"No, no, no, don't pretend you're sleeping... "

Leigh kept her eyes closed, and heard the upholstered stool at the dressing table squeak a little as Sebring whirled it around and stood up. "Wake up, you b.i.t.c.h!" she snarled close to Leigh's ear; then she grabbed a fistful of Leigh's hair and nearly jerked it out by the roots. "That's much better," she exclaimed, her garish red mouth parted into a smile in front of Leigh's terrified eyes. In her other hand Sebring was holding a pair of long, sharp scissors.

"Let me help you sit on the bed. I don't like my audiences to fall asleep," she said, jerking hard on Leigh's hair to "help" Leigh slide awkwardly onto the bed.

In the process, Sebring's scissors cut a searing path across Leigh's upper arm, but Leigh scarcely felt it. Fear, the greatest natural anesthetic, was pumping wildly through her veins. Her feet were bound with one of her silk scarves; the binding at her wrists seemed to be another scarf, but very tight.

"Your blood matches my dress," Sebring said, looking at the blood oozing from Leigh's cut. She rubbed her fingers on Leigh's wound and smeared some of Leigh's blood onto her own arm.

Every nerve ending in Leigh's body was screaming in terror, but her mind was snapping into focus, searching wildly for explanations and solutions.

Somehow, she had to stall until Joe or Hilda or someone came looking for her.

Trying to keep her voice steady, she said, "What are you doing, Jane?"

"I'm getting ready to go to the theater, of course," Sebring said, studying Leigh's face. "You look pale. You need lipstick." She sauntered over to the dressing table, picked up a lipstick tube, and carried it over to Leigh. Leigh jerked her face away, and Sebring didn't seem to mind. With the barrel of the lipstick clenched in her fist, she rammed it at the side of Leigh's face, rubbing it hard while she promised between her teeth, "Before too long, I am going to cut you into little pieces. I'm just marking my starting place."

She stepped back and surveyed her work; then she sauntered back to the dressing table and sat down. Holding the scissors in her right hand, she studied Leigh intently in the mirror; then she lifted up a fistful of her long red hair and chopped it off at shoulder length-like Leigh's. "Logan loved me," she informed Leigh. "We found that mountain cabin together one day. He wanted to leave you, but that b.i.t.c.h shrink talked him out of it." Tipping her head to one side, then the other, she studied the effect of her garish, one-sided hairstyle while she asked Leigh conversationally, "Would you like to know what your husband was doing just before he died?"

Her question sent a shudder through Leigh's entire body. Swallowing a surge of bile, she forced the word out. "Yes."

"He was making love to me on your sleeping bag in front of the fireplace. I surprised him at the cabin with a bottle of wine, and we drank it together and made love. And then-" She picked up the scissors and made another vicious a.s.sault on her hair. "-that spineless' b.a.s.t.a.r.d told me he was finished with me for good. He told me I had to leave because she was coming to the cabin."

"Who was coming?" Leigh asked in a shaking whisper.

Sebring put down the scissors and opened a small compact with eye shadow.

Dabbing a small brush on the eye shadow, she leaned a little closer to the mirror and put a slash of jade green across one eyelid. "Sheila Winters," she said as if Leigh should have been able to figure that out. "And after telling me that, he thought he could just drive me up to the road in his car and send me off in mine." Laughing softly, she put another slash of green on her other eyelid. "You should have seen his face when I pulled his gun out from under my seat and pointed it at him."

Leigh's body shifted as she began working frantically at the tight knot on the scarf binding her hands together. "How-how did you know it was there?"

"He showed it to me once," she said, putting the eye shadow down and studying the other colors she'd scattered on the table. "He didn't think I'd know how to use it. If he'd really been a big fan of my films, like he said he was, he'd have seen me using guns in them. He was such a liar," she hissed furiously.

The knot in the scarf wouldn't budge, and Leigh was losing control of her terror. When she'd first seen the gun on the dressing table, she hadn't completely believed Jane Sebring was capable of using it... hadn't wanted to believe it, but now she knew better. She darted a glance over her shoulder to the doorway on her right. Soon, Joe or Hilda would come looking for her, but if either one of them walked more than two steps into the bedroom, Sebring would see them in the dressing table mirror.

"Are you hoping to be rescued?" Sebring purred, watching her in the mirror.

Leigh snapped her gaze forward.

"No one will come," she said with another grotesque smile. "They're dead.

Your fat maid is dead, and so is your driver."

Tears sprang to Leigh's eyes, and she blinked hard, her fingernails shoving against the knot at her wrists.

"So is your friend Sheila."

"Sheila is dead?" Leigh repeated hoa.r.s.ely, trying to keep Sebring talking.

"Logan and she were blackmailing her patients," Sebring confided with absolute certainty.

"Logan told you that?"

"No, Sheila did, just before I shot her. People will tell you anything you want to know when you're pointing a gun at them," she sneered. "Though she did say she hadn't been having an affair with Logan, but she was lying, trying to save her own skin."

"How d-do you know she was lying?"

Sebring heard the heightened terror in Leigh's voice, and she smiled as she leaned forward to add some blue eye shadow above the green. "Are you getting scared now? You should be scared, you know. I'm going to kill you, too. And then," she added with a smile as she picked up the scissors and hacked another inch off the right side of her hair, "I'm going to go to the theater and take your place."

"How do you know Sheila was lying-about having an affair with Logan?"

Leigh persisted desperately.

"Because," she enunciated silkily, "Logan admitted they were having one.

And then," she finished, "I blew his brains out!"

CHAPTER 72.

Three blocks from Leigh Manning's apartment, McCord radioed the officers in the surveillance car to meet him inside the main entrance and to have an elevator waiting. Sam found a slot in traffic, cut the siren, and screeched to a stop in front of the building.

As they raced across the sidewalk, a dark Bentley screamed to a stop and Valente got out of it, running.

He was closing the distance when they charged into the building. McCord shouted to the security guard to call EMS and have them standing by in the lobby, and Valente made it to the elevator as the doors were starting to close, his face white and taut. "Wait down here," McCord ordered him.

"In your dreams," Valente snapped, shoving between the doors and digging a key out of his pocket.

Instead of arguing, McCord gave instructions to the two surveillance officers as he unsnapped his holster and pulled the Glock out. "There's a private elevator lobby on the Manning floor. Don't let anybody on or off the floor. There are two employees, a man and a woman, who aren't answering the phone in the apartment. Once we've had a look inside and know what we're up against, you can start looking for the employees, but stay out of our way."

He looked at Valente then. "You know the apartment layout. What is it?"

"Living room and dining room open to view from the front door," Valente answered grimly. "Kitchen and servants' quarters to the far left. Master bedroom on the far right, down a long hallway."

"Give me the apartment key," McCord said firmly as the elevator slowed to a stop.

Valente ransomed the key, holding it above McCord's open palm: "I'm coming in right behind you."

Sam expected McCord to argue, but he evidently realized it was pointless. He nodded curtly. "Stay back out of our way."

Valente dropped the key into his hand.

At the apartment door, McCord silently slipped the key into the lock and put his ear to the door, listening for voices, while Sam pressed against the wall, her shoes off, her gun high. "Ready?" he asked softly.

Sam nodded.

The door opened noiselessly into the foyer. Beyond it, the living room spread oat in darkness except for the light coming from the chandelier in the dining room on the left and from the kitchen beyond it.

They moved into the foyer, using the wall on the right for cover while they listened for any sound to tell them what direction to go. Sam spotted the maid's body lying near the dining room table, and nudged McCord, drawing his attention to it; then she lifted her arm, signaling to the surveillance officer standing in the doorway to check there as soon as they'd cleared the area.

McCord moved silently down the foyer stairs and started to the left, toward the dining room and kitchen, but Valente grabbed Sam's arm in a vise grip and pointed to the right. He knew the apartment's sounds and shadows better than they did, and the almost imperceptible light on the far right was significant to him. Sam didn't argue with his knowledge. She moved close to McCord and gestured over her shoulder.

Valente was already halfway to the hallway at the far end of the living room when they caught him and moved in front of him. By then, Sam could also make out a woman's voice, very muted and soft, coming from an open doorway on the left, at the end of the hall.

McCord slid along the wall, flattened to it, until he was close enough to the open doorway to peer around it; then he moved swiftly to the other side of it. He signaled Sam and Michael that Leigh had seen him, and Sam moved into position at the center of the doorway, but far enough back to cover McCord when he swung around the doorframe and into the room. She sensed, rather than saw Valente's presence on her left and slightly forward, but she was concentrating on keeping her hands steady and listening for Sebring's voice so she could judge the target's location and gauge the angle of her shot if she needed to take one.

McCord held up three fingers, indicating a rush into the bedroom on the count of three; then he started the countdown. One finger up-Two fingers up-"It's time for me to leave for the theater now," Sebring said to Leigh as she walked out of the bedroom closet wearing one of Leigh's coats. She stopped at the dressing table, picked up the gun, and pointed it straight at Leigh.

McCord stopped the countdown, thinking their target was going to walk out into range.

Leigh had caught a glimpse of McCord, but she didn't know if he'd be able to save her, so she tried desperately to save Michael while she still could. "Jane, please," she begged shakily, "tell me again that you killed Logan. That's all I ask.

I want to die hearing you tell me that! "

It hit Michael exactly what Leigh was doing-and what was about to happen in that bedroom. As Littleton moved toward the open doorway, Michael let out a bellow of rage and hurtled forward, making himself a target as he launched himself horizontally at the bed, knocking Leigh over onto her back, covering her with his body while shots, and shouts, and a scream exploded in his ears.

He stayed there until he heard McCord call out to the other cops. "Clear!

We're clear in here!"; then he eased up onto his elbows while one of the cops shouted back. "We've got vital signs on the man and woman out here, and EMS is on their way up right now."

Leigh's head was turned to the side, and her pale cheek was smeared with red.

Her eyes were closed and she wasn't moving! Fear choked Michael's voice to a ragged whisper. "Leigh?"

Her eyes flickered open and focused on his face-eyes like wet zircons, shimmering with tears. Michael was so relieved, so utterly, overwhelmingly relieved, that he couldn't think of anything to say, so he moved her onto her side and unbound her wrists; then he eased her onto her back again and gazed down into the eyes he had loved from the first moment he saw them.

Leigh looked at his ravaged face and slid her arms around his neck, her fingers stroking the short hair at his nape. "Hi," she whispered with a teary smile. "How was your day, today?"

Michael dropped his forehead onto hers, his shoulders shaking with laughter, his eyes blurred with tears of relief. "The usual," he managed to mumble after a few moments. "But it's looking better."

Near the doorway, Sam slumped against the wall, her gun hanging loosely from her hand, her face averted from Jane Sebring's body. Looking at corpses and then hunting down the killers was her job. It was a service she performed...

but, oh, G.o.d, it was another thing entirely to know she'd done the killing.

McCord had needed to enter the room at an angle from around the doorframe, but Sam had had a straight shot, and she'd taken it the instant Sebring fired.

Around the corner on her right, McCord finished checking Sebring's body for vital signs; then he stood up and walked over to Sam. "Miss Sebring won't be making any more appearances anywhere," he told her quietly. "Nice shot, Sam."

"It would have been hard to miss her," Sam said grimly, lifting her eyes to his.

"She was only ten feet away."

He understood the bruised look in them and slid his hand around her nape, pulling her face to his chest and sliding his arm around her waist. "I can only think of one heartfelt, rea.s.suring thing to say at a moment like this," he whispered.

"What?"

"Better her than me."

Sam smiled a little.

"Everyone feels this way the first time," he added somberly. "With a little luck, it will be your last time."

It was at that moment that Shrader trotted into the room and stopped cold, taking in the scene with a puzzled grin. "You guys having a shootout in here or an orgy?" he asked, looking from Leigh's tied ankles to McCord's arm around Littleton's back. "I see bondage and some evidence of S and M. What I don't see is a victim. Anybody seen a victim lying around?"

"Over there," McCord said mildly.

Shrader caught his tone and correctly a.s.sumed Sam had fired the fatal shot.

He strolled around the corner, walked over to Sebring's body, and gave a low whistle as he looked at the victim's face. "Wow! Talk about your bad hair days!"

He walked back over to Sam, who was standing on her own now, and patted her shoulder, offering his own kind of comfort for what he knew she was feeling. "Listen, Littleton, you did her a favor. She wouldn't have wanted to go on living with that haircut she's got."

When Sam smiled, he turned to the bed, where Michael Valente was untying Leigh's ankles. "Good evening, Mr. Valente," he said politely. "Good evening, Mrs. Manning."

Valente ignored him, but Leigh was anxious to foster good relations with the police for Michael in the future. "Good evening, Detective Shrader," she said.

"How are you?"

"I'm pretty good. You'll be happy to hear that the boys downstairs picked up your stalker. He's volunteered to go for treatment, but we're going to check him out before we release him."

Satisfied with his visit to the crime scene, Shrader sauntered through the doorway with his hands in his pockets; then he leaned back inside and said, "By the way, the chauffeur had a flesh wound and a heart attack, but the paramedics said he's in pretty decent shape. The housekeeper's got a concussion for sure, and she's a little short on blood, but they're giving her a fill-up on the way to the hospital."

Leigh slid off the bed and stood up unsteadily, keeping her face turned away from Jane Sebring's body. "I'll go with them to the hospital," she told Michael.

"Yes, you will," Michael said emphatically, putting his arm around her as they started down the hall, "and while you're there, you'll have some X rays, too."

"Women who are probably pregnant have to be very careful about X rays,"

Leigh told him.

Michael grinned, but shook his head. "Isn't it a little too soon for you to know that?"

"It would be a little too soon for other women, but not for me."

"Why?"

She shook her head and smiled. "Because you're-you."

"In that case," he said after a split second's thought, "we need to move the wedding date closer."

She laughed softly. "I should have known you'd go straight to the heart of the matter."