"I don't think that was so funny," she retorted.

"Look, just let me in for a minute. I won't touch anything, I promise, and then I'll get out of your hair." He held up his hands. "I like your style, that's all."

"That is some kind of joke, right?"

"No, ma'am."

"The IRS doesn't go into people's homes for a tax audit." What did he take her for, a dummy?

"Of course we do. We look at property, possessions, cars, and jewelry. We do whatever it takes. Here." He handed her his card.

The card went into Cassie's hand without her actually taking it. Alarmed, she thought of the files. Mitch's million plus in that Grand Caymans bank. The expenses of the girlfriend who bought so much in Cassie's name. Whatever current practices were, she didn't think a home visit right now would be a good idea. "My husband had a stroke," she said quickly.

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear it. They usually recover during the course of investigations." Schwab had sunglasses of his own. They were the mirrored kind, like the state troopers wore so you couldn't see their eyes when they stopped you for speeding. He gave her a funny look, then put them on.

"No, no, you don't understand. My husband really did have a stroke. He's in intensive care," Cassie told him.

"Oh, that's terrible. Would you mind if I come in for a cup of coffee?" he asked, chilly now.

"Coffee?" Didn't he hear what she just said?

"Just a quick cup. It smells so good. I bet you make a terrific cup of coffee. What kind of beans do you use?"

Cassie licked her lips. What was with this guy? She'd just told him her husband was in intensive care.

Before she could open her mouth to tell him he couldn't have coffee right now, a loud metal crunch announced the arrival of Aunt Edith. As on many other occasions, she misjudged where the road ended and drove her 1963 monster Cadillac into the mailbox. "Cassie! Cassie," she started screaming, "I can't get out."

"Oh my, what's that?" Schwab asked.

"My aunt has come to drive me insane," Cassie told him.

AN HOUR LATER the Cadillac was separated from the mailbox and was parked in the driveway. The lovely conversation azalea that had been blooming in its myriad colors was a mangled mess. Above it, the post that secured the mailbox was bent to the ground, and the mailbox itself was crushed like a cookie in a toddler's hand. The bloodred clematis that had started winding its way up the post on its way to becoming a glorious flower bower that would camouflage the mail by July was in leaf but hadn't yet produced a single fist-sized crimson bloom. The vine lay on the grass, twisted forlornly around the wreckage.

Charles Schwab, the IRS one, had taken off, but Edith was still there, unrepentant about the damage to her niece's house and eager to be of help. Her idea of help was telling Cassie how awful she looked, how thin she'd gotten; requesting a breakfast of goat cheese and pancetta omelette with raisin toast, none of which Cassie happened to have in the house; and scolding her about wanting to improve herself (the surgery). She also encouraged Cassie to think of the pleasant future they would have together when Mitch was gone.

"Sweetheart, I'm going to take you on a cruise the minute this thing is over." She said as they left the house to drive to the hospital to visit the vegetable who was not likely to be with them long.

Edith wanted to drive, but Cassie wouldn't hear of it. So now the old woman was sitting regally in the passenger seat of Mitch's brand-new Mercedes that Cassie wasn't supposed to drive herself for another four days, doctor's orders, or forever, if Mitch had anything to say about it. Edith was wearing a white jogging suit with red chevrons on her thighs that matched the white Cadillac and made her look almost as large. Her moon of a face was round and rouged. Her lips were drawn on big and red. Her chins were multiple. Her hair was done like Debbie Reynolds's in 1952. And she was in a jolly mood, for there's nothing in the world a widow enjoys more than the impending widowhood of a close friend or relative.

"I don't know, it's almost summer, so we could go to the Greek Isles, how does that sound? Or maybe the Mediterranean. Heaven knows you'll be able to afford it. Mitch did very well for himself, didn't he? And you! You need to get away, get some rest, recover from your ordeal. Poor Mitch," she rambled on. And on.

"But, you know, it won't be so bad without him. He wasn't around much anyway, was he poor thing?"

"No, he wasn't," Cassie affirmed stonily.

"Well, men aren't all they're cracked up to be, if you want my opinion," she said. "Keeping up your curiosity. That's what keeps a person young. Look at me. I done all right for myself, haven't I?"

Cassie didn't want to look at her aunt. After the weekend she'd had, her nerves were completely shot. And now the thing that was beginning to gall her was that she couldn't even talk to Mitch, couldn't confront him with all her years of loyalty and the heartless way he'd repaid her for it. She was driving very slowly in the Mercedes, reminding herself that she mustn't hit anything and have an encounter with the police on the day she was going to murder her husband. If she couldn't yell at Mitch, at least there was the plug to pull.

"Who was that Charlie you were with?" her aunt demanded abruptly.

"I told you, Edith. He's assessing all the houses in the area for the IRS," Cassie told her.

"I never heard of such a thing," Edith clicked her tongue. "Casing the place in the morning before anybody is even up. My land! What is this world coming to?"

"My land," as far as Cassie knew, was an expression that dated back two centuries from the Midwest, where Edith's grandmother was said to have fought the Indians. Or maybe it was the far West. "My land," indeed.

"I never heard of it either," she said grimly about the sneak IRS attack. She couldn't get Charlie Schwab out of her mind. Hadn't she read somewhere that the IRS was trying to improve its image and wasn't auditing people anymore? The New York Times? People magazine? How could this be happening to her? Why now? What were the procedures? Could the agency really make home visits without warning, check out people's cars in their garages? Do anything they wanted? Maybe this was one of those "random audits," like the pat-downs at the airports.

"You two seemed very cozy. Did you know him before?"

"No, of course not," Cassie snapped.

She stopped at a red light on Northern Boulevard, only a few blocks from the hospital. She hadn't heard from anyone there this morning, and she hadn't called the nurses' station to check in. She didn't know what she was going to find when she went into that intensive care unit. Maybe Mitch had had another "event" in the night. He could be gone already. She forgot about the IRS incident, was filled with trepidation about the medical situation. Code, code. Where was a code when one needed one?

The light changed. Cassie reminded herself that she had to tell Mitch's employees what had happened to him, take charge at the warehouse. She had to call his lawyer. All kinds of arrangements had to be made. She pulled into the hospital, her head spinning again. She didn't know who Mitch's girlfriend was, what that woman was doing right now, or how she and Mitch communicated. One thing she did know was that the two of them were not talking again. She was going to pop that woman's balloon.

Cassie parked the car and got out. She adjusted her scarf and sunglasses. The tide was rising in her. Mitch had underestimated her. She wanted revenge.

"Come on, Aunt Edith, come say goodbye to Mitch."

"Oh dear, oh my, your poor children, losing their daddy so young," Edith said. Then, "You know, dear, I never liked that man."