They scrambled to their feet and adjusted their clothes. They both glanced furtively at the only escape route which would lead to a shower and knew they’d never make it. Elsie was already in the foyer.

“Just act like nothing happened,” Steve said.

“We can pull this off.”

Daisy clapped a hand to her mouth to stop a hysterical giggle. He had smashed Froot Loops on his knees and his shirt was torn.

Elsie stopped in her tracks at the kitchen door, and Kevin looked over her shoulder. “Whoa,” he said, “who trashed the kitchen?”

“Bob,” Steve told him. “Bob did it.”

Chapter 7

Steve took his eyes off the road for a moment to smile at Daisy. She was wearing a little white number that hugged her body in all the right places and still miraculously projected an image of classy respectability. The slim skirt stopped a few inches above her knee, showing off long, tanned legs and dainty feet trapped in gold strappy sandals. The top of the dress was off-the-shoulder, with a band of material that wrapped across her upper arms and slanted down to her full breasts. The dress was entirely devoid of ornamentation, proving the old adage that less is sometimes more. She wore dangly gold earrings and wide gold bands at each wrist.

She was a knockout, and Aunt Zena would love her, Steve thought. Zena would also be suspicious and nosy as hell, but an impetuous love-at-first-sight romance would appeal to her.

They rolled through Potomac, Maryland, in the racy black car, down wide streets where high six-digit incomes and suburban sprawl had spawned the tract mansion. Steve turned into a gated driveway and followed the smooth blacktop to a monster of a house riddled with columns and porticos and upgraded window trim. It rose phoenixlike, in redbrick splendor, from silver-dollar-sized wood chips and a great expanse of manicured lawn, its nether parts obscured by professionally tended azalea, holly, and rhododendron.

“An architectural masterpiece,” Steve said. “Neobeltway.”

Daisy gaped at it. “I’m glad I don’t have to deliver papers here.”

A white-coated attendant helped her from the car and ran around to the driver’s side.

“Is this Zena’s house?” Daisy asked Steve.

“No. Aunt Zena has a condo in Georgetown. This little honey belongs to George and Ethel Begley. They’re really very nice people. I don’t know why they chose to live at Tara here.”

They walked into the vaulted foyer and were greeted by Ethel. She gave Steve a cheek-kiss, rewarded Daisy with a dazzling smile, and propelled them forward into the cool interior of the house.

A sideboard held liver pâté, salmon mousse, and French bread crusts. The pâté and mousse looked fresh on their lettuce beds, and Steve took a crust and scooped up some mousse.