It had all started two years ago, when Marc picked up some great mountain property dirt cheap. One look at the land and Charlotte had fallen in love. There were trees that turned colors in the fall, snow in the winter, wildflowers in the spring, and real summer thunderstorms. They’d contracted with Paul Lindstrom, their architect of choice, to design the perfect apartment cluster, to feature an exclusive country club–type environment. Given the slope of their mountain site, Paul had designed a high-rise building, each unit consisting of an entire floor individually tailored to suit the occupant’s needs. There were two common areas, the garage and the penthouse spa. The spa was complete with pool, Jacuzzi, sauna, tennis court, weight room, and jogging track. Totally enclosed by a climate-controlled glass dome, the spa afforded a spectacular view of the Mount Charleston area.

Charlotte and Lyle had moved in last year along with eight other couples who’d passed Charlotte’s muster. Like one of those blue-blooded clubs back in Virginia, its members had to be perfect or they couldn’t buy in. Charlotte loved the view from their eighth-floor condo, thirty-five minutes from Vegas on Deer Creek Road. “Mountain living at its finest” was the phrase she’d used two years in a row on their Christmas cards.

“Hi, Mr. Marshall.” The hostess, a leggy blonde in a slit skirt that left very little to the imagination, greeted him with a perfect smile. “Everyone in your party is here except for Mr. Davies. He called and said he’ll be delayed a few minutes.”

Lyle grinned as he followed her to the plush private banquet room Johnny Day had reserved for the occasion. Lyle had always liked Johnny. He seemed like a regular guy, and Lyle had recommended him for membership in their Deer Creek Development, even though there were rumors about his womanizing. An Italian lounge singer who’d had a couple of hit records, Johnny’s passion was mechanical musical instruments, and he had a whole warehouse full of antique music boxes of all sizes, along with player pianos and giant orchestrions. The orchestrions were fascinating. Built in Europe before the turn of the century, the elaborately carved wooden cabinets contained string instruments, horns, woodwinds, and percussion. Johnny had explained that the orchestrions in his collection operated just like player pianos. The mechanical arms that drew the bows across the strings, the bellows that pumped air into the wind instruments, the levers that activated the drums and the cymbals were all cued by a roll of pre-punched music. Charlotte, though a loyal supporter of classical symphony, admitted that the sound the orchestrions produced was nothing short of incredible for its day.

It had been touch and go overcoming Charlotte’s aversion to anyone in show business, but now Johnny owned the fourth-floor unit. Johnny’s collection had done the trick. When Lyle had first introduced them, Johnny had presented Charlotte with a heart-shaped music box he claimed had belonged to Queen Victoria. It might even have been true.

Charlotte was sitting at the head of a table decorated with white satin wedding bells and roses, an empty chair next to her. Lyle stopped in the doorway and gaped at his wife of twenty-five years. The long brown hair, always worn high on her head in a French twist, was gone. Through the wonders of modern cosmetology, it had been lightened to a golden cap cut in a fluffy feathered style. Lyle blinked, and then he started to grin. Charlotte looked good. She was wearing a bright pink jersey dress with a short skirt and it clung to her in all the right places. Her figure had always been good, but she’d been going to exercise classes for the past six months and there was definitely something to be said for all the toning and tightening. Lyle felt as if he’d just been presented with a brand-new wife.

“Hello, darling! You’re just in time.” Charlotte had spotted him in the doorway and Lyle crossed the room to kiss her. Jayne Peters and Johnny Day were playing show tunes at the piano and Lyle noticed that Johnny was pale beneath his tan, a telltale sign to anyone who knew him well. Johnny had been gambling again and things hadn’t gone well for him.

“Let’s do our song, Jayne.” Johnny switched on the microphone and they both started to croon.

Darling, when you’re old and decrepit

And liver spots make you look like a leopard,

I’ll stick with you through stormy or sunny

’Cause you’re the one with all the money.

Charlotte giggled and pulled Lyle down into his chair. “That’s awful! You must have written it, Jayne.”

“Don’t shoot. I confess.” Jayne raised her hands in mock surrender. A petite woman in her late thirties with high cheekbones, her jet-black hair was pulled back into two long braids. She was wearing a white satin cowboy shirt embroidered with red roses, white jeans studded with rhinestones, and red high-heeled cowboy boots. Since Jayne wrote strictly country-western songs, her agent had insisted on the cowgirl image. Public admission that her family name was Petronovitch and her parents had emigrated from Russia could be disastrous.

“Good afternoon, Lyle.” Jayne’s husband and Paradise Development’s architect, Paul Lindstrom stood up and extended his hand. A quiet man whom Jayne called her “textbook Norseman,” Paul spoke slowly and precisely. As always, he was impeccably dressed in a snowy-white shirt and dress slacks. At slightly over six feet tall and in his early forties, Paul was slim and fashionable. The only discordant note was his unruly halo of sandy hair. It reminded Lyle of pictures of Einstein and gave Paul the look of a sleepy lion.

“Hi, Paul.” Lyle reached out automatically to complete the handshake. Paul had never dropped his Norwegian habit of rising to shake hands whenever anyone entered the room. When Paul and Jayne had first moved into the ninth-floor unit on Deer Creek Road, Paul’s polite ritual had driven Lyle crazy. There were handshakes in the sauna, on the tennis court, and in the hallways. It had taken Lyle quite a while to get used to Paul’s curious habit, but all the women in the building, including Charlotte, found the ritual utterly charming.

“Look at the lovely flowers Darby brought us.” Charlotte gestured toward the centerpiece, a massive bouquet of roses.

Lyle turned to smile at Darby Roberts. Clayton and Darby lived on the fifth floor and Paul had designed a large domed greenhouse garden for them.

“Your flowers?” Paul asked Darby.

Darby nodded. “The yellow ones in the middle are my own hybrid. I’ve been working on them for years, and Clayton registered them with the association last week. I named them Marshall Golds after you and Charlotte and that’s my anniversary present to you. Smell ’em, Lyle.”

Darby watched as Lyle bent over to inhale the fragrance. She was a small, dark-haired woman, so thin that her skin resembled white parchment stretched over a road map of blue veins. She looked so fragile that Lyle sometimes wondered if the mountain winds would pick her up and blow her away. In contrast, her husband, their resident lawyer, was as heavy as Darby was light. Clayton strived to look healthy, tan, and athletic and he gave his workouts the same priority as his appointments with clients. At eight every evening, Clayton arrived at the rooftop spa, spending five minutes in the tanning booth, followed by twenty-five minutes on the exercise bike. After that, came a fifteen-minute sauna and then thirty laps in the pool. Despite his efforts, Clayton still carried a hefty roll of flab around his waist, and Lyle knew why. Clayton indulged himself with three-martini lunches at Alfredo’s, where the entree was always pasta.

“Here’s the paperwork.” Clayton pulled a legal document from his pocket and presented it to Charlotte. “I personally checked the registration form. Since it didn’t cover several salient points, I constructed an addendum which gives you clear title and protection against unauthorized use.”