"I assume you'll be checking out soon," Sam suggested.

"No, I'm still looking at property. But I guess I won't be seeing you around, since now you can get back to solving real crimes. Goodbye."

Sam watched Amory get into the elevator. Another one who thinks he's intellectually superior to an investigator, he thought. Well, let's just wait and see. Sam could feel his nerves fraying as he walked back across the lobby. Whether or not Laura's disappearance is a publicity stunt, the fact still remains that five women from the lunch table are dead.

He had been hoping Jean would get back before he left, so he was delighted to see her standing at the front desk. He hurried to her side, anxious to hear about her meeting with the lawyer.

She was asking about messages. Always afraid she'll get another fax about Lily, Sam thought. And who can blame her? He put his hand on her arm. When she turned, he could see that her eyes looked as if she might have been crying. "Buy you a cup of coffee?" he offered.

"A cup of tea would be great."

"Ms. Sachs, when Mr. Zarro returns, please ask him to join us in the coffee shop," Sam said to the room clerk.

In the coffee shop he waited until Jean's tea and his coffee had been served before he spoke again. It seemed to him that Jean was still trying to regain her composure. Finally he said, "I gather it didn't go well with the attorney Craig Michaelson."

"It did and it didn't," Jean said slowly. "Sam, I would stake my life that Michaelson handled the adoption and may know where Lily is now. I was rude to him. I practically threatened him. On the way back here I pulled the car over to the side of the road and called to apologize to him. I also pointed out that if he does know where she is, she might remember where she lost her hairbrush, and that might be a direct link to whoever is threatening her."

"What did Michaelson say to that?"

"It was odd. He said that that had already occurred to him. Sam, I'm telling you he knows where Lily is, or at least how to trace where she is. He did say, using the words 'I urge you most strongly,' that I should have you or at least the district attorney's office petition a judge to open the records immediately and warn her parents of this situation."

"Then I would say that he obviously takes seriously what you told him."

Jean nodded in agreement. "I didn't think he did when I was in his office, but maybe my outburst-I swear I was on the verge of throwing something at him-may have convinced him. His attitude had done a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn when I talked to him twenty minutes later on the phone." She glanced up. "Oh, look, here's Mark."

Mark Fleischman was making his way to their table. "I told Mark about Lily," Jean said hurriedly, "so you can talk in front of him."

"You did, Jean? Why?" Sam was dismayed.

"He's a psychiatrist. I thought he might be able to offer some input into whether or not these faxes are real threats."

As Mark Fleischman came nearer, Sam saw that Jean's smile became genuinely pleased. Be careful, Jeannie, he wanted to warn her. In my book this guy is carrying a lot of baggage. There's a tension bubbling under the surface in him that a cop like me can feel.

Sam also did not miss the way Fleischman momentarily covered Jean's hand with his at her invitation for him to join them.

"I'm not interfering?" Mark asked, looking at Sam for reassurance.

"As a matter of fact, I'm glad to catch you," Sam told him. "I was about to ask Jean if she had heard from Robby Brent today. Now I can ask you both."

Jean shook her head. "I haven't."

"Nor, thankfully, have I," Fleischman said. "Is there any reason you thought we might have heard from him?"

"I was about to tell you, Jean. Robby Brent must have left the hotel after dinner last night. So far he has not come back. We've pretty much determined that the call you thought came from Laura was made on a prepaid cellular phone that Brent had just bought, and we're also fairly confident that the voice you heard was actually his. As you know, he's a superb mimic."

Jean looked at Sam, astonishment and distress reflected in her face. "But why?"

"At the luncheon at West Point on Saturday, did you hear Brent talk to Laura about possibly being on his new television series?"

"I did," Mark Fleischman said. "But I didn't know whether or not he was joking."

"He did say there was a part Laura might want to play," Jean confirmed.

"Both Carter Stewart and Gordon Amory think Brent and Laura may be pulling a hoax on us. What do you think?" Sam's eyes narrowed as he looked at Mark Fleischman.

Behind his glasses, Mark's eyes became thoughtful. He looked past Sam, then directly at him. "I think it's entirely possible," he said slowly.

"I disagree," Jean said emphatically. "I absolutely disagree. Laura is in trouble-I feel it; I know it." She hesitated, then decided against telling them that she felt as if she had heard Laura's plea for help. "Please, Sam, don't think like that," she begged. "Don't give up trying to find Laura. I don't know what Robby Brent is up to, but maybe he was just trying to throw us off the track by pretending to be her and saying she was fine. She's not fine. Really, I know she's not fine."

"Take it easy, Jeannie," Mark said gently.

Sam stood up. "Jean, we'll talk again first thing in the morning. I'll want you to come to my office on that other matter we were discussing."

Ten minutes later, with Eddie Zarro waiting in case Robby Brent returned to the hotel, Sam wearily got into his car. He turned on the engine, hesitated, thought for a moment, then dialed Alice Sommers. When she answered, he was struck once more by the silvery tone of her voice. "Any chance you have a glass of sherry for a tired detective?" he asked.

Half an hour later he was sitting in a deep leather chair, his feet on the ottoman, facing the fire in Alice Sommers' den. Taking the last sip of sherry, he put the glass on the table beside him. It had not taken too much persuasive power to have Alice convince him to catnap while she prepared an early dinner. "You have to eat," she pointed out. "Then you can go straight home and get a decent night's sleep." As his eyes began to close, Sam gave a sleepy glance at the curio cabinet beside the fireplace. He was asleep before whatever object he saw there had triggered a startled response in his subconscious.

57

Amy Sachs went off duty at four o'clock, shortly after Sam Deegan left the Glen-Ridge House. She and Jake Perkins had arranged to meet at a McDonald's about a mile away. Now, over hamburgers, she was filling him in on Sam Deegan's activities and the conversation she had managed to overhear between him and, as she described him, "that uppity playwright, Carter Stewart."

"Mr. Deegan came to the hotel looking for Mr. Brent," she explained. "Eddie Zarro, the other investigator, was waiting for him. They both looked kind of mad. The minute Mr. Deegan couldn't reach Brent on the phone, he made Pete, the bellman, take them up to Brent's room. When Brent didn't answer the door, Mr. Deegan told Pete to open it. That's when they found out that Mr. Brent hadn't come back last night."

Between bites of hamburger, Jake was jotting in his notebook. "I thought Carter Stewart checked out after the reunion," he said. "What made him come back this afternoon? Who was he meeting?"

"Stewart told Mr. Deegan that he had agreed to go over scripts for Robby Brent's new television show. Then they were talking about a cell phone. I couldn't get all of it because Mr. Deegan doesn't speak loud. Mr. Stewart isn't all that loud, either, but his voice carries, and I've been blessed with good hearing. In fact, Jake, they said my grandmother, even at age ninety, could hear a worm slither through the grass."