*"You look fabulous" Joshua Wilde breezed into Ariel's hospital room pushing a wheelchair. The nursing staff had informed him that she was dressed and waiting to be escorted outside, where a throng of journalists was clambering to take pictures and question her about this latest episode in her dramatic life. "Your chariot awaits, madam."

Ariel snapped the latches on her suitcase. "Is the chariot necessary?"

"Hospital policy. Besides, it has such a biblical ring."

She frowned at him over her shoulder.

Josh accepted her foul disposition with equanimity. He looked inordinately handsome and dashing this morning. As usual, he was wearing his chic clothing with flair and his hair was well groomed and shiny, one long wave dipping low over his brow. But there was an uncharacteristic spring in his step. The last few days of rest and relaxation had rejuvenated him.

Even though Ariel was still dressed in unrelieved mourning black, she looked remarkably attractive for someone just discharged from the hospital. A beautician had been brought in to shampoo and blow-dry her long platinum hair. She'd applied her own cosmetics and had purposefully failed to put cover-up over the faint shadows beneath her large blue eyes. The haunting effect would remind her adoring public just how grueling her recent ordeal had been.

She wasn't especially glad to see Josh and was determined not to share his cheerful mood. "You're grinning like a goose. What about?"

"Nothing," he replied pleasantly. "Just generally happy."

"While I've been cooped up in here, you must have spent the entire time playing the piano."

"Practically around the clock." He pilfered a banana from a lavish fruit basket, peeled it, and bit off a large chunk. "Didn't play one gospel tune, either."

"All that classical junk," she muttered, as she checked her reflection one last time in her compact mirror. "I'm almost glad I wasn't there to hear it."

"I sounded pretty good, if I do say so myself."

She closed her compact with an economic flick of her wrist and dropped it into her handbag. "Keep your fingers limber because in a few days you won't be playing for pleasure anymore. You'll be pounding out gospel again."

Josh's smile faltered. He tossed the banana peel onto her bedtray. "What do you mean 'in a few days'? The doctors said you should have total rest for at least another month."

"I don't care what they said. By the end of next week I want another prayer meeting scheduled. We had so much momentum going, then this." She slapped her stomach as though punishing the child she carried. "We've got to get back on track. The sooner the better. I don't intend to let up, until Cassidy, or whoever's in charge of the investigation now, puts somebody on trial for Jackson's murder.

"And that will be only the beginning. I plan to be present in the courtroom every day. The trial will be a hot news item for weeks, months. I want to be there for the duration. Visible. A tragic figure. I've got to make the most of the free publicity. Ready?"

While outlining her plans, she had been checking the bathroom, closet, and bureau drawers for anything she might have previously overlooked. Now she turned to Josh, who had remained quiet throughout her speech..

"Let me get this straight," he said tightly. "You haven't learned your lesson yet."

"I'm going to eat, all right? You can stop nagging me about that."

"But the bulimia was only half the problem, Ariel. You're going to drive yourself to the point of another collapse, is that the plan?"

"No, that's not the plan," she said with syrupy sweetness. "I don't intend to wind up in the hospital again, but I'm not going to retire from living just because I got a little overexerted and had a fainting spell."

"What about the baby?"

"What about it?"

"Is it mine?"

"No," she answered in a testy, clipped voice. "It's your dearly departed father's. He did this to me," she said, her eyes glinting with malice.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. You always use a rubber. He didn't. The son of a bitch."

"You didn't want a child?"

"Hell no! Do you think I'm crazy? Why would I want to have a kid and give up everything I've worked for?"

"But Daddy wanted a child."

"Oh naturally," she said caustically. "You know how he was. Him and his monstrous ego. He wanted a little Jackson Wilde Junior who mirrored him to a tee." She regarded Josh with contempt. "His first son had been such a disappointment."

Josh lowered his eyes to his long, slender, musician's hands; there was nothing he could say to refute the hateful truth.

"He'd been badgering me to have a kid," Ariel continued. "He said it would be good for our image and would strengthen the ministry. We'd be more popular than the First Family, he said.

"I kept putting him off, but, as always, the son of a bitch is having the last word. I'll bet he's having a good laugh on me right now." She glared down at the floor and stomped her foot, as though addressing her husband in hell. "I hate you, you bastard."

"When did you discover that you're pregnant, Ariel?"

She swung her hair over her shoulder and looked at her somber stepson. "I found out the night I collapsed, about an hour after they brought me here and examined me."

"You didn't know before then?"

She cocked her head, her eyes squinting shrewdly. "What are you getting at?"

"Did you suspect you were pregnant before Daddy ... died?"

She turned her back on him and reached for her handbag. "What difference does it make? He knocked me up. If he were alive, I'd be stuck with a kid. Fortunately, he's in no position to prevent me from losing it."

Josh spun her around so quickly that her neck audibly popped. "'Losing it'?"

She threw off his hands. "Don't be naive, Josh. If you think I'm going to give up my career as a televangelist for dirty diapers and strained beets, you've got another think coming. I don't want a kid. I never did." She smiled smugly. "This is one argument Jackson is going to lose."

"Have you thought about how unpopular you'd become among your faithful flock if word leaked out that you'd had an abortion?"

"I'm not that stupid," she snapped. "Anyone who's seen a TV in the past week knows that I collapsed from exhaustion and grief. Soon it will be duly reported that in spite of my pregnancy, I'm dedicated to fulfilling Jackson's mission and denouncing his enemies. I won't rest until I see his killer captured and punished.

"For a while, I'll use the pregnancy to my benefit. Tears will flow every time I talk about how thrilled Jackson would be to know that he'd left his living seed in my womb. Talk about having a biblical ring!" she added with a coarse laugh.

"I'll reference Abraham and Sarah and how God finally rewarded their faithfulness with a child. Then, in a few weeks, I'll grieve myself into a miscarriage. Think of the avalanche of public sentiment we'll gain then. "Robbed of her husband, robbed of her child, she courageously continues her crusade.'"

The fantasy caption made her eyes glow like blue flames. She glanced at Josh and laughed again. "Why, what's the matter, Josh? You look like you're about to blow chow."

"The thought of it makes me sick."

"Don't tell me you were excited about the baby. Is that why you've been so chipper lately? Did you fancy yourself a stand-in daddy for your little stepbrother?" She patted his cheek. "If you weren't so dumb, you'd be kind of cute."

He swatted her hand aside. "I'm not nearly as dumb as you mistakenly think, Ariel." With an irritable jerk of his head, he indicated the wheelchair. "Ready?"

"More than ready. But I'm walking, not riding." She reached for her suitcase.

"You shouldn't be carrying that."

"Why not? I'm anxious to free myself of Jackson's last shackle." Hoisting the heavy suitcase, she marched toward the door.

"It's open." Cassidy looked up from the mound of paperwork on his desk.

Detective Howard Glenn strolled in and nonchalantly plopped into a chair. "Welcome back."

"Thanks."

"How'd it go?"

"Just as I told you it probably would. Ms. Laurent cited that there are hundreds of cars like hers in this state, and she said that Yasmine has only a passing interest in voodoo. She's shown a fancy for several religions but isn't serious about any of them. One thing I did learn. Yasmine does have a mystery lover, but it wasn't Wilde. Her affair is currently on the skids. You might want to put a man on that."

"I'll do it. In the meantime, I've been checking out some other things."

"And?"

Glenn withdrew a small spiral notebook from the breast pocket of his tweed sports jacket. "So far-and I've still got a long way to go, mind you-I've got ten more very fishy parties that made contributions to Wilde's ministry. Substantial contributions."

"How substantial?"

"In the five-to twenty-five-thou range." He paused for Cassidy's reaction.

"I'm listening."

"Three of the ten own movie theaters of the triple x-rated variety. Two of them own and operate scummy bookstores. I've got two massage parlors and two titty bars." He shot Cassidy a man-to-man grin.

Cassidy remained unsmiling. "That's only nine. You said ten."

"There's a movie star that's generally thought to be the hottest thing in porno flicks since come shots."

Cassidy left his swivel desk chair and moved toward the windows. Pushing his hands into his pants pockets, he sightlessly stared outside. "Let me guess. After they made their 'offerings,' Wilde turned off the heat."

"I haven't had the manpower to verify that," Glenn said, "but that would be my first guess."

"Maybe Wilde had upped the price of his good graces and somebody didn't cotton to it."

"Maybe."

Cassidy turned around. "Were any of these people even remotely close to New Orleans the night he was killed?"

"Now you see, that's the bitch," the detective said, tugging thoughtfully on his earlobe. "They're scattered across the U.S. of A. None is really close to here."

"This city has an airport and a bus terminal, not to mention interstate highways."

"No need to get nasty, Cassidy."

"Sorry, but I'm in a nasty mood."

"You're entitled," Glenn said with an uncaring shrug. "Only the movie star claims to have ever visited New Orleans."

"When?"

"Long time ago. She was in Rome at the time of Wilde's murder."

"Rome, Italy?"

"That's the one."

"Does that check out?"

"She's got an Italian movie director who says she's been living with him in his villa since April."

A feeling of defeat settled over Cassidy with the weight of a chain mail. "I suggest you stay with it, Glenn. Tell your men to go over those lists a hundred times if necessary. Sift out anyone who doesn't fit the profile of a fundamental, Bible-thumping disciple."

"I agree," he said, roiling off his spine to stand. "But it's gonna take time."

Brows furrowed, Cassidy asked, "What about the corporate contributors?"

"I've run across a few. Nothing interesting."

"Let's keep checking them out, too. Who's behind the company name? A business is good protection if somebody wants to remain anonymous. Let's start with the corporations that have connections in the South, particularly here, and fan out from there."

The detective nodded and shuffled out. Cassidy would have liked to give him a swift kick in the butt to see if he would move any faster. Right now, however, he couldn't afford to alienate anyone. His allies were scarce. Office politics being what they were, no one wanted to be chummy with a loser. Whenever he approached the coffee machine, his co-workers scattered like spilled BBs.

Upon his return to the city, he had reported to Crowder that the trip to Mississippi had yielded nothing. The D.A. hadn't taken well to the bad news. He was out of patience, he told Cassidy. "And you're out of time. I want something concrete from you by the end of this week or you're off the case."

"Whoever you assign in my place will run up against the same brick walls, Tony, and he wouldn't work as well with Glenn."

"Maybe not."

"I'm used to him." Crowder's expression remained stony. Cassidy sighed. "Look, there's no physical evidence beyond a few carpet fibers that could have come off any one of ten thousand cars in this parish."

"One of which belongs to Claire Laurent, who had both motive and opportunity."

"But I can't put her inside that hotel suite with Wilde at the time of the murder."

"The fibers might be enough."

"No way in hell," Cassidy said, shaking his head stubbornly. "I'm not going before the grand jury until I've covered my ass."

Crowder glowered at him. "Just make damn certain it's your ass, and my ass, you're protecting and not Claire Laurent's."

The remark had made Cassidy mad enough to smash Crowder's face with his fists. Instead, however, he had stormed from Crowder's office. There had been no communication between them since, and that had been two days ago. The hours were ticking off.