Her face was impassive, utterly blank. So she was going to the party too....

"Mike! Mike!" he heard Carla calling faintly, from his house. "Where are you? Thea! Where are you?"

He came to his senses by the side of the trail. What the hell was he doing here?

Thea, with her spiritless eyes, did not see him until he took her into his arms.

"Thea, Thea, baby doll," he muttered, holding her close. The palm trees rustled above them. From that point the chanting stopped.

She looked at him in wonder, as her empty eyes took life.

"Daddy, why'd you bring me here? At night?"

***

High on a hill above Nassau, Ellen Brody stood at the French window in the guest room of Carla's agent's pink-stucco mansion. It overlooked the lights of the harbor. She took off the pearl necklace—cultured, an anniversary present from Brody years ago—and sighed.

Roger, Carla's agent, had settled Hoagie in the library, on a cot. Hoagie had bowed and said good night, a humorous gleam in his eye. She wondered now if he had been serious when he proposed the hotel room or was just trying to get a smile from her.

Perhaps he had better be careful what he proposed; she hadn't slept with a man since Brody died, and that was a year ago.

She could hear him making a telephone call now, from the library. His voice was muffled. She retreated from the window, took down her hair, and was about to undress when she looked out the window and saw Hoagie heading through the garden for the great iron gate.

A walk in the moonlight? Perhaps. And maybe she should join him. She was about to turn away from the window when she saw him open the iron-grille gate. He stepped outside, lit a cigarette, and leaned there, obviously waiting for someone.

Not a walk in the moonlight, then. A late date with some woman?

Curiosity was her greatest fault. Brody had said she should have been a detective. She simply had to know.

She moved quietly through the enormous living room. She could hear her host and hostess upstairs, probably discussing Hoagie and her, and she wondered if they had changed the sleeping arrangements.

Well, certainly not tonight...

She found that he had left the door ajar. So he intended to return. Suppose he did, and found her following him?

Then she'd simply tell him she'd got curious. The heck with it.

She slipped down the garden path, smelling bougainvillea in the fresh Bahamian air. A pair of headlights was winding up the street, painting the stucco walls orange.