Danny gave her his telephone number, and they parted. If he didn't hear from her, he said, he'd just assume she'd changed her mind, which he'd perfectly understand, given the circumstances.

But Rachel had no intention of changing her mind. As she walked home she was already laying plans for how best to get into Margie and Garrison's apartment in the Trump Tower and search it without being discovered. There were risks involved, no doubt of that; she was consorting with somebody who the police would surely want to interrogate, if they knew of his existence. Her silence in the matter was probably a crime; and searching a murder site, then removing (if she was successful) evidence of the affair was certainly interfering with the processes of the law. But she didn't care. There was more at stake in this endeavor than finding Danny's love letters and a few indiscreet photographs.

She was all but lost in a labyrinth of potential alliances: Loretta wanted her on her side, Danny needed her help, Mitchell had effectively threatened her if she didn't stay close by. Suddenly she was important to the balance of power; but she didn't entirely know why. Nor did she know what the consequences of choosing the wrong allegiance would be. What fell to the victor in this battle between sons and stepmother? Simply the incalculable wealth of the Gearys? Prize enough to murder for, without question; but only if those involved were not already rich beyond dreams of avarice.

Something else moved these people, and it wasn't money. Nor was it love; nor did she think it was power. Until she knew what it was she would not be safe, of that she was certain. Perhaps if she went to the place where Margie had died-Margie, who had been a victim of this thing she could not grasp or understand-its nature would come clear. It was a primitive hope, she realized; close to a kind of superstition. But what else was she to do? Her analytical powers had failed her. It was time to trust to her instincts, and her instincts told her to go and look where the harm had already been done; to look, as it were, back along the path of the bullet that had taken poor Margie's life. Back into the dark heart of Garrison Geary, and to whatever hopes or fears had moved him to murder.

Glancing back over the last several chapters, I realize that I've left a thread of my story dangling (actually, I'm certain I've left a good many more than one, but the rest will be sewn into the design in due course). I'm speaking of my sister's adventures. You'll recall that the last time I saw her she was in flight from Cesaria, who was furious with her for some unspecified crime. If you'll allow me a moment here I'll tell you what all that was about. My fear is that if I don't tell you now the urgency of what is about to happen in the lives of the Gearys will prevent me from breaking in at a later point. In short, this may be the last real breath I can take. After this, the deluge.

So; Marietta. She appeared in my chambers three or four days after my encounter with Cesaria, wearing a dreamy smile.

"What are you on?" I asked her.

"I've had a couple of mushrooms," she replied.

I was irritated with her, and I said so. She had too little sense of responsibility, I said: always in pursuit of some altered state or other.

"Oh, listen to you. So you didn't take the cocaine and Benedictine?"

I admitted that I had, but that I'd had a legitimate reason: it was helping me stay alert through the long hours of writing. It was quite a different situation, I said, to indulging day after day, the way she did.

"You're exaggerating," she said.

In my fine self-righteousness I made a list for her. There was nothing she wouldn't try. She smoked opium and chewed coca leaves; she ate pharmaceutical painkillers like candies and washed them down with tequila and rum; she liked heroin and cherries in brandy and hashish brownies.

"Lord, Maddox, you can be so tiresome sometimes. If I play music and the music's worth a damn, I'm altering my state. If I touch myself, and I give myself pleasure, I'm altering my state."

"They're not comparable."

"Why not?" I drew a breath before replying. "See? You don't have an answer."

"Wait, wait, wait-" I protested.

"Anyway," she went on, "I don't see that it's your business what I do with my head."

"It becomes my business if I have to deal with your mother."

Marietta rolled her eyes. "Oh Lord, I knew we'd get round to that eventually."

"I think I deserve an explanation."

"She found me going through some old clothes, that's all," Marietta replied.

"Old clothes?"

"Yes… it was ridiculous. I mean, who cares after all this time?"

Despite her cavalier attitude she was plainly concealing something she felt guilty about. "Whose clothes were they?" I asked her.

"His," she said with a little shrug.

"Galilee's?"

"No… his." Another shrug. "Father's."

"You found clothes that belonged to our father-"

"-who art in Heaven… yes."

"And you were touching them?"

"Oh for God's sake, Maddox, don't you start. They were clothes. Old clothes. I don't think he'd even worn them. You know what a peacock he was."

"That's not what I remember."

"Well maybe he only did it for my benefit," she said with a sly smirk. "I had the pleasure of sitting in his dressing room with him many times-"

"I've heard enough, thank you," I told her. I didn't like the direction the conversation was taking; nor the gleam in Marietta's eye. But I was too late. The rebel in her was roused, and she wasn't about to be quelled.

"You started this," she said. "So you can damn well hear me out. It's all true; every word of it."

"I still-"

"Listen to me," she insisted. "You should know what he got up to when nobody else was looking. He was a priapic old bastard. Have you used that word yet by the way? Priapic?"

"No."

"Well now you can, quoting me."

"This isn't going in the book."

"Christ, you can be an old woman sometimes, Maddox. It's part of the story."

"It's got nothing to do with what I'm writing."

"The fact that the founding father of our family was so oversexed he used to parade around in front of his six-year-old daughter with a hard-on? Oh, I think that's got everything to do with what you're writing." She grinned at me, and I swear any God-fearing individual would have said the Devil was in that face. The beautiful exuberance of her features; the naked pleasure she took in shocking me.

"Of course I was fascinated. You know the origin of the word fascinated? It's Latin. Fasdnare means to put under a spell. It was particularly attributed to serpents-"

"Why do you insist on doing this?"

"He had that power. No question. He waved his snake and I was… enchanted." She smiled at the memory. "I couldn't take my eyes off it. I would have followed it anywhere. Of course I wanted to touch it, but he told me no. When you're a little older, he said, then I'll show what it can do."

She stopped talking; stared out the window at the passing sky. I was ashamed of my curiosity, but I couldn't help myself.

"And did he?" I said.

She kept staring. "No, he never did. He wanted to-I could see it in his eyes sometimes-but he didn't dare. You see I told Galilee all about it. That was my big mistake. I told him I'd seen Papa's snake and it was wonderful. I swore him to secrecy of course but I'm damn sure he told Cesaria, and she probably gave Papa hell. She was always jealous of me."

"That's ridiculous."

"She was. She still is. She threw a fit when she found me in the dressing room. After all these years she didn't want me near his belongings." She finally pulled her gaze from the clouds and looked back at me. "I love women more than life itself," she said. "I love everything about them. Their feel, their smell, the way they move when you stroke them… And I really can't bear men. Not in that way. They're so lumpen. But I'd have made an exception for Papa."