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She’s dead.” Bracing herself, she sat up again, let her head rest against the cold white wall. Her cheeks were just as colorless. “I have to call my aunt. Her mother. I have to tell her what happened.”
    He gauged his woman, studying the face that was no less staggeringly lovely for being bone-white. “Give me the name. I’ll take care of it.”
    â€œIt’s Helen Wilson Fontaine. I’ll do it.”
    He didn’t realize until her hand moved that he’d placed his own over it. He pulled back on every level, and rose. “I haven’t been able to reach Helen Fontaine or her husband. She’s in Europe.”
    â€œI know where she is.” Grace shook back her hair, but didn’t try to stand. Not yet. “I can find her.” The thought of making that call, saying what had to be said, squeezed her throat. “Could I have some water, Lieutenant?”
    His heels echoed on tile as he strode off. Then there was silence—a full, damning silence that whispered of what kind of business was done in such places. There were scents here that slid slyly under the potent odors of antiseptics and industrial cleaning solutions.
    She was pitifully grateful when she heard his footsteps on the return journey.
    She took the paper cup from him with both hands, drinking slowly, concentrating on the simple act of swallowing liquid.
    â€œWhy did she hate you?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œYour cousin. You said she hated you. Why?”
    â€œFamily trait,” she said briefly. She handed him back the empty cup as she rose. “I’d like to go now.”
    He took her measure a second time. Her colorhad yet to return, her pupils were dilated, the electric-blue irises were glassy. He doubted she’d last another hour.
    â€œI’ll take you back to Parris’s,” he decided. “You can get your things in the morning, come in to my office to make your statement.”
    â€œI said I’d do it tonight.”
    â€œAnd I say you’ll do it in the morning. You’re no good to me now.”
    She tried a weak laugh. “Why, Lieutenant, I believe you’re the first man who’s ever said that to me. I’m crushed.”
    â€œDon’t waste the routine on me.” He took her arm, led her to the outside doors. “You haven’t got the energy for it.”
    He was exactly right. She pulled her arm free as they stepped back into the thick night air. “I don’t like you.”
    â€œYou don’t have to.” He opened the car door, waited. “Any more than I have to like you.”
    She stepped to the door, and with it between them met his eyes. “But the difference is, if I had the energy—or the inclination—I could make you sit up and beg.”
    She got in, sliding those long, silky legs in.
    Not likely, Seth told himself as he shut the door with a snap. But he wasn’t entirely sure he believed it.

Chapter 3
    S he felt like a weakling, but she didn’t go home. she’d needed friends, not that empty house, with the shadow of a body drawn on the floor.
    Jack had gone over, fetched her bags out of her car and brought them to her. For a day, at least, she was content to make do with that.
    Since she was driving in to meet with Seth, Grace had made do carefully. She’d dressed in a summer suit she’d just picked up on the Shore. The little short skirt and waist-length jacket in buttercup yellow weren’t precisely professional—but she wasn’t aiming for professional. She’d taken the time to catch her waterfall of hair back in a complicated French braid and made up her face with the concentration and determination of a general plotting a decisive battle.
    Meeting with Seth again felt like battle.
    Her stomach was still raw from the call she’d made to her aunt, and the sickness that had overwhelmed her after it. She’d slept poorly, but she had slept, tucked into one