"Yes, but I thought maybe you got busy," she began.

"So you gave up on me."

She fidgeted on the bed. "Not really. Well, maybe. I wasn't sure that you weren't teasing."

There was a brief pause. "It's early days, isn't it, Ivy?" he asked quietly. "We're only beginning to learn each other."

She wasn't sure what he meant. Her hand tightened on the phone. "Merrie invited me to spend the weekend."

"What did you tell her?"

"I said I'd let her know," she hesitated.

There was a short pause.

She felt insecure. "I didn't know if you'd approve."

The pause grew.

She felt her spirits. .h.i.t the floor. She drew in a slow, shivery breath. "Stuart?"

There was a clink, like that of ice in a gla.s.s. "You don't know me at all."

"Of course I don't," she replied. "You've avoided me for two whole years."

"I had to," he said harshly.

She didn't understand what he meant. She was shy with him. It wasn't helping things.

He drew in another harsh breath. "Oh, h.e.l.l." Ice sloshed in liquid again.

"I should go," she said sadly.

"Is it Hayes?" he asked harshly.

"What?"

"Are you in love with Hayes Carson?"

"I most certainly am not!" she exclaimed before she stopped to think.

There was a sigh. "Well, that's something, I guess." Another pause. "When I come back, we'll go for a drive and talk."

"That would be...nice."

"Nice."

She was lost for words. She loved the sound of his deep, slow voice. She didn't want him to hang up. But she didn't know what to say, to keep him talking.

"What are you doing?"

"Sitting on the bed in my nightgown, talking to a madman."

He burst out laughing. "Is that how I sound?"

"I feel like apologizing, but I don't know what for."

"I've had a long day," he told her. "We always get at least one tree hugger who comes to these conferences and demands that we set up special homes for our cattle where they can be properly housed and clothed and educated. This guy thinks we should learn to communicate with them."

She burst out laughing. "If you could, they'd say, 'don't eat me.'"

"You stop that," he muttered. "You know I don't raise beef cattle."

That was true. He had purebred Black Angus cattle. He knew the names and pedigrees of all his bulls, and they were as tame as dogs. The pedigree cows were treated almost as gently as the bulls. He was dangerous to cowboys who thought they could mistreat his livestock.

"I know that," she said gently. "What did you say to the tree hugger?"

"Oh, I didn't say anything to him."

There was an odd inflection in his voice. "But somebody else did?"

"One of the delegates from the national a.s.sociation invited him outside. The guy thought they were going to share a nice discussion. The delegate picked him up and put him down in the ornamental fountain."

She gasped. "But it's freezing in Colorado! There's snow!"

He chuckled. "I know."

"The poor man!"

"They gave him a blanket and a bus ticket," he said. "Last I saw of him, he was shivering his way back west into the sunset."

"That wasn't kind."

"Last year, it was a global warming advocate who said that we needed to find ways to stop cattle from belching and destroying the ozone layer. But I won't mention what happened to him."

"Why not?"

He only laughed. "You'll read all about it in the book he's writing. Last I heard, he was still looking for a publisher."

"Poor man."

"Poor man, h.e.l.l. Humans belch as much as cattle do."

"I have never belched."

"Baloney," he shot back.

She sighed. "Well, I've burped quietly. But I never considered that it was doing damage to the planet."

He laughed. "I'm kidding. They actually let him present his program. One cattleman even bought him a drink."

"That was nice."

"It wasn't. The drink he bought him was a 'Wallbanger.'"

"What's that?"

"You wake up eventually with a h.e.l.l of a hangover."

"You guys are terrible."

"I don't buy drinks for advocacy groups."

"You might influence them if you did."

"Not a chance." There was another pause. "I've got to go. There's someone at the door."

"An advocacy group?" she teased.

He laughed again. "No. A buddy of mine from Alaska."

"Does he raise cattle up there?"

"He's stationed at a military base there. Active military."

"Oh."

"I'll talk to you when I get back. Take care."

"You, too," she said, her voice softening.

"Good night, sugar."

He hung up before she was sure she'd really heard that. He'd never called her a pet name in all the time they'd known each other. It sounded as if they were actually going to be friends. Maybe even more. She slept finally in a welter of delightful, impossible dreams.

The next morning, her whole world fell apart. She answered her phone, thinking drowsily that it might be Stuart again, when a stranger addressed her.

"Miss Conley?" the voice inquired. And when she said yes, he continued, "I had this number from your police chief. I'm Sergeant Ed Ames, of the New York Police Department, Brooklyn Precinct. It's about your sister."

Her heart fell. "Is she all right?" she asked at once. "Has she been arrested?"

There was a loaded pause. "I'm sorry to tell you that she was found dead in her apartment this morning...Miss Conley? Miss Conley!"

She could barely breathe. She'd known this was coming, deep in her heart. But she wasn't ready to face it.

"Yes," she said heavily. "I'm still here. Sorry. It's...it's a shock..."

"I can imagine," he replied.

"You said she was found dead. Did she commit suicide?" she asked. "Or did someone else..."

"We don't know. There's going to have to be an autopsy, I'm afraid, to decide that. We'll need you to identify the body, to make sure it is your sister. Then someone has to arrange for disposition of her personal effects and her burial, or cremation."

"Yes. Of course. I'll have to come up there and deal with it." She hesitated, her mind spinning. "I'll come today. As soon as I can get a flight."

He gave her his telephone number and contact information. She wrote it all down and said goodbye.

She sat back down on her bed, rocking quietly with her arms wrapped around herself. Rachel was dead. Rachel was dead. She hadn't even gotten to say goodbye. And now she had to go and deal with the funeral arrangements. Worse, she didn't even know if her sister had killed herself, or if someone had murdered her.

She thought of Jerry, her sister's drug-dealing boyfriend. Had he tired of her habit and killed her with an overdose? Had the millionaire's wife sent someone to kill her? Her head buzzed with all sorts of horrible images.

Then came the thought that she was all alone. Rachel had been the last living member of her family. The anguish of her sister's machinations and lies was over, but so was the last bond of kinship she had.

She thought of their father and wondered if he'd been there to meet Rachel when she crossed over. He'd loved the other sister so much. He hadn't loved Ivy. He didn't think Ivy was his. Was she? Had Rachel lied about that, too, as she'd lied about so many other things?

Maybe Rachel had left a note, a letter, something, to explain her hatred of Ivy. If she went to New York, maybe she could find it. Maybe she could understand the other woman, at long last.

She started packing.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

LUCKILY, Ivy had enough in her savings account to cover a reduced fare round-trip airline ticket to New York. But once there, she would have expenses. She'd have to find somewhere to stay--she couldn't bear to stay at Rachel's apartment with the drug-dealing boyfriend lurking nearby--and there would be cab fare and then the cost of bringing Rachel home. It was a nightmare. If Stuart had been at home, she might have been bold enough to call him and ask for help. But it was too soon in their changing relationship for that.

On the other hand, she could call Merrie. But Ivy was too proud. It would sound as if she needed charity. No, she had to stand on her own two feet and do what was necessary. She was a grown woman, not a child. She could do this.

She'd never been on an airplane in her life. It was an adventure, from going through security to takeoff, which she compared in her mind to blasting off in a s.p.a.ceship. She was sitting next to a nice elderly couple in tourist cla.s.s. They were friendly, and seemed amused at her fascination with air travel.

Once at La Guardia, she took a cab to a modestly priced hotel that Lita had told her about, which was in Brooklyn, not too far from Rachel's apartment. She also had the number of the police sergeant who'd told her about her sister's death.

She checked in at the hotel and took time to go upstairs with her single suitcase. The room was small, but neat and clean, and there was a lovely view of the city skyline. She wondered how she was going to bear the loneliness of it, though, after she went to the morgue to identify her sister's body. The ordeal was one she dreaded.

Sergeant Ames wasn't in his office when she got there, so she took a seat in the waiting room. The police precinct seemed in a constant case of chaos. People came and went. Lawyers came to see clients. Reporters came to talk to detectives. Uniformed officers came and went. It was a colorful mix of people, especially to Ivy, who was used to living in a town of only two thousand people. A few minutes later, a tall, dark-headed, good-looking man in a suit approached her.

"Miss Conley?" he asked, smiling.

She stood up. "Yes. Are you Sergeant Ames?"

"I am." They shook hands. "Sorry I was late," he added, leading her to his cubicle and offering her a seat. "I had to testify in a murder trial. Court just let out."

"Have you learned anything else about my sister's death?" she asked.