SURE, IT WAS DISAPPOINTING TO HAVE TO ELIMINATE Victor Pasqual as a suspect. After all, without him, we really didn’t have any suspects.

But honestly, by that time, I’m not sure any of us cared.

We liked Victor Pasqual, and besides, we were all so relieved that Eve hadn’t lost her money, there was nothing that could have destroyed our good mood.

Well, almost nothing.

Down in the lobby, we decided to go out to breakfast before we began the long drive back to Arlington. We even included Peter (like I said, we were in good moods) on the sole condition that he stop calling us the Scooby Gang, and never breathe a word-to anyone-about the fact that for a brief moment in time, Victor Pasqual was a murder suspect.

But no sooner had we stepped out of the Pasqual Palace, onto the street, and out of the neon aura that surrounded the hotel than a curious thing happened.

I heard a car door slam and I was so wrapped up in getting all the details of the card game from Eve, I didn’t pay any attention.

I should have.

Then I would have noticed the dark sedan parked nearby, and the man wearing a ski mask who jumped out of it, darted forward, and grabbed Norman.

“Back off.”

The voice wasn’t familiar to me, but I knew in an instant that Norman recognized it. His mouth dropped open and even the green neon glow from down the street couldn’t add color to his cheeks.

Jim shot forward, but the man in the ski mask wasn’t taking chances. There was a knife tucked into his belt and he grabbed it and waved it at us. Jim was closest to the flashing blade; he had to lean back to stay out of harm’s way. My stomach went cold.

“I said, back off,” the masked man grumbled, and he tightened his hold on Norman and yanked him toward the waiting car.

Honest to gosh, I don’t know what possessed me. I knew it wasn’t wise to try to fight off a man with a weapon. I knew it was smarter just to let the man take Norman, to commit the license plate of the dark sedan to memory, and to wait about half a nanosecond once they were gone and then call the police.

But I’ve got to say, one look at that masked man holding on to our friend…

One thought about the way that knife had come too close to Jim for comfort…

Well, truth be told, I snapped.

Eve was standing next to me so I barely needed to move at all to give Doc just a little pinch on the butt.

Predictably, the dog wasn’t happy.

Doc doesn’t bark. Not exactly. The sound that comes out of that tiny body of his is more of a yap. A loud, interminable, annoying-as-not-much-else-can-be yap.

Just for good measure, Doc threw in a snarl and lunge, too.

At the same time Eve struggled to keep the dog in her arms, Jim grabbed Norman and pulled him-hard-out of the masked man’s grip.

And me? Taking my cue from Doc, I let out a scream that shook the windows of the buildings around us.

I kept right on screaming, too, until the front doors of the Pasqual Palace swung open and a couple of valets and a bellhop ran outside to see what was happening.

The masked man took one look at the commotion and ran back to his car.

And me? I was still screaming when he started up the engine and peeled rubber down the street.

“Ya pure mad dafty!”

I was pretty sure I’d just been insulted, but since Jim raced forward then hugged me tight when he said it, I didn’t hold it against him. “You could have been hurt.”

“You could have been hurt.” I pulled away long enough to look into his eyes. But only until I realized I’d missed another opportunity. By the time I untangled myself from Jim’s arms and raced to the street, the black sedan-and its license plates-were long gone.

“Wow.”

During the confrontation, I had lost track of Peter. Now he stepped out of the shadows where he’d apparently (and very wisely) scooted to stay out of harm’s way. He was slack-jawed and winded when he looked from Jim and me to where Eve was consoling Doc and Norman at the same time. “You guys… I thought you were kidding when you said you… I mean, I didn’t think you were serious when you told me… You really are investigating a murder, aren’t you?”

Call it the fallout of a shock; I started to laugh. So did everyone else but Peter. Oh, and Doc.

Doc just kept on yapping.

MY SIGH WAS AN EXACT ECHO OF EVE’S, AND THE sounds overlapped and rippled the air. It was the first noise any of us had made since we sat down to consider the current status of our case, and I looked from Jim, sitting on my right, to Norman, and from Norman to Eve, and from Eve to (believe it or not) Tyler. Notice I do not mention Peter. We hadn’t breathed a word of this meeting to him and, though it made me feel a little guilty, I knew it was the right thing to do. A man who hid in the shadows while his friends fought off a kidnapper was not good under pressure.

Because we were being careful, we’d decided to mix things up and meet at my apartment rather than at Jim’s house, and we were crammed around my kitchen table. I’d poured iced tea the minute everybody got there, and there was an open bag of thick, salty pretzels on the table. No one was eating them.

But then, kidnap attempts can have that sort of effect on people.

It was Saturday, and after driving through what was left of the night to get back from A.C., Jim had already worked the lunch crowd at Bellywasher’s and was getting ready to head back for the dinner rush. He hadn’t said a word in protest when I suggested this meeting, but I knew he was exhausted. The fact that he was such a good sport and such a good friend to Norman meant more than I can say. Not that I didn’t want to say it. But every time I thought about what a great guy Jim was, and how much he supported me and believed in me, I got all choked up.

As for Norman himself, he wasn’t saying anything-not out loud, anyway-but I could tell he was disappointed as well as worried. He’d pinned his hopes on finding out something useful from Victor Pasqual. When that portion of our investigation went bust, and now that we knew the killer was hot on our trail, Norman ’s hopes of ever living a worry-free life again had vanished.

Norman was edgy and out of sorts. He didn’t speak a word all the way back from New Jersey, and now he drummed his fingers against my oak table, tapped his foot against the linoleum, and kept looking over his shoulder to my one and only kitchen window. Seeing as how we were on the fourth floor, I’m not sure what-or who-he was keeping an eye out for; I only knew that when he didn’t see anything or anyone, he looked relieved. At least for a second or two. Then the drumming and the tapping and the looking over his shoulder started all over again.

As for Eve and Tyler… well, it should come as no surprise that I was not enamored of the idea of inviting Tyler to our little meeting, but I wasn’t (as Jim had so eloquently put it) pure mad dafty, either. It was obvious that whoever the man in the mask was, he’d been following me. First to Fredericksburg, then all the way to Atlantic City.

It was just as obvious that I’d led him right to Norman.

We weren’t taking any more chances. We had called in Tyler for muscle.

Did I feel better or worse having him there? I couldn’t deny that I felt more secure. Now if only he’d offer a little professional advice. If he had any to offer. So far, that hadn’t happened, and the only thing he’d done was plunk himself down next to Eve and pat Doc (who was sitting in her lap) in a halfhearted way I suspected was designed to win Eve over.

It was apparently working. When I got up to get the pretzels, I noticed that they were holding hands under the table.