Then the conversation between the two ended. The last cop, an older, gray-haired, heavyset man, got back into his unit and slammed the door. Then, probably the entire fleet of the sheriff's office turned on their engines simultaneously, backed up, drove around the circle and out of the development without even trying to speak to the homeowner under siege. Amazed, Cassie watched them leave. Eight deputy sheriffs had come over to save her from a man with a gun, then left the scene without even ringing her bell to see if she was all right. For all they knew she could be bleeding on the floor, knifed to death. Or raped and strangled.

"Hey, wait a minute, what about me?" She wanted to run after and yell at them. She wanted to yell at somebody. They hadn't even taken her statement. She returned to the phone in her bedroom to call them and complain. She was full of resolve about the matter until she was distracted by the sight of herself in the mirror with the sunglasses and the scarf on her head. "Oh God, I'm being punished," she whispered.

Moaning, she started slowly down the stairs. Her life had spun out of control, but the coffeepot had come on hours earlier at the usual time and now drew her into the kitchen with its delicious aroma. She put one foot down after the other on the beige carpet treads on the stairs. Suddenly she saw it the way the IRS agent would have seen it if she'd let him in. Shabby. The carpet had worn thin with twenty years of constant wear. The color was blah. At the bottom of the stairs the furniture in the living room and dining room was early American, a period that never matched Cassie's flare for the baroque. Blah, too. Mitch had come from Long Island, from Huntington Station. Cassie had grown up in Westchester in a better family. They'd met in college, at Cornell. Cassie had been very pretty then, quite a catch. Shape up, you're a regular person, not a victim, she told herself.

But she'd made some bad choices. Instead of going to law school, she'd married a handsome, ambitious man who'd turned her into a caterer. Mitch was a fanatic about food, so she'd cooked with the great restaurant chefs in Manhattan, always trying to please him. When he'd gotten too busy to eat at home, she'd stayed home with the kids and catered to them. Then she'd begun designing events for not-for-profit causes in the area. She'd planned the menus, done the flower arrangements. Sometimes she'd made the desserts, too. She had a talent for it. Everybody said she could have been a Martha Stewart.

Cassie moved through the dining room into the kitchen, her territory, where she had a Viking stove, a Sub-Zero refrigerator, two sets of dishes, six different kinds of wineglasses, and enough utensils to equip a small restaurant. The tiles on the floor were Mexican terra-cotta. The tiles between the cabinets and the countertops were yellow sunflowers in a deep blue sky. A pots-and-pans rack suspended from beams in the ceiling had bunches of her own dried flowers and herbs hanging on its hooks. Cassie loved her kitchen. She reached for a cup to pour herself some coffee, heard water running, and spun around. Outside, the IRS man was hosing his hand off into her swimming pool.

"Hey." She opened the back door.

"Oh, hi." He turned around and smiled his nice smile, as if nothing unusual had happened. "I wondered where you went."

"I hid in the closet," she said.

"I see. What's with the sunglasses, the scarf?"

"What's with the camera?"

"Cassie! Oh, Cassie, is everything all right?" Carol Carnahan marched through the gate, an entire invading army in one person. A tall, slender woman with long, tapered legs and a big chest, Carol was wearing pedal pushers, and a yellow T-shirt with a plunging neckline. She was fifty-three but looked twenty-five, and took up all the space wherever she went. Now she took up Cassie's whole yard, eyeing with a good deal of interest the attractive stranger on Cassie's patio.

Then Carol saw Cassie's face. "Oh, shit, Cassie! What's with the-?"

"Carol, I'm fine. Just a misunderstanding." Here was one of the thousands of people Cassie didn't want to know she'd had work done. The mortification kept right on coming.

"And who's this?" Carol asked.

The agent turned off the hose at the hose bib. He looked very much at home at her house, but Cassie didn't know who he was.

"Ah, ah…"

He was not as tall as Carol, who was over six feet tall in her five-inch sling backs. He was closer to five ten and had a medium to sturdy build, looked as if he did regular exercise. He certainly had a relaxed manner in the face of any drama. At the moment the drama was Carol, and his intense blue eyes evaluated her slowly, curiously, the way he had Cassie a little while ago.

"How do you do, ma'am," he said, swiping the hat from his head to reveal sandy hair going gray, cut in a crew cut. "Charles Schwab, at your service."

"Charles Schwab of the brokerage house?" Carol yelped. Cassie had a boyfriend, and he was a big cheese-all this was in the yelp. "Is Mitch at home?" Her eyes swept the upper windows. The cops, a boyfriend, a disguise. Very big!

"Thanks for dropping by, Carol. I'm fine. And Mr. Schwab was just leaving." Cassie gave him an ironic snicker. Schwab, indeed.

He waved at Carol. "Nice meeting you," he murmured.

"I can take a hint. Do you have any stock tips for me before I go? God knows I could use a few."

"Oh, no. Sorry, I don't give tips."

"I bet you do," was Carol's parting shot.

Cassie went into the house and carefully closed the door. Oh God. Her head was pounding. Agents and cops and Carol Carnahan all in one day. She glanced at the clock. It was now nine-thirty. Mark was meeting her at noon. She had things to do. She couldn't remember at the moment what they were. She poured herself a cup of coffee, her first of the morning. A noise at the door made her turn around. The man who called himself Charles Schwab was tapping on the glass, still there.

Cassie shook her head. "I'm not entertaining."

"Just one question," he mouthed as if she couldn't hear him perfectly through the glass doors.

"I have to go out soon." She opened the back door. The storm door was still in place. She didn't open the storm door. He opened the storm door.

"What a gorgeous kitchen!" he said, sticking his head in.

"Thank you." Cassie blocked further progress.

"Wow, copper pots and everything."

"Uh-huh." She wasn't going to budge.

"Do you use all those things?"

"Yes, I do."

He shook his head. "That's very impressive. Have you noticed how few women do food these days?"

"It's good for the restaurants. Charles Schwab?" she said sarcastically.

"That's my name." He smiled engagingly. The man was a big smiler. "I love your kitchen; your garden, too. You must be very creative," he said admiringly. "I bet you're good with roses."

She shook her head. Uh-uh, she wasn't buying.

"Do you mind if I take a closer look at your kitchen? I've been considering copper pots."

"It's a bad time." Cassie was trying so hard to be civil. He said he was a civil servant, after all.

"Let me give you a little advice. This is not the way to treat your auditor. First, I break my ankle on your damn potting stuff." He backed away from the door to illustrate a little limp. "Then you cut my hand with your gardening implement. I could call that assault. And then you call the police to try to have me arrested."

Cassie snorted. "Auditor? I don't know what you're talking about."

"I'm the one who's doing your audit," he said officiously.

"Well, I don't know anything about an audit. I'm just the wife here," Cassie told him.

"Wives are equal partners," Schwab said.

"Not in this house," she muttered.

Schwab laughed suddenly, and it was a genuinely pleasant sound.