Sam kept pace with him, but even with her long-legged strides it wasn't easy in high heels, and she cursed herself for wearing them today, of all days.

In the car, McCord put his emergency light on the dashboard and slammed the car into gear.

CHAPTER 67.

Once Leigh had publicly announced two nights ago that she was having dinner with Michael, the number of reporters hanging around outside her building, hoping for something inflammatory to print, dropped abruptly. She'd handed them their inflammatory story and they were running with it.

There were only two reporters huddling in their coats outside the lobby windows when Joe O'Hara pulled the limo to a stop at five P.M. , but he escorted her inside anyway.

"Hey, Leigh!" Courtney Maitland called, rushing inside right behind her.

When Leigh turned to talk to her, O'Hara touched Leigh's elbow and said, "Hilda has some things she needs me to pick up. I'll go on upstairs, get her list, and run her errands so I can get back in time to take you to the theater at six-thirty. Is Mr.

Valente going to ride with us?"

"No, he's going to come later from his place. I have to be at the theater at seven, and there's no point in him waiting around there before the show starts.

Jason Solomon will only make both of us crazy. He's in rare form today. Oh, and, Joe-" Leigh called a moment later as he headed around the potted trees in the lobby toward the elevators. "I have a ticket for you tonight, too."

He grinned at her and saluted, and Leigh turned to talk to Courtney, who was wearing an oversize coat that looked as if it came from a thrift store and a long red wool scarf that dropped below her hem.

"I'm absolutely going to use Michael Valente as the subject of my interview,"

Courtney explained in a rush. "Do you think you could get him to talk to me about really important things? I mean, I've already got some good personal stuff about him, but it's mostly from eavesdropping and playing cards with him that one night. I'd like to write about the man he is instead of the way other people see him..."

Upstairs, Joe turned his key in the lock of the apartment's side door and walked into the kitchen. "Hilda?" he called, surprised that the apartment was dark. "Hilda?" he said, walking down the hallway that led to her room. He tapped on her door. "If you want me to do your errands, you'd better give me your list."

When she didn't answer his knock, O'Hara headed back into the kitchen, then through it, turning on lights as he went. He flipped on the dining room chandelier and saw the housekeeper's p.r.o.ne form near the table, blood seeping from her head into the carpet. "Hilda. Oh, no!-" Bending down, he felt for a pulse; then he straightened and ran into the kitchen. He picked up the phone and pressed nine-one-His entire body seemed to explode with a pain radiating from his chest. With a groan, Joe O'Hara slid down the wall, clutching the receiver while the world turned black.

LEIGH put her key in the front door, opened it, and walked into the living room, pausing to hang her coat in the closet. Anxious to lie down for a few minutes before she showered and got ready to leave for the theater, she headed directly to her bedroom.

The bed was already turned down, Leigh noticed as she walked into the bedroom from the hallway. Hilda never forgot anything, she thought with a smile, including Leigh's habit of grabbing a late afternoon catnap when she was performing. Intending to undress and put on a robe, she walked past the bed and glanced ahead of her at the large mirror above her dressing table. A woman was coming toward her in the mirror, a woman who was wearing the same red dress and ruby pendant Leigh had worn to her party. Except the woman was standing behind her, raising a heavy stone vase...

CHAPTER 68.

Jason Solomon was berating a stagehand when he saw Sam and McCord heading swiftly down the aisle toward him, and he turned his ire on them. "What the h.e.l.l is the matter with you people?" he burst out, stalking toward the front of the stage. "Haven't you ever heard of making an appointment? It's polite, it's-"

"Where is Jane Sebring?" McCord interrupted sharply.

"How the h.e.l.l would I know? She's probably at home."

"She's not at home. We just came from there. What time does she usually get here?"

"About now, usually, but I fired her this morning. G.o.d, what a day this is turning out to be! I've got sound problems and a curtain going up in an hour and a half."

"Shut up and listen," McCord snapped. "Where's Sebring's dressing room?"

"This way-" Solomon said, startled and resentful.

Sebring's things were still in her dressing room, but she wasn't there. "Was she upset when you fired her?" Sam asked. "I mean, did she expect it or did it surprise her?"

" 'Upset'?" Jason repeated sarcastically. "She was demented. That is one lunatic woman," he added, walking toward a tiny office at the end of the hall with Sam and McCord right beside him.

"Why did you fire her?" Sam persisted. "She had good reviews."

"I fired her because Leigh Kendall wouldn't appear on the same stage with her, and who can blame Leigh for that?"

"Did Jane Sebring know that was why you were firing her?" McCord asked impatiently.

"Yes, of course. I explained the situation to her agent on the phone this morning when I started negotiating the buyout on her contract. The guy's a vulture; he-"

"If you fired her through her agent," Sam interrupted, "how do you know she was 'demented' about it?"

"Because she showed up here today, right after Leigh left to go to Valente's office and then home for a rest." Solomon stopped in front of his desk and turned to face them as he added, "I told Jane to clear her stuff out of Leigh's dressing room, but she left everything and ran out of here. The woman's crazy."

"What time was that?" McCord asked.

"What the h.e.l.l difference does-" Solomon broke off and backed around his desk as McCord took one long step toward him. "Between three and four, I think."

"Get Leigh Kendall on the phone," McCord snapped. "Call her at whatever number you use to reach her."

"Can't you people just wait here until-"

McCord leaned across his desk, grabbed the telephone, and shoved it toward him. "Call her!"

There was no answer at the first number Solomon called, so he tried two others. "That's odd," he said worriedly as he hung up. "No one is answering Leigh's home phones, and she didn't answer her cell phone either."

"Did she happen to give you a cell phone number for Valente today?"

"Yes. How did you-"

"What is it?"

Solomon searched through papers scattered on the top of his desk, and found what he was looking for. "Leigh said I wasn't to give this number to anyone-"

he began; then he looked at McCord's ominous expression and rattled off the number so Sam could write it down. "Where are you going?" he called, following both detectives as they ran down the hall. "Leigh is probably with Valente. They're in love, you know-"

CHAPTER 70.

Outside on the street, McCord tossed the car keys to Sam and slid into the pa.s.senger seat. He was on the radio, calling the surveillance car a.s.signed to Leigh Manning, when Sam started the engine and turned on their emergency light and siren.

"Where are you?" McCord asked when the surveillance officer answered his radio call.

"Outside Manning's apartment building, Lieutenant. She got home a little before five, hung around in the lobby talking to a teenage girl for a little while; then she went upstairs."

"Do you know who Jane Sebring is? "

"The movie star who did the nude scene in that-"

"Yes, right," McCord interrupted. "Has she gone into Manning's building since Mrs. Manning went upstairs?"

"No, and I'd have seen her. I've got a good line of vision right to the front doors."

"If you see Sebring, pick her up. She's A and D." The surveillance officer took the warning seriously but was also delighted. "I'll have to frisk her twice, then-you know, once to see if she's armed, and once to see if she's dangerous."

"Just keep your eyes open," McCord warned shortly.

"Speaking of that, there's a guy who keeps showing up in a cab wherever Mrs. Manning goes. He's hanging around the building right now with a bouquet of flowers."

"Pick him up. She had a stalker; maybe this is the guy. More importantly, stay close to Leigh Manning if she goes anywhere."

"Yes, sir. But she's not going anywhere tonight-at least, not with her maniac chauffeur at the wheel."

"Why is that?"

"Because they towed her limo away a little while ago."

Sam felt the same tremor of alarm that tightened McCord's jaw at the news of the limo being towed away, however, she couldn't spare him more than a glance when he put the radio down. Traffic was thick and vehicles were moving aside to let hers through, but she was squeezing swiftly through tight s.p.a.ces with scarcely an inch to spare on either side.

"I'm going to have Shrader and Womack meet us there," McCord said, reaching for his cell phone.

It rang in his hand as he pulled it out of his jacket pocket, and he turned up the volume so he could hear above the wailing siren. Michael Valente's deep, tense voice vibrated with enough angry force to carry to Sam's ears. "Solomon just called me and said you were at the theater looking for Sebring and trying to phone Leigh. She's not answering my calls, either. What's happening?"

McCord drew in a long breath, hesitating. "Where are you?"

"Answer my f.u.c.king question. What's happening?"

"We're on our way to Mrs. Manning's apartment right now," McCord explained in a calm, matter-of-fact voice. "Sheila Winters was shot this afternoon in her office. We think Jane Sebring killed her and Manning, too.

We're trying to find her. She knows Solomon fired her because Mrs. Manning wouldn't work with her, and Sebring was-very overwrought."

"Jesus Christ!" Valente exploded, correctly translating "overwrought" to crazed and probably violent. "I'm on my way to Leigh's right now. Where are you?"

McCord told him, and Valente said, "I'm closer, I'll be there before you are."

"You can't move through traffic as quickly as we're doing, but if you get there first, wait for us in the lobby!" McCord warned him.

Valente didn't bother to reply. "O'Hara is with her and he's armed-" he said, grasping at hope.

"The limo was towed away a little while ago," McCord said tightly. "I repeat -do not go up to that apartment until we get there." He took the phone away from his ear after a moment and began punching in Shrader's number. "Valente hung up on me," he told Sam.

Sam nodded, slammed down on the accelerator, and then hit the brake, cutting diagonally across an intersection and skidding around the corner in a perfectly executed maneuver that drew a grim laugh from McCord, who was waiting for Shrader to answer his call.

"Where are you?" he asked Shrader, and then he filled him in on what was happening. When McCord disconnected the call, he said, "Shrader and Womack will be about ten minutes behind us."

CHAPTER 71.

At the edge of Leigh's consciousness, an odd humming sound blended with a hammering in her skull, the ringing of telephones, and the sensation of being paralyzed. Nausea rolled in her stomach, rising to her throat, and she swallowed hard, forcing her eyelids open, automatically searching for something to focus on to steady her reeling senses.

Her eyelids seemed to work, but what Leigh saw in front of her open eyes had no meaning to her. Her entire field of vision was obstructed by two similar hues of cream; one of them seemed to be flat and horizontal, the other vertical and wavy.

She blinked repeatedly, trying to refocus, and in the process she became aware of the different textures of the two shades. The horizontal cream color against her cheek was rough... carpet. The vertical, wavy cream color was...

fabric... like... the dust ruffle on her bed? She was evidently lying on the floor beside her bed with her hands behind her back. She tried to move her hands, but they seemed to be bound at the wrists, and her legs seemed to be stuck together at the ankles.

Lifting her head with an effort, Leigh turned her face in the opposite direction, and the sight she beheld made her senses swim. Jane Sebring was sitting at the dressing table, wearing the red dress Leigh had worn to her opening-night party. The actress was humming and putting on Leigh's lipstick, but it was smeared grotesquely around her mouth and partially over her cheeks.

Strewn across the floor near her feet were the slashed remains of several of Leigh's other dresses.

Lying on the table, near her left elbow, was a gun.

Sebring glanced down and saw Leigh's face reflected in the wide, lighted mirror above the dressing table. "You're awake!" she exclaimed. "You're awake.

My audience is awake..."

Leigh snapped her eyes shut.