"Mon Dieu," he whispered as the tape continued to play. He removed a handkerchief from his hip pocket and blotted his forehead. "Please, please, Mr. Cassidy, turn it off."

He didn't turn if off, but he reduced the volume. He'd expected a reaction, but not one so drastic. Obviously he had more here than he'd originally thought. His impulse was to grab the man by the lapels and shake the information out of him. It took some effort to play it cool.

"Why don't you tell me about this, Andre? I'm giving you the opportunity to explain."

Andre wet his lips and nervously picked at the monogram on his handkerchief. If he'd just been sentenced to death row, he couldn't have looked more distressed. "Does she know that you have this?"

Cassidy's heart was drumming. He was on the brink of learning the identity of the woman on the tape. Philippi assumed he already knew who she was. Don't blow it! Cassidy gave a noncommittal shrug. "It's her voice, isn't it?"

"Oh, dear. Oh, my," Andre moaned, crumpling even more. "Poor, poor Claire."

Claire had been talking to Yasmine via long distance for almost an hour. Yasmine was depressed. Claire suspected that she'd had more than a couple of drinks.

"He's always in a rush," she whined.

Selfishly, Claire wished that Yasmine had kept her lover a secret. Since the night she had acknowledged him to Claire, most of their conversations revolved around him and the star-crossed affair.

"He's dividing his time between his family and you, Yasmine. You don't have him all to yourself. That's just one of the consequences of being involved with a married man. You must accept that or end the affair."

"I accept it. It's just that ... well, in the beginning, our time together seemed more leisurely."

"Now it's slam-bam-thank-you-ma'am."

Claire expected that crack to annoy her volatile friend. Instead, she gave one of her throaty laughs that called to mind jungle felines. "Hardly. This past weekend, he worked me over so good..."

"Then I don't understand what you're complaining about."

There was a tearful catch in Yasmine's voice. Claire had never known her to cry over anything, even when the cosmetics line chose another model to replace her. That had been the beginning of Yasmine's financial troubles. Yasmine wasn't aware that Claire knew about her present difficulties. She'd debated broaching the subject with her and offering assistance in the form of a loan. But knowing Yasmine's temper and pride as she did, she'd refrained. She hoped Yasmine would come to her of her own accord before her situation became desperate.

"Sometimes I wonder if that's the only reason he wants me," Yasmine said in a small voice. "You know, what we do in bed."

Claire saw the wisdom of holding her silence.

"I know it's not that way," Yasmine hastened to say. "There's much more to our relationship than the physical part. The shitty circumstances have me upset, that's all."

"What happened?"

"He was in Washington on business this week and told me he could pad the trip to include two days in New York. But his business went longer than expected and he got held up. We were only together for one day.

"When he got ready to leave this afternoon, I thought I was going to die, Claire. I did what I know better than to do. I begged him not to go. He got angry. Now, I can't even call him and apologize. I have to wait for him to call me."

Sitting at her drawing board, Claire rested her forehead in her hand and massaged her temples. She was both concerned and irritated. The only thing to be had from this love affair was a broken heart. Yasmine should be smart enough to see that. She should cut her losses now and stop making a fool of herself. But she wouldn't welcome hearing that or any other unsolicited advice.

"I'm sorry, Yasmine," Claire said, meaning it. "I know you're hurting, and I hate that. I want to see you happy. I only wish there were something I could do."

"You're doing it. You're listening." She sniffed. "Listen, enough of that. I got with Leon and finalized the schedule for the shoot next week. Ready to take it all down?"

Claire reached for a pad and pencil. "Ready. Oh, wait," she said impatiently when she heard the call-waiting beep. "There's the other line. Just a sec." She depressed the button and said hello. Seconds later, she clicked back to Yasmine. "I've got to go. It's Mama."

Yasmine knew better than to prolong the conversation. "Tomorrow," she said quickly and hung up.

Claire dashed from her office and chose the stairs in favor of the elevator. She'd been in the apartment less than a minute before running down the two flights to the ground level. As she raced across the darkened warehouse, she pushed her arms through the sleeves of a glossy black vinyl raincoat and pulled the matching hat over her hair.

Since the bolts had already been unlocked and the alarm system disengaged, she flung open the door-and came face to face with Cassidy.

His head was bent against the downpour, which had already plastered his hair to his head. The collar of his trench coat had been flipped up; his shoulders were hunched inside. He was reaching for the bell. When they saw each other, one was as surprised as the other.

"What do you want?" Claire asked.

"I have to see you."

"Not now." She set the alarm, pulled the door closed, and locked it behind her. Sidestepping Cassidy, she dashed through the rain toward the rear of the building. Her upper arm was manacled by his hand, and she was brought up short. "Let me go," she cried, struggling to release her arm. "I've got to go."

"Where?"

"On an errand."

"Now?"

"Now."

"I'll drive you."

"No!"

"Where are you going?"

"Please, don't bully me now. Just let me go."

"Not a chance. Not without some kind of explanation." A lightning bolt briefly illuminated his strong features and the resolution carved on them. He wasn't going to take no for an answer, and they were wasting time. "All right, you can drive me."

Still with a firm grip on her arm, he wheeled her around. His sedan was parked in a loading zone at the curb. After depositing her in the passenger seat, he jogged around the hood and got in. Rain dripped from his nose and chin as he started the engine. "Where to?"

"The Ponchartrain Hotel."

Chapter 9.

*"It's on St. Charles Avenue," she told him.

"I know where it is," he said. "Why the hell are you in such a mad dash to get there?"

"Please, Mr. Cassidy, can we hurry?"

Without further comment, he pulled the car away from the curb and turned onto Conti Street. The French Quarter was quiet tonight. The few pedestrians who were out battled with umbrellas as they moved along the narrow sidewalks. The neon signs advertising exotic drinks and aperitifs, file gumbo and crawfish etouffee, topless dancers and jazz were blurred at the edges by the rainfall.

When Cassidy stopped at an intersection to wait for crossing traffic, he turned his head and looked hard at Claire. She felt his stare like a stroke of his hand across her cheek and could almost feel again his fist closing around her hair. She hadn't expected him to touch her at all, but particularly not like that.

It had astonished her even more than his calling her by her first name, more than his knowing that she had attended Jackson Wilde's last crusade. Almost a week had passed since then. Wilde had been buried in Tennessee. Claire had had no more contact with either the police or the D.A.'s office and had hoped that Cassidy had redirected his investigation away from her. Evidently that had been too much to hope for.

Now, unable to avoid him, she turned her head and met his penetrating stare. "Thank you for driving me."

"Don't thank me. You'll pay for the ride."

"Ah. Men always exact a fee from women, don't they? There's no such thing as a favor without strings attached."

"Don't flatter yourself, Ms. Laurent."

"I'm not. Isn't it the consensus among men that every woman is beautiful at two A.M.?"

"Sexism in reverse. You have a very low opinion of men."

"You'd decided that before our last meeting. Haven't we exhausted that topic?"

"Look," he said angrily, "I don't want anything from you except answers. Straight, no-bullshit answers."

"That shouldn't be too difficult. What do you want to know?"

"Why you lied to me. No, wait. I'll have to be more specific, won't I? I want to know why you lied to me about meeting Jackson Wilde. You not only met him, you met him eyeball to eyeball. You shook hands with him."

"I suppose I should have told you about that," she admitted contritely. "But it wasn't significant. It wasn't!" she emphasized after he gave her a sharp look. "I wanted to meet my adversary face to face. That's all there was to it."

"I seriously doubt that. If that's all there was to it, you wouldn't have lied about it."

"I didn't tell you because I was embarrassed. It was silly and immature, but I enjoyed having Wilde at a disadvantage. I knew him, but he didn't know me. He thought he'd won my soul. It was a kick to think of how he'd feel if he knew he was welcoming one of his so-called smut peddlers into his flock."

"Okay. I'll buy that."

"Good."

"If only it weren't for the other."

"Other?"

"You also lied about being in the Fairmont that night."

Claire had a dozen denials poised on the tip of her tongue, but one look at his face stopped her from vocalizing any of them. He seemed too confident that he had trapped her. Until she knew what she was up against, it would be safer to say nothing. Otherwise, she might only dig herself into a deeper pit.

As soon as there was an opening in the traffic, he drove through the intersection, turning left toward Canal Street. Steering with his left hand, he used his right to remove something from the breast pocket of his trench coat. He inserted a cassette into the tape player and adjusted the volume.

Claire's heart jumped to her throat when she heard her voice say, "Bonsoir, Andre." She stared straight ahead through the rain-splattered windshield. As they drove up Canal, she listened to a recording of a recent telephone conversation she'd had with Andre Philippi.

When it was over, Cassidy ejected the tape and returned it to his pocket. He concentrated on getting around Lee Circle before continuing out St. Charles Avenue. "I didn't know you spoke French."

"Fluently."

"That threw me off. I didn't recognize the voice as yours. Not until your old pal Andre identified you for me."

"Andre would never betray a friend."

"He assumed I already knew it was you."

"In other words, you tricked him." Cassidy shrugged an admission. "Why did you tap his telephone?"

"I knew he was holding something back and needed to know what it was. It's done all the time."

"That doesn't excuse it. It's a gross invasion of privacy. Does Andre know you trapped him?"

"I didn't trap him. He got trapped in his own deception."

Claire sighed, knowing how devastated he must be feeling. "Poor Andre."

"That's exactly what he said about you. Poor Claire. You two certainly have a cozy relationship, always thinking of each other, looking out for each other. How nice it is that you can go to the penitentiary together. Maybe we can arrange neighboring cells."

She gave him a sharp glance, which he responded to with an abrupt bob of his head. "Well, hallelujah. I finally got your attention. Are you getting the picture now? Murder two carries a mandatory life sentence in Louisiana. Now how do you feel about being a prime suspect?"

To Claire Louise Laurent, threats had never been an effective deterrent. They didn't make her quail or concede; they only made her more determined to stand her ground. "Prove that I'm guilty of murder, Mr. Cassidy. Prove it."

He held her stare a dangerously long time. Claire turned her head away as the car approached the hotel. "Just let me out at the curb. I won't be a minute."

"Uh-uh. We're going in together."

"I was only thinking of you. You're already drenched."

"I won't dissolve."

He turned on his emergency blinkers and got out of the car. After helping Claire alight, they ducked for cover beneath the canopy extending over the sidewalk. The doorman tipped his hat to Claire.

"Evenin', Miss Laurent."

"Hello, Gregory."

"It sure is wet out tonight. But don't worry none. She got here before it started coming down too bad."

Claire preceded Cassidy into the landmark hotel where suites were named for the celebrities who had resided in them. The narrow lobby was gracious and very European, furnished with antiques and oriental rugs, redolent of courtly charm and southern hospitality.