“Your pizza is giving a delicious aroma.” Paul studied Jayne’s entry, which was browning nicely. “I think you will surely win the contest.”

Jayne shrugged. “I doubt it, not with plain old sausage and cheese. But I figured somebody in this family had to make a pizza that’s edible.”

“Is this a personal criticism, Jayne?”

Jayne giggled. “I don’t know. I’ve never had a sardine and cream cheese pizza before.”

“But you say you like lox and bagels. My pizza is almost similar, except for the difference in fish.”

“Some difference!” Jayne giggled again. “And lox and bagels aren’t served hot.”

“I fail to see why they could not be. And this will not squeeze from the sides when it is bitten. Is it baked enough, Jayne?”

“Two minutes to go. Why don’t you get out that big basket in the cupboard?”

Paul had just finished lining the basket with towels when the stove timer rang. Jayne lifted out the pizzas and set them inside. “All set and rarin’ to go. Let’s hustle over before they get cold.”

As they walked down the hallway, Paul was smiling. “What type of pizza will Ellen and Walker bake?”

“Ellen’ll bring pineapple and Canadian bacon. She told me that was her favorite. I don’t know about Walker, though.”

“Watermelon pizza?”

“Paul!” Jayne was shocked. “You shouldn’t say things like that!”

“I do not understand why. Walker does not seem to be sensitive about his race. I am sure he would smash up if I told him that joke.”

“Crack up, not smash up, and no, he wouldn’t. That’s how racial problems get perpetuated. Everyone starts believing those awful stereotypes.”

The elevator stopped at the eighth floor, and Walker and Ellen got on, bearing two pizzas wrapped in a towel.

Jayne inhaled as the elevator started to descend again. “Whatever that is, it really smells good. What did you bring, Ellen?”

“Canadian bacon and pineapple. Walker made his own creation with his favorite things on top.”

Jayne gave Paul a warning glance. “Like what?”

“Oh, the usual.” Walker grinned at her. “Chitlins and collard greens. I was going for the watermelon when Ellen stopped me.”

Paul laughed and turned to Jayne. “You see? I was correct.”

Both Walker and Ellen looked puzzled and Jayne sighed. “It’s a little complicated. Paul was going to tease Walker about watermelon pizza, but I assured him that it was in bad taste.”

Walker nodded solemnly. “It certainly would have been. I tried watermelon pizza once and it was awful.”

At the sound of a key in the lock, the Caretaker flicked off the light and pressed himself against the kitchen wall. The footsteps headed down the hallway toward Clayton’s office and he followed silently in the semidarkness. The hallway had floor-to-ceiling windows and the lights from Betty’s suite above reflected harshly against the freshly fallen snow.

The figure darted into Clayton’s office and when he reached the door, he saw the glimmer of a penlight traveling across the floor, stopping at Clayton’s file cabinet. The drawer opened almost noiselessly and the intruder propped the light on the handle of the drawer above to shine down on the files below.

Delicate hands, small-boned. It was a woman, but which one? And what did she want?

They’d all gone to their own kitchens to bake the pizzas, and any one of them could have come here on the pretext of borrowing something from Clayton’s refrigerator. Then he noticed a wedding ring, which eliminated Ellen. And Grace and Moira. Jayne had long, strong fingers from years of practicing the piano. And Laureen’s hands were larger, he recalled from close-ups on her cooking show. It certainly wasn’t Betty, which left the nurse and Vanessa.

He watched as she located a file and flipped through the contents, pulling out a single piece of paper. As she sat down in Clayton’s chair to study it, he could almost make out her face. Something glittered by her left ear, reflecting the tiny glow from the penlight. It was a diamond earring shaped like a heart. Vanessa had heart-shaped diamond earrings. But why was she so interested in Clayton’s files? He took one step closer, and then another. When he got close enough to make out the label on the file, he smiled. Vanessa was going through Hal’s papers. That was nothing to worry about, but he’d keep an eye on her until she left.

Vanessa almost laughed out loud. Hal had moved over four million dollars into his numbered Swiss account. He was a real bastard, and a dumb one at that. His birth date was the access code. Jack had once told her how common that was, when she’d asked him about the security business.

She put the file back in the drawer and closed it. Now she’d act perfectly normal until the access road was cleared, then take off for Switzerland on the very first flight.

Vanessa smiled. Switzerland. She’d always wanted to go there and she might just do that once she’d gone to the bank and cleaned out Hal’s account. They had wonderful skiing, and she’d always wanted to shop in the boutiques at St. Moritz. Best of all, there wasn’t a thing Hal could do. There was nothing illegal about a wife making a withdrawal from her husband’s Swiss bank account. That’s exactly what had happened in the movie she’d seen.

She shined the penlight all around the office, checking to make sure she hadn’t left anything out of place and then she headed for the door. If Hal decided to check up on her, she wanted to be in bed, sleeping like a baby.

Vanessa was nearing the end of the hallway when the lights in the rose garden came on. She whirled and bolted for the door before remembering that Clayton had them on a timer. There was no need to be so jumpy. She stopped and took a calming breath as she looked out at the garden. It had been beautiful the first time she’d seen it, with tiny sparkling lights and a white latticework gazebo. Two round wrought-iron tables, painted dazzling white, were surrounded by eight matching chairs. Darby had been fond of having her morning coffee in the garden, surrounded by the sweet scent of her beautiful roses.

Things were a lot different now that Darby was dead. The paint was peeling off the wrought-iron tables and the roses looked as if they were growing wild. Nevertheless, one perfect pink rose bloomed on a bush in the back. It would look lovely in the silver vase she had in her bedroom. Hal hadn’t given her roses in at least a year and they were her favorite.

Opening the French doors, Vanessa stepped into the garden. It was lovely out here in the climate-controlled dome. There was something magical about flowers blooming in the dead of winter. Roses in the snow. A great title for a movie and now that she was about to become a wealthy woman, she might just decide to finance it.

She grabbed the clippers from the nail in the gazebo and headed for the perfect rose. It would only take a moment. As she took a detour around two bushes that had grown together in a tangle of branches, her sandal sank into a patch of soft ground. Someone had been digging out here and the soil was loose. Had Clayton hired a new gardener? Vanessa bent over for a closer look.

Lines of concentration creased Betty’s forehead as she tried to make sense out of the talk show. The host had a towel wrapped around his head and the audience laughed every time he spoke. Betty didn’t think he was very funny, but the people did. Perhaps you couldn’t appreciate him when you had a disease like hers.

She was watching the regular channels now because Nurse would be back in a minute to give her the needle and put her to bed. It had been a pretty good night for television, and she’d enjoyed the charades on forbidden channel two. The cowgirl had been very good and so had that nice colored man. Betty seemed to remember that colored was an obsolete term. Now they wanted to be called black, or maybe Afro-American, she wasn’t sure which. When the colored man came to visit her, she’d just say hello and avoid calling him anything. That was the smart thing to do.