"What have we got here?" Linda asked.

"A plant. I should have known. I should have smelled it."

"Cop?" Linda considered.

"Cop?" Eyes wide with alarm, Mel twisted. "I don't know what you're talking about. I was just resting."

"How'd she get in?" Jasper demanded, and Mel let the key she was holding slip out of her hands.

"Mine." Swearing in disgust, Linda bent to pick it up. "She must have palmed it."

"I don't know what—" Jasper cut off Mel's protest with a backhand that left her head ringing. She decided it was time to drop one act for another.

"Okay, okay, you don't have to play rough." She shuddered and swallowed audibly. "I'm just doing my job."

Jasper shoved her into the parlor and onto the sofa. "Which is?"

"Look, I'm just an actress. I took a gig with Donovan. He's a PI." Stall, Mel thought. Stall, stall, stall, because he was coming. She knew he was. "I only did what he told me to do. I don't care what you're into. And I got an appreciation for a good scam."

Gumm moved to the desk and took a pistol from the top drawer. "What are you doing in here?"

"Man, you don't need that," she said, swallowing. "He said I should get the key and come up to look around. He thought there might be some papers in the desk there." She gestured toward the ebony desk. "It seemed like a real kick, you know. And he's paying me five grand for the job."

"A two-bit actress and a PI," Linda said furiously. "What the hell do we do now?"

"What we have to do."

"Look, look, you say the word and I'm out of here. I mean out of the state." Mel tried for a tawdry kind of charm. "I mean, it was great while it lasted, the clothes and all, but I don't want any trouble. I didn't hear anything, I didn't see anything."

"You heard plenty," Gumm countered.

"I got a bad memory."

"Shut up," Linda snapped, and Mel shrugged.

"We'll have to contact Harriet. She's back in Baltimore seeing to the details of the last job." Gumm ran his hands through his hair. "She's going to be very unhappy. She'll have to call off the nurse. We can't take a kid without a buyer."

"Twenty-five thousand down the tubes." Linda sent Mel a look of avid dislike. "I was actually pretty fond of you, Mary Ellen." She walked over to lean into Mel's face, squeezing a hand around her throat. "As it is now, I'm going to get a lot of satisfaction out of letting Jasper take care of you."

"Hey, listen…"

"Shut up." She shoved Mel back. "You'd better arrange for someone to do it tonight. And to pick up the PI, too. I think a little spat in their house, maybe. A nice murder-suicide."

"I'll take care of it."

At the knock on the door, Mel made to scramble up and as expected had Linda clamp a hand over her mouth.

"Room service, Mr. Gumm."

"The damn dinner," he muttered. "Take her in the other room and keep her quiet. I'll handle this."

"A pleasure." Linda took the gun Gumm handed her and gestured Mel into the next room.

Smoothing back his hair, Gumm went to the door, then gestured for the waiter to roll in the room-service tray. "Don't bother to set up. Our guests haven't arrived yet."

"Yes, they have." Sebastian strolled in. "Jasper, I'd like you to meet Special Agent Devereaux. FBI."

In the next room, Linda swore and Mel grinned. "Excuse me," she said politely, tramped hard on Linda's foot and knocked the gun aside.

"Sutherland," Sebastian said with restrained fury from the doorway. "You've got some explaining to do."

"In a minute." To please herself, she turned and rammed her fist into Linda's astonished face. "That one was for Rose," she said.

He wasn't happy with her. Sebastian made that abundantly clear through the rest of that evening, through all the explanations. Devereaux wasn't exactly thrilled himself, though she thought it was small-minded of him, since she'd all but wrapped the evidence in a bow and handed it to him.

Sebastian had a right to be annoyed, she supposed. She'd acted on her own. But she was the professional. Besides, it had worked out exactly as she'd planned, so what was his problem?

She asked him just that several times, as they packed up for the trip home, as they flew back to Monterey, as he dropped her off at her office.

His only answer was one of his long, enigmatic looks. The last thing he said to her left her miserable and silent.

"I kept my word, Mary Ellen. You didn't. As a matter of trust, it comes down to that."

That had been two days before, she thought as she brooded at her desk. And there hadn't been a peep from him since.

She'd even swallowed her pride and called him, only to get his answering machine. It wasn't that she felt she owed him an apology, exactly. But she did think he deserved another chance to be reasonable.

She toyed with the idea of going to Morgana or Anastasia and asking them to intercede. But that was too weak. All she wanted to do was to put things back on an even keel between them.

No, no, she wanted much more than that, Mel admitted. And that was what was killing her.

Only one way to do it, she told herself, and kicked back from her desk. She would hunt him down, pin him to the wall if necessary, but she would make him listen to her.

All the way along the winding mountain road she practiced what she would say and how she would say it. She tried being tough, experimented with being quiet and solemn, and even took a shot at being penitent. When that didn't sit well, she opted for aggressive tactics. She'd just march right up to his door and tell him to cut out the silent routine. She was tired of it.

If he wasn't there, she'd wait.

He was there, all right, she discovered as she reached the top of his lane. But he certainly wasn't alone. There were three other cars in the drive, including what appeared to be the longest stretch limo in the known world.

She stepped out of her car and stood beside it, wondering what to do next.

"I told you, didn't I tell you?" Mel looked around and spotted a pretty woman in a flowing tea-length dress. "A green-eyed blonde," she said, a definite smack of satisfaction in her Irish voice. "I told you something was bothering him."