That left him with nothing to say because his job description didn't include kissing the suspects he was questioning, which is what he'd been doing the last time he'd been with her. She suddenly seemed to remember that, too. She took a hasty step backward. There was a catch in her throat. "Just leave me in peace, Mr. Cassidy, and take all of them with you."

She gestured toward the door, but before her sentence was completely formed, a brick came crashing through the window directly above them. It shattered. Cassidy looked up, saw what had happened, and threw his arms around Claire. He dived for cover behind a tower of packing crates, pressing her against his chest and bending his head over hers, protecting her as best he could from the falling shards of glass. The workers scrambled in every direction, trying to escape injury as glass rained down, splintering into tiny pieces as it struck the concrete floor.

When it finally stopped, Cassidy relaxed his tight embrace. "Are you all right?" He swept her hair off her face, examining the delicate skin for nicks and cuts.

"Yes."

"Sure?"

"Yes, I'm fine. Is anyone hurt?" Her employees were slowly emerging from cover.

"We're all right, Miss Laurent."

When Claire turned back to Cassidy, she uttered a small gasp. "You've been cut." She reached up and touched his cheek. Her fingers came away smeared with blood.

He took a handkerchief from his hip pocket and used it to wipe her fingers clean before blotting his cheek. Surrounding them were bits of glass as fine as dust and as shimmering as diamonds. Bending down, he picked up the brick that was responsible for the damage. Using Magic Marker, someone had printed on it FILTHY DAUGHTER OF SATAN.

"All right," Claire said softly as she read the poorly printed words. "That's enough." She strode to the door, her feet crunching on the broken glass.

"Claire, no!"

Unmindful of his shout, she pulled open the door, stepped onto the sidewalk, and marched up to one of the policemen. She tugged at his shirtsleeve to get his attention.

"I thought you were supposed to be keeping this demonstration peaceful."

"That brick came out of nowhere. I'm sorry, ma'am."

"You're sorry, but my employees could have been seriously hurt."

"Their permit to picket doesn't extend to throwing bricks," Cassidy said.

The policeman recognized him. "Hey, you're Cassidy, aren't you?"

"That's right. And I'm here representing District Attorney Crowder. As of now, their permit has expired. Disperse this crowd. Call in reinforcements if necessary, but clear this area immediately."

"I don't know," the cop said dubiously. The protesters were now clasping hands and praying. Cassidy was glad. As long as their heads were bowed and their eyes were closed, they wouldn't notice Claire. "Judge Harris-"

"Screw Judge Harris and his permit," Cassidy said in a low, rough voice. "If he doesn't like it, he can take it up with the D.A. later. For now, get these people away from here before more damage is done."

"If somebody gets injured," Claire said, "there's going to be hell to pay from Mrs. Wilde and from me."

Finally reaching a decision, the cop went quickly to the man who was leading a loud, long prayer. "Excuse me, sir. Y'all violated the conditions of your permit. You're gonna have to disperse." The leader, who obviously liked the sound of his own voice, didn't want to be silenced. In Jesus' blessed name, he began strenuously to protest. A shoving match ensued.

Cassidy swore. "I was afraid of this. Get inside, Claire."

"This is my fight. I'll handle it."

"Handle it? Are you nuts?"

"They've been misled about me. If I explain to them-"

"A mob can't be reasoned with." He had to raise his voice to be heard above the rising shouts. Soon he'd have a riot on his hands.

"There she is!" someone in the crowd shouted.

"It's her!"

"Smut peddler! Pornographer!"

"Ladies and gentlemen, please." Claire held up her hands for silence, but the insults only grew nastier. Photographers nearly trampled one another trying to capture her image and voice on their videotapes.

"Get inside!" Cassidy tried to take her arm, but she resisted.

"Claire Laurent is a whore!"

"French Silk is filth!"

"Down with porn!"

Cassidy had to lean down in order to hear what Claire was saying to him. "All I want from them is an opportunity to be heard."

"Dammit, now's not the time for a speech."

The crowd was pressing against the human barricade of policemen who had rushed into action. Voices were raised in anger and hatred. Faces were contorted with malice. Pickets were being brandished like weapons. One spark was all that was needed to make the whole ugly scene explode.

It was instantly and effectively defused by the unexpected appearance of Mary Catherine Laurent.

Beautifully dressed and coiffed, looking as though she were about to enter a courtyard for a garden party, she stepped through the door of French Silk pushing a tea cart. On it were rows of Dixie cups filled with what appeared to be red KoolAid. A tall, spare woman wearing a white uniform followed her, carrying a tray of cookies.

Claire followed Cassidy's startled gape. "Oh, Mama, no!" Claire tried to waylay her, but she determinedly wheeled the dainty tea cart toward the surging, hostile crowd.

"I'm sorry, Claire," Harriett York said as she passed with the tray of cookies. "She insisted on doing this and got so upset when I tried to change her mind, I thought-"

"I understand," Claire interrupted quickly. She moved to Mary Catherine's side and placed her hand beneath her elbow. "Mama, you'd better go back inside now. This isn't a party."

Mary Catherine looked at her daughter with incredulity. "Well, of course it's not, Claire Louise. Don't talk foolish. These people are here on behalf of Reverend Jackson Wilde, aren't they?"

"Yes, Mama. They are."

"I listened to enough of his sermons to know that he'd be ashamed of his followers for conducting themselves this way. I think they need to be reminded of that, Reverend Wilde said many ugly things about you from his pulpit, but he also advocated loving one's enemies. He would never have condoned violence."

She went straight to the leader of the group. Those around him fell silent, and the silence rippled outward until all the name-calling ceased. Mary Catherine gave the man a smile that would have disarmed a Nazi officer. "I've never known anyone who could be cruel and unkind over cookies and punch. Sir?"

She took a Dixie cup from the cart and extended it to him. To refuse the gesture from a woman so utterably guileless would have been bad P.R. for the Wilde ministry and apparently the man realized that. He was fully aware of the mini-cams recording the bizarre occurrence. Disgruntled, he took the cup of punch from Mary Catherine.

"Thanks."

"You're quite welcome. Harry, pass the cookies around, please. Who else would care for punch?"

Cassidy watched, shaking his head in disbelief. One by one the pickets were lowered and the crowd began to disperse. "They could use her at the U.N."

Claire stepped around him and approached her mother. "Thank you, Mama. That was a lovely gesture. But you'd better let Harry take you upstairs now."

"I'm glad I could help. They were creating such a ruckus." Claire kissed her mother's cheek, then signaled Harry to take her back inside. An employee retrieved the tea cart. Claire asked others to collect the empty Dixie cups and napkins and to sweep up the broken window glass that had fallen onto the sidewalk.

"When you're finished out here, return to work," Claire told them. "Let's try to make up for lost time. Mr. Cassidy, you're still bleeding. Perhaps you'd better come upstairs and let me tend to that cut on your check."

As they rode the elevator up, she asked, "Does it hurt?"

"No."

"Would you admit it if it did?"

"What, and ruin my-what was it?-'athletic, macho-type' image?"

She smiled with chagrin. He smiled back. They continued looking at each other until the elevator came to a jarring halt on the third floor. Mary Catherine was playing gin with Harry when they entered the apartment.

She looked up from her hand of cards. "Have they gone?"

"Yes, Mama."

"Everything's back to normal," Cassidy said. "Thank you for what you did. But I wish you hadn't placed yourself in danger like that. The police had it under control."

"Sometimes it's more expedient for one to take matters into one's own hands."

"Come on, Mr. Cassidy," Claire said, steering him toward the bedroom. "Blood's dripping on your shirt."

"Gin," he heard Mary Catherine say as he followed Claire into a spacious bedroom. It was decorated monochromatically, in shades of white and ivory. The furnishings were contemporary except for a massive armoire against one wall. Louvered shutters were drawn against the afternoon sun, which cast striped shadows across the king-size bed. He couldn't help but wonder how many men had slept there with her. She had confessed to having only a few meaningful relationships following her broken engagement, but that could be another in her series of lies.

"In here," she said over her shoulder, indicating that he should follow her into the adjoining bathroom. It looked like a 1930s' movie set. The walls were mirrored. The tub, set into the floor, was three feet deep and twice as long.

As gorgeous as it was, it was a room inhabited and used by a real person-a real woman. A peach-colored slip hung from a porcelain hook mounted on the back of the door. On the white marble vanity was a wide array of perfume bottles. A fluffy white lambswool puff hadn't been replaced in the glass container of body powder, and its silver lid was askew. A strand of pearls spilled out of a satin jewelry box. Two cosmetic brushes, a tube of lipstick, and a pair of gold earrings hadn't been put away. And the bubble-blowing necklace was also there.

Everything personified Claire Laurent. Beautiful. Classy. Elegant. Sensual. Cassidy was enchanted by the saturation of femininity. Like a kid in a toy store, he wanted to touch and examine everything.

"I think I've got some peroxide in here." A spring-loaded latch came open when she depressed a seam in the mirrored wall. A section swung out, revealing a medicine cabinet. "Sit down."

His choices were a vanity stool with a white velvet cushion, the commode, or the bidet. The vanity stool didn't look solid enough to support him. The bidet was out of the question. He sat down on the commode lid.

Claire approached him with a snowy washcloth, which she had moistened beneath the gold faucet. "You'll ruin that," he said, yanking back his head. "The bloodstain might never wash out."

She gave him a strange look. "Things are dispensable, Mr. Cassidy. People aren't."

The cut was on the ridge of his cheekbone. He winced when she applied the cold, wet cloth to it. "Why don't you drop the 'mister'? Call me Cassidy."

"What's your first name?"

"Robert."

"That's a respectable name." She dabbed the cut with the cloth, then tossed it into the basin and took a cotton ball from a crystal canister and soaked it with peroxide. "This might sting."

He gritted his teeth as she swabbed the cut, but it was only mildly uncomfortable. "Too Celtic."

"And 'Cassidy' isn't?"

"I didn't want to be Bob or Bobby. Since high school, it's been Cassidy."

She removed the cotton ball and took a Band-Aid from a metal box in the medicine cabinet. He watched her hands as she peeled open the sterile wrapper and protective tapes, but he looked directly at her as she pressed the bandage over the wound.

Her breath was on his face. He caught a whiff of her perfume, which emanated from the cleft between her breasts-breasts that he had touched. Her blouse gaped open slightly as she leaned forward, and it took tremendous self-discipline not to peek.

"There. That should do." She touched his cheek; her fingertips were cool. She turned away to replace the items she'd taken from the medicine cabinet.

This was crazy. This was nuts. He would fuck up big time if he let this get out of hand, but, Jesus...

He reached out and bracketed her waist with his hands, turning her around to face him again. "Claire?"

She drew her hands back as though to keep from laying them on his shoulders. "You'd better soak that shirt in cold water or the bloodstain will set."

"Claire?"

Involuntarily it seemed, her eyes moved up from the bloodstain on his shirt to connect with his. "I don't want to talk about it," she said in that husky whisper that echoed in his dreams every night.

"Don't misunderstand, Claire. It's not my standard operating procedure when questioning a female suspect to kiss her."

"No?"

"No. I think you know that."

His gaze moved over her, taking in her lovely face, her smooth throat, the breasts that enticed him, the narrow waist and gentle flare of her hips. Acting instinctively, his hand moved from her waist to splay open over her abdomen. It wasn't an intimate caress. Not really. There were probably three layers of clothing between her skin and the palm of his hand. But it felt intimate in the utter quiet of this most private room of hers.

He felt overwhelmed by the wrongness of it.

She was his prime suspect. It was his job to pursue criminals and bring them to justice. His career hinged on this case. It would either make him a shoo-in candidate for the district attorney's job or forever keep him rooted in the ranks of assistants. He would either earn position and power or remain just another prosecutor trying to trip up drug dealers on tax evasions. He would either be able to redeem himself or forever be condemned for that one major mistake that marred his soul like a dark blot.

Now, here he was, on the verge of committing another grievous blunder. He couldn't let it happen. He wouldn't be derelict in his duty again.

He lowered his hands. Claire backed up as far as the dressing table. "I don't think you should touch me like that anymore. It could cost you your case. Because if I was ever indicted, Cassidy, I'd make sure everybody knew about your conflict of interests."

"And I'd deny it," he stated without hesitation. "It would be your word against mine, Claire. No witnesses."

"Sort of like the Wilde murder. I can't prove that you kissed me. And you can't prove that I killed Jackson Wilde. So why don't we call it even and drop the whole thing before my life is disrupted even more?"

She turned and left the room. He followed her into the bedroom, where she had almost reached the door when he posed a question: "Why did you contribute to Jackson Wilde's ministry?"

She stopped dead in her tracks. Turning to face him, she suddenly grew pale and nervously wet her lips. "How did you know about that?"

While Cassidy stared at her, his optimism took a brutal beating. "I didn't," be said quietly. "Lucky guess."