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with that of a bestselling novelist who looked a little dazed. Or stoned,
    #if the gossip about him was true. Or #####57
    maybe he was only dizzy from being propelled through the evening by the turbo engines of Nadia's personality.
    "They won't hold our table forever, Noah.
    Coming?"
    "Well ..." He hesitated and glanced down at Maris.
    "What's the matter?" Nadia asked in a voice as piercing as a dentist's drill. She addressed the question to Maris, automatically assuming that she was the source of the problem.
    "Nothing's the matter, Nadia. Noah and I were having a private conversation."
    "Oh, my. Have I interrupted one of those husband/wife things?"
    The critic could have been pretty if not for her edge, which manifested itself in the brittleness of her smile and the calculation in her eyes, which seemed to miss nothing. She was always impeccably dressed, groomed, and accessorized in the best of taste, but even arrayed in fine silk and finer jewelry there was nothing feminine about her.
    It was rumored that she went through men like a box of Godivas, chewing up and spitting out the ones who didn't challenge her or who could do nothing to further her career--in other words, the ones with soft centers. Maris had no problem believing the gossip about Nadia's promiscuity. What surprised her was the number of men who found her sexually appealing.
    "Yes, we were having a husband and wife _thing.
    I was telling Noah that the last thing I want to do is join you for a round of drinks," Maris said, smiling sweetly.
    "You do look awfully tired," Nadia returned, her smile just as sweet.
    Noah intervened. "I'm sorry, Nadia.
    We must decline tonight. I'm going to take my wife home and tuck her in."
    "No, darling," Maris said. She wouldn't play the wounded wife in front of Nadia Schuller. "I wouldn't dream of keeping you from this obligation."
    "It's hardly that," Nadia snapped. "More like a rare opportunity to talk shop with one of publishing's most exciting novelists."
    The exciting novelist had yet to utter a peep. He was bleary-eyed and seemed oblivious to their conversation. Maris gave Nadia a knowing
    #look. "Of course it is. That's what ####59
    I meant." Back to Noah, she said, "You stay. I'll see myself home."
    He regarded her doubtfully. "You're sure?"
    "I insist."
    "Then it's settled." Nadia gave the writer's arm a sharp tug. Like a sleepwalker, he fell into step beside her. "You two say your good-byes while we go claim the table. Shall I order your usual, Noah?"
    "Please."
    Then to Maris she called back airily,
    "Get some rest, dear."
    Parker Evans stared out the window into nothingness.
    He couldn't see the shoreline from this vantage point, but if he concentrated, he could hear the surf. Rain clouds obscured the moon. There was no other source of light, natural or
    man-made, to relieve the darkness.
    From this first-floor window overlooking the rear of his property, Parker could see across a breast of lawn to the point where it sharply dropped off several degrees before sloping more gradually toward the beach. That edge of the lawn appeared to be the threshold of a black void that melded with the ocean farther out. No wonder ancient sailors had feared the unknown terrors that lay beyond the brink.
    The room behind him was also dark, which wasn't an oversight. He had deliberately left the lights off. Had they been on, his reflection would have appeared in the window glass. He preferred looking at nothing to looking at himself.
    Anyway, he didn't need a light in order to read the list of telephone numbers he held in his hand. In fact, he no longer needed to read them at all. He had committed them to memory.
    His six months of waiting had finally paid off.
    Maris Matherly-Reed was trying to contact him.
    As recently as yesterday, Parker had come close to scratching his plan and devising another.
    After months of not hearing from her, he figured that she had read the prologue of _Envy, hated it, tossed it, and hadn't even had the