The note of worry in the voice struck her as wrong, and she opened her eyes. Daniel Dubonet, face darkened by a growth of stubble, was staring at her with very worried eyes.

"What are you doing here?" She clutched at the sheet and pulled it to her neck. A long black paw shot out of the blanket and grabbed her wrist. Familiar didn't want to be disturbed.

"I made some coffee and realized you weren't going to get up unless I forced the issue. Sorry, but I didn't want to leave without saying something."

"Well, I can drive you..." She looked around. What time was it? Morning still, the sun was slanting into the room from the east.

"I've called a cab. I'm going over to Cody's to clean up. He'll take me to my apartment. They're certainly through with the investigation, and I can get my clothes and things. If anything is left."

Sarah reached for the mug of hot coffee that enticed her on the bedside table. She felt completely disoriented, and Daniel wasn't exactly at ease. He kept sneaking peeks at her with sideways glances.

She sipped the coffee and tried to get her thoughts in order. "Why don't you let me run you over there? It won't take but a minute for me to get ready."

Daniel couldn't take his eyes off her. Her blond hair was tousled from sleep, and she was completely unaware of how appealing she looked. "I've already called a cab. Thanks for letting me stay here."

"Thanks for staying. And for checking the pepper. It makes me feel like I'm not a complete fool."

That was the thing that had been troubling him. "Sarah, what are you going to do now?"

She knew what he meant, but she didn't want to confront the issue. "Take a shower, and-"

"Sarah." His voice was half command, half request.

"I don't know." She shrugged and drank more coffee.

"I've been giving this some thought." And what he'd come up with was a big zero. Why would someone want to ruin Sarah's career? What good would that accomplish? "Do you have any rivals who might want to run you out of business? Or someone who wants to get even?"

Sarah thought. "Everyone has enemies, but I don't know of anyone who would do such a thing. I mean, it's one thing to wish someone out of business and another to make an entire roomful of people sick."

Daniel nodded. That's what he expected. There was the chance that she was lying-that she'd doctored the peppers herself. There had been no evidence of a break-in at the Bingington house. None. Sarah could have made it up.

But the evidence pointing in her behalf was his own abduction.

"What is it, Daniel?"

"I'm just trying to put the pieces together. Listen, I'll call you later this morning. About ten. Let me get cleaned up and go to the office. There's some stuff I need to take care of. What are your next a.s.signments?"

"Let's see." She'd hardly given it a thought. "I have a birthday party for the daughter of Georgia's Senator Banks. That's tomorrow." At the thought, she felt the need to jump from bed and get ready. It was a cowboy theme, and she had to bake a bucking bronco cake and tend to the rest of the party. Children's birthdays were a real pain, but it often brought in a lot of business. Every little tyke present had parents who gave serious Washington gatherings.

Daniel stifled a groan. Paul Gottard would delight in a.s.signing him to some backyard fete.

Sarah could almost read his thoughts. "They're going to have real ponies. Maybe you could be a wrangler?"

"No! No way am I going to lead those brats around on ponies."

Sarah couldn't suppress her grin. "Just kidding. But it isn't a bad idea."

"I have to go, but I'll call no later than ten. Just stay here until then, can you?"

She heard the concern in his voice and nodded.

He hurried out of the room and took the stairs in rapid succession. Then there was the sound of the front door closing.

"I'd better go lock it," she whispered to Familiar. She didn't like the idea of being up in her apartment when the downstairs door wasn't secured.

She pulled on a robe and hurried down, her legs chilled by the morning. Peering through the blinds, she saw Daniel duck into the back of a cab. They pulled away from the curb with more force than necessary.

SARAH HAD JUST begun to mix the cake batter when the telephone rang. "A Taste of the South," she answered.

"Sarah, I've heard wonderful reports about yesterday."

"Thanks, Uncle Vince." Sarah had given up trying to figure out Vincent's grapevine.

"I found out that pesky agent had been a.s.signed to the party. I wanted to apologize. I was given a promise that he wouldn't trouble you again." Vincent sighed. "There are no manners anymore, cherie. A man's word means nothing any longer. I am sorry."

"Don't worry about it. Daniel Dubonet didn't bother me at all," Sarah said. She was grinning. It would be too difficult to explain to Uncle Vince that the agent in question had spent last night at her apartment. Had left only an hour before.

"Then nothing marred your wonderful day yesterday?"

"Not a single thing."

"That's what I love to hear, my darling. Now, since you won't go to New York with me and my son, what if I make arrangements for dinner one night when we return?"

"I could cook some-"

"Absolutely not!" He laughed. "You are the best cook I know, but I believe I can throw some steaks on the grill and make do with potatoes and a salad. How does that sound?"

"Perfect." Everything except Jean-Claude. But based on past actions, Jean-Claude was liable to jet-set over to Paris for an evening with his friends.

"Then I'll count on it."

"Perfect." Sarah glanced at the kitchen clock. If she put the cake in now, it would be out at ten-fifteen. She slid it on the rack and shut the oven door.

"Sarah?" There was hesitation in her uncle's voice.

"What?"

"I hear that Dubonet fellow may be in trouble with his superiors. He's something of a renegade. You know, doesn't follow orders, goes off on his own. If he bothers you again, it's very important that you let me know."

"Of course." Her answer was automatic. The first taste of doubt was very bitter.

"My sources in the FBI say he had been pulled from a big case and rea.s.signed when he visited you so late that evening. Just keep that in mind. As you well know, just because a man is a federal agent doesn't mean you can trust him. Remember your father. They hounded him."

"I remember." Sarah's voice sounded as empty as she felt. "I'll never forget that, Uncle Vince. You don't have to worry."

Chapter Seven.

Daniel forced his body to relax in the backseat of the cab. He was on an adrenaline high as he tried to decide the best course of action. Cody was at home, waiting for him to arrive. But Daniel wanted a few minutes with Joshua Jenkins, retired FBI agent and the man who had been a.s.signed to Cal Covington's case. If Sarah was involved in something from her father's past, Joshua Jenkins would know the details of it.

He knew his boss would disapprove of any disruption of Jenkins' personal life. The word was out in the Bureau that Jenkins was an irascible old curmudgeon who was like gum on the shoe when he got started. Daniel knew he was opening a can of worms, but he didn't care. He gave the cabbie Jenkins's home address. Everyone in the Bureau knew it-they'd all driven him home at one time or another after he'd been to the Bureau to deliver some tirade about how ineffective the "new agency" had become, about how "soft" the new agents were, and about how he'd been such a dogged investigator that some men simply turned themselves in to get rid of him.

Right.

Daniel was so busy with his thoughts that he didn't see the quizzical look the cabbie threw at him as he moved into the flow of Washington traffic.

It was rush hour, and the streets were dangerously clogged. Daniel half watched the blocks pa.s.s. Time ticked along, and he grew more and more nervous as the cab slowly made its way to Jenkins's house.

"Wait for me," Daniel directed as he finally got out in front of the neat brick house with its postage-stamp yard. Flowers bloomed in profusion in window boxes. A divorced man, Jenkins had turned his considerable energies to horticulture.

Daniel jabbed the bell once hard, and then again. He knew he was acting impatient. At last he heard the slow shuffle of someone at the door-someone who was practicing precautions. Daniel could almost feel the eye staring at him though the peephole in the front door.

"What do you want?" Jenkins called.

"I'm Daniel Dubonet with the FBI. I'd like to talk to you."

"ID.".

Daniel shook his head. "I was abducted yesterday. Someone took my badge. And my gun." He pulled his jacket back to reveal the lack of a weapon. "It's about Cal Covington. The sheriff- "Down in Mississippi." Jenkins's voice had attained an interested edge. "What about him?"

"I'm working on a case where his past may prove to be significant. I need some background."

"Did Gottard send you?"

Daniel hesitated. If he said no, Jenkins probably wouldn't talk to him. If he said yes, it would be an outright lie and easily checked. "No. He doesn't know I'm here."

Jenkins's laugh was more of a cackle. "You're a rogue, aren't you, Dubonet? You're working on your own." He laughed again. "I'm glad to see someone at that agency has enough backbone to use his brain. That's what they're producing now-clones. Little dark-suited agents who do everything they're told. They never think. They never put two and two together. They follow the rules."

"Please, Mr. Jenkins. I've got a cab waiting and I desperately want to change out of this monkey suit."

The door opened suddenly and a blue-veined hand reached out to pull Daniel into the house. "Don't stand on the street and advertise what you're about. Get in here."

Daniel sighed and didn't bother to argue with Jenkins. He felt suddenly that his idea to visit the retired agent was flawed. The old goat would probably complain and moan for twenty minutes and tell him absolutely nothing. Then Jenkins would call up the Bureau as soon as he left and report the incident. Gottard would be furious.

"Quit dragging your feet and get in here," Jenkins ordered. "Now sit and tell me what you want." He pointed to an old, well-worn leather chair. With a groan, he dropped into a chair across from it.

Daniel sat on the edge of his seat. He studied Jenkins's face a moment in the lamplight. The room was dark, paneled, and filled ceiling-to-floor with bookshelves. There must have been a couple of thousand t.i.tles neatly arranged on what appeared to be fiction and nonfiction shelves, as best as Daniel could determine.

"Well, are you going to investigate the room or talk?" Jenkins pulled off his thick gla.s.ses and cleaned them.

Without the lenses, Jenkins's eyes looked red and runny. Daniel noticed they looked strained, too, as if he'd been up half the night reading.

"It's about Covington. I want to know why you thought he was guilty of..."

"Of what?" Jenkins leaned forward eagerly. "What did I think he was guilty of?"

"There was an alleged connection with the mob. Gambling." Daniel was pulling it out of his memory. "As I recall, there was some concern that Covington was using his office as sheriff to allow illegal gambling into the Mississippi coast."

"Right. So far." Jenkins was like a big dog teasing a smaller dog with a bone. "What else?"

"I haven't read the file." Daniel could feel his patience slipping away. He wasn't there to be interrogated. Who did Jenkins think he was, anyway?

"Why not? Why did you come here half prepared? That's my problem with the 'new FBI.'" He spat the last words. "When I was an agent, we were prepared before we went to question a suspect."

"Perhaps that's the difference." Daniel's voice had developed a deadly coldness.

"What?"

"You aren't a suspect, Mr. Jenkins. I came here to talk to you as a fellow agent."

"I see." He cleared his throat. "I see. So, what can I help you with?"

"Covington?" Daniel watched Jenkins's expression. He was acting like an old fool, but there was a sharp intelligence in the red-rimmed old eyes.

"Sheriff. Hanc.o.c.k County. I spent better than a year on the case. Then he was killed in a robbery. No one ever proved that he stepped in front of the bullet deliberately, but that was the talk."

"Do you believe it?"

"h.e.l.l, yes. The man was guilty, and he knew I was going to find him out. He couldn't walk out of his house without seeing me. He couldn't take his daughter for an ice-cream cone that he didn't know I was on to him. He got the money, I'm sure of that, but he never had a chance to spend it. He was never convicted, but he never got to enjoy his ill-gotten gains."

Satisfaction dripped from Jenkins's voice. Daniel felt a twinge of anger. What if Covington had been innocent? His life would have been a real bell. He put that aside and focused on the questions Jenkins needed to answer.

"How much money? Why do you think there was a payoff?"

"I got a tip." Jenkins shrugged. "It's old now, so I don't suppose I'm exposing my source to any danger."

Daniel forced himself to lean back in the chair. Time was tick-ticking away, and he was going to have to hear the whole story, from front to back. He wondered how long the cabbie would wait-a long time, because he hadn't been paid.

"My informer was a member of Covington's staff. He said he was positive beyond a doubt that the sheriff accepted a payoff from a prominent member of the New Orleans mafia. Covington was to look the other way when they established high-stakes games in some of the beachfront hotels. There were roulette wheels, c.r.a.ps, blackjack, the works. Mini-casinos, with a special guest list. And there were women. Prost.i.tutes trained in New Orleans in some of the finest houses. But that was just the beginning. They were looking for a permanent home, not a floating joint."

Daniel found it all a little hard to believe. Gambling was legal in Mississippi now. And prost.i.tution was a crime that had never been heavily punished. The Mississippi Gulf Coast, like New Orleans, seemed more tolerant of human frailties. Jenkins was making it sound as if Cal Covington had single-handedly brought the Gulf Coast to moral corruption.

"You don't know how it was back then," Jenkins said, reading the doubt on the younger agent's face. "The coast was hammered down. Most of the people didn't want organized crime and that violent element on the water. They had penny-ante crime, like every place else. It was a quiet community then. Decent folks who didn't care about a poker game, but they didn't want the big guys from New Orleans coming over with their gang-style killings and the entire corrupt mess. That's what I was involved in-fighting corruption."

"And Cal Covington brought in organized crime?"

Jenkins snorted. "You make me sound like a fool. He didn't bring them in. He just didn't slam the door hard enough." He stood with sudden vigor and paced the room. "Covington was guilty. My source said the payoff was positively delivered."

"How much money?"

"A suitcaseful. He never could find out how much. They knocked him out and locked him in a jail cell while they made the exchange. Then Covington pretended that he'd just arrived. You know the old story. But my man wasn't out cold. He was conscious. And he could see through a crack in the door. He saw the suitcase. He saw the money. And he saw Covington. Then he called the FBI."

"But you could never get the cold evidence?" That point troubled Daniel. "After a year, you never got enough to convict him."