“Is that decaffeinated, Mr. St. James?”

“No.” Jack straightened up to his full five and a half feet and neatly faced down Betty’s nurse. This was quite a feat since Margaret Woodard was almost six feet tall and outweighed him by at least fifty pounds. A small man, slightly though powerfully built, Jack had learned the trick of intimidation early in life. All it took was an authoritative tone and an unwavering gaze.

“Since you’re taking the tray, I’ll come in to bathe her later.”

He gave a smile of satisfaction as Margaret turned on her heel and headed back to her bedroom. It was nice to know he hadn’t lost his touch, not that the skill of facing people down was needed very often at Deer Creek Condos. It had come in handy when the telephone installer had claimed it wasn’t possible to run an extension of everyone’s line to a console up at the spa. And it had worked admirably the few times that cars filled with teenagers from Vegas had turned into their driveway to drink beer and enjoy the private view.

Jack reached for the jar of honey butter and put it next to the croissants on the tray. Margaret claimed that Betty should watch her cholesterol, even though the doctor hadn’t mentioned it. Since Margaret was on a low-fat diet, Jack suspected she just didn’t want to cook two menus. Betty ate little enough as it was and Jack wanted her to enjoy her food. It was one of the reasons he came up to Betty’s unit for breakfast every morning. It was no fun eating alone and he’d noticed that Betty’s appetite increased when she had visitors. She seemed to enjoy the time he spent with her and Jack enjoyed it, too. Unlike the other women he knew, Betty didn’t make any demands on him, and, even more important, he could tell her all about his job as security chief without worrying that his confidences would be repeated.

A couple of months ago, Jack had run a cable from the closed-circuit monitors in his security office to Betty’s bedroom television set so he could keep his eye on the building while he was visiting her. He hadn’t told anyone about the extra cable, and now he was glad he hadn’t, since Betty often watched what the other tenants were doing even when he wasn’t with her. Jack supposed it was an invasion of privacy, but he didn’t see how it could possibly do any harm. He’d told Betty that the closed-circuit channels were secret; she shouldn’t watch them when anyone else was there. And since Betty thought the glimpses she got into the other tenants’ lives were movies, no one would be the wiser if she talked about them.

Jack smoothed his close-cropped sandy hair and pinned on the name tag he’d ordered a month ago. It was white plastic and it said “JACK” in large black letters. Betty knew him, but she had trouble remembering his name. Whenever that happened, she cried in frustration. His name tag solved the problem.

He carried the tray into Betty’s room, shutting the door behind him. The big master bedroom had been especially designed to meet Betty’s needs. There was a huge television set on the wall opposite the bed and a rack of DVDs was within Betty’s reach. The DVD player/recorder sat on the bedside table so Betty could record or watch any movie she wished and a built-in bookcase next to the bed was filled with Betty’s favorite things.

In bits and pieces over the past two years, Jack had acquired the stories behind Betty’s mementos. There was a collection of shells she’d gathered in the Bahamas, several pieces of ebony sculpture she’d brought back from Africa, a hand-thrown clay pot she’d fallen in love with in Guatemala and a Royal Dalton tea service she’d shipped back from England. Clearly, Betty had come from a wealthy family, but Margaret had told him that she’d been hired by the law firm that paid her salary. She knew nothing personal about Betty; only the medical history in the doctor’s report. No one in the building had any additional information, not even Marc, who’d purchased the land on Deer Creek Road from the lawyers who handled Betty’s trust.

Ten years younger than Jack, Betty was thirty-four. That meant her parents would be in their fifties or sixties if they were living. Since Betty had no visitors in addition to the residents of the building and received no mail, Jack assumed she had no living relatives.

By nature curious, Jack had gone straight to the source. Betty’s life was an unsolved puzzle and Jack hated loose ends. All she could tell him was that she had no family. Of course it didn’t really matter, now that everyone in the building had adopted her as one of their own.

Betty was sitting up in bed, watching television. She was dressed in the green silk kimono that Clayton and Rachael had brought her from Japan and her light brown hair was tied back with a matching ribbon. She looked lovely and completely normal. There were no physical signs of the debilitating disease.

Jack set the tray on the table by the bed and leaned over to kiss her. Her cheek was a little too warm and he made a mental note to ask the nurse to check her temperature. “You look pretty this morning, Betty.”

“Thank you.” Glancing at his name tag, Betty flashed a big smile. “Happy to see you, Jack.”

“I’m happy to see you, too. What are you watching?”

“Answers.” Betty nodded. “I’m watching answers, Jack.”

For a moment Jack was puzzled. Then he noticed that the television was turned to a quiz show. Questions and answers. Everything Betty said made sense if he thought about it from her point of view.

“Drink?” Betty looked hopeful as he poured two cups of coffee from the silver carafe. “Brown is better than green.”

Jack grinned. “I know it is, Betty. And this is coffee. Real coffee, not that awful herbal tea.”

Betty nodded and took a sip. Then she drained her cup and held it out for more. “Caffeine is contraindicated in cases of hypertension.”

“What was that?” Jack stared at her in shock.

“I . . . I forget.” Betty looked confused. “Shotgunning again, Jack.”

Jack nodded. He knew exactly what Betty meant. Sometimes her words came out all in a rush, like the pellets in a shotgun shell. At those times she was amazingly fluent. On other occasions, when she reflected first, the words got short-circuited somehow.

“Go out today, Jack? Or is it ice?”

“It’s cold today, Betty, but maybe tomorrow.” Jack caught the disappointment on her face and quickly changed the subject. “Look at this. Croissants and honey butter. Shall I fix one for you?”

“No, please.” Betty nodded and Jack began to butter the flaky pastry. At first he’d been thoroughly disconcerted when Betty said no and nodded yes. Then he’d realized that her body language was much more accurate than her words.

Betty took the croissant he offered and nibbled at it daintily. “Will the cowgirl come?”

Jack nodded. Jayne dropped by every morning. He’d have to call her and tell her to wear a name tag.

“She comes after breakfast, Jack?”

“That’s right. Jayne’ll be here after breakfast.”

“Jayne.” Betty repeated the name. “My in-between name is Jayne.”

“Your middle name is Jayne? I didn’t know that.” Jack smiled at her. The doctor’s report had listed her name as Betty Matteo with no middle name. Another piece of the puzzle.

“Call me B. J. The J for Jayne and the B for . . . what’s my front name, Jack?”

“It’s Betty.” Jack turned away slightly to hide the moisture in his eyes. At times like this, he almost wished he wouldn’t be around when Betty’s illness took its unrelenting course and all the name tags in the world wouldn’t help.

Fifteen Minutes before 10:57 AM

Marc Davies rolled out of bed, pulled on a red silk dressing gown with an elaborate MD embroidered over the pocket and hurried to open the blackout drapes that enabled him to sleep late after a night on the town. The wind was whipping up gusts of snow that rattled against the pane, creating the snare drum sound that had roused him after only three hours of sleep.