Her gaze drifted to Townsend again. The body was a dead husk, crumpled and discarded. The essence of the person had gone on to places unknown. His right hand was still wrapped around the handle of the pistol that had shattered the crown of his head like the shell of a soft-boiled egg.

In a heartbeat Mari’s brain kicked back into action and she jolted into motion. Her whole body jerked backward.

“Oh, my God!” she whispered, as if she were afraid of waking him. “Oh, my God!”

The gasp jammed in her throat as her breakfast rushed up from her stomach. Clamping a hand over her mouth, she stumbled back through the maze of wing chairs and out of the room. There wasn’t time to hunt for a bathroom. The kitchen was a straight shot through the living room on the other end of the house. She managed to make it to the sink before the sight of the judge and the smell of dog shit made her gag.

When there was nothing left of her Rainbow Cafe buttermilk pancakes, she turned the faucet on and stuck her face under it, as if she could wash away what her eyes had seen. Trembling violently, she reached for a dish towel and pressed it against her cheeks.

Townsend was dead. Lucy was dead, then Miller Daggrepont, now Townsend had killed himself. She could still see the look of surprise in his eyes, as if he had seen something unexpected in that final split second between life and death. She could still see the blood that had run out of his mouth to puddle on the desktop, and the hand that still gripped the butt of the gun.

She used the kitchen phone to call the sheriff’s department, shaking so badly she had difficulty punching out 911. The dispatcher assured her a car would be sent out right away-as soon as they could determine where exactly Judge Townsend lived.

Too shaken to sit still, Mari wandered through the house. She found a bottle of Glenfiddich on the sideboard in the dining room and drank a little to soothe her jangling nerves and calm the chaos swirling like a cyclone through her head. Townsend’s grisly last portrait remained in her brain, but she was now able to concentrate on other aspects of the picture-a clean slice of sky in the window; the scales of justice sitting front and center on the desk, one side weighed down by a handful of change and a roll of stamps; the telephone, black and high-tech, its receiver nowhere in sight, a red light burning on the console.

No receiver. She stared out the window at the front yard, waiting for the distant cloud of dust that would signify the imminent arrival of a deputy. She took another sip of scotch and held the cool, heavy tumbler against her cheek. No receiver. Had he taken the receiver off the hook so as not to be interrupted by some telemarketing flunky as he carried out his final verdict on himself? Or had he been calling someone?

If his suicide had anything to do with Lucy’s death… if he had been talking to someone shortly before his own death… might that person have some connection to Lucy?

The dog came into the dining room, whining, and bumped against Mari’s legs, gazing up at her with worried eyes. She stroked his head absently and set her glass aside. Quinn was fed up to his eyeteeth with her theories. He wouldn’t want to hear this one either. He certainly wouldn’t allow her to nose around the crime scene. She would be summarily removed from the vicinity and escorted back to the station to make her statement with no embellishments or queries allowed.

With the German shorthair trailing despondently after her, she went back into the living room and stared at the open study door while her heart did a slow drumbeat against her sternum and the scotch simmered in her stomach. She ordered the dog to stay and walked on into the study as purposefully as her quaking knees would allow. Keeping her eyes trained away from the judge, she skirted around the front side of the desk to the end where the telephone sat with its red light glowing like an evil eye.

The redial button was just to the left of Townsend’s ravaged head. Concentrating on the button, she reached out with the eraser end of a pencil and punched it. The electronic music of modern technology played over the receiver, which lay on the floor. Mari watched the number appear in the LCD display above the answering machine cassette compartment, listened to the phone ringing on the other end of the line. On the third ring a woman with a heavy eastern-European accent answered.

“Mr. Bryce’s residence. ’Ello?”

Samantha stretched out in the lounge chair, her eyes shaded from the glare of the sun on the pool by a pair of sunglasses that cost more than she made in a week. Bryce had loaned them to her. Actually, he had given them to her, but she felt more comfortable considering it a loan than a gift.

She had called in sick to work. After their discussion the night before, she had no desire to run into Mr. Van Dellen today. Bryce told her not to worry about it. Drew was meddling where he didn’t belong without knowing all the facts, he said. Drew didn’t understand their friendship, he said. He didn’t understand what she was going through with Will. He was feeling protective of her-like a brother for a sister-but wasn’t that ironic, since Bryce felt the same way? No need for a conflict when their goals were essentially the same.

Bryce’s words had soothed her last night. Just the sound of his voice soothed her, warm and rich as it was. He smiled at her with that movie-star smile, his eyes kind and wise, and for a moment her life didn’t seem quite so screwed up. But when she woke up alone in her bed with the morning sun glaring like a spotlight on her shabby room, Bryce’s comfort had faded away and Mr. Van Dellen’s disapproval had shone through.

Think what you’re doing, Samantha! You’re not like them. Can’t you see that?

Yes, she could see it. Apparently, everybody could see it-that she was just a dumb, gawky half-breed kid trying to be something she wasn’t. Everybody saw it except Bryce. He treated her as if she were just as good as, just as important as any of his rich and famous friends. He treated her like a beautiful woman instead of a kid sister. That was what she could see: that she had a husband who didn’t care and a man-a friend-who treated her better than her own father ever had, even in her dreams. Bryce saw possibilities for her; he gave her encouragement when all she had ever gotten from anyone else was pity or ridicule or nothing at all. Nobody else seemed to understand that.

So she had sought refuge today with her friend. She could spend the day on his mountain, beside his pool, hiding away from the reality of her life. She could leave Sam the tomboy barmaid behind on the dusty side streets of New Eden and become Samantha of the hip crowd for a day. She could lie by the pool with Uma Kimball in the next chair and a famous trial lawyer bringing her drinks and staring at her cleavage.

Actually, the last part made her uncomfortable, so she turned onto her stomach on the chaise and pulled her long hair over her shoulders for a curtain.

“Thanks,” she murmured, setting the margarita aside on a low glass-topped table.

Ben Lucas grinned at her as if she had just said something truly witty. He stood between her and the pool, a tan, health-club body in orange Speedo trunks.

“You’ll get a better tan without the shirt,” he said.

Samantha stared up at him, seeing her reflection in the mirror lenses of his sunglasses. From the selection of swimwear in the guest room, she had chosen a simple, modest turquoise tank suit, which she had felt compelled to cover up with the white oxford shirt she’d taken out of Will’s end of the closet at home that morning. In the chair to her right, Uma Kimball lay soaking up the rays, wearing nothing but the bottom portion of a yellow thong bikini, a scrap of fabric too small to clean her sunglasses with. Uma’s chest was as flat as a Cub Scout’s, her nipples tiny pebbles in coins of brown flesh.