At a few minutes after one o'clock, a haggard Stuart Gorman, collapsed in a wing chair next to the television in his hotel room, hung up the telephone. "I can't believe these people."

Sitting across from him on the front two inches of his bed, his longtime friend and ex-college roommate, Jedd Conley, raised his head. Conley was the first call Stuart made after the police had chased him out of his own house that morning. In spite of being the State Assemblyman representing San Francisco, Conley had cleared his entire calendar for the day and met Stuart at the Travelodge within twenty minutes of checking in.

Conley had a good face, closely shaved. Both his nose and his six-foot bearing were strong, straight, aristocratic. The broad, unlined forehead under his dark hair could have belonged to a man twenty years his junior, but the youthful look was somewhat mitigated by the lines around a mouth that had perhaps been forced to smile more than it wanted to. Today Conley was wearing a tan business suit with a white shirt and light gold tie. "Who was that?" he asked.

"Some guy capping for a lawyer, wanting to know if I'd retained legal representation yet. The distinguished citizen had somebody he wanted to recommend. What a sleazeball. I got rid of him."

"I heard you."

"Fucking shysters. How'd they find me here so fast?"

Conley shrugged. "Word gets out. It's already been on TV. They probably called the cops and asked. It's just business."

"Just business." Stuart Gorman blew some of his anger into the dim room. "It sucks."

"I don't know." Conley stood up and crossed to the window, where he pulled a cord on the blinds and let in more light. Turning, he said, "You're going to need a lawyer, after all. You can't blame them."

"I wasn't here, Jedd. I wasn't physically present when she died," Stuart said evenly, his mouth tightening up. "How am I going to be a suspect?"

"I didn't say you were a suspect. I said you're going to need a lawyer. The cops, the press, the estate. It's an automatic."

"As you know, I've already done that, talked to the cops. It was no sweat. Besides, I don't know why we're talking about me needing another lawyer. I've already got one, if I'm not mistaken."

Conley pulled at his forelock, sighed, shook his head. He chose his words with care. "Listen, my man," he said, hand over heart, "you're my best friend and my heart is breaking here for what's happened to Caryn. To you and her and Kymberly. But I haven't done one lick of actual law in ten years, so I'd be lousy at representing you, besides which maybe you've noticed, I've got another full-time job. It just can't be me. But you're going to need somebody."

Stuart stared coldly at his old pal for a few seconds, and then the anger passed and he settled back into his chair. "We don't need to argue about it."

A pause, and then Conley said, "When you're ready, there's somebody I'd recommend." Conley was back on the edge of the bed, and now he came forward. "Don't be an idiot, Stu. You have no idea how all this stuff works. Even if Caryn took some pills and drowned…"

"Hey. Read my lips: I was up at Echo Lake. Whatever happened last night, I wasn't any part of it." "Can you prove that?" "What do you mean?"

"I mean, did anybody see you up there? Did you have company last night? Did you talk on the phone?" When Stuart didn't respond, Conley continued, "I'm taking your silence as a no. And this in turn means that your alibi sucks and you're going to be on your cop's list."

"Okay. Maybe. If Caryn was murdered…"

Conley shrugged. "Maybe even if she wasn't. You remember that guy a couple of years ago? He was like a telemarketer or something, and she owned about half the real estate in the Western Addition? Anyway, the two of them went camping and the story was that she went out for a midnight swim all alone while he was sleeping, and didn't come back. Turns out she drowned and the husband stood to inherit like fifty million dollars. Did in fact inherit fifty million bucks. You don't think the cops considered him a suspect? You think the fact that she drowned was a defense against them thinking he killed her? You want to know the truth, you want to kill somebody, drowning them's probably the best way to do it, evidence-wise."

"Okay, but did they charge him? Did they have any evidence?"

This brought Conley up short. "Do me a favor, Stu. Don't ask your friendly inspector that kind of question."

"What kind of question?"

"Evidence questions. Whether or not crimes got charged. Legal questions."

"Why not?"

"Because they demonstrate what they call a degree of criminal sophistication. How about that? It could sound, to a trained investigator, like you had premeditated your actions and possibly even studied the rules of evidence."

"I was just asking you if they brought to trial the guy you were talking about."

Conley said, "In the end, no. But I was around at the DA's for a few of the discussions about whether they had enough to bring charges or not. The cops' position was that they had fifty million good enough reasons. And they came this close to taking it to the grand jury, even without a shred of evidence. And the grand jury would have indicted."

"So why didn't they charge it?"

"Because they would have lost at trial, and the DA knew it. And hell, nobody doubted even for a minute that the husband had done it. He was there where she drowned, he was going to inherit, they'd been having troubles in their marriage, which I know you and Caryn…" Spreading his palms out, Conley continued. "Anyway, you see what I'm getting at. How much was Caryn worth on her own? Six, seven million? Plus your life insurance…?"

"Jesus, Jedd!"

"Get used to it, Stu. You're going to hear it from the police, and you're going to have to know how to answer them. Or even whether or not to answer them. And you don't have a clue. Which can hurt you. A lot. Kymberly, too. That's all I'm saying. Friend to friend."

Finally, Stuart seemed to get the message. He settled back into his chair, chin down on his chest, his arms hanging over the sides. "So who do you know?" he asked.

"Oh, God! It's true, then, isn't it? It's really true."

Debra Dryden-Caryn's younger sister-stood just inside the room's doorway in front of Stuart, her face washed in anguish. Then she stepped into his embrace. Pressing herself up against him, holding him tightly, she began to shake. Stuart held her and let her go on, his hands locked around her back, over the silk of her blouse. "I know," he whispered. "It's all right." At last he extricated himself and stepped back.

"When I got your message, I didn't want to call you back," Debra said. "I didn't want it to be true."

Stuart nodded. "I know." He half-turned. "I don't know if you've met Jedd Conley."

Debra lifted a hand perfunctorily. "Thanks for being here for Stuart."

"I couldn't not be," Conley said.

The woman's obvious pain and suffering did nothing to camouflage, and perhaps even served to enhance, her physical beauty. Shoulder-length, white-blond hair surrounded a captivating face- turquoise eyes, finely pored light tan skin. Debra wore a short white skirt and teal silk blouse, a gold necklace and diamond earrings. She brought both hands up to her eyes and dabbed under them. She said to Stuart, "But what are you doing here? Why aren't you home?"

"They're not letting me go back there until they're finished with their investigation."

"But why? You said she drowned. In the hot tub. Is that possible?"

"She may have been drinking and then taken some pills…"

"You're saying she might have killed herself?"

Stuart shook his head. "If she did, I don't think it was on purpose."