And his name was Canady.

She folded her fingers before her on her desk. What was the matter with her? She was all grown up, too.

"Gentlemen, I am aware that a corpse was found near here this morning. That of a young man."

"And he was a known pimp and petty criminal," Jack agreed.

"Yes, I heard that as well."

"Yeah?" Sean asked.

She shrugged. "You know that news travels fast-we've a little cafe just next door.

Actually we've been wondering here this morning if there's any connection with the poor girl found last week."

"Obviously, we're wondering the same thing ourselves," Jack said.

Maggie lifted her hands. "How can I help you? Why have you come here?"

It was Sean who leaned forward, those sharp, deep blue eyes seeming to probe straight into her own. "Because, Miss Montgomery-it is Miss?"

She nodded. "Because-?"

"Because, oddly enough, our corpse seems to be missing most of its blood," Jack said.

"But," Sean told her softly, watching her, always watching her, "there was a little trail of blood drops, tiny, almost minute amounts. And they led back here. To the arched doorway leading up from the street to the second-floor offices of Montgomery Enterprises."

CHAPTER 2.

"Now that," Jack stated with surety as they left the Montgomery Building behind, "is one beautiful woman."

Sean grunted.

Not that he didn't agree.

Maggie Montgomery was more than beautiful. She was tall and lithe, incredibly shaped, with ample b.r.e.a.s.t.s, a slim waist, and flaring hips; she had long, long legs, a headful of s.e.xy auburn hair, and gold-flecked, intelligent hazel eyes. She moved with complete confidence and grace. She smelled provocatively of some sensual perfume. The moment he'd set eyes on her, he'd thought her the most unusual woman he'd ever met, the most alluring.

Incredibly, he'd all but forgotten the corpse. There was just something about her.

Something that brought out raw instinct. That made a man want to- "I mean beautiful."

Sean grunted again.

"Really beautiful. Fantasy stuff. Movie star, model on a pedestal. Better yet, centerfold queen-"

"Jack, blood drops led right up to her place."

"She owns her own business. Big business. She must be as rich as Midas. Did you see the outfits in those downstairs windows?"

"She's old money, Jack. The Montgomery name goes way, way back."

"Old money ... but I wonder if she's closer to my age- or yours. Not that it matters.

Wonder if she'd ever date a cop. Not me, of course. Despite the fact that I was drooling. In fact, it was so bad, I was afraid my tongue was going to fall right on the floor. But she was watching you. Whatever her age, she must like older men."

Sean drew to a halt at last, arching a brow to his young companion.

"Not that forty is actually old," Jack said quickly. "But I mean, h.e.l.l, she just didn't seem interested in me at all."

"Jack, she could well be a murder suspect."

"Oh, come on, Sean! She's what? Maybe five feet eight and a hundred and thirty pounds, tops. Slender-but, man ... nice shape. Even in that business suit. Great legs. I've always really liked a great set of legs. And hers ... But she's just put together right all way around.

Wonder if she works at it. I wonder if she goes to a gym. And if she does, I wonder which one. I'd like to see her in work-out clothes."

"Jack, I repeat, she could well prove to be a murder suspect."

"Give me a break! Can you imagine that elegant example of pure grace hacking a body to pieces and leaving the parts strewn on top of a tomb?"

"We don't have a definite link on the murders. We found a corpse this morning, and blood drops that create a trail to her door."

"There are several dozen people working in that office building, Sean. And we've got forensic guys searching for more blood, and she didn't seem in the least disturbed that they were doing so. And if we find more blood in the building, that doesn't label her as the killer. It's absurd! I'm not as experienced as you are, but even I know that it takes some mean strength to sever a head that way! And if the guy was killed elsewhere and brought to the sidewalk, she'd have to be incredibly strong. With or without blood, that corpse was no lightweight."

"So, if she didn't kill him, she may be shielding the person who did."

"And a psychopath could have done in our corpse, and used her building as an escape route."

"Could have-but we're going to have to follow every minute clue on this. A second killing of this kind in a few days' time-the press is going to butcher us."

"Headless corpses ... I guess it is a little unusual, even for New Orleans," Jack said glumly. "But Maggie just has to be innocent."

"Maggie?" Sean inquired dryly.

"Miss Montgomery. Maggie fits her."

"Because she's so warm and open and sweet?"

Jack grinned, shrugging. "Go on, be a cynic."

"Yeah, I can see you telling the chief, 'Sir, the woman is innocent, look at those gold eyes and long, wicked legs, and you'll know that in an instant!' "

"Right. You looked at her eyes the whole time."

"All right, so it seems she must have great b.r.e.a.s.t.s, too, though can't say that I could really judge beneath that suit."

"Sweet Jesus," Sean muttered.

"You've been around the block too many times, Sean- you're showing your age."

"Yeah, maybe I am."

"What's next?" Jack asked more seriously.

"We put together a task force and have a meeting, and hope the guys on the beat might have learned something. Then we see Pierre, and hope he's on to something. Then, oh, h.e.l.l, we're going to have to have some kind of a press conference."

"Yeah, right. The press will be ready to sever our heads!" Jack murmured.

Sean started to speak, then shrugged. Jack was right. The media would definitely be up for their own brand of decapitation, and if this situation couldn't be solved quickly, they'd all be bleeding.

Some of Maggie's employees were disturbed by the murder that had apparently taken place so close to the building.

Oddly enough, others weren't. Maggie had asked all her employees into the downstairs shop area just after five-quitting time for most, and when the doors of the shop closed for the night. She'd made arrangements to see that those who walked to homes in the Vieux Carre did so in pairs, and those who drove out of the old town area were escorted to their cars. In the end, however, a few of her girls remained with her, seeming untouched by the events.

"Honey," Cissy told her, "I don't have truck with lowlifes like that pimp and a prost.i.tute. Now, this is N'Awleans, and I do keep careful, but I keep my nose clean, walk down the right streets, and if all the drug pushers and pimps in this city have the desire to decapitate one another, then so much the better! Now, you coming to watch Dean's band with us tonight or what?"

Dean, the twenty-five-year-old son of Chance Lebrow, one of her few male employees, and a supervisor in the sewing rooms, could play a mean jazz trumpet, along with a half dozen other instruments. He'd gone away to college and he'd just finished up his master's degree in architecture in New York and come home, and now, nights, he was playing in one of the popular local clubs on Bourbon Street.

"I'm not sure," Maggie told her. "I'm not in the party mood."

"Now, girl, you cannot let the murder of a no-good pimp get you down!" Cissy protested.

"It's not the murder of a no-good pimp so much as the fact that the no-good pimp managed to get murdered right by my door," Maggie admitted. "And then, somehow, he managed to get his little blood droplets leading right to my door."

"Honey, those cops dusting around the doors and hallways told me that they didn't find a thing inside the building," Marie a.s.sured her.

"And," Angie, who had stayed behind as well, a.s.sured her dramatically, "Cissy should know. She spent the day flirting with a handsome young Adonis."

Maggie arched a brow. "A cop? You were flirting with one of the cops?"

"You have something against cops?" Cissy drawled.

"Only upon occasion."

Cissy grinned. "Well, honey, this fellow was an Adonis. Built like a brick. And he was tall. Being six-even for a woman is not easy. He was a good six three. I could date him, and wear heels."

"Marry him, and create Amazon children!" Angie quipped.

"Was this Adonis black or white?" Maggie asked.

"Black, honey, the only kind," Cissy a.s.sured her, and laughed. "It wasn't your lieutenant."

"My lieutenant."

"Best-looking white boy I've ever seen," Cissy a.s.sured her.

"A homicide detective investigating my building is not a good-looking white boy-he's a pain." But Maggie smiled suddenly. "I'm glad that your Adonis came along-at least it seems some good has come from the day. Did he ask you out?"

Angie snorted in an unladylike fashion. "Did he ask her out? She'd asked him before she'd found out if he spoke English!"

Maggie arched a brow to Cissy.

"I merely suggested that a man, weary after a day searching for clues which didn't exist, might enjoy an evening of jazz. So if you want to see this Adonis, you'd best come along with us tonight."

Maggie still hesitated. She'd been surrounded by people all day, and the visit from the police had been unnerving, to say the least. That blood drops led directly to her door was incredibly disturbing, and that she knew she'd be hounded by the police in the days to come was even more so. She needed a little time alone to gather her thoughts.

"We're not going to give you a chance to back out," Angie said determinedly. "We'll go right from here."

"Oh, I don't know, I'm not really dressed for a night at a jazz club-"

"It's summer in New Orleans, tourists are crawling around in silly T-shirts and cut-off shorts, and you're worrying about what to wear?" Cissy demanded.

"Especially when you only have to take your pick of clothing from any mannequin on the floor," Angie said.

"Heck, in some of these clubs lately, you could go naked with just a belly chain and be completely fashionable and go totally unnoticed," Angie said.

"Maggie, naked, unnoticed? I don't think so," Cissy protested.

"Well, you know darn well that I'm exaggerating!" Angie said with exasperation.

"Hey, hey! Okay, I'll go!" Maggie protested. "It will be good to hear Dean play."

"I'm changing first," Angie said determinedly. "If that's all right-I'd like to use your shower, Maggie, if I may."

"Sure. You go ahead," Maggie said. She had a private bath off her office-a rather extravagant luxury, she had told herself, but she loved it. She had a big, white marble bath with a whirlpool, a separate shower stall encircled with etched gla.s.s, and a marble vanity that stretched forever. Against the white marble, the floor and walls were in brilliant red, black, and gold. She reflected that it was just barely saved from looking as if it belonged in a high-cla.s.s wh.o.r.ehouse by the delicate Venetian lace curtains that overlay the heavier gold draperies covering the windows that looked over the building's courtyard garden.

"Cissy, if you want, and you were planning on going straight from here, you can shower after Angie-"

"No way. I'm third. If we let you go last, you'll find some work you need to do and you'll try to bow out of joining us." She swung around, looking at the simple black sleeveless dress on the mannequin beside them. "Now this-is perfect."

"For you or me?" Maggie asked, laughing.

"Honey, I'm already perfectly beautiful in basic black. This is you, and you know it."

"I try not to design clothing I don't like," Maggie said. Cissy rewarded her with an exasperated glare.

"Black is your color. Your skin is so pure, just like marble. And with your hair ... why, honey, it's pure fire against black and white."

Angie giggled. "What an admiration society. Too bad we're all straight."