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unwanted milk, she hoped that Cato would never catch her in the lie she’d told him tonight.
    The detective
had
known who she was; he had called her by name.
    “Mrs. Laird?”
    When she turned, she was struck first by his height. Cato was tall, but Duncan Hatcher topped him by several inches. She had to tilt her head back to look into his face. When she did, she realized that he was standing inappropriately close, but not so close as to call attention to it. His eyes had the sheen of inebriation, but his speech wasn’t slurred.
    “My name is Duncan Hatcher.”
    He didn’t extend his hand, but he looked down at hers as though expecting her to shake hands with him. She didn’t. “
How do you do, Mr. Hatcher
?”
    He had a disarming smile, and she suspected he knew that. He also had enough audacity to say, “
Great dress
.”
    “Thank you.”
    “I like the diamond clip at the small of your back.”
    She coolly nodded an acknowledgment.
    “Is that all that’s keeping it on?”
    That was an improper remark. And so was the insinuation in his eyes. Eyes that were light gray and darkly dangerous.
    “Good-bye, Mr. Hatcher.”
    She was about to turn away when he moved a step closer, and for a moment she thought he would touch her. He said, “
When are we going to see each other again
?”
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “When are we going to see each other again?”
    “I seriously doubt we are.”
    “Oh, we are. See, every judge who finds me in contempt and sends me to jail? I make it a point to fuck his wife.”
    He made it sound like a promise. Shock rendered her speechless and motionless. So for several seconds they simply stood there and looked at each other.
    Then two things happened simultaneously that broke the stare. The woman she now knew was his partner seized Duncan Hatcher by the arm and dragged him toward the car that a parking valet had just delivered. And Cato appeared in her peripheral vision. As he approached her, she turned toward him and managed to smile, although the muscles of her face felt stiff and unnatural.
    Her husband looked suspiciously after Hatcher as the woman hustled him into the passenger seat of the car. Elise had feared Cato would confront her then about the brief exchange, but he hadn’t. Not until they were home, and by then she’d had time to fabricate a lie.
    But she wondered now why she had lied to her husband about it.
    She poured the remainder of the unwanted milk down the drain and left the glass in the sink, where it would be conspicuous. Leaving the kitchen, she returned to the foot of the curving staircase in the foyer. There she paused to listen. The house was silent. She detected no movement upstairs.
    Quickly she went down the center hallway and into Cato’s study. She crossed the room in darkness, but once behind the desk, switched on the lamp. It cast dark shadows around the room, particularly onto the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves that formed the wall behind the desk.
    She swung open the false shelf that concealed the wall safe and tried the handle, knowing already that it wouldn’t budge. The safe was kept locked at all times, and even as they approached three years of marriage, Cato had never entrusted her with the combination.
    She replaced the shelf of faux books and stepped back so she could study the bookcase wall as a whole. Then, as she’d done many times before, she broke it down into sections, focusing on one shelf at a time, letting her gaze slowly move from volume to volume.
    There were countless hiding places in this bookshelf.
    On a shelf slightly above her head, she noticed that one of the leather-bound volumes extended a fraction of an inch over the edge of the shelf. Coming up on tiptoe, she reached overhead to further investigate.
    “Elise?”
    She whipped around, gasping in fright. “Cato! Good Lord, you scared me.”
    “What are you doing?”
    Her heart in her throat, she took the diamond pin from the pocket of her robe, where she’d had the