Then he had stepped back. “Why?”

She told him about the pretty woman struggling to get out of the shell. She told him about how she knew that she shouldn’t care so much, and then burst out, “But I do care.”

Unexpectedly he had smiled, a narrow, mirthless, but nevertheless genuine smile. “If you didn’t care, I wouldn’t be bothered,” he had told her.

The procedure he prescribed had been incredibly involved. The operations gave her a chin and reduced her ears, and took the dark circles from under her eyes and the heavy lids from over them, so that they became wide and luminous. The surgery made her lips full and provocative and removed the acne scars from her cheeks and narrowed her nose and raised her eyebrows. There had even been a process to sculpt her body.

Then the doctor sent her to a salon to have her hair changed from mousy tan to charcoal brown, a color that enhanced the creamy complexion he had achieved through acid peeling. Another expert at the salon taught her about the subtleties of applying makeup.

Finally, the doctor told her to invest the last of her windfall in clothes and sent her with a personal shopper to the Seventh Avenue designer workrooms. Under the shopper’s guidance, she accumulated the first sophisticated wardrobe she had ever owned.

Dr. Smith urged her to relocate to New York City, told her where to look for an apartment and even took personal interest by inspecting the apartment she had found. Then he insisted that she come in every three months for checkups.

It had been a dizzying year since she had moved to Manhattan and started the job at Price and Veilone. Dizzying but exciting. Barbara was having a wonderful time.

But as she walked the last block to her apartment, she glanced nervously over her shoulder. Last night, she had had dinner with some clients in The Mark Hotel. When they were leaving, she had noticed Dr. Smith seated alone at a small table off to the side.

Last week she had caught a glimpse of him in the Oak Room at the Plaza.

She had dismissed it at the time, but the night last month when she met clients at The Four Seasons, she had had the impression that someone was watching her from a car across the street when she hailed a taxi.

Barbara felt a surge of relief as the doorman greeted her and opened the door. Then once again she looked over her shoulder.

A black Mercedes was stopped in traffic directly in front of the apartment building. There was no mistaking the driver, even though his face was turned partly away as though he were looking across the street.

Dr. Smith.

“You okay, Miss Tompkins?” the doorman asked. “You look like you don’t feel so great.”

“No. Thank you. I’m fine.” Barbara walked quickly into the foyer. As she waited for the elevator, she thought, he is following me. But what can I do about it?

Although Kerry had fixed Robin one of their favorite meals-baked chicken breasts, baked potatoes, green beans, green salad and biscuits-they ate in near silence.

From the moment Kerry arrived home and Alison, the high school baby-sitter, had whispered, “I think Robin’s upset,” Kerry had bided her time.

As she prepared dinner, Robin sat at the counter doing her homework. Kerry had waited for a time to talk to her, for some sign, but Robin seemed extraordinarily busy with her assignments.

Kerry even made certain to ask, “Are you sure you’re finished, Rob?” before she put their dinner on the table.

After she began to eat, Robin visibly relaxed. “Did you finish your lunch today?” Kerry asked, finally breaking the silence, trying to sound casual. “You seem hungry.”

“Sure, Mom. Most of it.”

“I see.”

Kerry thought, she is so like me. If she’s hurt, she handles it herself. Such a private person.

Then Robin said, “I like Geoff. He’s neat.”

Geoff. Kerry dropped her eyes and concentrated on cutting chicken. She didn’t want to think about his derisive, dismissive comment when he left the other night. Good-bye, Your Honor.

“Uh-huh,” she responded, hoping that she was conveying the fact that Geoff was unimportant in their lives.

“When is he coming back?” Robin asked.

Now it was Kerry’s turn to be evasive. “Oh, I don’t know. He really just came because of a case he’s been working on.”

Robin looked troubled. “I guess I shouldn’t have told Daddy about that.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, he was saying that when you’re a judge, you’ll probably meet a lot of judges and end up marrying one of them. I didn’t mean to talk about you to him, but I said a lawyer I liked had come to the house on business the other night, and Daddy asked who it was.”

“And you told him it was Geoff Dorso. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“I don’t know. Daddy seemed to get upset with me. We’d been having fun, then he got quiet and told me to finish my shrimp. That it was time to get home.”

“Rob, Daddy doesn’t care who I go out with, and certainly Geoff Dorso has no connection to him or any of his clients. Daddy is involved in a very tough case right now. Maybe you had kept his mind off it for a while, and then when dinner was almost over, he started thinking about it again.”

“Do you really think so?” Robin asked hopefully as her eyes brightened.

“I really think so,” Kerry said firmly. “You’ve seen me when I’m in a fog because I’m on a trial.”

Robin began to laugh. “Oh boy, have I!”

At nine o’clock, Kerry looked in on Robin, who was propped up in bed reading. “Lights out,” she said firmly as she went over to tuck her in.

“Okay,” she said reluctantly. As Robin snuggled down under the covers, she said, “Mom, I was thinking. Just because Geoff came here on business doesn’t mean we can’t ask him back, does it? He likes you. I can tell.”

“Oh, Rob, he’s just one of those guys who likes people, but certainly he’s not interested in me especially.”

“Cassie and Courtney saw him when he picked me up. They think he’s cute.”

I think he is too, Kerry thought as she turned out the light. She went downstairs, planning to tackle the chore of balancing her checkbook. But when she got to her desk, she gazed for a long minute at the Reardon file Joe Palumbo had given her yesterday. Then she shook her head. Forget it, she told herself. Stay out of it.

But it wouldn’t hurt just to take a look at it, she reasoned. She picked it up, carried it to her favorite chair, laid the file on the hassock at her feet, opened it and reached for the first batch of papers.

The record showed that the call had come in at 12:20 A.M. Skip Reardon had dialed the operator and shouted at her to connect him to the Alpine police. “My wife is dead, my wife is dead,” he had repeated over and over. The police reported they had found him kneeling beside her, crying. He told the police that as soon as he came into the house he had known she was dead and had not touched her. The vase that the sweetheart roses had been in was overturned. The roses were scattered over the body.

The next morning, when his mother was with him, Skip Reardon had claimed he was sure a diamond pin was missing. He said he remembered it in particular because it was one of the pieces he had not given her, that he was certain another man must have given her. He also swore that a miniature frame with Suzanne’s picture that had been in the bedroom that morning was gone.

At eleven o’clock, Kerry got to Dolly Bowles’ statement. It was essentially the same story she had narrated when Kerry visited her.

Kerry’s eyes narrowed when she saw that a Jason Arnott had been questioned in the course of the investigation. Skip Reardon had mentioned him to her. In his statement, Arnott described himself as an antiques expert who for a commission would accompany women to auctions at places like Sotheby’s and Christie’s and advise them in their efforts in bidding on certain objects.