But as she stood and removed her cotton pullover, she noticed the phone on the bedside table.

The mansion's air conditioning made her breasts cold, nipples rising.

Still, she hesitated, staring at the phone. I ought to call my loft and check if I've got any messages on my answering machine, she told herself.

No. It can wait till morning.

Sure.

But so much has…

I ought to make sure that nothing else has happened.

So she tapped buttons on the phone, listened to the static on the long-distance line, heard a buzz, then another buzz, and finally her voice on the answering machine. 'This is Tess. I can't answer the phone right now. Please leave a message at the tone.'

Immediately she tapped two more numbers, 24, her birthdate, the security code that she'd programmed into her answering machine and would prevent anyone else from calling her home, pressing two numbers at random, and gaining access to her messages.

A man's gravelly voice was instantly recognizable. 'Tess, it's Lieutenant Craig. The time is' – garbled voices in the background - 'quarter-after-five. Call me at the office as soon as you can.'

A beep signalled the end of the message.

Curious – shivering because of it – Tess waited to hear if she had any other messages.

'It's Lieutenant Craig again. Half-past six. Call me at once.'

Another beep.

The urgency in the lieutenant's voice made Tess even more anxious to hang up and phone him, but she resisted the impulse, still needing to know if she had other messages.

'It's Lieutenant Craig. It's almost eleven. Where the hell are you? Call me.'

This time, there were three beeps, the signal that all the messages had been replayed. Tess broke the connection, removed her wallet from her purse, found the card that Craig had given her, and decided that even though his first message had told her to call him at the office, he wouldn't be there now at two in the morning.

Quickly tapping numbers, she called his home.

Again she heard long-distance static, then a buzz, another buzz, and another.

By the fifth buzz, she began to suspect that Craig was at the office. By the sixth, she became certain and lowered her hand toward the disconnect lever so she could try his office. When her hand was an inch from the lever, a crusty voice said, 'Hello?' and coughed.

She pressed the phone hard against her ear. 'It's Tess. I'm sorry if I woke you, but your messages-'

'Where have you been! My God, you had me worried.'

'I'm in Alexandria, Virginia.' In the background, Tess heard soaring music, an orchestra, a chorus, a soprano hitting impossibly high notes.

' Alexandria? What are you doing there?' The soprano's voice swooped, then rose again.

'My mother lives here. I caught the six o'clock shuttle.'

'But you haven't answered my question. What are you-?'

'Trying to explain what we saw in Joseph's apartment. My mother has contacts with the Library of Congress and…' Tess hesitated, not wanting to tell the lieutenant about her mother's powerful connections with the government because of her father. 'Is that opera I hear in the background?'

'Puccini's Madame Butterfly. Just a second. I'll turn it off.'

A moment later, the music stopped.

'I didn't know you liked opera,' Tess said. 'Somehow you don't seem the type to-'

'Listen to me,' Craig said. 'Don't ever leave town like that again! Not without telling me! You have to let me know where I can reach you. When I kept calling and you didn't answer your phone, I got worried that something had happened to you.'

'Well, in a way, something almost did.'

'What?'

Those pictures I took at Joseph's apartment. I left them at a one-hour photo shop while I packed. When I went back to the shop, the clerk told me that a man who claimed I'd sent him tried to get the photographs.'

'Jesus.'

The only way the man could have known about those pictures is if he'd followed us when we left Joseph's apartment and he saw me go into the photo shop,' Tess said with urgency.

That sure as hell sounds logical to me. Jesus,' the lieutenant said again and coughed. That's what I mean. You can't stay out of touch. You've got to let me know where you are and what you're doing. This might be dangerous for you.'

'There's more. I don't understand it, but when the clerk described the man, it sounded like Joseph. The man even had gray eyes. Could I have been wrong at the morgue? Could Joseph be alive! Could-?'

'No, Tess, you weren't wrong. That much I can guarantee. Whoever the man was, he very definitely wasn't Joseph.'

'But how can you be sure? How do you explain the gray eyes?'

'Coincidence maybe,' Craig said. 'I don't know, but-'

'You yourself said that the scar on the corpse's wrist wasn't enough for an absolute identification. Maybe that scar's a coincidence, too. Since the FBI hasn't been able to match the corpse's fingerprints with anyone in their files, maybe-'. 'No, Tess, we do have a match. That's one of the things I tried to call you about.'

'From the FBI?' Tess asked quickly. They know Joseph's real identity?'

'Not from the FBI. From our own lab. They dusted Joseph's apartment and matched the prints they found there with those from the unburned left hand on the corpse in the morgue. Tess, the fingerprints match. Point by point, they match and they also match fingerprints on Joseph's desk at Truth Video. Your identification's been verified. Joseph died in Carl Schurz Park.'

Tess's knees abruptly weakened. She sank toward the bed and shivered so much that she wrapped a sheet around her. Since the incident in the photo shop, her fear that someone might be following her had been tempered by the hope that whoever it was would be Joseph, that Joseph might somehow still be alive.

But now she suffered a renewed aching surge of grief, her stomach sinking, her chest hollow, her mind off-balance.

'Tess?'

She tried to answer.

'Tess?' Craig emphasized her name, sounding worried.

'I'm here. I'm… Yes, I'm all right.'

'For a moment, I thought… Look, I'm sorry. I guess I could have been more delicate.'

'I felt… Never mind. I'll be okay,' Tess said.

'You're sure?'

'All that matters now is getting even, finding out who killed Joseph and why.' Tess shook her head, bitter. 'You said the matching fingerprints were one of the reasons you tried to call. What else-?'

'It's about the photographs.' Craig paused.

'And?' Tess frowned. 'You're going to make me ask? What about them?'

'It's a good thing you took them, and a damned good thing the clerk didn't give them to the guy who claimed you'd sent him.'

'What's wrong?'

'Someone broke into Joseph's apartment. They torched his bedroom.'

Tess jerked upright, the sheet falling off her shoulders. 'Torched it?'

'Almost burned the whole top floor before the fire department put it out. It's a miracle no one was hurt.'

'Christ, when did this happen?'

'Four o'clock.'

'About the same time the guy was trying to steal my pictures.'

'Which are the only record of what we found in Joseph's apartment,' Craig said.

'But I thought you said Homicide got there before we did and took photographs.'

'I was wrong,' Craig said. 'What they sent was a fingerprint team. When they saw the bedroom, they decided they wanted pictures. The photographer was scheduled to show up in the afternoon.'

'But he didn't?'

'Not in time. After all, the apartment wasn't a crime scene. There didn't seem any urgency.'

'Oh, shit.'

'Just make sure those photographs are safe. Hide them. Have copies made from the negatives,' Craig said.