"This is Cassandra Sales. Is Mr. Higgins there?"

"I'll check for you, Cassie."

"Thank you, Diana. Will you tell him it's urgent? Mitch is in the hospital." Cassie scanned down the list of e-mail names and didn't recognize any of them.

Five seconds later the friend they called Parky was on the line talking fast in his hearty lawyer voice. "Hey, Cassie, how are you? Long time no see, babe."

Even when she'd been young, Cassie had never been the babe type. "Yes, long time. I'm not so good, Parker. Mitch had a stroke on Friday. He's in intensive care." And I had my face lifted.

"Yes, Mark called me. It's a real shocker."

"Yes." It certainly was.

"How is he doing?"

"He's not doing well. That's the reason I called."

"Oh gosh, I'm sorry. What can I do to help?"

Gosh, indeed. "I need the papers, Parky."

"To what papers are you referring?" Parky's voice took on that furry-edged garden fog Cassie was beginning to recognize as the cover for all requests for information about her husband.

"Oh, I don't know. The doctors say I need a power of attorney, things like that."

"What for, Cassie?" Parker sounded sincerely puzzled.

"He's on life support."

"Oh, that's a shocker," he said more slowly this time as if Mark hadn't already discussed it with him. "It's hard to believe. We had lunch together only a few weeks ago. He looked in the pink then."

Uh-huh. "What did you talk about?"

"Oh the usual things, business… why do you ask, Cassie?"

"He's left a few things to be taken care of. The business, his personal affairs, an audit I didn't know anything about. Let's face it, there's a whole lot I didn't know a single thing about. I need to go through it with you. Just to get the finances all sorted out in my mind. And, of course, I have some decisions to make concerning his care."

"Uh-huh. I know what you're talking about, Cassie. But I don't know if I can help you there."

"Can't help me where, Parker? With the care or the decisions or the finances?" Cassie's own voice took on an edge.

"With any of it. I hope you won't take this personally."

"What are you talking about? Of course I take it personally. You're our lawyer. I need you to act in that capacity."

"Well, I'm sorry to have to be the one to tell you this, Cassie, but there's a little problem with that. I represent Mitchell, as you know. That means there's a confidentiality issue here. And there are ethical issues as well."

"I thought you represented both of us, Parky. I don't understand."

Parker Higgins, a smoothie from way back, inhaled with such ferocity, Cassie could hear the rasping breath all the way from Garden City. "I've always represented Mitch, Cassie. Both for business and personal. We went to school together, you know that. Our relationship goes way back."

"So?"

"Let me stress that this is not personal. My responsibilities are with him and his wishes." He said this as if any reasonable person would understand this.

But Cassie didn't understand it. She exploded. "You're being a dickhead, Parker. This is a life-and-death situation. You have a responsibility to tell me, his wife, the things I need to know to determine what kind of care he gets. It's not a hard one."

"Well, of course, if he wants me to," Parker stonewalled.

"I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. You can't tell me if there's a power of attorney, a living will, simple things like that?"

"Well, there might be a conflict of interest here."

"Conflict of interest? What kind of conflict of interest?"

"The usual kind, between one person and another."

The man was being more than a dickhead. Cassie boiled right over. "Between who and who?" she screamed.

"Between you and him, Cassie. Don't get crazy on me."

Cassie's surgeon had told her to watch happy movies and think lovely thoughts during her weeks of recuperation to promote healing and lessen the chance of scarring. She opened and closed her mouth, then her puffy eyes. Both were as dry as the desert. She was going to be scarred for life because of this, she just knew it. Getting crazy? Getting crazy? Was he crazy? What was this about conflict of interest, and why hadn't she heard about it before today? And by the way, where was her loyal, personal lawyer?

"What are you trying to tell me, Parky? We've known each other for a long time." Her voice meek now.

"I know we have, and I have very positive feelings for you personally, Cassie. I think you're a wonderful woman. Just wonderful. And I really, truly wish I could help you."

"And I really, truly think you're a callous prick, Parker. Your friend and client had a stroke. Don't you want to help him?"

"I'm very sad about that. What hospital is he in? I'll go see him. I have an hour at five. How's that? If he gives me the okay, I'll tell you whatever you want to know. Is that fair?"

"He's in a coma. He can't give you an okay," Cassie told him coldly.

"Really?"

"What do you think I'm calling you for? Mitch is brain-dead. He can't talk, he can't even breathe on his own. He's not giving out okays right now. So where does that leave us? You and me?"

"Well, that's-a shocker."

I'm not crazy, Cassie told herself. I'm not crazy. The man in the coma had been preparing to divorce her. The deep silence that followed confirmed her suspicion that Mitch Sales had been about to divorce her, and he'd set her up to cheat her out of half his assets. It was another one of those things she got in a second. It wasn't a hard one, and it took her breath away. The two of them, Mitch and his old college friend, Parky Higgins, and maybe this woman, too-all of them had been cooking up a plan. She'd seen enough TV to know the story. Mitch had traveled to Grand Cayman Island, where he'd deposited a large sum of money in a bank out of U.S. jurisdiction and her sight. Right here at home, he'd had taken out accounts in her name and racked up huge bills that he would claim were hers and demand that she take responsibility for in the divorce settlement.

Without any warning that anything of this kind was in the wind, he'd probably believed that she would be so stunned and frightened and hurt and ashamed by the accusations of all those excesses that she would have to accept his terms just to be free of public humiliation.

And if he hadn't had his stroke, she might have gotten caught up in the scam, might well have ended up poor, poor, poor, just like Mary Ann Kaufman, who couldn't even get enough money from her deadbeat husband to pay for computer school. Or Sue Whistle, who'd gotten a brain tumor after she was dumped by Willie and had died of a broken heart.

Cassie knew just how this kind of thing worked. Mary Ann Kaufman's ex-husband was a heart surgeon worth millions who'd suddenly gone into a downward spiral. He claimed his hands hurt so badly, he couldn't operate. This caused him to become depressed and impotent. He couldn't bear to be with anyone. He had to be alone. No medication but divorce would work for him. Mary Ann loved him so much and felt so sorry for him that she agreed to let him keep the five-bedroom house and the cars in the divorce settlement. She moved into a studio apartment too small for an overnight with her college-age kids and took a job selling perfume at Lord and Taylor so he wouldn't be burdened with her care.

And guess what happened then? Harry immediately had a miraculous recovery. It was a complete miracle. His hand stopped hurting. He got over his depression and his impotence. He resumed his booming practice, and the nurse he'd been screwing for years moved in and redecorated Mary Ann's house. Within a year they married, and Mary Ann's two kids went to the wedding. And Harry never had to give her a dime.

"Cassie, are you there?"

"Yes, I'm here, Parky. And I may be wrong, but I think the law regards me as Mitch's wife and next of kin no matter what he was planning down the road. But you can research that."