"Yes?" The doctor was young and attractive and looked like she should be teaching kindergarten students rather than working the emergency room of a large city hospital. "How is she? Is she going to be all right?"

"Mrs. Wilde was beginning to develop an eating disorder called bulimia, but I think we've caught it in time. She seems to have been in good health before she began the binge/vomit cycle. With counseling and a proper diet, the trend can be reversed. I don't believe it'll permanently damage her health or that of the baby."

Josh went very still and stared at her blankly. "Baby?"

"That's right," the doctor said with a smile. "Your stepmother is pregnant."

Claire Louise Laurent had never experienced jealousy. During her childhood there had never been anything or anyone to make her feel jealous. She'd had no rivals for her mother's love and attention.

She had a healthy self-esteem, which was miraculous considering her unorthodox childhood. She had always been satisfied with her persona and never wished to be someone else. She competed only with herself, always striving for self-improvement without measuring her appearance, possessions, or accomplishments against those of others.

So when this emotion crept up and encompassed her like a fog, she was shocked and shamed by it. Especially since the object of her jealousy was Yasmine.

"This is positively marvelous." Leon breathed the words reverently as though, through his viewfinder, he were witness to a holy miracle. "You're the absolute best, darling. Always were. There'll never be another Yasmine."

"You got it, sugar." She spoke to him over her shoulder while sassily wagging her rear.

The clouds that had threatened rain the day before had disappeared, and, while dark thunderheads were still silhouetted against the horizon, the sun was currently beating down on Rosesharon and the crew collected around the outdoor shower. The temperature was in the high eighties with a humidity to match. Claire blamed her foul mood on the unrelenting, muggy heat, but knew that wasn't the real cause.

Yasmine had kept her brainstorm a secret up to the hour they were ready to shoot. "I want to wear these." She had produced a pair of white, sheer cotton pajamas.

"I wondered what had happened to those," Claire remarked.

"I had them hidden." The two-piece set of white boxers and top didn't look like an item that Yasmine would ordinarily choose. She preferred to model the glamorous garments.

"Aren't they sort of plain for you?"

"Not the way I'm going to use them," Yasmine purred, flashing a wicked grin.

"How's that?"

"Meet me at that old outdoor shower and I'll show you."

Well, her secret is out now, Claire thought sourly as she watched Yasmine strike a series of poses while Leon clicked off picture after picture, keeping his assistant juggling cameras, lenses, and lights.

Yasmine had discarded the pajama top altogether and rolled up the legs of the boxers until they fit tightly around her upper thighs at the crotch. She struck her first pose standing beneath the shower head with her back to the camera. Then she turned on the spout. Water sparkled on her mane of black hair. It glistened on her arms, which she used as gracefully as a ballerina to strike one stunning pose after another. Water trickled down her smooth back in silky rivulets. By now the boxer shorts were soaked and clinging to her taut buttocks. The fabric was plastered to hollows and curves that were sleek, sinuous, and sexy. She was in full command of her body. It was the machine she worked with and was conditioned to perform with optimum precision.

Claire wanted to protest the overt sexiness of the shots, as she had done about the model's prominent nipples the day before. But her motives for wanting to start an argument were different. The fact was, Yasmine looked like a work of art. Such perfection of form could never be labeled obscene. The image she created was erotic, yes, but not pornographic. It was a celebration of human sensuality, not propaganda for moral decay. And since a close-up of the pajamas would be shown in a small box photo beside the large one, Claire couldn't complain that the item would be misrepresented in the catalog.

Not everyone would look as spectacular as Yasmine did in the pajamas, but the fantasy of doing so would sell them by the thousands. Claire would no doubt be applauding Yasmine's inspiration like the rest of the crew were it not for Cassidy, who was gaping at Yasmine like a star-struck, sex-crazed adolescent.

Claire was hot, angry, nervous, distracted, and jealous, and it was all his fault. He was responsible for this unwelcome, juvenile resentment churning inside her.

She should order him to leave the set. But he would demand to know why, and if she said that he was bothering everybody, all the others would deny it, and that would be tantamount to admitting that his presence was aggravating only to her.

Yasmine was undeniably gorgeous, but Claire had never been jealous of her before. Yasmine cultivated her image of savage sexiness, which Claire had always found amusing if she thought of it at all. It certainly had never sparked envy. Yasmine was merely being Yasmine as she stretched and postured for the camera. She was in her element. She wasn't deliberately trying to entice Cassidy.

"You like it, Claire?" Yasmine called over her shoulder.

"Yes," she said dispassionately. "It's very nice."

Yasmine lowered her arms and turned around. She didn't bother to cover her bare breasts. "'Nice'? It's not supposed to be nice."

"What's it supposed to be?"

"Well for damn sure not nice. It's supposed to be attention-getting and arousing. It's supposed to sell these goddamn pajamas, which, frankly, I think are the most lackluster design you've ever come up with. They've got no style, no class, no nothing. I'm trying to put some zing into an item that otherwise would be a major flop."

Yasmine's speech was delivered with such antipathy that it silenced even Leon. A strained hush fell over the set. Even Rue, who collected sarcastic gems to toss out at the most inopportune times, smoked in silence while everyone else found something other than Claire and Yasmine to focus on. They'd heard them clash before, but never to this degree.

Claire's chest felt close to cracking from internal pressure, but she turned to Leon and asked calmly, "Have you got all the shots you need?"

"I think so. Unless you think we need more." He was being uncharacteristically obsequious and soft-spoken, as though afraid he might detonate an explosion.

"I trust your judgment, Leon."

"Then I'm finished."

"Okay. Thanks, everybody. That's it for today. See you at dinner."

Claire turned her back on them and headed for the house. She walked at a fast clip, wanting only to reach the cool, dim privacy of her room, where she could nurse her jealousy in solitude.

She had almost reached the veranda when Cassidy intercepted her. "Why did you do that?" Sweat had made the hair around his face damp. He looked as hot and short-tempered as she.

"I'm in no mood for one of your inquisitions, Cassidy."

"Answer me. Why did you let Yasmine get away with embarrassing you in front of everyone?"

"Yasmine embarrassed only herself. Now, get out of my way." She managed to get around him and made it up several steps before he blocked her path again.

"You didn't approve of erect nipples yesterday, but today Yasmine couldn't have looked more naked if she'd been naked. I don't get it."

"You're not supposed to."

"Why did one set of poses bother you and not the other?"

"Because there's a fine distinction between sensuality and overt titillation. I'm looking for shots that will excite without being offensive."

"You know from experience that it's purely subjective."

"Invariably. But I'm the first judge, and I've got excellent taste," she stated boastfully but confidently. "I trust my judgment on what's quality and what's questionable."

"Did you like Yasmine's poses?"

"I said I did, didn't I?"

"But you didn't sound as though you meant it, and everybody heard that, especially Yasmine."

"My job isn't to stroke Yasmine's ego."

"No, your job is to sell merchandise, and that shot will sell pajamas."

She blew a strand of hair off her forehead. "Is there a point to this, Cassidy?"

"You were suddenly uncomfortable with Yasmine's sensuality. Why?"

"Did you think she was sensual? I don't know why I'm even asking, when it was so apparent that you did. You were riveted." He gave her a strange and quizzical look, which only made her madder. "Well, weren't you?"

"I wasn't particularly mindful of my reaction," he said softly. "But obviously you were."

Claire, realizing that she was dangerously close to revealing too much, averted her head. "Is that all, Cassidy?"

"Not quite. What kind of relationship do you have with Yasmine that allows her to insult you like that? Anyone else would have come back with both barrels loaded."

"Yasmine attacks other people only when she's upset with herself. I understand that."

"She attacked you yesterday with that crack about Wilde. What gives? What reason does she have to be upset with herself?"

"None of your damn business." Executing a hasty sidestep, he parried her attempt to go around him. Seething, Claire glared up at him. "All right, I'll tell you this much. Yasmine is taking the van to New Orleans tonight to see her lover. She plans to return early tomorrow morning."

"Then what's the problem?"

"I think they might have quarreled the last time they were together."

Cassidy gazed at a point beyond her shoulder for a moment. "She's taking the van?"

"Hmm."

"Does she ever drive your car?"

"You're losing your touch, Cassidy." His eyes swung back to hers. "The reasoning behind that question is amateurish and transparent. You want to know if Yasmine was driving my car the night Jackson Wilde was murdered. You fail to recall that she was in New York that night and that I was driving my car."

He bore down on her. "I'm relieved that you remember that, Claire. I was beginning to think you'd forgotten that your car connects you to Wilde's murder."

"It appears to."

"Temporarily. Sooner or later a clue is going to mark you as a killer."

She shuddered, spoke low. "Excuse me. I'm going in now." She got through the front door without being apprehended, but he caught up with her in the foyer. He covered her hand where it rested on the balustrade.

"Claire, why do you do that? Why do you just turn your back and walk away when I make those kinds of allegations? Why don't you deny them?"

"Because I don't have to. I'm innocent until proven guilty, remember? I've got nothing to fear from you."

"The hell you don't." He leaned forward, straining the words through his teeth. "You can't continue to simply walk away. I didn't follow you to Mississippi on a whim, you know."

"Then why did you come here? Why impose yourself on me, why interfere with my work? To bully me about nonexistent affairs with Jackson Wilde? To try to place a wedge between Yasmine and me? Divide and conquer? Is that your current strategy?"

"No. I came because I had no choice. The evidence against you is no longer circumstantial. We've got something tangible in those carpet fibers. So far I've kept you from being formally arrested."

"Why?"

"Number one, because I don't want to look like a fool before the grand jury and get you no billed for lack of more solid evidence."

"And number two?"

The pendulum inside the grandfather clock swung back and forth, ponderously ticking off the seconds they spent staring at each other. Finally he replied, "Because I want to give you the benefit of the doubt. But Glenn and everybody else in a position of authority is getting antsy to close this case."

"They're responding to the ranting of a hysterical woman."

"Who happens to be pregnant."

Claire's breath left her body in an audible rush. "Pregnant?"

"Ariel Wilde collapsed last night during a prayer service in Kansas City. If you'd watched the news you would have seen it." There were no TVs in the guest rooms at Rosesharon. During a guest's stay, he was virtually incommunicado with the outside world unless he read the local newspaper, which carried very little national or world news.

Claire's head was spinning. "She's pregnant?"

"That's right," he said tersely. "That practically eliminates her as a suspect."

"Not necessarily."

"Not to you, maybe. Maybe not even to me. But to everybody else's way of thinking, she's off the hook. Which way do you think public sympathy will swing? To the lady epitomizing motherhood and goodness, or to the woman who publishes dirty pictures?"

"It might not be Jackson's child," Claire said, sounding desperate, like someone grasping at a lifeline. "It could be Josh's baby."

"I know that. And you know that. But Joe Average Citizen doesn't. All he sees on his color Panasonic is a saintly, weeping, pregnant widow, who looks like the last thing on her agenda would be adultery with her stepson and the cold-blooded murder of her husband.

"Be prepared, Claire. Ariel will play this for all it's worth. Twice you've experienced the kind of media manipulation she's capable of. The threat of libel suits doesn't faze her. She'll verbally paint the picture of an immoral, opportunistic monster taking her husband's life and imposing tragedy on her and her unborn baby. Because of the groundwork she's already laid, whose face do you think that monster will wear in the minds of most people?" He leaned down closer to her. "Are the grim implications of her pregnancy beginning to sink in?"

They weren't only sinking in-they had found a nesting place in the recesses of her heart where her deepest fears were lodged. It would be folly, however, to let Cassidy see that she was afraid. "What do you want from me?" she asked defiantly.

"A confession."

She made a scornful sound.

"Then, dammit, don't let me accuse you without putting up a fight. Stamp. Scream. Beat on my chest with your fists. Become outraged, incensed. Don't retreat behind that cool facade; it only makes you look guiltier. You can't remain aloof any longer, Claire. Fight back, for God's sake."

"I wouldn't lower my dignity to such a level."

"Dignity!" he bellowed. The features of his face turned stiff with rage. "Jail is undignified, Claire. So is a murder trial. So is life in prison." His breath fell hotly on her face. "Damn you, tell me my suspicions are wrong. Give me something absolute that will shoot down all the facts I have working against you."

"Until I'm indicted, I shouldn't have to worry about defending myself. The judicial procedure-"

"Screw procedure! Talk to me!"

"Mr. Cassidy?" The wavering voice came from Mary Catherine, who was hovering in the dining-room archway. "Why are you shouting at Claire? You're not going to take her away, are you?"