The ground was shifting under Cassie again. She knew he meant Mitch's moving cash out of the country, but what was this gift tax thing?

"I'm your friend. I've always been your friend. I'll help you find a way out of this. Trust me, will you?" Parker urged.

Suddenly queasy, Cassie rose to go. "I'll think about it." As she put her sunglasses back on, she wondered how many ways his actions were unethical and whether he could be disbarred for conflict of interest.

CASSIE DID NOT DRIVE to the hospital to see how Mitch was doing as she had planned. It was clear that she and Mona were in a deadly game of chess, and she had a disturbing premonition about the files and the credit card receipts with her signature on them in Mitch's office, as well as all those folders in the computer dating back years that she hadn't had time to go through. If Mona felt strong enough to threaten to sue her, then she wasn't afraid of prosecution. And if she wasn't afraid of prosecution, then she must have some plan for acquiring the evidence.

The sun was high in mid afternoon as Cassie raced home. Even with the air conditioner on in the Mercedes, she was uncomfortably hot, sweating in the straw hat and sunglasses she wore to protect her new face against dangerous ultraviolet rays. She was sweating in the pseudo fancy nubbly suit and pink silk blouse she hadn't fit into in years. She was sweating buckets. When she got home, she was alarmed by the battered black Buick that was parked in front.

CHAPTER 31

CASSIE DROVE PAST THE BUICK, puzzled by the trunk wired closed. Maybe there was a body in it, maybe her files. Chewing on her lip, she crunched onto the only drive in the neighborhood whose asphalt was covered with gravel, a landscape feature that she'd always thought gave her home a nice little rural touch. She pushed the automatic garage door opener in the Mercedes, and the garage door rumbled up. Inside, the Porche was resting comfortably all alone, but something didn't feel right. A strange car was parked outside, and even her garage was giving her the willies. She didn't want to risk getting caught in a dark space by a burglar, so she backed slowly out again. It seemed that every action she took now was a reaction to a threat. She had to plan every move like a strategist in a war. It was all new and frightening. After twenty-six years of playing everything in her life so safe, she was now teetering on a tightrope over a chasm.

Shivering, she stopped the car just outside the garage, turned off the engine, and got out. The Mercedes door was heavy. Solid steel. She had to push hard for it to close with a solid thunk. More creepy feelings prevented her from entering the house through the front door. Everything was a potential threat. Everything. Heart beating, she went around to the gate. There she let out her breath. The owner of the shabby black Buick was Charles Schwab, back in her yard again. More precisely, he was in her greenhouse. She recognized his shape and crew cut through the glass.

Shaking her head, a little angry now, she entered her Eden. She strode across the patch of lawn that was surrounded by borders planted thickly with dwarf lilies, half of which were ambrosially in bloom. She moved quickly past the patio, where the pool sparkled and the geraniums had yet to be potted. She walked under the arbor, heavily weighted with leaf and rosebudded vines that any day would burst open in a riot of color.

Mr. Schwab was turned away from her, leaning on the bench, apparently in deep contemplation of a particularly showy double spray of monarch butterfly-sized, yellow phalaenopsis. She turned the handle of the greenhouse and startled him.

"Wow, what a specimen!" he exclaimed without missing a beat as he turned his head and saw her in the doorway in her nubbly tweed suit with the short skirt and pink blouse, her sun hat and glasses.

"Hello Mr. J. P. Morgan," she said, "fancy meeting you here."

"Very funny," he replied. "It's Charles Schwab."

"Oh yeah, Schwab. I knew the name had something to do with money. What can I do for you, Mr. Schwab?" All of Cassie's own code buttons were flashing. She was scared of this guy Schwab, and at the same time she was not scared of him at all. It was funny. She was aware he could do her a lot of harm, and somehow he still managed to remind her of a cute guy in high school. No one in particular, he was just the type she used to like. The one with the shy smile who wasn't really shy once you got to know him.

"Nice outfit. You can call me Charlie if you want." He turned around all the way to get a better view.

Click. High school. Cassie blinked. The feeling of the past in the present was strong. She shivered in the heat. "Thank you. What are you doing in my greenhouse, Charlie? Interested in gardening?"

"Girls are supposed to like it when you compliment them on their outfits." There was the smile.

Click. Cassie was back there, eighteen, attracted to a guy, hoping he would ask her to dance. Click. She was fifty, married to a comatose man who hadn't loved her in years.

Puzzled, she ducked her face into the shade of her hat. "Checking out my orchids?"

"Yes, I hope you don't mind. Very impressive. They really are."

"Sublimation," Cassie quipped.

"No kidding, which one is that?"

"All of them. Orchids are amazing. I don't even think of them as flowers. They're more like exotic creatures." She smiled.

Just their names alone set Cassie dreaming: phalaenopis, dendrobium, cattleya, paphiopedlium. She dreamed of them at night-their colors, their shapes, delicate and extravagant, like butterflies and moths and bees and tigers, firebirds, fish, with beauty unmatched by any other species on earth. Each orchid small or large, in bunches like vandas or sprays like dancing oncidium, felt to Cassie like stirrings of the senses she'd lost, teasingly sensual yet entirely accessible. Her substitute for sex. The globes of the paphs were like full, round testicles of athletes, the cats like richly dressed court ladies in heat.

"They're very splendid," Schwab said, neutral on the subject of sublimation.

"So, what are you really doing in my greenhouse?" She knew his job was to catch her husband at tax evasion, embezzlement, everything Mitch enjoyed doing.

"I love these orchids. I didn't know orchids smelled like this. What do you call this one?"

"That's a cattleya. It's called Hawaiian sunset."

Charlie tilted his head at it, sniffed, stuck out his bottom lip to examine it more comprehensively. The two large flowers were elaborately frilled purple and orange, outrageously scented.

"Hmm, of course, tropical sunset," he murmured. "Very nice. This one smells, too." He pointed at a large oncidium with two dancing sprays of mothlike blooms in brown, pink, and lavender.

"That one smells like chocolate. Isn't it amazing? It's an oncidium." Cassie couldn't help being proud of her babies. Not everybody could do even easy orchids like these.

"Amazing. You have quite a talent for this." He looked her over some more. "How are things going?"

Click. The question felt personal. Click. She shook her head.

"That's a not good?"

"That's a not good." She lifted a shoulder, feeling like eighteen. Feeling like a hundred, both at the same time.

He rubbed at an ink stain on one of his fingers. "I'm sorry to hear it. Your husband's still in intensive care?"

"Oh yes, still out of it." She scratched an eyebrow, chewed on the inside of her tortured lip. She was still reeling over the events of the week, the doctors and lawyers. And she was shaken that she could also feel like a teenager in spite of it all. She was hanging back in the doorway because the greenhouse was too small a space for two people who weren't close friends. Nervous. She was very nervous because of the dangerous stranger in her space.