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the corner of an eye, Fisher saw her sit down and cross her legs. Nice legs. Nice body. Little, but definitelyworth more than a look. Some sensations began to fade, all but the intense and growing feeling that he should prepare to defend himself. Why did the anticipation stimulate rather than put him on guard?
    “I heard someone say your name. Several times. And I could figure out they were talking about the women who are missing—” She paused. “I went to the ladies’ room on the main floor and then just started walking along corridors. When I didn’t find you up there, I came downstairs and here you are.”
    “This has been a bitch of a day,” Archer said.
    “I agree,” Marley Millet said. “I’m pooped out.”
    Fisher smiled to himself.
    “I came to talk to you about Liza Soaper and Amber Lee.” She wound her hands tightly together. “I don’t suppose you’ve found them yet, have you?”

4
    T his was the right place and the right man, Marley thought. Archer’s body had tensed, and he leaned toward her. His face was a study in reluctant curiosity. Curiosity, she understood. Why reluctant, she didn’t know.
    “How are you connected to them?” he said of Liza and Amber.
    Archer was the one she’d come looking for, but…she looked sideways at the man seated in a chair…this one had the power, a special power. A gripping, a tightening around her midsection disoriented her. Who was he and why was he here?
    Archer cleared his throat. “I asked how you know Liza Soaper and Amber Lee,” he said, not attempting to hide his irritation.
    “Yes,” she said. There was a pull, an attraction, but not necessarily of the kind she was happy about.
    The other man didn’t even glance at her. But Marley studied him closely. His hair was dark with hints of time in the sun, roughed up and skimming his collar, like her brother Sykes’s had been the last time she saw him. Only Sykes had black hair—an anomaly in the Millet family and cause for grave concern. Quixotic he might be, but she longed for Sykes’s presence, his assurance that anything could be overcome, or “accomplished,” as he would say. She couldtry asking him to come. They had their way of signaling each other, only Sykes had a rule, they both did: If you call, there had better be blood on the floor .
    There probably was somewhere.
    Marley shuddered.
    “Detective Archer asked you a question,” Gray Fisher said, startling her. Still he didn’t look at her. He had one of those deep male voices that managed to sound as if laughter wasn’t far away.
    “I think you’re rude,” she told him, and immediately felt embarrassed. “I’m sorry. It’s just that you’re not the—”
    “Ignore him,” Detective Archer said. “He used to be on the force. Sometimes he forgets he’s not anymore. Take your time explaining.”
    ““We don’t have time,” she said, her face flushing. “You’ve got at least one dead woman and there are going to be more if we don’t hurry up.”
    The problem was that although she had sped along Royal Street, trying her best to think up a way to tell her story without giving away the things that would get her kicked out of here, she had not come up with a solution.
    “You know two of the missing women?” Detective Archer said, sounding testy now. “What about Shirley Cooper?”
    She shook her head and sighed. “No. I wish I had known her, poor thing, but she didn’t come to me.” Marley put her lips firmly together. Her mind rushed in useless circles. “This is the last place I want to be, but I understand responsibility. I can’t deal with all this on my own. It wouldn’t be right not to talk to you.”
    Gray Fisher shifted beside her. This man’s features were angular, harsh even, his brows dark and winged. He had yet to give her a chance to really see his eyes.
    He hunched his shoulders and rubbed the back of his neck. Then he rounded his back. Then straightened it. A fidget . Being still, listening