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wondered what Mr. Lombard was doing.

Chapter Three
    K ane Lombard was sitting on his own deck with a highball, thinking about Nikki. It had been a productive day. Most days were, because the job was everything to him. But now, as he contemplated the moonlight sparkle on the ocean, he felt unfulfilled.
    He was thirty-eight years old. He’d had a wife, and a son. There had been a twelve-year marriage which, while not perfect, at least gave him a sense of security. At least he’d been in love when he married, even if things had gone sour a few years later. Now he was among the ranks of the single men again, but without the youth and idealism that made marriage a viable prospect. He was jaded and somewhere along the way, he’d lost all his illusions about people. About life. He was like thosewaves, he thought, being aimlessly thrown onto the beach and then forgotten. When he died, there would be nothing to leave behind, nothing to show that Kane Lombard had lived on this planet.
    That wasn’t totally true, he chided himself as he swallowed a sip of the stinging highball. He had the company to leave behind. The name would probably be changed somewhere down the line, though. Names didn’t last long.
    He leaned back on the chaise lounge and closed his eyes. Nikki. Her name was Nikki, and she had black hair and green eyes and the face of an angel. He liked the way she looked, the way she laughed, as if life still had wonderful things to offer. He knew better, but she made him optimistic. He needed someone like that.
    Not permanently, of course, he told himself. He needed an affair. Just an affair. Would she be willing? She seemed to find him attractive enough. If he took her out and bided his time, would she be receptive? He sloshed the liquid in the glass, listening to the soft chink of the ice cubes against the watery roar of the ocean. Perhaps she was lonely, too. God knew, there was no monopoly on loneliness. Like the air itself, it permeated everything. His eyelids felt heavy. He closed them, just for a minute…
    It was dawn when he woke, still lying on the chaise lounge, with the chill morning air in hisface. The glass, long since forgotten, had fallen gently to the deck and was dry now, the ice and whiskey melted and evaporated on the wood floor. He got up, stretching with faint soreness. His head was much better, but there were still vestiges of a headache. He stared out over the ocean, and was jarred from his thoughts when the telephone rang.
    His housekeeper was apparently in residence, because the ringing stopped, to be replaced by her loud, stringent voice.
    â€œTelephone, Mr. Lombard!” she called.
    â€œI’ll take it out here,” he returned gruffly.
    She handed him the phone and he nodded curtly as he took it, waving her away. “Yes?” he asked.
    â€œI’m Todd Lawson, Mr. Lombard,” a deep voice replied. “I work for your father and brothers in New York at the Weekly Voice,” he prompted when there was a long pause on the other end of the line.
    Kane recognized the name. Lawson was his father’s star reporter, if a man who was better at creating news than gathering it could be called a journalist.
    â€œYes, I know you,” Kane said. “What do you want?”
    â€œYour father sent me to Charleston to do a little prospecting. He wants me to see what I can find on the Republican U.S. Representative incumbent, Seymour. I’ve just checked into a hotel here. Anyideas about a good place to start looking for skeletons?”
    â€œI can’t help you. I haven’t lived in Charleston long enough to know many people. I only know Seymour through the mails and the telephone,” he added curtly. “If I put a step wrong, he’ll be over me like tarpaper, I know that. We had a sewage leak a couple of weeks ago, accidental, and he’s been after my neck ever since. He went on television to point fingers at me as a perfect example of a