"No, ma'am."

She was taken directly to Tony Crowder's office. The outer area seemed to have suffered no adverse effects from the chaos that had taken place there the day before. Secretaries were at their desks, going about their business. Crowder's personal secretary stood as they approached. She held open the door for Claire and closed it behind her immediately, leaving her alone with the district attorney.

He was seated behind his desk. His expression was grave. Annoyance showed in his eyes. Brusquely he said, "Good morning, Ms. Laurent."

"Good morning."

"Would you like some coffee?"

"No, thank you."

"Sit down." Once she was seated in the chair he indicated, he said, "I apologize for what happened in this office yesterday afternoon."

"I was partially responsible, Mr. Crowder."

"But your safety was placed in jeopardy. That's inexcusable. We beefed up the security this morning."

"I noticed. I also want to thank you for posting policemen at French Silk. Although my business no longer has a future, I'd hate for it to be destroyed by vandals."

"That was Cassidy's idea."

"I see," she said softly. "I must remember to thank him."

"He's due here in a matter of minutes. Don't ask me why."

"You don't know?"

"Haven't a clue. He called before I was even out of bed this morning and arranged this meeting." He clasped his hands on the edge of his desk and leaned toward her. "Ms. Laurent, did you kill Jackson Wilde?"

"Yes."

"With your friend's gun?"

"Yes."

"How long has Cassidy known this for fact?"

The door behind her opened with gust of air and a blast of energy that was palpable. She quickly turned. Cassidy's stride was long and confident as he advanced into the office. His hair had been washed and neatly combed. He had shaved recently. His dark suit was wrinkle-free from the fitted vest hugging his torso to the hem of his trousers that broke the vamp of his shoes in exactly the right spot.

"Good morning, Tony."

Claire was taken aback. She didn't know this Cassidy. This wasn't the Cassidy who had made love to her with matching degrees of tenderness and fervency, who whispered words of passion in her ear while his body moved within hers, who had touched her in ways, both emotionally and physically, that no one else ever had. This Cassidy was a stranger.

"Good morning, Claire."

His voice was the same. His handsome features were dear and beloved to her. It was the well-tailored suit that put her off. That bureaucratic uniform had made him her adversary from the moment he walked in the door.

"Good morning, Mr. Cassidy," she replied in a husky undertone.

"Can I get either of you some coffee before we begin?"

"Forget the coffee," Crowder said crossly. "What's this about? As a courtesy, shouldn't Glenn be in on this?"

"He's otherwise occupied. I'll get to that later." Cassidy wasted no time but came straight to the point. "Claire's confession was phony. She didn't kill Jackson Wilde."

"Oh for Christ's sake!" Crowder exploded. "She sat right there not thirty seconds before you breezed in here and admitted to me that she did."

"She's lying." Cassidy looked down at Claire with a trace of a smile. "She has a bad habit of that."

"She appears to be in full control of her faculties. Why would she confess to a felony homicide she didn't commit?" Crowder demanded to know.

"To protect someone else from prosecution."

"That's not true!" Claire exclaimed.

"She says that's not true," Crowder echoed. "Bear with me, Tony," Cassidy said. "Give me five minutes."

"I'm counting."

"Last night I had Claire re-create the crime for me."

"Without a lawyer present? Jesus." Crowder dragged his hands down his face.

"Just shut up and listen," Cassidy said impatiently. "Claire waived her right to have an attorney present, but it doesn't matter. She didn't kill Wilde. She wasn't even there."

"You mean at the murder scene?"

"That's exactly what I mean." He fished something from his breast pocket and handed it to Claire. "Read the part that's underlined."

"What is it?" Crowder asked.

"It's a portion of the press release we issued to the media the morning following the murder."

Claire scanned the underlined sentences. They described the scene of the crime. "I don't understand."

"The statement is inaccurate," Cassidy told her. "Deliberately so. I planted a bogus fact to weed out the crazies and chronic confessors who invariably surface after a sensational murder."

Claire's heart began to beat hard against her ribs. She reread the sentences, frantically trying to pinpoint which detail might be a decoy.

Cassidy bent over her chair and lowered his voice. "Last night when you recounted the murder, you quoted this almost verbatim, Claire. You got your facts from the newspaper, not from the scene itself."

"I was there. I killed him."

"If that's so, then show me the discrepancy," he challenged.

"I-"

"You can't, can you?"

"No. Yes." She groped blindly for a way out. "I can't remember every little detail."

"You remembered them last night."

"You're confusing me."

"You're confusing me, too, Cassidy," Crowder said. "If she said she did it, she did it."

"You just want to end this thing," Cassidy shouted.

"And you want to continue sleeping with Ms. Laurent."

"Damn you, Tony!"

"Then deny it!"

"I can't. I don't even want to. But whether I'm sleeping with her or not, do you want to sentence a woman to life imprisonment for something she didn't do?"

The question momentarily silenced Crowder, although he continued to fume. Cassidy knelt in front of Claire and covered her hands where they were tightly clenched in her lap.

"Claire, last night you said that when you stood at the foot of Wilde's bed, you noticed his Rolex wristwatch lying on top of his Bible on the nightstand. You said the symbolism of that made you sick."

"Wait! It wasn't a Rolex. It was an expensive wristwatch, but it might not have been a Rolex. I've never placed much importance on labels, so when I said 'Rolex' I meant it in a generic sense. After I read the newspaper accounts, it probably stuck in my mind that his watch was a Rolex."

"So now you're saying that the watch lying on top of the Bible wasn't a Rolex?"

"It might have just looked like one to me."

A smile spread slowly across Cassidy's face. "It was a Rolex, all right. But there was no Bible."

Claire gasped softly.

Crowder grunted.

Cassidy leaned in closer to her. "Claire, you didn't kill Jackson Wilde, did you? Before yesterday, you had dozens of opportunities to confess."

"But I never denied it, did I? Think back. You accused me of it repeatedly, but I never once denied it."

"In principle. That's like you. It's also like you to confess in order to protect someone else."

"No," she said, shaking her head. "I killed him."

"You've got to trust me. For once, dammit, you've got to trust me enough to tell the truth."

She tried to concentrate only on the earnestness in his voice and the compelling facets of his eyes, but what he represented blocked out everything else. He reminded her of the social workers who had claimed to be doing what was best for little Claire Louise. They had asked for her trust even while dragging her from Aunt Laurel's house with her mother screaming and in tears.

"Claire, do you love me?"

Tears spilled over her eyelids and ran down her cheeks, but she refused to answer him because the truth might trap her.

"You can't really love me if you can't trust me. You were right last night, you know. I could never have made love to you if I were convinced you were the killer. But I'm convinced that you're not. I swear to you that everything will turn out all right if you'll tell me the truth now."

The words wanted to be spoken. They were dammed up in her throat. But she was afraid. By telling him the truth, she would be entrusting her life to him. More important, she'd be entrusting the life of one she loved to him. Those one loved were more important than the truth, weren't they? People were more valuable than ideals. People were more valuable than anything.

"Claire." He squeezed her fingers until the bones ached. "Trust me," he whispered urgently. "Trust me. Did you kill Jackson Wilde?"

She was perched on a precipice and he was urging her take a leap into the unknown. If she loved him, she had to believe that her landing would be gentle and safe. If she loved him, she had to trust him.

And looking into his face, she knew unequivocally that she loved him.

"No, Cassidy," she said, her voice cracking emotionally. "I did not."

His tension snapped. His head dropped forward between his shoulders, and he remained bent over their clasped hands for several silent moments. Finally Crowder asked, "Why did you confess to a murder you didn't commit, Ms. Laurent?"

Cassidy raised his head. "She was protecting her mother."

"No!" Claire's wide, disbelieving eyes followed him as he stood up. "You said-"

"Everything will be all right, Claire," he said, touching her cheek. "But I have to tell Tony everything you told me last night."

Claire hesitated, then nodded. Cassidy turned to Crowder and bluntly stated, "Jackson Wilde was Claire's father."

Crowder listened in stunned, absorbed silence while Cassidy related the story of Mary Catherine's seduction and abandonment by the sidewalk preacher Wild Jack Collins.

"As the investigation progressed, Claire came to believe that in a lucid moment, Mary Catherine had recognized Wilde and connived to kill him. Her suspicions were confirmed when we determined that Yasmine's .38 had been the murder weapon. Mary Catherine had access to it, and she sometimes 'borrows' things and later replaces them." He told Crowder about the incident with his fountain pen at Rosesharon.

"Yesterday Claire was afraid I would remember that and put two and two together, just as she had, so she quickly confessed to throw me off track."

Crowder exhaled a deep breath and leaned back in his chair. He fixed his most intimidating frown on Claire. "Is Cassidy's assumption correct?"

She glanced up at Cassidy, who gave her a terse nod. Trusting him came more easily this time. She reached for his hand. He firmly clasped hers.

"Yes, Mr. Crowder," she admitted quietly. "Shortly after the murder, Yasmine mentioned to me that her gun had been missing but had mysteriously reappeared. That was when it first occurred to me that Mama might have taken it, used it, then replaced it. She had been in the Fairmont Hotel that night and showed more than a passing interest in the news stories about Jackson Wilde and the murder case."

"But you didn't tell Cassidy any of this."

"No. In fact, each time Ariel Wilde brought my mother's name up, I panicked. I was afraid that someone, particularly Mr. Cassidy, might discover that Jackson Wilde was her long lost lover, which would certainly provide her with motivation to kill him. I thought of taking legal action to silence Mrs. Wilde, but was advised by an attorney that litigation would only spark more interest. I wanted to avoid that at all costs."

"You could be charged with obstruction of justice."

"I would protect my mother with my dying breath, Mr. Crowder. She poses no threat to the rest of society, and I don't sit in judgment of her for taking her revenge on Wild Jack Collins."

"You figured that after a while Cassidy would give up, call off the investigation, and the case would go unsolved."

"I was hoping that's the way it would be."

"What if we'd convicted somebody else?"

"It would never have happened. You had no evidence."