ichard had sent her home in a taxi. Sweeney had been prepared to walk home, since she hadn't carried her purse with her the evening before when she set out for a stroll. All she had in her jeans pocket was a couple of crumpled ones and some change, but that was enough for a bus if she got tired of walking. He glared at her as he called a cab, and that was that. He paid the driver, kissed her, and handed her into the cab as if she were royalty.

It was nice not to have to walk home, she admitted as she let herself into her apartment. Her knees felt dangerously wobbly and all her muscles were weak. She thought about taking a nap, but dread kept her awake. She couldn't face another episode of sleep-painting and the awful cold that came afterward, not now. Both physically and emotionally, she wasn't up to the strain. She thought about the painting, with the big blank space where the killer's head would be, and her head began to hurt, sharp pains stabbing through her temples. She didn't even want to go into the studio to work on other paintings, where she would see the murder scene. She didn't want to think about Candra being dead or imagine the terror she must have felt in those last horrible minutes of her life. She wanted to be at peace for a little while, to gather strength for the finish. She wanted to think about Richard, remember his lovemaking and the incredible night she had just spent with him.

She wanted to revel in, and marvel at, the miracle of loving him. She loved, fully and wholeheartedly, when she hadn't thought she ever would. She had felt so smug about her ability to concentrate wholly on her work, confident she was immune to the emotional uproar called love. Hah! She was not only not immune, where Richard was concerned she was downright easy.

Even more, she was eager for an opportunity to demonstrate to him again just how easy she was.

But for now, she faced a day of doing nothing, or at least nothing much. She didn't dare nap and couldn't work. She was too tired to go out for a day of sketching. That left watching television, reading, or doing the laundry. She leaned toward reading, but the need to do laundry nagged at her conscience. Promising herself she would do the laundry after an hour of reading, she put on a pot of coffee and settled down with an oversized book about the use of acrylic paints.

The doorbell jerked her out of a study of brilliant colors. Muttering to herself, because she knew it couldn't possibly be Richard and therefore had to be a nuisance, she went to the door and looked through the peephole. Two men in suits stood in the hallway. "Who is it?" she asked, keeping her eye to the lens.

"Detectives Aquino and Ritenour, New York Police Department." The beefy man closest to the lens was the one who answered, and he used the entire phrase rather than the initials. Both men held out badges to the lens, as if she could read them through a fish-eye.

There was no way they could know about the painting, as only she and Richard knew she was doing it, but evidently someone had told them she was involved with Richard. She sighed as she opened the door. They were only doing their job, checking out all possibilities, but still she felt uneasy.

"Ms. Paris Sweeney?" the burly cop asked.

Her brows snapped together in a ferocious scowl. "Just Sweeney," she growled.

He looked a little startled, then his expression smoothed into impassivity. "May we come in?"

He looked more tired than she felt, with dark circles under his eyes and his complexion gray. He looked freshly shaved and his hair was still the teeniest bit damp, indicating he had showered and probably changed clothes, but that couldn't hide his exhaustion. The other detective, lean and sandy-haired, looked much more rested but not nearly as friendly.

"Would you like a pot of coffee?" she asked as they both sat down, because the burly guy really looked as if he could use a caffeine kick. "I mean, a cup of coffee."

The sandy-haired detective got that stony, wild-eyed look of someone trying not to laugh. Detective Aquino shot him a dirty look. "That would be appreciated. Sugar and cream. A lot of both."

"Same here," Detective Ritenour said.

She freshened her own cup, and prepared two more, loading them down with enough sugar to send the average kid bouncing off the walls for ten hours, and enough cream to raise their cholesterol levels several points. They must drink a lot of bad coffee, she thought, for both of them to disguise the taste this way.

She put the cups on a small tray and carried it through to the living room, setting it down on the coffee table. Telling herself there was no reason to be nervous, she sat down and lifted her own cup. What was the procedure for interrogation? Should she invite them to begin?

The burly cop, after an appreciative sip of the coffee, began without her help. "Ms. Sweeney, are you acquainted with Richard Worth?"

She gave him a disbelieving look. "Well, of course I am, otherwise you wouldn't be here."

He coughed. "You're aware that his estranged wife was murdered night before last." That was a statement, not a question.

"Yes."

"Were you also acquainted with Mrs. Worth?"

Sweeney's eyes darkened. "Yes," she repeated, softly. "I've known her for years. I exhibited at the gallery"

"Oh, so you're an artist."

"Yes."

"No kidding." He looked at a large landscape on the wall. "Did you do that?"

"No." She didn't hang her own work. When she relaxed, she liked to look at something someone else had done.

That conversational gambit exhausted, he returned to the subject at hand. "Mrs. Worth wasn't happy about your involvement with Mr. Worth, was she?"

The super, Sweeney thought. That scene in the entrance lobby. "She told me she didn't care, but then when she came here one morning to see me and Richard was here, she was upset." She was pleased with that masterful understatement.

"When was this?"

They already knew, she thought. They had already talked to the super. They were asking questions to which they already knew the answers, to see if she would tell the truth. "A few days ago."

"How long have you been involved with Mr. Worth?"

She blinked at him, more taken aback by the question than most people would have been. "I don't know. What day of the week is it?"

They shared a quick glance. "Thursday," Detective Ritenour said.

"Then it's been a week. I think. I lose track of days."

"A week," Detective Aquino echoed. He made a note in his little book. "You stayed at Mr. Worth's town house last night."

Sweeney blushed. Great. Now they knew how easy she was. "Yes."

"Where were you night before last, Ms. Sweeney?"

Ah, now they were getting down to the meat of their questions. Sweeney felt a flicker of alarm. She had been alone here, with no calls, no witnesses—no alibis. "Here."

"Alone?"

"Yes."

"All night?"

"Yes."

"Did you maybe step out for some fresh air, a walk before bedtime, anything like that?"

"No. I didn't leave the apartment."

Ritenour rubbed his nose. "Did you make any calls, talk to anyone?"

"No."

"Have you ever been to Mrs. Worth's apartment?"

"No. I don't know exactly where she lived."

"Did you have any contact with Mrs. Worth after the scene a few days ago? Since she was so upset, did she call you afterwards and maybe make a couple of threats, you know, the way people do when affairs of the heart are concerned?"

His phraseology was charming. She lost herself in a moment of bemusement at hearing a cop actually say "affairs of the heart". Then she shook herself. "No. That was the last time I either saw her or heard from her."

"Do you have any knowledge of someone, say, holding a grudge against Mrs. Worth?"

Only Richard, she started to say. Thank God he had cleared himself. "No. Candra and I were business associates, not friends. But I liked her," she said softly, looking down. "Until that scene the other day, I had never seen her be anything but polite and friendly to everyone."

They both smiled at her. "That's all the questions I have," Detective Aquino said, closing his little notebook. "Thank you for your time, Ms. Sweeney."

"You're welcome." She went with them to the door.

As they started to leave, Aquino stopped and turned back. "Are you planning on going out of town, Ms. Sweeney? In case we have more questions."

"No," she said. "I'm not going anywhere."

As soon as they were gone, Sweeney picked up the phone to call Richard, then put it down without dialing. There was no point in worrying him with this. The detectives had asked a few questions; that was all. Granted, she had no way of proving she hadn't left the apartment all night, but neither had she ever been in Candra's apartment, so there couldn't be any evidence tying her in any way to the murder. She had nothing to worry about.

Despite her best intentions to stay out of the studio, after lunch and laundry she began to think about the painting. She hadn't really examined it yesterday, looking at it only long enough to recognize Candra. She didn't want to look at it again, and yet she knew she must. She had to finish it. The cops didn't seem to have any solid leads, or they wouldn't have been questioning her, so unless she finished the painting, the killer would probably get away with the murder.

The other day—two days ago? three?—she had worked on the painting while awake. If she could do that again, the shock to her system wouldn't be as severe and the chill wouldn't be as bad. She didn't want to go through a repeat of yesterday morning, even though she now knew she could get through it on her own.

When she went into the studio, though, she couldn't bring herself to walk right up to the painting. She wandered around looking at other works in progress, other things she had done, recalling what had been difficult or fascinating about each subject. For her, looking at her work was what looking at a photo album was to other people, calling up memories of times past.

But eventually she came to the unfinished painting, and she stopped cold, struck by the stark power of the work. The terror of Candra's last minutes seemed to leap off the canvas, as well as the nothingness of death. And there was menace as well, in the stance of the man standing over her, a sort of gloating satisfaction that was sickening.

She stared at the blank space where the man's face would be, and she felt a sort of floating sensation, faint but detectable. Her vision seemed to narrow, her focus tightening on the canvas.

The ringing of the doorbell was a jarring intrusion, making her jump. She lost the focus, the growing sense of seeing something that wasn't yet there. Muttering to herself, she went to the door.

Her unexpected visitor was Kai, his arms loaded with wrapped canvases. " Hi, " he said when Sweeney opened the door. "I brought these by. The framer tried to deliver them to the gallery, but of course it isn't open, so he called me. Candra told me to send them back to you, but I thought, what the hell, why not bring them to you myself? Who knows if or when the gallery will open again."

He looked at her as if expecting her to tell him Richard's plans for the gallery, but since she had no idea, she merely shrugged.

"In here," she said, leading the way to the studio.

"By the way, the last of your old work sold."

"That's good." She cleared some space where she could stand the canvases against the wall. "Put them here."

He did as she directed, looking around at the other things she had completed. "Hey, these are really great. You're gonna make a fortune; wait and see."

"I hope," she said, smiling at him.

"The light is great in here." He walked over to the huge windows and looked out at the street below. Then he turned, and saw the painting.

All color leached out of his face. He stared at it, mouth agape, eyes blank with shock. "My God," he blurted.

"Don't tell anyone." Uncomfortable, she shifted her feet, unable to look him in the eye.

"When did you—You did all this in a day and a half?"

She cringed inside, but she had to come up with some reasonable explanation for the painting, and she couldn't think of one. "No, I've been working on it several days."

"What? How?"

"I—" Her mind went blank. Furious with herself for not being able to lie, she said, "I swear to God, Kai, if you spill the beans on this, I'll pull every hair out of your head."

"Spill the beans?" He was looking back and forth from the painting to her, as if he couldn't believe what he was seeing.

"I'm sort of psychic," she snapped.

"Sort of—?"

"I do paintings of things that haven't happened yet. When I finish this, it will show who killed her. " She glared at him."And I don't want you to ever mention any of this to anyone. "

He was all but backing away from her, inching toward the door. "I won't," he said.

"I mean it, Kai. I don't want the cops to know; not yet."

He drew a deep breath. "I understand," he said. "I won't tell the cops, I promise." Then he laughed, the sound shaky. "Son of a bitch," he said. "No one would ever expect this' would he?"