Some small sag in Belle's spine must have indicated her unwillingness to partic.i.p.ate in that scenario. It was a reaction her adversary noticed instantly. "He tries to run a nice place," the woman continued in an even tougher tone. "He'll have a fit when he learns stooges like you are trying to filch things from guests."

"I'm not a thief," Belle spluttered. Her fingers were now numb; her chin almost rested on her chest; and the acrid scent of mildew and rotting wood singed her nostrils.

"Well, you're not the dame who cleans. And you're definitely not my fairy G.o.dmother. Let's see, lawyer for my loser of a soon-to-be ex-hubby? I don't think so... Private d.i.c.k trying to get the goods on my 'gentlemen acquaintances'? Don't make me laugh." The woman suddenly spun Belle around. She was tall and sinewy, anywhere from forty to fifty plus; an obsession with serious exercise was revealed in a skintight outfit: a powder-blue Lycra top and white stretch jeans tucked into Western-cut aligator-skin boots. The fabric looked as if it had been painted on. But the cowgirl routine was marred by the color of the woman's eyes. They were as gray, translucent, and watchful as a weimaraner's. "All right, I want some answers. Start talking. What brings you here?"

Belle's mind raced through possible replies; her ability to reinvent her story and think on her feet had been exemplary recently, but she intuited that this opponent was more canny than the lovelorn Ricky or his smarmy boss. Belle decided on truth. "I'm the crossword editor of the Evening Crier, Evening Crier," she said.

The statement brought no reaction from the woman; as if the information was common knowledge. She only stared; her eyes remaining icy cold. "And that gives you the right to break into this room?"

"I was told to meet someone here," Belle answered.

The woman sneered, but didn't immediately respond. Belle recognized that she was being judged on criteria beyond her control-her relative youth, effortlessly slim figure, and naturally pale blond hair. In comparison, Belle's opponent obviously spent a good deal of time worrying about her figure, and her head boasted a mess of overprocessed curls the color and consistency of scorched hay.

"And who might that 'someone' have been, Snow White?"

"An 'old lady.'" Belle regretted the words the second they left her mouth.

"Nice, cutie. Real nice. Want to dig yourself another grave?"

Belle stammered a reply. "Ricky... the boy who works here... cutting the gra.s.s and everything... He told me about the lady... She's been sending me crossword puzzles and I... well, he must have gotten the cabin number confused... If this is your-" But even as she spoke, Belle realized how wrong the statement was. Ricky was dim, but he knew the value of a twenty-dollar bill. Acting as liaison for the mysterious puzzle constructor, he wouldn't have mistaken her room number. Unless... Belle felt a chill run up her spine. Was it possible Ricky and his boss were in league with the kidnappers? Was it possible they'd led her into a trap? "You're not Doris Quick, are you?" Belle asked suddenly.

"Who the h.e.l.l is that?"

"Or Billy Vauriens' girlfriend?"

"Look, Sleeping Beauty, I'm just a dame renting a cabin at this deluxe deluxe resort for an indefinite period of time. If this Ricky guy said I was 'old,' then he can go to blazes... You, too..." The steely grip lessened. Belle found her arms hanging free, but her wrists and hands still felt tingly and inert. "A word to the wise." resort for an indefinite period of time. If this Ricky guy said I was 'old,' then he can go to blazes... You, too..." The steely grip lessened. Belle found her arms hanging free, but her wrists and hands still felt tingly and inert. "A word to the wise."

Something in the woman's tone or speech triggered a vague recollection in Belle. "What did you say?"

The woman began stalking toward the cabin's front entry. "I said you can both go to blazes-"

"No... about a 'word to the wise'?" Again, a surge of unpleasant but unnamed a.s.sociations flooded Belle's brain.

"I thought you said you did crosswords? Don't tell me you've never heard the expression."

Unintentionally, Belle's mind filled with the memory of Jamaica at the Patriot Yacht Club... Jamaica flirting with Rosco and later telling Belle he was only a "transitional" mate. "On the rebound with a private d.i.c.k." Those were the phrases she'd used, and when Genie had protested, Jamaica had responded with: "A word to the wise..."

"I thought you puzzle types were brains," the woman continued. "Goes to show ya..."

"Someone sent me crosswords," Belle said. "If it wasn't you, then who?" Her thoughts were tumbling over themselves. If this woman hadn't supplied Ricky with the puzzles, what was the connection with cabin fifteen? "Two women disappeared... a yachting accident... perhaps you heard about it?"

"I'm not from around here, but I'll tell ya something, sweet pea: types who go 'yachting' don't hold much sympathy for me. And girlies who try to sneak into other folks' rooms don't do no better. I suggest you get outta here, while the gettin's good." The woman continued toward the cabin's front entry. This time it was Belle who grabbed her arm.

"One of them was a well-known actress...a TV star... I don't care where you're from, you couldn't have missed it."

The woman stopped; a thin smile creased her hardened face. "Oh, yeah... now I remember... Newcastle, Ma.s.s.... I didn't put two and two together... I seen it on the news...Jamaica Nevisson, the star of Crescent Heights Crescent Heights-"

Belle pressed ahead eagerly. "That's right... Jamaica's a big celebrity... and we think..." She paused; the p.r.o.noun "we" sounded weak; it had neither power nor specificity. She altered her tone and opted for a more official approach. "The police believe that Miss Nevisson's high profile may have inspired the crime. A photographer known to be stalking her in L.A. was apprehended here in Newcastle."

The woman's smile grew. Belle recognized the expression: fascination mingled with pride at a peripheral connection to fame. "Far-out..." she murmured, then quickly turned suspicious again. "But how does this cabin fit in? Unless they're hiding under the floorboards, I haven't seen anyone other than me using the place."

"That's what I'm trying to discover. I was informed that an 'old lady' had paid to have crossword puzzles sent to me-each of which contained clues concerning the women's disappearance."

"Uh-huh," the woman said. "Let me get this straight... You thought you'd find this old broad sitting here, and she'd up and spill the beans? Is that it?" The icy eyes narrowed and the smile froze. "I gotta tell ya, sister. That is one sorry tale."

"It's the truth," Belle said.

"Yeah, and I'm Dolly Parton... You got a husband?"

Belle was so surprised by the question that she blurted out a hurried: "I did. Yes. A former husband."

"What happened? He catch you sleeping around-or vice versa?"

"Neither, in actual fact."

The woman snorted. "Right."

While Belle responded with an increasingly prim, "We didn't have that kind of relationship."

"The s.e.x kind, you mean, honey?" She laughed heartily. "You know, Snow White, men will deceive you every chance they get."

Again, Belle had an eerie sense of deja vu. "Men were deceivers ever"-the quotation that had appeared in the first crossword puzzle. Was it possible this woman was indeed Ricky's "old lady"?

"There's a line from a play that has a similar message," Belle said.

"Oh yeah?" The woman seemed disinterested, although Belle sensed the att.i.tude was a sham.

"The verse begins: 'Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more / Men were deceivers ever / One foot in sea, and one on sh.o.r.e...'"

The woman's head jerked up, and her eyes darkened with an expression Belle couldn't read. "How do you know this stuff?"

"I told you. I construct crossword puzzles."

"That doesn't mean you can quote all of Shakespeare."

"How did you know it was Shakespeare?" was Belle's response.

"Lucky guess... I mean, who else spouts stuff like that?" The woman stared at Belle. After a moment her voice continued with a level: "We had to read that junk in high school."

"You must have a photographic memory."

"I was good with poems... You memorize something when you're young..."

Belle returned the woman's inscrutable gaze. "You wouldn't happen to remember the line that begins 'Bait the hook well: this fish will bite... '?"

The woman opened her mouth to speak, then seemed to reconsider the response. "Can't say I do."

"Both quotations are found in Much Ado About Nothing, Much Ado About Nothing, and they appeared in a crossword I received in connection with this case-also sent from this mysterious 'old lady.'" and they appeared in a crossword I received in connection with this case-also sent from this mysterious 'old lady.'"

The woman turned her back. "Well, doll, you'd better find her, then."

"I'm guessing I already have," Belle answered easily. "I'm thinking that a sixteen-year-old might consider a woman past forty to be 'old.'"

The woman spun around, her face contorted in rage. "Do I look like an old hag to you? Do I look as if I'm over the hill?"

"What can you tell me about Jamaica and Genie's disappearance?"

"Not a d.a.m.ned thing!"

"Then why did you send those crosswords?"

A rustling in the tangled woods behind the cabins made them both turn toward the sound.

"d.a.m.n you!" the woman spat out. "You're not going to ruin this again!" In a single, fluid motion, she grabbed Belle, pulled a snub-nosed.38 from inside one of her tall boots, and buried the muzzle between Belle's shoulder blades. "Walk!" the woman ordered.

31.

The gun barrel felt warm against Belle's back, a fact she found surprising. Metal, she told herself, is usually cold. Cutlery is chilly; the band of my wrist.w.a.tch is cool when I strap it on each morning. Then she remembered that the gun had been hidden within the woman's boot. It had been prewarmed to body temperature. This process of deduction filled the s.p.a.ce of two strides toward the woods and the person hiding there. The next step and a half Belle devoted to queries such as: What did the woman mean by "ruin this again"? If she knows me, why don't I remember her? What roles do Ricky and his boss play? If I break free, will they help me? Or are these three people working together?

It's amazing how fear elongates time, and how it crystallizes reason.

"Dammit! I know you're out there!" the woman shouted as she impelled Belle toward the screen of trees. "I'm going to shoot this one if you don't make an appearance. You wouldn't like that, would you? Little Miss Manners."

Belle remained mute. She studied the thick foliage, thinking that this might well be the last she saw of the earth. She noticed that the bittersweet vines had covered almost every bough and branch, leaping from one woody arm to the next like Tarzan flying through the jungle. Little Miss Manners, she thought, what a sorry epitaph. A choicer phrase inadvertently surfaced: Mark Twain's "Be good and you will be lonesome." I'm not all that proper and ladylike, she wanted to protest, but what would have been the use? Little Miss Manners. At least Sara would approve. But then, Belle realized, Sara would never know.

"I'm not pulling any more punches here," the woman yelled, then slipped her free arm around Belle's neck in a stranglehold while the gun's muzzle continued boring into her spine. "You can bet your life on it this time... Now, you show your face or we'll have an 'accident' on our hands, because, in reality, I caught this one trying to break into your cabin."

"Whose cabin?" Belle managed to gasp.

"Shut your trap," the woman ordered before resuming her forest-directed diatribe. "I'm telling you, I'm not waiting any longer. I've been playing too many games as it is."

The woods remained bitterly silent, which only seemed to increase the woman's anxiety. She prodded Belle again. "I'm running out of patience, here, and you know it. And you also know I'm renowned for my temper. You're pushing me to do something I don't want to do."

The continued lack of reply made the woman's voice explode. "Dammit! I knew we should have planned the job better. Too much was left to chance, but that's the way he wanted it... 'An accident,' he kept saying... We've got to make it look like a tragic, freak occurrence." Her voice rose in pitch; hysteria entered the words. "That fire should have been so easy... two women asleep... the boat engulfed in flames... if they manage to escape in the yacht's tender, they're burned and weakened... They can't survive the night, and their battered inflatable finally washes ash.o.r.e... No rescue, no remains... The sharks finish the job... Such a neat, neat scenario."

Belle felt a tortured sigh ripple through the woman's body. "We didn't count on the d.a.m.n propane tank blowing, and those bozos extinguishing the blaze before the Orion Orion could sink... We didn't count on you surviving. How could we have, especially after we'd taken the tender? I told him we should have killed you first, but he wouldn't hear of it, would he?... And you, Miss High-and-Mighty-Fancy-Home, Miss Snooty Manners, herself... You couldn't leave well enough alone, could you? Had to act like Lady Bountiful... Invite me to visit because I was 'so distraught'... 'Poor Jamaica,' getting older and uglier... d.a.m.n you, Genie!" could sink... We didn't count on you surviving. How could we have, especially after we'd taken the tender? I told him we should have killed you first, but he wouldn't hear of it, would he?... And you, Miss High-and-Mighty-Fancy-Home, Miss Snooty Manners, herself... You couldn't leave well enough alone, could you? Had to act like Lady Bountiful... Invite me to visit because I was 'so distraught'... 'Poor Jamaica,' getting older and uglier... d.a.m.n you, Genie!"

"Genie?" Belle gasped. "Jamaica?" Despite the gun and the choke hold, she tried to twist her head toward her captor. "Jamaica?" she repeated.

In response, Jamaica rammed her knees into the backs of Belle's almost buckling her. "Shut up!"

"'False face must hide what false heart doth know.'" The disembodied voice traveled solidly from the woods and through the trees. "Remember that, Jamaica? Macbeth, The Scottish Play Macbeth, The Scottish Play... ? Of course you do. 'Something wicked this way comes.' Right?"

"The quote from the second crossword!" Belle blurted out while Genie moved slowly into view.

"Belle," Genie said in a pa.s.sionless voice. "It's good to see you again." She leveled hate-filled eyes on her friend, but her tone remained frighteningly serene. "You didn't count on my finding this unsuspecting ally, did you, Jamaica? Neither you nor Tom. When your original plan failed, and I escaped, you a.s.sumed rightly I'd be too terrified to go to the police-that I'd believe any exposure would put me at risk... After all, Tom owns this town, you must have promised yourselves. 'We merely have to find her... The rest will be easy...'"

The two women gauged each other. Although Belle continued to be held hostage between them, their enmity was so acute they scarcely noticed her.

"It must have been unpleasant for you two to find me capable of communicating anonymously," Genie added. "I turned the table quite handily, didn't I?"

Jamaica didn't answer, so Genie continued. "Tom, I'm sure, was especially annoyed. His anger can be brutal, can't it, Jamaica?... No, I forget, you must have been sequestered elsewhere. You could hardly afford to hole up in my house... Perhaps you haven't yet experienced his displays of rage."

"Tom has been nothing but gentle and loving with me, Genie. Very loving. A side you obviously have never seen."

"Give him time," Genie replied. "He'll change. He's a master... deceiver."

"It's been almost three years."

"Really? My congratulations on concealing your mutual ardor so long... But three years of clandestine meetings is not the same as a marriage... I a.s.sume that's what you've both been intending-a state of wedded bliss? Were you planning to scoot off to some faraway and deserted island? I'm so sorry to disappoint you. Poor Jamaica-always a bridesmaid, never a bride."

"d.a.m.n you, Genie! d.a.m.n you for having everything-and for lording it over me every chance you got!" In her frustration and wrath, Jamaica yanked her arm from Belle's neck. At the same time the hand holding the.38 slipped to her side, leaving Belle suddenly free, but too stunned and nervous to move.

"You're a wh.o.r.e, Jamaica. You always have been."

"At least I give my men some fun!"

"Do you let them try on your wigs while you're going at it, or is that too kinky?"

"Are you asking me about Tom's preferences, Genie? Because I certainly know all about yours. Your husband is a great talker, my dear... And dynamite in bed. Though I guess you wouldn't know that."

"Touche, Jamaica-although a trifle vulgar. But that was always your strong point, wasn't it? Lessons learned from the casting couch, no doubt. It's too bad you're no longer young enough to use them."

"Tom doesn't care about age."

Genie smiled. "Doesn't he?" Both Belle and Jamaica felt the shift in intention. Jamaica took a single, belligerent step toward her former friend while Belle began edging slowly to the left. The gun twitched in the actress's dangling hand. "I was waiting for you at Allyn's Point."

"That's because you followed Belle." It wasn't a question; it was a statement, almost as if Genie had arranged the entire situation.

Jamaica heard the innuendo and hesitated while Belle soundlessly inched farther away, moving finally out of Jamaica's reach. "Tom and I knew Belle would lead us to you."

"And I I knew Belle would lead knew Belle would lead me me to to you you. Which she has." Genie's voice remained preternaturally calm. "So I'd say you and Tom are the ones in trouble now. I imagine that will be the police's response as well-especially when I tell them how cleverly you both staged that little bon voyage bon voyage party on the party on the Orion Orion: Tom boarding at the last minute, the concerned and caring husband armed with caviar and champagne-"

"Which you lapped up, sweetie pie-"

"At Tom's urging. Looking back, the plan seems painfully obvious. My disingenuous husband with his professed dislike of the sea... his hunting cabin-and the trip he suddenly abandoned to spend time with 'us girls'..."

"No man would make me get so thoroughly soused I didn't know which end was up-"

"Jamaica, the sensible and wise. That's a new role for you, isn't it?"