"Yes, of course you are, Cassie, of course. Don't even think about that."

"What's the woman's name?"

"Woman? I don't know what you mean."

"The woman Mitch was divorcing me for, Parky."

"Cassie, I don't know what you're talking about. Mitch adores you. What are his chances for recovery?"

"Very slim, I'm afraid."

"Gee, I'm so sorry, Cassie. I'm shocked and I'm sorry. Are you sure?"

"You can ask Mark Cohen again. I'm sure you did already. Is he in on this, too? You guys together, all of you?"

"I'm sorry to cut you off, Cassie, but I'm going into a meeting right now. I'm going to get back to you later on this, okay?"

"Cassie. Cassie, Cassie," Edith was screaming from the kitchen. "I'm starving, honey. What had you planned to serve for lunch?"

MILD-MANNERED CASSIE, who'd always been so careful to feed the birds in winter, who couldn't even think of killing the moles that tunneled through her garden and ate her bulbs, who'd bought one of those beeper boxes to keep the mice out of her basement so she wouldn't have to catch them on sticky tape or trap them or poison them, was wondering how to stop this unconscionable girlfriend from doing what Cassie couldn't do: get her husband's attention from wherever he'd gone and bring him back to life so he could leave her in ruin. She didn't want her anywhere near Mitch or the hospital, or anything. Who was this woman with the power to destroy her?

Cassie went through Mitch's e-mails, and it wasn't too hard to find the one she was looking for. Her rival signed her messages M. The first one was dated Friday night. It read, "Still in Paris. Call me when you get home. M knocks your socks off."

Huh? Cassie's stitches were itching terribly. Knocks his socks off? M's Saturday morning e-mail said, "No answer at your house or mine. Honey, where are you? I'm worried. M knocks your socks off."

Saturday afternoon, M wrote again. "Precious pumpkin, no answer anywhere. What's going on? Are you all right? M knocks your socks off."

Sunday's crop included one about Teddy. M said, "I called Teddy at home. He wasn't there, either. Where is everybody? PLEASE, you know what a WORRIER I am. Ira hasn't heard from you. Parky hasn't heard from you. Stephen and Bill haven't heard a thing. I'm frantic. The weather in P is just gorgeous. I saw a little apartment I liked in the 16th near the park, but we'll talk about that later. I'm on my way home. Probably ovulating on Tuesday. Hint. Hint. Can't wait to see you. M knocks your socks off."

Apartment in the 16th? Ovulating Tuesday? It was a funny thing about anger. Every time Cassie thought her rage was as hot as it could get, more reality took her deeper into it. She felt her body would ignite with it. And Mitch must have been just as excited in his own way, too. He must have been like that Dutch boy with his finger in the dike. All around him the waters of his other life had been rising around him, ensnaring him, drawing him ever deeper into the currents that would eventually kill him. He'd gotten bolder and bolder in his scam. The only thing that got in his way was that little thing called the IRS.

She, his wife of twenty-six years, was nothing. She was a nonentity he thought he could fool as long as he wanted, then just end at will. He must have relished the idea of keeping that flood of knowledge back from her just by closing a door in the house. But now the door was open, the real story was out. The IRS man, Charlie Schwab, was searching for his millions. She was boiling with rage, and he wasn't getting away with anything.

Parky was their lawyer. Ira Mandel was their accountant. Stephen and Bill were both salesmen in the company. And Teddy. Teddy was her own son. No wonder the boy sometimes had the look of a half-wit, a dolt who didn't know his ass from his elbow. He'd been hiding out. What if even Teddy had been in on the conspiracy? Hurt enlarged her and spun her out of her natural orbit. She was a volcano, a hurricane, a tornado-one of those really big natural disasters about to occur.

As she processed the extent of her husband's betrayal, it became clear to Cassie that she had no choice but to kill him. Tomorrow morning she had to go into his ICU room and pull the plug on that respirator. Put the man out of his misery. It would be an act of love, a mercy killing. No one in the world could fault her, and if not she, then Mark or a nurse would do it for her. They did it all the time; Mark himself had told her this was one of the choices she could make. It was a viable and legal option. No wonder Parky Higgins had acted as he had. She got it. She finally got it. She had the motive and the power to snuff her own husband, and snuff him she would.

AT TWO ON MONDAY AFTERNOON, Mona Whitman was having that sad, hurt, and lonely f eeling she got whenever Mitch gave her a hard time. She was on the phone at her desk, trying to be enthusiastic for a buyer from Montana, but it wasn't easy. Eustace Arcs was a rancher with a large handlebar mustache who was using Sales Importers, Inc., to stock his new lodge in Montana, and Mitch just loved him. Mitch had a special attraction for very rich people.

To custom-design Stace's wine cellar for his clientele and menu around his $200,000 budget, they'd traveled to New Zealand to fly fish with him for three horrible days last year, and Mona herself had actually been up to her thighs in freezing water for at least an hour. Mitch, however, who fancied himself something of a sportsman, had reveled in every miserable minute. The promise of a bigger account on the come, and more rich people to cultivate as new friends with ambitions to develop their own prestigious cellars kept him interested. Mitch was at the $890,000,000 mark in gross sales a year. He wanted to hit the billion-dollar benchmark by 2003. It was not out of his reach. But she herself didn't care a fig about money.

As she listened to "Stace" describe his seven-figure restaurant renovation, she was also rehearsing her present situation with the man she'd thought of as her fiancé for the last two years since she'd hit her thirty-sixth birthday and started freaking out over tiny wrinkles and her aging eggs.

Mona was a very practical girl whose bible was The Art of War, written by Sun Tzu at the dawn of history to codify the successful techniques of warring Chinese chieftains seeking to establish sole rule over a vast realm of bellicose clans. Its credo was, "Warfare is the basis of life and death, the Way to survival or extinction. It must be thoroughly analyzed."

Mona used the book as her horoscope, her guide, her confidant, and best friend. She analyzed it daily and applied the strategy of the Seven Military Classics to human relations, romantic liaisons, and company infighting. This was how she analyzed the present situation in the hundred-year war of the worlds between her and her intended. They had been separated for three whole days, ever since he'd left Paris early Friday morning. The night before he'd taken off they'd had a truly wonderful and unexpected sexual adventure. It made Mona so confident of her success on the battlefield of marriage that she hadn't packed up and flown back with him from Paris on a moment's notice as he'd wanted her to.

The evening had started as the usual sort of thing. They had gone to a new restaurant called Nouvelle Etoile, where the tab had been nearly seven hundred dollars. She hadn't eaten the main course or the dessert (calories). The wine was sensational, however, and she'd had a lot of that. After chatting with the new star's owner and chef, they'd returned to their room at the Georges V, where the movie stars and moguls stay, although sometimes they did prefer the Ritz. Just as Mitch was pouring his brandy nightcap, they heard the entrance of a hooker through the connecting door to the next room. This was an occurrence unheard of before at the V, where they'd always thought the walls were a whole lot thicker. Lucky for them the whole thing went on in English.