ourtney glanced at the clock in the kitchen. "It's almost six, and I've got a lot of work to do for class tomorrow."

"You're calling it quits?" O'Hara said with relief, tallying up the score. "Why stop now, when I've still got some money left in my pension fund?"

"Call me softhearted."

"You're a cardsharp. Do you fleece those people you're staying with out of their money, too?"

She grinned as she slid the cards back into their box. "The Donnellys are either out, or they're sleeping—" The telephone rang, and since Hilda had gone to a movie, O'Hara got up to answer it. When he hung up a moment later, he was frowning.

"Was that about Mr. Manning?" Courtney asked worriedly.

"No. It's Michael Valente. He's in the lobby. Mrs. Manning is expecting him."

"What's he like?"

"All I know is that he's big trouble for Mrs. Manning. You saw what happened when the reporters found out she'd been with him on Friday in the mountains. You'd have thought she was sleepin' with the devil or something, just for being in his helicopter. I was with the two of them every second, and nothing happened. Nothing. Mrs. Manning doesn't even call him by his first name."

"I'd never heard of him until I saw all that stuff about him on the news this week," Courtney admitted. "I guess he's really famous, though."

"Yeah, for a whole lot of bad stuff. I owe you sixteen dollars." He dug the money out of his pocket and put it on the table.

" Did he seem like a bad guy the day you were with him? "

"Let me put it this way—I wouldn't like to be around if he ever loses his temper. The cops were needling him that day, especially a cop named Harwell, and Valente didn't like it. He got real, real quiet… And his eyes gotreal, real cold… Know what I mean?"

Courtney was intrigued. "He looked like… what… murderous?"

"Yeah, you could say that."

"Maybe I should stay while he's here, just to make sure Leigh is all right?"

The buzzer at the front door sounded, and O'Hara dismissed her suggestion. "I'll be close by while he's here, but I don't think there's anything to worry about. From what I've read over the years, he's involved in a lot of shady business deals, but he hasn't done anything violent in a long time."

"How reassuring," Courtney said sarcastically.

"Well, maybe this will be more reassuring…" he said with a confiding wink. "That day in the mountains, the cops told Mrs. Manning to wait up at the road while they checked out the cabin. When nobody came back up to tell us anything, Valente picked Mrs. Manning up and carried her in his arms through the snow, down to the cabin. Then he carried her all the way back up to the road. He turns into a real Sir Galahad when he's around her."

"Really?" Courtney breathed. "How… interesting."

"I'll call you when we hear anything about Mr. Manning," O'Hara promised on his way toward the living room.

Instead of letting herself out the service door to the kitchen, Courtney strolled quietly over to the doorway into the dining room. Leaning her shoulder against the doorframe, she peered thoughtfully at the tall, broad-shouldered man walking down the foyer steps into the living room. According to what she'd read and heard about him this week, Michael Valente was as adept at eluding reporters as he was at eluding attempts to put him in prison.

He was certainly "high-profile," especially right now.

She already had access to some "new and unusual" facts about him.

As an interview subject, he could prove to be a lot more intriguing than the pope or the president.

She studied his solemn smile as he held out both hands to Leigh and said, "I've been worried about you."

His voice gave Courtney a jolt. He had an amazing voice, deep and distinctive. If he hadn't chosen to be a criminal, he could have used that voice to great advantage on the radio or television.

She stepped out of O'Hara's way, her gaze shifting to the large flat white box that Valente had handed him when he walked in. Tucked under O'Hara's arm was a brown bag, twisted at the top, which Courtney assumed contained a bottle of something with an alcohol content.

"You still here?" Joe asked her in surprise.

"I'm leaving, but I wanted to get a look at Valente in person," she replied, following him into the kitchen. "What's in the box?"

"I don't know," he said, putting it on the island. "But if I had to guess, I'd say it's a pizza."

"He brought her a pizza?" Courtney exclaimed with a muffled laugh. "A pizza? He owns a helicopter and entire blocks of buildings in New York City—I'd have figured him for a seven-course take-out meal from Le Cirque, with maybe a gaudy diamond bracelet as a napkin ring."

"Really? I guess you know more about him than I do."

"I don't know much of anything about him, but I'm going to do some research." She lifted the cover of the flat white box and shuddered with revulsion. "Oh, yuk!"

In the midst of trying to figure out how to turn one of the ovens on, O'Hara looked over his shoulder to see what her exclamation was about.

"It's an uncooked pizza," she said, pointing accusingly at the item, "covered with huge shrimp." She shuddered again. "How Italian is that?"

"I dunno. Me, I like pepperoni."

"I hate shrimp in all its disguises." She opened the brown paper bag, extracted the bottle of red wine inside it, and scrutinized the label. "This guy is really twisted. He drinks three-hundred-dollars-a-bottle red wine with shrimp pizza."

O'Hara's mind was on the task at hand. "Valente told me to put that in the oven. Normally, I'd tell him to mind his own business, but Mrs. Manning hasn't eaten a cup of food in days. Do you know how to turn this oven on?"

"How hard can it be?" Courtney replied, changing places with O'Hara, who began uncorking the wine at the center island. For a brief moment, she studied the array of dials and buttons above the four stainless steel ovens built into the brick wall, her agile mind quickly calculating probabilities. "This one," she said emphatically. And changed the time on the clock.