Nick chuckled as expected of him. It was difficult keeping up an easy going front. His mind kept returning to Kaiser's office, to the moment when the Chairman had flogged his colleague of thirty years with the barbed accusations of being a spy for the Adler Bank. He asked himself for the hundredth time how Kaiser could have known about Schweitzer's treachery. For the hundredth time, he came up with the same answer, and he hated himself for it.

"Take off your jacket," said Sylvia, leading him by the hand into the living room. "Stay awhile."

Nick unfastened the belt of his jacket and slipped it from his shoulders. He tried to keep from looking at her, wanting to guard a distance between them, but she had never looked more beautiful. She wore a black cashmere turtleneck, and her wheat-colored hair was pulled back into a ponytail. Her cheeks were flushed red. She looked radiant.

Sylvia took the jacket from him and put a hand to his cheek. "What's the matter? Is something wrong?"

Nick lowered her hand from his cheek and stared into her eyes. He had rehearsed the lines a hundred times, but suddenly his mouth was empty of words. This was more difficult than he'd expected. "Yesterday afternoon I was with the Chairman. There was a group of us: Ott, Maeder, Rita Sutter. There was a crisis atmosphere around the place- every problem magnified to three times its real size, everyone at each other's throats. Armin Schweitzer was brought in and questioned about the tips the Adler Bank had received. You know, the phony information about which of our shareholders were still undecided."

Sylvia nodded.

"Kaiser accused him of being the culprit, of secretly providing Klaus Konig with that information. He fired him. Practically kicked Schweitzer out of the office himself."

"Kaiser fired Armin Schweitzer?"

"On the spot."

Sylvia appeared stunned. "The creep deserved it. You told me so yourself. You were convinced he was stealing papers from your office."

"Sylvia, no one but you, me, and Peter Sprecher knew that the Adler Bank had a spy inside of USB. What we felt about Schweitzer, that he was the one responsible, that was only a suspicion, a guess."

"So? If Kaiser fired him, obviously we guessed right."

Nick shook his head in frustration. She wasn't making this any easier. "Did you tell Kaiser that it was Schweitzer who was passing shareholder information to Klaus Konig?"

Sylvia laughed, as if the suggestion were absurd. "I could never phone Herr Kaiser directly. I barely know the man."

"It's okay if you told him. I can understand why you'd feel motivated to protect the bank. All of us want to stop Konig."

"I told you. No, I did not."

"Come on, Sylvia. How else could the Chairman have found out?"

"I believe you're accusing me, Mr. Neumann." Her cheeks grew redder, though now with anger. " 'How else?' you ask. How else do you think? Schweitzer is guilty. Kaiser discovered it himself. Caught him red-handed. I don't know. Do you think Konig's the only one with spies? The Chairman doesn't need you to protect him. He doesn't need me. He's run that bank for as long as any of us can remember." Sylvia brushed by him. "And I sure as hell don't have to explain myself to you."

Nick followed her into the living room. He was certain she was lying. Sylvia and her devotion to the bank. Sylvia and her employee retention rate. She'd used the assumption of Schweitzer's guilt as a fulcrum with which to lever her career up a notch. Why did she have to lie about it?

"What about your answering machine?" he asked.

"What about it?" she shot back.

"On Friday night, when we were checking your messages, I heard Wolfgang Kaiser's voice. You know I heard it. I saw you. You were scared that I might have figured out who it was. Tell me the truth."

Sylvia recoiled from him. "The truth? Is that what this is all about?" She ran to the answering machine and rewound the tape, stopping every few seconds to listen to the voice speaking. She found the section she was looking for and pressed play. "You want the truth? I wasn't scared. I was embarrassed."

Peter Sprecher's voice rose from the machine. "Call me at the Adler Bank as soon as possible. We're very interested in meeting with you. Thank you." A pause. A beep. Then the next message. A rough voice spoke from the recorder. "Sylvia, are you there? Pick up, please. All right, then, just listen."

The voice was unsteady and, Nick suspected, drunk.

"I want you at home this weekend. You know what we like to eat on Saturdays. It was always the boys' favorite. On the table by seven, please. You're a good girl, Sylvia, but I'm afraid your mother would have been disappointed- you so far away, leaving your father to grow old by himself. Well, anyway, I'll manage. Be sure to tell your brothers. Get them here on time. Seven o'clock or we'll start without them."

Nick walked to the machine and turned it off. It was not Wolfgang Kaiser's voice.

Sylvia dropped into a chair, her head slumped to her chest. "My brothers haven't come to the house in three years. It's just my father and me. Last night, he spent five minutes berating me for having forgotten to tell them. I just nod and say I'm sorry. So are you satisfied? Happy now that you know all about my daddy's love of beer? How I've abandoned him to grow old alone?"

Nick walked to the dining room table and sat beside her. He felt utterly distraught. His carefully constructed case lay in shambles, a house of cards toppled by a single breath. How could he have been so stupid? How could he have doubted her for a minute? He had distrusted Sylvia when it really counted, insulting her instead of showing his faith in her. Look at her actions. She's been helping you every step of the way. Why can't you just accept that she likes you? That she wants to give you a hand? Why can't you learn that it's okay to rely on somebody else?

"I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to embarrass you."

Sylvia wrapped her arms around herself like a distressed schoolgirl. "Why didn't you believe me when I told you the first time? I wouldn't lie to you."

Nick placed his hands on her shoulders. "I'm sorry. I can't really explain why…"

"Don't touch me," she cried. "I feel like a fool. I didn't tell Wolfgang Kaiser about Armin Schweitzer. If you don't like that answer, get the hell out of here."

Nick tried again to gently cup her shoulders. This time she allowed herself to be touched and then drawn to his chest. "I believe you," he said quietly. "But I had to ask. I had to know."

Sylvia buried her head in Nick's chest. "I took it for granted he would be caught. I always expected it to happen. That doesn't mean I opened my mouth like an indiscreet teenager, blabbing to everyone who might have an interest in what Peter Sprecher had discovered." She laid her head back so that she could see his eyes. "I would never betray your confidence."

Nick held her close to him for a while longer. He smelled the clean scent of her hair and delighted in the drape of her cashmere sweater. "These last weeks have been tough. It's as if I've been under water, swimming with a straitjacket. If I can make it through tomorrow, maybe we'll come out of this all right."

"Is it about your father? You didn't tell me if you found Caspar Burki."

"Oh, I found him all right."

"And?"

Nick held her at arm's length, deciding what he could tell her. Was her knowing part of the bonds that lovers share or simply an admission of his own weakness- a foolish gesture to assuage his guilt at having wounded her fragile heart?

"Tell me, sweetheart," she pleaded. "What did you find out?"

"A lot of things are happening. Things you wouldn't believe…"

"What are you talking about? The takeover?"

"Konig has his thirty-three percent. He's lined up outside financing to make a full bid for the shares he doesn't own. He wants the whole bank. And that's the good news."