"Why do all the women you go out with have two-digit IQs?" Sara countered, but her verbal thrust lacked force because she was preoccupied with Sloan and Paul Richardson. Standing beside Jess, she watched the couple walking across the sand toward the street "He's very attractive," she remarked, thinking aloud.

Jess shrugged. "He doesn't do anything for me."

"That's because he doesn't look like a topless dancer."

"I don't trust him," Jess stated, ignoring her topless dancer remark.

"You don't even know him."

"Neither does Sloan."

"Yes she does or she wouldn't have invited him here," Sara argued loyally, but in reality she was staggered that Sloan had not mentioned him to her.

"I'm surprised you aren't already on your way to your office to run a Dun and Bradstreet report on him," Jess said sarcastically.

"I thought I'd wait until tomorrow morning," Sara retorted, refusing to give him the satisfaction of knowing he could rile her.

"You are one mercenary little bitch."

Never before in their long history of rivalry had Jess Jessup ever crossed the line from sarcasm to profane personal attack. Sara felt tears sting her eyes, which upset her even more. "You really have a hard time dealing with rejection, don't you?" she fired back.

"You can't reject something that was never offered. And while we're being so blunt," he continued ruthlessly, "can you explain to me why Sloan Reynolds would want a shallow, mercenary, flirtatious tease like you for her best friend?"

Sara felt as if he'd punched her in the stomach. Never in her life had she confronted such virulent contempt from any human being except her mother, and the childhood memories flooded over her, paralyzing her. He was waiting for her to fight back, and she couldn't. For some reason that wasn't even clear anymore, she and Jess had disliked each other from the beginning, but she hadn't realized, hadn't even imagined, that he genuinely despised her. She stared at him, her eyes bright with unshed tears; then she dropped her gaze and swallowed, trying to force the words out. "I'm sorry," she managed as she turned away.

"You're sorry?" he repeated. "What the hell for?"

"For all the things I must have done to make you despise me."

Jonathan arrived with her sweater and spread it over her shoulders, and they walked away. "I'd like to go home now," she told her date. "I'm a little tired."

Jess watched her walk away. "Shit," he said bitterly; then he crushed the beer can in his hand and flung it into a trash container.

9

Sloan nodded at one of her neighbors who was walking his dog on the beach, and she smiled at another couple who were talking with friends in their front yard, but the minute she stepped into her own living room, she dropped the charade. "Why am I under FBI surveillance?" she demanded.

"How about that cup of coffee while I explain?"

"Yes, of course," Sloan replied after a startled pause, and led him into the kitchen. If he was willing to stay long enough for coffee, then he must be planning to give her a genuine explanation, rather than the brusque brush-off she'd feared.

She went over to the sink and filled the coffeepot with water. As she spooned coffee into the basket, she looked over her shoulder at him, watching as he removed his navy cotton jacket and draped it over the back of the chair. He was about forty, tall and athletically built, with short dark hair, dark eyes, and a square jaw. Clad in a white polo shirt, navy slacks, and navy canvas deck shoes, he would easily pass for an attractive, clean-cut, casually dressed businessman—except that he was also wearing a brown leather shoulder holster with a nine millimeter Sig-Sauer semiautomatic protruding from it. Since he seemed to be unbending a little, Sloan kept her tone very polite and even gave him a little smile of encouragement as she prodded him to begin. "I'm listening."

"Two weeks ago, we discovered that your father was going to make contact with you," he said, pulling out a kitchen chair and sitting down at the table. "We know he planned to telephone you today. What did he tell you?"

Sloan plugged the coffeepot in, turned around, and leaned against the Formica countertop. "Don't you know that, too?"

"Let's not play games, Detective."

His clipped, autocratic reply irked Sloan, but she had a peculiar feeling that if she kept her cool and played her cards just right, he was going to tell her everything she wanted to know. "He said he'd had a heart attack and he wanted me to come to Palm Beach for a few weeks."

"What did you tell him?"

"I don't even know the man. I've never laid eyes on him. I told him no. Absolutely not."

Paul Richardson already knew all that. He was interested only in her attitude and her spontaneous, unguarded reactions to his questions. "Why did you refuse?"

"I just told you why."

"But he explained to you that he'd had a heart attack and that he wants to get to know you before it's too late."

"It is already thirty years too late."

"Aren't you being a little too impulsive here?" he argued. "There could be a lot of money in this for you—an inheritance."

His notion that Carter Reynolds's money should, or could, influence her decision filled Sloan with scorn. "Impulsive?" she challenged. "I don't think you could say that. When I was only eight years old, my mother lost her job and we ended up living on hot dogs and peanut butter sandwiches for weeks. My mother wanted to call him and ask him for money, but I looked up peanut butter in a schoolbook and proved to her that it was one of the most nutritious foods on earth; then I convinced her I loved peanut butter more than chocolate. When I was twelve, I got pneumonia, and my mother was afraid I was going to die if I didn't go to the hospital, but we didn't have any insurance. My mother told me she was going to call him and ask him to guarantee the hospital bill, but I didn't have to go to the hospital. Do you know why I didn't have to go to the hospital, Agent Richardson?"

"Why?" Paul asked, unwillingly touched by the fierce pride, the ferocious dignity emanating from her.

"Because I got better that very night. And do you know why I made such a miraculous recovery?"

"No, why?"

"I made that miraculous recovery because I refused to do anything that would ever, ever force us to accept one cent from that creep."

"I see."

"Then you'll also see why I wouldn't touch his money now, when I'm neither sick nor hungry. In fact, the only thing I'd turn down faster than his money at this moment is his invitation to spend time with him in Palm Beach so that he can soothe his conscience." She turned back to the counter and reached into a cabinet for two coffee mugs.