, and her health began to deteriorate steadily; she died four years later. As for his father, he was shattered. Pushing aside his own grief, Stephen had tried even harder to make his father proud of him. He drove himself all through law school, studying longer and harder than his classmates, and graduated first in his class. He married a sweet, lovely young woman from an extremely wealthy New Hampshire family and devoted himself to being a faithful, considerate, loving husband. They had two children, a boy and a girl, and Stephen watched his stern father totally melt over his grandchildren.

Stephen began his political career by running for local office, as his father advised; that was how to build a base of loyal constituents. After serving a term as district attorney, he ran for the state legislature as a representative, then for the state senate. With twelve years of state and local politics under his belt, he seized the opportunity when a U.S. representative from the state retired, and he ran for his office. He discharged his duties as conscientiously as possible, and bided his time, watching the senators from his state for signs of weakness. When one became involved in a sex scandal, Stephen made his move and ran against him in the next election. He became a United States Senator at the age of forty-one and steadily built his power base and his reputation.

Shaking himself from his reverie, Senator Lake climbed the remaining stairs and walked down the wide upper hall to the suite of rooms at the back of the house. He knocked lightly, then opened the door. "How is he today?"

"He ate well," said the nurse with a soft smile. Cinda Blockett was a sweet creature, as tender with his father as she would be with a newborn. Her husband, James, also a registered nurse, worked the first shift with her and provided the muscle necessary for caring for a total invalid.

James had carried Walter William Lake to the huge, overstuffed recliner positioned in front of the windows, with a perfect view of the sweeping grounds and the glittering blue lake beyond, patrolled by majestic peacocks. Stephen pulled up a chair beside his father and took a gnarled, wasted hand in his. "Good morning, Father," he said gently, waited a second to see if there would be any signal of recognition such as a blink of the eye, then began to talk about the latest news, both on television and in the newspaper. He didn't restrict himself to politics but talked business, too, and science. Every time a space shuttle went up, Stephen kept his father informed. He didn't know if any of what he was saying was actually received and processed in the working portions of his father's brain, but he never gave up.

He sat with his father for more than an hour, spelling Cinda and James so they could have a leisurely meal. His father was never left alone. Three shifts of nurses cared for him, kept him fed, exercised his wasted muscles, turned and moved him so his fragile skin didn't rot with bedsores. They made his existence as comfortable as possible, playing his favorite music, turning on the television to the programs he had liked, reading aloud to him or playing books on tape. If there were any cognitive parts of his father's brain still functioning after the massive stroke that had felled him eleven years before, Stephen hoped he was doing enough to keep those parts stimulated, to make his father as happy as possible under the circumstances.

He was now one of the most powerful, most respected people in Washington, and he would never know if his father was proud of him.

When Cinda and James returned, and Stephen left his father's suite, Raymond was waiting for him just as the senator had known he would be. Raymond Hilley, sixty-nine years old, had worked for the Lake family for fifty years. Stephen couldn't remember a time when Raymond hadn't been there, his father's right-hand man, almost an uncle to him and William when they were growing up. When William died, Raymond had sat down on the floor and cried, huge tears running down his battered face.

Eleven years ago, when the stroke incapacitated Walter William Lake and Stephen became the head of the family, Raymond's skills and unswerving loyalty had transferred to him.

"Let's go down to my office," the senator said, clapping his hand on Raymond's shoulder as his father had always done, a sign of friendship and acceptance.

Coffee was waiting for them, brought in when Cinda and James finished their lunch and returned to the suite. With Hayes, the senator had sat behind his desk while Hayes took one of the chairs opposite, but with Raymond, he went over to the sitting area, and they took chairs as friends, as family. He poured Raymond's coffee first, putting in three teaspoons of sugar and diluting it with milk until the coffee barely had a tan color. He took his own coffee with a little cream, just a drop really; his father had drank it black, but even after all this time, Stephen couldn't give up that tiny drop of rich cream to mellow the bite of the coffee. Sometimes he was embarrassed by his weakness for cream in his coffee; it seemed to say he was a watered-down version of his father, a milquetoast—yes, that was a better comparison, both in sound and in image. He knew better, of course. He had made some hard decisions in his life, not the least of which concerned Dexter Whitlaw and Rick Medina. He didn't feel good about what he had done, but neither did he doubt the necessity.

Raymond sipped the excessively sweet brew in his cup, sighing in pleasure. "I followed him to the airport," he reported in his gravelly voice, which sounded as if he had once eaten glass—and liked it. "He didn't stop, didn't use his cell phone, just went straight to the check-in counter and then to the gate."

"He could have called someone from the gate."

"He wouldn't do that. Too much chance of being overheard."

That made sense, and Stephen accepted the statement from Raymond as he would not have from anyone else.

"If you don't trust him…" Raymond said slowly, letting his words trail off, inviting the senator to pick up the thought just as he had done forty years ago when he was teaching the boys how to hunt and they had to anticipate what a big elk would do.

"Then don't use him," the senator said, and sighed. "I wouldn't, but I need his contacts. He's a good buffer, and I don't believe he would talk. After all, his livelihood depends on his reputation. If he couldn't keep a confidence, no one would use him."

"He has the situation handled?"

"The blackmailer has been taken care of; there are still, however, certain loose ends."

"Loose ends are like loose shoestrings; they'll trip you up every time." Raymond sipped his coffee again, his big hands handling the transparent china cup with a certain delicacy.

"Steps are being taken."

"Good. Mr. Walter… well, I wouldn't want anything to come out that might hurt him. He's a great man. He did some things people might not understand, not knowing the whole story. He doesn't deserve to have people saying bad things about him, especially now when he can't protect himself."

"No," the senator said, and sighed. "He doesn't."

"Caucasian male, seventy-one and three-quarter inches tall, weight one hundred eighty-two pounds, age fifty to fifty-five. Gray hair, brown eyes. Distinguishing marks: a 'Semper Fi' tattoo on the left forearm, a surgical scar four inches in length on his lower right abdomen, a two-inch keloid scar diagonally on the right quadriceps—"

Marc tuned out the assistant medical examiner's detailing, for the record, of the victim's many scars. None of the scars looked like a bullet wound, but several of them did look as if he'd had some close encounters with sharp blades. Most of the scars, though, were the sort people collected just going through life: childhood falls that cut the knees, various nicks and scrapes. The most important detail, for purposes of identification, was the tattoo. Not only had he been in the military, but the tattoo narrowed down the branch of service for them. They would soon have a real name for this John Doe.

As predicted, the morning television news announcers had waxed eloquent, and in rounded funereal tones so listeners would know how serious the issue was, about the early-morning murder in the Quarter. The New Orleans murder statistics were trotted out again, followed by a noncommittal statement from the police department, followed by a passionate statement from the mayor to the effect that the citizens—and tourists—of New Orleans must and would feel safe in the city. It was a good campaign slogan; he had used it before.

Marc dispassionately watched the autopsy. He had a strong stomach and had never puked the way some detectives did. Like the medical examiners, he could ignore the smells and concentrate on what the body told them. Working homicides, it was a handy knack to have.

This body wouldn't have much to say. A bullet in the brain was pretty obvious. The where, when, and how weren't in question, just the who and why.

The young women who had discovered the body hadn't been any help. None of them could remember seeing anyone else, period, either walking or driving. The shooting had to have happened just minutes before, but no one, not even anyone living close by, had heard a thing.

The victim's personal effects, such as they were, hadn't yielded anything except a wedding ring, carefully sewn inside the cuff of his pants. Maybe he had stolen it, but it had fit his ring finger, and he had kept it carefully hidden, which told Marc he had valued the ring beyond what money it would bring in a pawn shop. The guy had once been married, maybe still was.

"You're getting on my nerves, Chastain," the doctor said testily, clicking off the microphone so he could speak off the record. He was a busy man, impatient and harried, and he seldom spoke personally to the detectives who attended the autopsies.

Marc lifted one eyebrow in silent question.

"That's what you're doing." A stained scalpel was jabbed in his direction. "You just stand there, quiet as a rock and about as active. You don't interrupt me to ask questions, you don't turn green and gag, you just watch. Damn it, you hardly even blink. What do you do, go into a trance?"

"If I have any questions, I ask them when you're finished," Marc said mildly.

The scalpel jabbed once more. "You're still doing it. You didn't even change expressions. Do me a favor; do something human before I start thinking you're a robot." Behind him, his assistant smothered a laugh.

"If you're in doubt, when you're finished, I'll let you watch me piss." The offer was made totally deadpan, and this time the assistant didn't manage to control the laugh.

"Thanks, but I'll pass on that wonderful opportunity."

"I don't make the offer to just anyone. You're the only man who's ever heard it, so you might want to reconsider. Just don't get any wrong ideas about my sexual orientation."

Behind her mask, the assistant's eyes were sparkling. The doctor shot her a sour look. "Don't even think about volunteering for the job."

"Too late," she admitted cheerfully.

Marc winked at her.

"Forget I said anything," the doctor muttered, and switched the microphone on again, putting an end to the discussion. Pity. Marc had enjoyed needling him, and evidently the assistant had enjoyed the exchange, too. It was the first time Marc had seen the brusque doctor interrupt any autopsy to make a personal remark.

Just for the pure hell of it, he stuck his hands in his pockets and began jingling the change. After two minutes, the microphone was clicked off again. "Forget I said anything," the doctor snapped again. "And stop jingling your change, damn it! You sound like Santa Claus."

Marc shrugged and took his hands out of his pockets, but his eyes were glittering with amusement.

Sometime later, the body of the victim had told them that except for being dead, he was in remarkably good shape. No sign of disease in any of the major organs, no blockage in his veins, good muscle definition, no needle marks on his arms or between his toes to indicate intravenous drug use. The toxicology report wasn't back, and it might indicate some other type of drug use, but overall the victim looked too healthy to have been a user.

Cause of death was a gunshot wound to the head, fired at medium range, no exit wound. The penetrating missile was a.22-caliber bullet, which had also sent several bone fragments through the soft brain tissue. The kinetic energy of the tumbling projectiles had destroyed massive amounts of tissue, like a tidal wave rolling through the brain and smashing everything it touched.

X rays and photographs of the victim's teeth had been sent to the Marine Corps for identification. Depending on how efficient they were, the victim's identity should be forthcoming within a few days. Marc would begin trying to locate any family, and maybe, just maybe, within a week or two the poor guy could have a burial.

He was surprised when the identification came back the next day. Someone in the vast tangle of military and civilian bureaucracy was on the ball; either that, or by pure chance the victim's teeth had been in the first batch checked for a cross-match. There was a name now: Dexter Alvin Whitlaw, from Keysburg, West Virginia. Next of kin was a wife, Shirley Jeanette Allen Whitlaw, and a daughter, Karen Simone Whitlaw. Marc had their social security numbers and their last known address. He could find them.

The message light was blinking when Karen got home from work. She was tempted not to listen to the messages, just to take a quick shower and fall into bed. Since she'd sold the house and moved into an apartment four months ago, the nights had seemed even more lonely; after working all day, she hadn't had either the energy or the interest to do much unpacking, and a lot of her things were still in boxes, which made her feel as if she were living in a sparsely furnished motel room—or a warehouse. The rooms seemed to echo, intensifying her sense of being alone, of missing Jeanette.

She hadn't been sleeping or eating well, either, and was losing weight. In an effort to jar herself out of her depression, she had switched shifts with one of the other nurses and was now working nights. The strategy had worked, to some degree. She was so tired when she dragged home early in the mornings that she literally fell into bed and slept like a log. After the first disastrous day, when she had been awakened eleven times by telemarketers and wrong numbers, she learned to turn off the phone.

Lately, she had been trying to stay up for several hours after getting home, to mimic the routine of daytime jobs, but not today. This was the morning after the night from hell. She wanted nothing more than to get off her aching feet and just sleep.

She worked on the surgical floor, where noncritical patients were placed after surgery. They were all in pain, but everyone had a different tolerance for pain. Some were so stoic only their blood pressure would indicate whether or not they were hurting; others screamed bloody murder at the least discomfort. Tonight had been a night for the screamers. They hurt, damn it, and wanted something now: another pill, turn up the morphine drip, anything. Of course, the nurses couldn't exceed the doctors' prescribed dosages without authorization; all they could do was take the heat. Tracking down a doctor in the middle of the night to authorize more pain medication was usually an exercise in futility; the nurses practically needed a team of bloodhounds to track down the doctor on duty, who had a genius for being somewhere else and not hearing his page.

Then a patient, a thirty-two-year-old mother of two, had gone sour on them. She was in for a ruptured appendix and had been very sick for several days but was recovering. Tonight, just after supper, she had been walking to the bathroom and suddenly slumped to the floor. A blood clot had lodged in her pulmonary artery, and she was gone, despite all their efforts. It happened sometimes, but the shock never really lessened. The only thing that had changed was that Karen had learned how to work through the shock, to keep going, to push it away. All nurses and doctors had to learn that, or they couldn't function.

But the kicker was when some idiot let a nineteen-year-old boy, wacked out on drugs, escape from the psych unit, where he had been taken because of the security. Some security. And where had the kid headed? Straight to the surgical floor, where all the good dope could be found.

He had shed his hospital gown somewhere along the way. Stark naked, his pupils so contracted he looked like an alien, hair standing out in wild tangles, he had wrecked the desk looking for drugs. Finally, he had found the locked cabinet, but Judy Camliffe, the floor charge nurse, had the key in her pocket. Security got there as he was trying to tear the metal doors apart. Unfortunately, subduing a naked man is tricky; there are no clothes to grab, and bare skin is slippery. The kid fought free so many times Karen lost count. They wrestled in the halls, upsetting carts, dumping files and charts everywhere, waking patients who then either became alarmed or decided they needed more pain medication. By the time the kid was finally subdued, the surgical floor was a wreck. By the time the nurses finished with their shift, so were they.

The message was probably from a salesman or a charity; she hadn't had time yet to make friends with any of her new neighbors, and all of her other friends were nurses who knew what shift she worked and wouldn't call to chat. She couldn't think of any remotely urgent reason she should listen to her messages, but still she dropped her bag and went over to the machine. She wouldn't be able to sleep knowing that red light was blinking.

Out of habit, she picked up the notepad and pen she always kept by the phone, just in case there might actually be a call she needed to return. She punched the play button and listened to the tape rewinding.

After some whirring and a couple of clicks, a drawling baritone voice broke the quiet of the room. For some reason, her breath gave a little hitch. The voice was somehow beguiling, with warm, dark, pure masculine tones that quivered along her nerve endings, almost as if she had been touched. Even disguised by the drawl, there was a hard edge of authority evident as well. He said, "Miss Whitlaw, this is Detective Marc Chastain with the New Orleans Police Department. I need to talk to you concerning your father. You can reach me at—"

He recited the number, but Karen was so taken aback she didn't write down a single digit. Hastily, she punched the stop button, then replay. When the whirring and clicking stopped, she listened again to the brief message and once again was so distracted by his voice that she almost missed the number a second time. She scribbled it down, then stared at the pad in a fog of fatigue and bemusement.

Dexter was evidently in trouble and thought she would bail him out. No, he thought Jeanette would bail him out; he couldn't know his wife had been dead for six months. Had the detective said "Miss Whitlaw" or "Mrs. Whitlaw"? His drawl had slurred the word.

She couldn't resist. She replayed the message one more time, as much to hear that voice as to determine if he had thought he was calling her or her mother. Listening closely, she thought he said "Miss," which was politically incorrect of him, but she still wasn't certain.

She didn't want to call. She didn't want to hear about Dexter's troubles, and she had no intention of bailing him out of anything, anyway. All she wanted to do was get off her feet and go to sleep.

She thought of her mother, how Jeanette had taken him back time and again, how she was always there if he needed her. He had never been there for them, but Jeanette had never wavered in her devotion.

Suddenly, Karen felt swamped by an exhaustion that had nothing to do with physical tiredness and everything to do with a lifetime of bitterness, of wariness, and these last lonely six months of grieving for her mother. She was tired of being dragged down by her father's desertion. It was done, and nothing she could do would change it. She didn't want to be one of those people who spent their entire lives whining about their past troubles, as if that excused them from responsible behavior in the present. She had loved her mother dearly, still loved her and would continue to grieve for her, but it was time to get on with life. Instead of letting the empty apartment depress her, she should get her things out of the boxes she had packed them in to move, and make a home here.

Maybe she would take more classes, get her master's degree in nursing. She might go into the critical care field. It was challenging but fascinating for those who could stand the pressure. She was calm during emergencies, able to think fast on her feet, both necessary characteristics in a good critical care nurse.

She took a deep breath. For the first time since Jeanette's death, she felt in control of herself, of her life. She had to deal with Dexter, if only for her mother's sake, so she might as well make the call. Without giving herself any time perhaps to change her mind, she picked up the receiver and punched Detective Chastain's number.

Unconsciously, she held her breath, bracing herself to hear his voice. How silly of her, to let herself to be affected by a man's voice on the telephone, but recognizing the ridiculousness of her reaction didn't mitigate the strength of it.

The phone rang several times, but no one answered it. Surely detectives didn't keep bankers' hours, she thought.

She glanced at her wristwatch. Seven forty-five. "Idiot," she muttered under her breath, and hung up. Louisiana was in the central time zone, an hour behind Ohio. Detective Marc Chastain was definitely not in his office at six forty-five in the morning.

She couldn't stay awake until a reasonable time for him to be there. She couldn't stay vertical another five minutes. Dexter would have to wait.

But she would call. When she woke up this afternoon, she would call.

That decision made, she stumbled into the bedroom. Fatigue made her clumsy as she undressed. Yawning again, she stretched out between the cool sheets and sighed with bliss, arching her aching feet and wriggling her toes. She tried to imagine how Detective Chastain looked. Voices almost never matched appearances; the detective was probably a pot-bellied good old boy, edging toward retirement, with a couple of grown kids. But he had a voice like dark honey, and it was with her as she drifted to sleep.

The shrill ringing of the telephone jarred her awake. Confused, startled, Karen bolted upright in bed, then groaned as she realized she had forgotten to turn off the ringer before she went to sleep. The digital clock taunted her with big red numerals: nine-thirty.

She grabbed the receiver just to silence the obnoxious noise. "Hello," she said, her voice foggy with sleep.

"Miss Whitlaw?"

That voice. Just two words, but recognition tingled down her spine. She cleared her throat. "Yes."

"This is Detective Chastain, New Orleans Police Department. I left a message for you yesterday concerning your father."

"Yes." She started to say she had intended to return his call this afternoon, but he was already speaking again, the warm tones noticeably cooler.

"I'm sorry, Miss, but your father was killed two days ago in a street shooting."

Shock made her go numb. Her hand tightened on the receiver until her knuckles turned white. "Two days?" Why hadn't someone called before?

"He didn't have any ID on him. We identified him by his military dental records." He kept talking, saying something about her coming to New Orleans and verifying Dexter's identity. He was brisk, businesslike, and Karen fought to organize her scattered wits.

"I'll try to catch a flight today," she finally said. "If not—"

"The airlines have special arrangements for emergencies," he cut in. "You can be here this afternoon."

If you want to. She heard his unspoken accusation in his clipped tone, and resentment stirred. This man didn't know anything about her; who was he to stand in judgment on her relationship, or lack of it, with her father?

"I'll call you when I get there," she said, anger making her voice tight.

"Just come to the Eighth District on Royal Street."

Karen repeated the address, then said, "Thank you for calling." She hung up before he could say anything else.

She pulled her legs up and rested her head on her knees. Dexter was dead. She tried to absorb the news, but it was too unreal. She knew she should be feeling something other than shock, but she was empty. How could she mourn a man she barely knew? It was his absence, not his presence, that had shaped her life.

Throwing the sheet back, she got out of bed. She felt like a walking zombie, but she had to make some calls, arrange a flight, pack a bag. Only duty drove her, but duty carried a big whip.

Her father was dead. The thought kept reverberating in her mind as she stood under a cold shower. She hadn't really known him, and now she never would.