"Baby doll!" James slid onto the bar stool next to Jayla's.

She was halfway through a glass of white wine, and there was already a Coke waiting for him. He leaned over and shimmied his lips up her neck to her earlobe. That usually drove her wild, but now she turned her hazel cat-eyes on him in a glare of fury.

"You gonna tell me who that was who called you?"

"Honey, she's just a new temp who started with us yesterday. Right out of school, totally green, and we sent her out to InterBank Switzerland, of all places."

Jayla folded her arms across her chest. "What's your point?"

"InterBank Switzerland? It was all over the news yesterday. Don't you read the paper or watch television?"

"I don't like your tone. You know I do, but I was tired last night."

"A secretary was killed there yesterday, and Isobel was working with her. I didn't hear about it until late when I saw it on the news, and I wanted to make sure..." He hesitated. There were several possible ways to finish that sentence. Knowing Jayla would never know the difference, he chose the one least flattering to Isobel. "I wanted to make sure she didn't do it."

"Killed a secretary? That little pipsqueaky thing who called? She could no more kill a cockroach than a person. I don't even know her, but I can tell you that much. Miss Namby-Pamby, 'Um, excuse me, but did y'all call my cell phone?'" She raised her voice to a pitch only dogs could hear.

James bounced a cardboard coaster on the bar. "You don't understand. She's kind of a walking disaster. She doesn't waitress, because she..." He paused again. Nothing wrong with stretching the truth a little. "She almost killed a nun with a lobster."

Jayla tossed her head to one side, her beautiful long dreadlocks making a slapping noise against her bare shoulder. "If she's such a disaster, why on earth did you hire her?"

Good question, thought James, but of course he couldn't say that. Or could he?

"Good question," he said.

"Well, something made you. And something made you call her last night, and it wasn't because you think she murdered someone!"

James took Jayla's hand and twined his fingers in hers. He stroked her cheek with both their hands and murmured, "Jay-Jay, baby doll, you know you're the only woman in my life!"

"Whenever a man says that, you know it ain't true!"

"Come on, Jayla, you know me better than that. What would I want some skinny little white bitch for?"

That's my story and I'm sticking to it, he thought, taking a sip of his Coke.

"So why'd you call her?"

"I told you. I wanted to make sure she isn't all mixed up in it somehow."

"Mm hmmm." Jayla pursed her lips doubtfully. "And is she?"

"Nah," he lied.

In a single, sinuous motion, Jayla slid off her barstool and rolled her palm over his thigh, landing between his legs. He reacted as she knew he would.

"Don't you get mixed up with her, you understand? I know a good thing when I've got one. And I ain't sharing."

She kissed him, slow and deep. He could taste the wine on her tongue, and for a split second, he wanted the alcohol more than he wanted her. She pulled away, satisfied.

"I'll meet you at your place later."

"I might be late," he said. "Gotta get to the gym."

"I can let myself in. Don't take too long, or I'll really get suspicious."

He watched her leave the darkened bar, her slender hips swinging gently in her tight leopard-print skirt, her endless legs disappearing somewhere into her knee-high, patent-leather boots.

"Can I get you something else?" asked the bartender.

It was so tempting. Jayla knew what she was doing when she demanded he meet her at a bar. Anything to make him feel vulnerable. He closed his eyes and counted to ten. When he opened them, the bartender had moved away to pull a beer for someone else.

"No, I'm good, thanks," James said to himself. But he wondered how true that was.

*  *  *

Friday was a slow day in Procurement Support, as Isobel learned her department was called. The police were conspicuously absent, as were Stan and Conchita, although the ladies' room remained taped off. They had to use the one on the far end of the floor, which at least gave Isobel a reason to be away from her desk longer. Otherwise, she answered the phone for Frank and typed memos for Paula, whose grammar was impeccable. Nikki spent a good bit of the morning elsewhere, and Isobel kept hoping she would alight at her desk long enough for her to ask some of the questions that were piling up in her mind.

By late morning there was nothing official left to do, so Isobel pulled out her copy of Backstage. Without scissors, she was forced to fold and rip out the audition advertisements, which violated her sense of order, since it was impossible for the edges not to be jagged. Fortunately, although the police had dusted her Scotch tape, they hadn't seized it, so she was able to paste into her notebook the few notices that caught her eye.

"What a great idea," Nikki observed, when she finally returned. "So organized. Nothing like that would ever occur to me."

"I'm equal parts anal and scatterbrained, so it's pretty much a necessity," Isobel said, chucking the shredded remains of the newspaper into the recycling bin.

"I was just about to grab a bite. Want to join me?" Nikki asked.

Isobel brightened at the prospect. A leisurely lunch away from prying ears was even better than a hurried conversation in the office.

"Sure. I'll just tell Frank."

From Frank's doorway, Isobel thought she could hear the echo of his wife's shrills, although the receiver was pressed hard to his ear. Isobel made eating gestures and pointed down the hall. Frank looked at her for a moment like she was insane, then spun his chair around to face the window.

"There's a cafeteria on sixteen," Nikki said as they rode down in the elevator. She glanced sideways at Isobel. "But let's go out somewhere, so we can talk."

They went to a small deli café on the corner of Twenty-fourth and Park Avenue South and took their skimpy, overpriced salads to a small table in the back.

"How long have you been in the city?" Isobel asked, pushing some wilted sprouts to the side of her plastic bowl.

"Five years," Nikki said. "I taught high school drama in Albany for awhile before I moved here. One day I woke up and realized that time was running out if I had any designs on a career."

"Have you worked at InterBank the whole time?"

Nikki shook her head. "I started out temping, just like you. I wound up here about a year ago, but then I got an acting job. By the time it was over, my statute of limitations had run out."

"What statute of limitations?"

"A company can't hire you directly if you were placed there by a temp agency," Nikki explained. "But if you stop working there for three months, they can bypass the agency and hire you freelance."

"I didn't know that."

"Keep it in mind. It can really work to an actor's advantage, because we're always leaving town. And you can usually talk the company into paying you what they were paying the agency, so it's a much better deal."

Isobel was still so angry with James that the idea of cutting him out was very satisfying.

"Either way, it beats waiting tables," Nikki went on. "You can print résumés, make calls in your spare time, use the mail room, stuff like that." She gave a throaty laugh. "I like to think InterBank Switzerland supports the arts."

"And you like working there?"

Nikki nodded. "Yeah, it's good. Now that I'm completely freelance, I pretty much come and go as I please. Besides, my boyfriend works in Equities. Tom Scaletta. You took a message from him the other day."

"Ah, yes. Mr. Sexy Voice."

Nikki laughed, but Isobel could tell she was pleased.

"So, do you have any idea who killed Doreen?" Isobel asked, as she casually buttered her roll.

Nikki set down her plastic fork. "I was wondering when we were going to get around to that. Yeah, it just so happens I have a guess."

"Really? Who?" Isobel held her breath.

Nikki leaned forward. "Stan."

Isobel blinked. "Stan?" She pictured Stan Henderson's soft, sweet face and thick hair. "You mean the sad sack who never met a comma he didn't like?"

"Here's a little bit of office trivia for you. Stan and Doreen were married a long time ago. Right out of high school."

"What?!"

"Yup," Nikki smirked. "But the marriage was annulled."

"How do you know?"

"Stan got shit-faced at the holiday party last year and cornered me by the ham station for half an hour."

"But what makes you think he killed her?"

"He had the strongest link to her. God knows what their 'marriage' was about, but obviously they still had some sort of relationship. She got him the job at the bank. Maybe he felt indebted and resented her for it. Maybe she was lording it over him and he couldn't take it anymore."

"What exactly does Stan do?"

"He's in charge of backup office equipment." Nikki sat back and raised an artfully threaded eyebrow. "In case you haven't figured it out yet, this department isn't exactly the brain trust."

Isobel chuckled. "Yeah, I gathered that. Best I can make out is that they're the support group to the support group that supports the support group that provides the support."

"In a nutshell."

"But Stan seems so self-effacing, so apologetic, like he wishes he could just disappear," Isobel said, as she turned this information over in her mind.

"Exactly," Nikki said significantly, taking a bite of grilled chicken.

Isobel gazed thoughtfully at the saltshaker, then castled it with the pepper shaker as if they were chess pieces. "Wouldn't somebody have noticed a man going into the women's bathroom?"

"During an emergency drill?" exclaimed Nikki. "You obviously haven't been in the city long. People take drills very seriously these days. It's Pavlovian. Nobody notices anything except how many stairs are left between them and safety."

Stan and Doreen. In some ways, they seemed perfectly matched: she domineering and calculating, he confused and gentle, both of them fleshy and... Isobel stopped herself. No use imagining that, she thought. And besides, they probably hadn't. The marriage had been annulled, after all. There was a certain logic in suspecting Doreen's ex-husband of killing her, but Isobel knew it couldn't be that simple.

"Just because they were married once and she got him a job doesn't mean he killed her. What's his motive?"

Nikki waved her fork at Isobel. "Stan will be back in on Monday. If you really want to know, chat him up. I'm sure you'll find something."