"That's right." He'd been expecting, at least hoping for, a different kind of reaction. "A half share of Longshot, and all that goes with it."

She sipped, studying him. "And a half share of you, Slater?"

That irritated him. The amused patience in her voice, in her eyes. He swung his legs off the couch and stood. "I'm not Wade, Kelsey. We go into this, we take each other whole. This won't be a tidy, make-the-best-of-a-bad-hand deal with an option to fold."

"I see. Once I ante up, I'm stuck."

"That's it exactly. Since I'm naming the stakes, I'll show you the cards I'm playing with. I want you.

That's my high card. It's going to take a lot for you to beat that. Maybe you figure the odds are tilted.

You got stung once before, and you don't want it to happen again. But this is a different game, with different players, and from where I'm standing, the stakes are a lot higher."

She kept her eyes on her wine. And he'd said she couldn't bluff, she thought with some pride. Still, she knew better than to let him get a good look at her face until she was ready to call.

"You think I'd back off from marriage, shy away from a full commitment because I lost once before?

That's incredibly insulting. Nearly as insulting as this half-assed proposal you're stumbling through."

"You want flowers and candlelight, a ring in my pocket?" He'd meant to give them to her. The fact that he'd rushed his fences only infuriated him more. "I'm not giving you anything he gave you."

Her eyes lifted then, with just enough temper in them to mask her heart. "Oh, now who's hobbled by the past, Slater?" She slapped her glass on the table and rose. "Why don't you just drag me off to-to Vegas? That would be a perfect milieu, wouldn't it? We can say our I dos over a crap table."

He nodded stiffly. "Fine. If that's what you want."

"What I want is a simple, straightforward question to which I can give a simple, straightforward answer.

So, you can either ask me, or you can go to hell."

Narrow-eyed, he studied her, but for once he couldn't read her face. How could he, he realized, when for the first time in his life someone else held all the cards?

"Will you marry me?"

"Yes," she said. "Absolutely."

Gauging her, he let out some of the breath he hadn't been aware he'd been holding. "That's it?"

"That's it," she agreed. "So, who gets to rake in the chips?"

His lips curved slowly. "This seems like a good time to start splitting the pot." He stepped towar d her, combing his hands through her hair, taking a firm hold. "I love you, Kelsey."

"You must, or you'd never have flubbed that so badly."

"Flubbed, hell." He kissed her, hard. "I've got you, don't I?"

"Yeah." With a laugh, she threw her arms around him. "Yeah, you do."

He scooped her off her feet. "About that trip to Vegas."

"No."

"You're not considering the possibilities." With only one goal in mind now, he headed for the stairs. "It's quick, convenient, colorful. We could spend our wedding night in a big heart-shaped bed under a full-length mirror."

"As appealing as that sounds, I'm going to pass. Why don't we-"

The crash at the back of the house had Gabe dropping her to her feet. "Stay here," he ordered, and he shoved her toward the stairs. Before he could get halfway toward the sound, one of his grooms stumbled in, white-faced and wide-eyed.

"Mr. Slater. Jesus, Mr. Slater, you've got to come. It's Reno. Oh, my God, I think he's dead."

There was no doubt of that. Though someone had had the courage and compassion to cut him down from where he had swung from a rope tied to a beam, there was no mistaking the sight of death.

Kelsey couldn't take her eyes from it, the limp body decked out in riding silks, the horrible angle of the head with its livid bruises around the neck.

"Call the police," Gabe ordered. He turned Kelsey around roughly. "Get out of here. Go home."

"No. I'm staying. I'm all right. I'm staying with you."

He didn't have time to argue. "Wait outside, goddammit!" he exploded when she remained stubbornly beside him. "Wait outside!"

She only shook her head. She did look away from Reno and found her eyes locked on Jamison's. His were glazed, with devastation or shock, she couldn't be sure. But she walked to him, gently leading him to a chair.

"Sit down now, Jamie."

"I found him. Somebody told me he was around and looking for me. I don't know why I came in here, I don't know why, except I did. And I found him. Just like last time. I found him."

"Last time?"

"Benny. Just like Benny. Oh, God." He buried his face in his hands. "Oh, God, when will it stop?"

"There's a note, Mr. Slater." A young stableboy crept closer. He whispered, as though death had ears.

"There's a note on the bench there. I didn't touch it," he added. "They always say you're not supposed to touch anything."

"That's right. Go wait outside for the police, will you?"

"Sure, Mr. Slater." He hesitated. "We cut him down," he blurted out. "Maybe we weren't supposed to, but we couldn't just leave him like that. We had to get him down."

"You did the right thing." Gabe put a hand on the boy's shoulder. "Wait outside now." Already dreading what he would find, Gabe walked over to the bench, to the single sheet of paper, handwritten.

I'm sorry. It's the coward's way, but the only way I know. I'll never ride a horse again. I killed the best horse I ever had under me. As God is my witness, I didn't know it was a lethal dose. It was supposed to disqualify him, that's all. And settle a score. I never believed my father was guilty. Until now. What he did, I did. What he did, I'll do. Bad blood. There's no fighting bad blood.

Gabe turned from the note and looked at his trainer. "Did you know, Jamie?"

Tears dripped onto Jamison's hands as he nodded. "I knew. I knew Reno was Benny Morales's son.

God help him."

The pieces fit perfectly once they were turned to the light. Benny Morales, disgraced, despairing, had hanged himself, leaving behind a young, pregnant widow. She'd fled Virginia and had settled in Kansas, secluding herself and the infant son she bore from the scandal.

When Reno was five, she married again. Reno took his stepfather's name, but he never stopped dreaming of his real father. From Benny he inherited his small stature, his quick hands, and his love of horses. So he followed in his father's footsteps, working his way up from hot-walker to exercise boy and to apprentice jockey.

Obsessed with his father's memory, he moved to Virginia. He trusted only Jamison, his father's closest friend, with his secret. And Jamison kept it.

"He had scrapbooks on his father." Two days after the suicide, Rossi shared some of the details with Gabe. "Almost a library of them. Several of them were dedicated to the accusations made against his father, the investigation, and the suicide. His mother and stepfather are coming out today from Kansas to claim the body. I can tell you from my talk with her that she supports the fact that he had an unhealthy obsession with his father. Reno saw him as a hero and a scapegoat, and he was determined to right the old wrong."

"By drugging the Chadwick colt," Gabe said softly. "Disqualifying it from the Derby."

"Morales was riding for the Chadwicks when he took the fall that kept him out of racing for more than a year." Rossi didn't need his notes, but he flipped through his book out of habit. "Then, when the horse, Sun Spot, had to be put down at Keeneland, Matthew Chadwick was one of the most outspoken against Benny Morales. He had, after all, lost a valuable investment due to the tampering."

"Bad blood." Gabe set his teeth. "There's still a matter of where Reno got the drug. I think we can figure he injected the horse sometime after weigh-in and before they were loaded in the gate. Most probably while they were in the tunnel. But how did he get it, and from whom?"

"It doesn't seem it would be that difficult for a man in his position, Mr. Slater. Reno'd been around tracks since he was a teenager. He'd have known the right people. And the wrong ones."

"If he'd gotten the drug himself, he wouldn't have mistaken the dose. He didn't intend to kill the horse, Lieutenant. That's clear to me."

"He made a mistake."

"Or he was duped. Have you looked up my father?"

"This is a real family affair, isn't it? No," he said when Gabe remained silent. "He's moved out of his rooms, no forwarding address. The only reason I have to pursue that particular thread is your instinct.

I'm trusting that, Mr. Slater. If he shows up around the track, anywhere in the area, we'll bring him in for questioning."

"He'll show. He's too vain to know when to cut his losses."

He hadn't believed in his father's guilt. Kelsey stood at her bedroom window, fresh from a late-afternoon shower, and stared out over the hills. Reno hadn't believed in his father's guilt and so had spent most of his life pursuing that ghost. Wanting to vindicate it, to avenge it. In the end, he had discovered something about the man whose blood ran through him, and about himself, that he had not been able to live with.

It was always a risk to pry open doors to the past. She was encouraging Gabe to shrug off his own yoke of inheritance and be who he was. Yet she couldn't.

Wasn't she risking everything she'd built with Naomi over the past months by probing, poking, prodding at that door? And when she opened it, when she found what was lurking in the dust behind it, would she be able to live with it?

Let it go, she ordered herself. Why pick at something everyone wants locked? She had her whole life ahead of her. A life with Gabe. Fresh new beginnings everywhere. All she had to do was turn away from the shadows and accept what was.

"Miss Kelsey?"

Kelsey answered without looking around. "Yes, Gertie?"

"Mr. Lingstrom's office is on the phone. He wanted to speak with Miss Naomi, but since she's out, he'll talk to you."

"All right, Gertie. I'll take it downstairs."

She took the call in her mother's office, on the business line. She listened, managed to make the appropriate comments. When the call was complete, Kelsey replaced the receiver carefully. She was still sitting at the desk when Naomi walked in.

"God save me from those foolish, time-wasting luncheons. I don't know what makes me think I'm obliged to go. The only bright spot was that I happened to go into this little boutique near the restaurant when it was over. There was the most incredible dress, absolutely perfect for a simple, garden wedding.

They'll hold it for twenty-four hours if you ..."

She trailed off, the impetus that had carried her straight through the house to her daughter fading. Kelsey was staring at her, her hands locked together tightly on the desk.

"What is it?" Naomi asked. "Is it about Reno? Is there something else?"

"No, it's not about Reno." She watched the relief flutter over Naomi's face. "Your lawyer just phoned."

"Oh?" Fresh nerves had Naomi lifting a hand to toy with the star-shaped pin at her lapel.

"He wanted you to know that the documents you requested he draft are ready for your signature." She paused. "The ones transferring half of Three Willows into my name."

"Well, then. That's fine."

"Why would you do something like that?"

"It's something your grandfather and I discussed before he died. It was always my intention, Kelsey, and his. I'm just making it legal."

"Without telling me."

"I didn't want it to have the tone of an obligation," Naomi said carefully. "On either my part or yours.

There hasn't been a lot I've been able to give you. This is something I can. My father left the when and how up to me, but basically this comes down to you through him. I felt this was the right time and the right way. This isn't a rope to tie you here, Kelsey. Or to tie you to me."

"You must know I'm already tied here, and to you. You gambled that I would be when you asked me to come."

"Yes, I did. I couldn't guess, or even hope that you'd feel anything for me. But I was sure you'd feel it for Three Willows."

"One's very much the same as the other."

A ghost of a smile moved over Naomi's lips. "So I've been told."

"It's very difficult to love and respect one without loving and respecting the other." She rose, holding out her hands across the desk. "I haven't been able to do that. I don't see why I should."

"Not everyone would have given me the chance." Naomi took Kelsey's hands, and gripped hard.

Not everyone had, Kelsey thought. But she would take the risk, and try to change that.

It was nearly five when she pulled up in Tipton's driveway behind his dusty late-model pickup. The neighbor's dog sent up a din, racing back and forth along the chain-link fence that separated the lawns as if to warn her his ground was sacrosanct. A woman leaned out of an upstairs window and shouted the dog down before eyeing Kelsey.

"Looking for Jim?"

"Yes, I am. Is he home?"

"In the shop." She pointed, shook her head. "Can't you hear the racket?"

Indeed she could, now that the dog had quieted to low, throaty snarls. She followed the high-pitched whine of a power saw into the backyard. There was a small shed, one that could be put together from a kit bought at most lumberyards.

Kelsey knocked on a door that hung crookedly on its jamb. At the slight tap it swung wide and banged against the inner wall.

Tipton stood at a bench, safety glasses and ear protectors in place, his Orioles cap turned into the catcher's position. Sawdust flew as he sheared off a two-by-four. Kelsey decided it was safer for both of them if she waited for the blade to stop whirling.

"Gotcha, you son of a bitch," Tipton muttered as a chunk of wood hit the ground.