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reached for the phone, but instead his hand veered to the pen. He grabbed it and wrote the number again. Twelve times he wrote it ... in the same

    spot ... until it was pressed into eight sheets of the tablet.

    The cigarette had burned low and he stubbed it out absently, reached for the phone, and actually picked up the receiver this time. But after five seconds he slammed it down without dialing, then ran four shaky fingers through his gray-black hair. Lord a'mighty, he hadn't faced anything this nerve-racking in years.

    He grabbed the phone and punched out the numbers too quickly to give himself a chance to change his mind.

    "Good afternoon, Panache."

    Dammit, why couldn't she have answered?

    "Is Ra---- Is Mrs. Hollis there?"

    "I'm sorry, she's not. Can I help you?"

    "No, thank you. I'll try again later."

    He slammed the phone down as if it had bitten him. Then he sat with his face in his palms, shaking so hard his elbows rattled against the desktop. He dropped his forearms flat against the blotter, head drooped, while he sucked in huge gulps of air. Then his palms pressed his cheeks again and eight fingertips dug into his eyes beneath his glasses. You're insane, Gentry. Plumb nuts. What the hell would you have said if

    she'd answered?                       51

    But after two hours he felt less crazy and decided to give it another try. He went through the same ritual again, only this time he made sure he had a cigarette lit when he dialed, to steady himself.

    "Good afternoon, Panache."

    Goddammit, doesn't Verda ever go home? "Is Mrs. Hollis there?"

    "No, I'm sorry. I don't expect her in today. Is there anything I can do?"

    "No, thank you. I'll call again tomorrow."

    "Can I tell her--was

    Tommy Lee slammed down the receiver in frustration. No, you can't tell her anything! Just get the hell home so she'll have to answer her own damn phones!

    When Tommy Lee lurched from his chair and flung the door open, Liz's head snapped up. But he only stormed past, throwing over his shoulder, "I won't be in till morning." A moment later tires squealed outside, and she shook her head.

    Tommy Lee Gentry was a land developer. He knew every acre of every section of land within a

    radius of fifty miles around Russellville. He'd owned the land on which Owen Hollis had built his house, had subdivided it into lots, contracted for the installation of improvements, then resold the lots to the builder who'd eventually put up the brick house where Rachel and Owen had lived. It was on the eastern edge of town in a hilly, wooded area called Village Square Addition, but there was nothing square about it. The streets curved and curled around the natural undulations of the land, making it highly desirable property lacking the dreary severity of rigidly perpendicular streets.

    Hollis had done right by her, if the house was any indication. It was a rambling U-shaped thing of peach-colored brick, hugging a swimming pool in its two out-stretched arms. It had a hip roof that deeply overhung arched fanlight windows trimmed with eave-to-earth Wedgwood-blue shutters. At the base of each window an azalea bush formed a precisely carved mound, while between them the warm brick walls sported espaliered Virginia creepers, trained into faultless Belgian fence designs by a weekly gardener. At each corner and beside the

    center door, Chinese holly bushes       53 stood guard while the shaded yard bore lush magnolias and live oaks, with not a fallen leaf to be seen anywhere. On either side of the house a high box-cut podocarpus hedge blocked out the sight of the backyard, overlapping at one point to create a hidden entrance, like that around a tennis court.

    Tommy Lee knew the exact summer they'd had the pool put in. He'd been up at City Hall looking through some files when he'd come upon their application for a pool permit. As he approached the house now, he wondered if she might possibly have taken the day off and what she'd