I looked down at my chest and saw nothing but white. My arms were pinned against the side of the chair, my legs against the inside of the chair legs. I’d been bound with an entire sheet strapped over my chest and thighs and another over my lower legs. I couldn’t feel any knots, and I realized both sheets were probably knotted at the back of the chair. And they were knotted tight. I was mummified, essentially, from the neck down, and no ligature marks or rope burns or handcuff abrasions would show on my body when it came time for the autopsy I was sure Desiree intended.

“No marks,” I said. “Very good.”

Julian tipped an imaginary hat to me. “Something I learned in Algeria,” he said. “A long time ago.”

“Well traveled,” I said. “I like that in a Lurch.”

Desiree came over and sat up on the desk, her hands under her thighs, legs swaying forward like a schoolgirl’s.

“Hi,” she said again, all sweetness and light.

“Hi.”

“We’re just waiting for my dad.”

“Ah.” I looked at Julian. “With Lurch here and the Weeble dead, who’s your father’s servant while he’s out on the town?”

“Poor Julian,” she said, “came down with the flu today.”

“Sorry to hear that, Lurch.”

Julian’s lips twitched.

“So, Daddy had to call a private limousine service to take him into the city.”

“Perish the thought,” I said. “What will the neighbors say? My gosh.”

She removed her hands from under her legs, pulled the pack of Dunhills from her pocket and lit one. “You figured it out yet, Patrick?”

I tilted my head and looked up at her. “You shoot Trevor, shoot me, make it look like we shot each other.”

“Something like that.” She brought her left foot up onto the desk, tucked the right under her, watched me through the smoke rings she blew in my direction.

“The cops in Florida will vouch that I had some sort of personal vendetta or weird obsession with your father, paint me as a paranoid or worse.”

“Probably.” She tapped her ash on the floor.

“Jeez, Desiree, it’s all working out for you.”

She gave me a small bow. “It usually does, Patrick. Sooner or later. Price was supposed to be sitting where you are, but then he screwed up and I had to improvise. Then it was supposed to be Jay in that chair, but another couple of screwups and I had to improvise again.” She sighed and ground her cigarette out on the desktop. “That’s okay, though. Improvisation’s one of my specialties.”

She leaned back on the desk and gave me a broad smile.

“I’d clap,” I said, “but I’m sort of incapacitated.”

“It’s the thought that counts,” she said.

“Since we’re sitting here without much to do before you murder your father and me, let me ask you something.”

“Shoot, babe.”