The gold telephone irritated the the couple'sserenity and when it failed to stop the man crossed the large room to the table and snatched it up angrily. "What?" He set his mouth in a grim line and listened silently, grunting once or twice before hanging up and swearing at the view from the massive picture window.

"Something wrong?"

He turned back to face his companion and hissed another oath. "That was the club. Apparently the police just left after nosing around about Hatti and Rita." He fiddled with the thin trace of moustache above his lip, allowing a tiny crease to mar his otherwise plastic face.

"Did they learn anything?"

"No, but then you can never tell what they infer from people's answers." He sauntered back to the island of mint-coloured leather that served as a sofa and flopped down with an exaggerated sigh that matched the hiss of the material.

"I'm sure the club was discrete."

"You miss the point, dear. I said they were asking about Hatti—and Rita."

"Aahh, I see what you mean. How do you suppose...?"

"They're detectives, Carl. It's what they do."

"So they've connected her to Roger then you think?"

"Two and two, dear, not a real brainteaser."

"William I wish you wouldn't be so condescending sometimes." Carl pushed himself up from the island and moved to a pose by the rose coloured grand piano across from the sofa.

"Don't pout, I didn't mean to sound like that. We have a problem now, Carl. When the police didn't find anything at Roger's place I thought I might get lucky but now I wonder if Rita has taken up his cause. I have to find her before the police do."

Carl waved a hand and let it come to rest on his forehead. "That Roger. How could he have slipped by your vetting so easily?" He straightened a single rose in a crystal bud vase and absently moved it about the surface of the piano.

"He didn't really, Carl. Besides, Chester vouched for him. It was how he seduced Rita, or Hatti as it turned out, into joining his scheme."

"He did have a way with the women."

"Actually, Roger just happened to have a foot in both camps. Not a terrible situation when you see some of the competition."

"William! If I ever thought—"

"Now, now, relax. The important thing is we need to put our little heads together and figure out where our Rita might be hiding."



Lights twinkled across the city landscape and overhead, streaks of pink tinged charcoal grey cloud stretched across the sky. The silhouettes of lower buildings marched across the horizon in choppy blocks. Inside the condo, viewing the panorama from his football-sized living room, Chester Hargrave stood beacon-like among a selection of all white furnishings floating like icebergs on a midnight blue broadloom; his dull silver dressing gown set him uniquely aside within the sterile décor.

Admiring him from a nest of white suede cushions, looking like a wine stain on the fabric in her cherry red dressing gown, Elora Gates reflected on her long, carefully planned journey to this very spot.

Chester Hargrave had entered her life at a time when she was reaching her limit with a dead end career as an account supervisor in a bank so large its people wore number tags for easy and accurate identification. It wasn't uncommon to meet someone, have a pleasant conversation, then rush to a computer, and pull up the tag number to see just who they were. Chester had e-mailed a request to the accountant's department for a list of transactions from three years earlier and in a flurry of desperate obedience, Elora was designated as the researcher.

At first she was angry at having to do clerk's work even if it was for the head honcho but when she was also asked to deliver the material personally—to his penthouse, she saw a sun rising on her future's horizon.

As Chester took the material from her hands when she arrived, he was also taken with her. Elora had chosen her wardrobe carefully after researching him in company biographies and on the Internet, staying subdued but suggestive in both clothes and cosmetics. Chester had invited her to stay for a drink while he checked the material and the drop off visit went from drink to drinks to dinner to a most charming offer of a return engagement.

Elora fairly clicked her heels inside the spacious elevator, giving the building's security monitor a chuckle as he watched her descend to the lobby. In the ensuing months, she and Chester had become what the gossip columns might have designated an item and Elora made all the necessary moves to ensure that end. Inside of eight months she had replaced the accounts manager, disposed of several of his acolytes and inserted people she knew were harmless and posed no threat to her new position.

Chester turned from the window and smiled across the broadloom ocean. "It's nights like this that I receive the greatest pleasure from my extravagant condominium in the sky." He strolled over to the cushions and settled into the corner where she nestled.

"Penny for your thoughts, Chessy?"

"A sum I'm not familiar with, I'm afraid." He smiled at his joke and placed an exploratory finger on her ankle. "Actually, I was just thinking about my visit to the police this afternoon. Not a very pleasant exercise; the men are crude, slovenly and the place was a sty."

"But you aren't in any trouble, right?"

"Of course not. Just bad luck finding Roger's body."

"Then you should be happy."

"Finding his body?"

"No, no. Because you aren't in trouble, that's why you should be happy."

"Are you happy here, Elora?"

"Of course! How could you ask such a thing? What woman wouldn't be happy with you, Chessy?"

He smiled ironically, "I can think of one for certain." And then waved the remark away with a shake of his head.

"Someone from before...?" She squinted suspiciously.

"Subject closed, dear." He rolled over and caressed her thigh as he planted a long lingering kiss on her parted lips.

The telephone jangled and Chester cursed softly as he struggled back up from the cushions and over to the side table by the window.

"Yes?" There was a stretch of silent listening and then, " Really. I hadn't realized that possibility. Has there been any further contact?" He listened, frowning. "You have an address I trust, I know how Jared works." There was a pause and Chester nodded. "Thank you for calling, I shall see to a suitable extra next visit."

He hung up, stared out the window for a moment, then turned, and made his apologies for having to end their evening so abruptly but that business called and he could not refuse.

"So late? Then I shall wait up for you." She invited herself to stay with her question.

"As you wish, my dear... but no promises."

Elora lay back and watched intently as he slipped out of his dressing gown, gathered up his clothes, dressed and departed.