Ferendelli's place was a three-story brownstone on a small, tree-lined street off MacArthur. A parking place materialized just three doors down, but with the tension between them more or less out in the open, there was no comment about Gabe's luck.

"Thirty-seven hundred a month furnished," Alison said as they paused on the short front walk. "Dr. Ferendelli and his wife both came from money. In addition to that, he invented something and got a patent on it—some sort of electronic gizmo that can pinpoint even small veins and arteries through the skin. I may not be completely right about what it does."

"I'll try to find out, but it sounds like such a thing might have some practical uses."

"Their place outside of Raleigh is for sale for two and a half million."

"I hope he's alive to spend the money."

"I've been here twice," she said, opening the front door and then dealing with the alarm keypad in the hallway. "The place has been thoroughly searched and dusted for fingerprints. I doubt there's anything left to find."

"I just want to get a sense of the man."

"I understand," Alison said coolly. "I can wait in the car or maybe in the kitchen. There's a neat view of the woods from there, and a little bit of the river. The views from upstairs are much more striking."

"That would be fine," he replied, matching her tone.

"And Gabe?"

"Yes?"

"I'm sorry we seem to have gotten off on the wrong foot."

"Me, too," he replied as much to himself as to her. "Me, too."

The house had a wonderful feel—heavy, rough-hewn beams and fireplaces in both the kitchen and the living room, dark, rich wainscoting in the dining room, leaded glass in many of the windows. There was so much money in the world concentrated with so few, Gabe mused as he made his way up the ornate staircase. In one day, he had been aboard Aphrodite at the Potomac Basin yacht club, in the Watergate condominium residences, and now here.

So much money.

He thought about his small place in the desert on the outskirts of Tyler. Unlike his best friend and roommate at the Academy, he was never cut out for the life of brownstones and yachts. Even if the accident at Fairhaven had never happened, he would have eventually found his way to someplace like the ranch.