The scream echoed around the bare walls, stopped suddenly, but Kyla's ears continued to shriek. Sheriff Neligh stormed through the front door.

"This had better be good," he yelled. Kyla tried to break out of the embrace, but Whit held her tightly with one arm. He offered Neligh the chip. "We found this in Rod's private hiding place."

Sheriff Neligh turned the chip over in his thick fingers, he held the edge, stretched his arm at full length. "Left my gla.s.ses on the desk," he explained.

"Betty Allen's Jingling Silver Casino, Las Vegas, $100,000," Whit said.

"Didn't know they made chips for that amount."

"Maybe they don't," Whit said. "Fake?"

"You don't know?" the sheriff asked.

"I gambled once in my life," Whit said.

Neligh rumbled with what Kyla supposed was his version of a chuckle.

"Did the dispatcher tell you the name of the casino where Moira worked before becoming Mrs. Chase?" Whit asked.

"Jingling Silver," Neligh said. "What's your take on this Whit, that you rushed me back here? And for G.o.d's sake, can't you get enough lovey-dovey when I'm not around?" Whit's arm dropped, Kyla slid her feet so a few inches separated them.

"Nothing makes sense," Whit said. "All I've got is a bunch of jumbled ideas. If the chip's real, maybe Moira stole it. Maybe the owners want it back."

"And our Moira's tied to a chair in the back room of the Jingling Silver, with hard- eyed men puffing on cigarettes and grinding glowing tips into tender places," Neligh said.

Kyla retreated to the kitchen, but propped the door open with a chair so she could still hear the conversation. But she did not want Neligh to see her tremble when he spoke of torture.

"Then again," Whit said, "Moira kept some rather...indelicate photos of herself and Rob, not caring whether her husband found them or not. But she gives Rod a casino chip to hide, away from her own house?"

"Why didn't you take it to Vegas and cash it in?" Neligh asked.

"I hear Vegas police can be pretty hard on people who counterfeit big value chips."

Neligh leaned into the kitchen. "And you, Miss Fetter -- "

"Rogers," Kyla said.

"You didn't feel any desire to hie off to Vegas?"

What had she felt? That the chip was a rather insubstantial thing to be worth a hundred thousand dollars.

"I didn't think it was real and I still don't. Vegas casinos give away chips and decks of cards, pens and mugs. It looks like a souvenir to me."

Neligh's professional glare weakened, and in a few seconds turned into a smile.

"Guess I can trust you as well as I can Whit. I don't know anything about his taste in women -- didn't know he had any taste at all -- but we'll a.s.sume you two're cut from the same honest cloth. Now, I can't waste a deputy's time tooling off to Vegas, but you two are getting a reputation for dashing from one end of the state to another. I'll deputize you, Whit, you can go down and find out if this thing is real. I'll call the Jingling Silver, tell them you're on your way."

"Both of us," Whit said.

"Both what?"

"Deputize both of us. Kyla, Miss Rogers, too." Neligh ran his hand over his chin. Kyla could hear the rasp of his beard.

Neligh nodded, his mind made up "Go by way of the court house, pick up I.D. and badges. I'll have it all arranged by the time you get there."

"It's too late," Whit said. "The court house will be closed by the time we get there, and it'll be midnight at least -- "

"Go around to the back, knock on the door. And Vegas never sleeps."

Kyla came very close to cursing. Bedtime stretched far off in the distant future.

Mr. Escobar studied the I.D. cards, and checked the numbers against notes on a pad. Whit swallowed hard to stifle a yawn. Well past his bedtime.

"Sheriff Neligh reported that you found a chip purporting to be from the Jingling Silver Casino," he said quietly. "He says it relates to the disappearance of Moira...Mrs. Chase. I regret to say that Mrs. Chase has made no attempt to contact this casino or, so far as we know, anyone who works here. But then, it's been three years, and most of her friends have graduated to better things." Or worse, Whit thought.

Whit unb.u.t.toned his shirt, pulled out the slim pa.s.sport case he had used during a short trying-to-forget trip to Spain five years ago. He placed the chip squarely in the middle of Escobar's leather desk pad. Escobar studied it with a magnifying gla.s.s.

"It seems to be one of our chips. You will, naturally, want to be present when we check for authenticity? My security chief a.s.sures me we have no chips of this denomination unaccounted for. Would you please replace this in whatever secure spot you carried it, and follow me?"

The corridors and rooms lay silent except for the whir of the air conditioning.

This might have been the sleeping operations of a laundry. Mr. Escobar pushed a number pad beside a blank door, flicked on the light, and stepped into a room as white and stripped an operating theater. He removed a plastic cover from a small, unimpressive machine. He indicated that Whit should produce the chip.

"All our high value chips are a.s.sembled in this room, from materials delivered by a reputable chip-manufacturer. A single, trusted employee does the work, making theft highly improbable. Each chip contains an electro-magnetic strip, something like the bar on a credit card, but much smaller and rather more sophisticated. Please slide the chip through this slot." Whit pinched the edge, the chip slid easily into the notch. A digital display blinked.

"The chip contains no strip at all," Mr. Escobar said. "It's a fake." Whit head Kyla's sigh of relief right behind him. "I would very much like to retain the chip, however, to show our casino security and the local police."

Whit tightened his grip, shook his head, replaced the chip in the pa.s.sport case.

"You'll have to take that up with Sheriff Neligh. The chip's a clue in the disappearance of Mrs. Chase."

Escobar nodded. "I understand." He led them back to his office.

"The Jingling Silver has no hotel," he said in his monotone. "If you should like to spend the night, I will contact a friend who can furnish you accommodations."

"Thank you," Whit said. "That's very kind." Escobar extracted a tiny phone from a slot in the desktop, punched two b.u.t.tons, said a few words, and dropped the phone back into place. He held out a business card. "Present this to Mr.

d.i.c.kenson at the reservation desk of the Hotel d'Alain, one-half block east of this building. I believe you will find it comfortable. There will be no charge, naturally. The threat of false chips concerns us all. Good night."

"Wait!" Escobar seemed startled, as if he had forgotten Kyla's existence. "Do you ever make dummy chips as souvenirs for big winners? Or big losers?" she added ironically.

Escobar's eyes clouded. "There may have been...one or two instances." His left sideburn moved. He was not as calm as he appeared, Whit decided. "But they would have been inscribed as souvenirs. They would be obvious."

Whit touched Ky's arm, conveying a subtle hint that they should go. A throb behind his eyes threatened to grow into a full-scale headache. She shook him off.

"Moira Chase was a singer?" Escobar nodded. "I want to see where she performed.

The lounge. How do we get there?"

"I will escort you and tell the bartender to furnish you with such refreshment as you desire."

"Nothing," Kyla snapped. "We're on duty." Mr. Escobar's shoulders squared, as if he had gained a new respect for Kyla.

Whit did not look forward to the noise of the casino floor or a loud band. In the elevator he tried to think of a way to persuade Kyla that none of this was necessary. The elevator slid to a silent stop at the third floor. The door opened with a faint sound of air suddenly thrust aside. Dim lights, a piano pianissimo, hushed voices. The warble of a husky alto.

Escobar led them to a curtained booth, Whit sank into a plush seat.

"I shall not stay," Escobar whispered. "The waitress will lead you to the exit when you desire to leave."

"Thank you," Kyla said.

The waitress, clad in a brief skirt and a wisp of a halter-top, looked to Whit, but it was Ky who said "Two ginger ales." The girl's eyebrows went up, she nodded, and scurried away.

The curtains cut off most of the room, except for a narrow view of a slender blond who stood in the spotlight, listlessly crying the blues. My man left me, I'm so down. Whit supposed the singer was beautiful, but the over-elaborate loops of lacquered yellow hair reminded him of polished bra.s.s. The waitress arrived with two frosty gla.s.ses.

"Seen enough?" Kyla asked.

"I don't know what we're supposed to be looking for," Whit said wearily. The next time the waitress pa.s.sed, he signaled that they wished to leave. He waited until they were on the sidewalk before he so much as cleared his throat. "You were right, the token's fake. Now explain why it was hidden."

Kyla shrugged and crawled into the truck.

Whit drove past the Hotel d'Alain without spotting it, but on his second pa.s.s caught a dimly lit bra.s.s plate on a brick pillar. A uniformed valet took the truck, a bellboy took his duffel and Ky's rucksack.

"Will a two bedroom suite be appropriate?" Mr. d.i.c.kenson asked.

"Fine," Whit said. The clerk who stood behind Mr. d.i.c.kenson examined Ky too intently, questions in his eyes. d.i.c.kenson himself escorted them to the third floor. Their bags already stood in the central room of the suite, leaving the issue of who slept where to their own discretion.

"I'm dead on my feet," Whit said. "Come to bed." He grabbed the luggage and headed for the bedroom on the right. He pulled off his boots before he picked up the phone.

Neligh's cough, and foggy "Neligh here," told Whit he had been asleep. "What you fin' out?"

"It's a fake. They put coded strips inside high money chips, and this one's empty."

"Enjoy," Neligh said. A click and the line went dead. Whit collapsed across the bed. A d.a.m.n wild-goose chase.

Kyla explored the suite while her bath ran. She began in the sitting room with its dominating, big-screen television. Beside the sofa stood a lacquered cabinet that proved to hold a well stocked bar, plenty of a.s.sorted munchies, and a stack of slick magazines. On either side of this room were identical bedrooms, each with a locked cabinet that might hold spare linen, but then again might contain much more interesting equipment.

The walls were painted a gray that hinted at blue, with touches of a green so dark it verged upon black. Yellow cushions on the deep sofa begged,Sit down and take a load off your feet! Glittering yellow and gold drapes turned the beds into horizontal thrones. Switches built into the headboards brightened and dimmed the lights.

Kyla emptied a small bottle of bubble bath under the stream of water, stripped and sank through the foam. The clerk at the desk had seemed distracted, renting a room to a woman who did not meet the beauty standards of Betsy Allen's Jingling Silver, or the Hotel d'Alain. Moira Chase and the singer in the lounge might have been twins. Moira had stood on that platform and exhibited herself.

Did the blues singer have a choice about which booth she patronized, or was she ordered to entertain the man who bid highest?

Neither the warm water or the rose scented bubbles gave Kyla much pleasure. She did a hurried job of washing, pushed the lever to drain the tub, dried, and pulled on her unlacy, opaque robe. Whit lifted his head when she sat down on the edge bed. Bleary eyes, stubbly jaw.

"Maybe you'd prefer that I sleep in the other room," she said.

"No." He swung off the bed, stripped and dropped his clothes on the carpet. He flipped the pa.s.sport envelope on top of the heap.

"Put that under your pillow," she said. He obeyed like an automaton.

"Come 'ere," he muttered. She turned the switch to off, darkening the room completely, and slid in beside him.

"I don't give a d.a.m.n about Moira," he said. "Let Neligh figure it out. I want to know why Rod died."

"We'll forget about Moira," Kyla whispered. He doubled the pillow into a lump, and in thirty seconds she heard him breathing with raspy sh.o.r.es.

Forget about Moira. Except now she knew what Moira Chase had been before she married Chase. Moira treasured one thing from that shady past: the fake chip from Betsy Allen's Jingling Silver Casino. Chase knew nothing about it, and Moira meant to keep it a secret, for hadn't she hid it where her husband would never search?

I'll think about it in the morning, on the drive back to Argentia, Kyla promised herself. I'll wake Whit early. Maybe...

But it was Whit who woke her, hands on her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, mouth seeking hers, his unshaven cheek p.r.i.c.kling her face. "Ky. Ky." She lifted to him, found him eager, insistent, overpowering. Ma.s.sively ready, entering her unprotected. She made one futile attempt to push him away. Then trembling flesh touching deep, a jolt, lifting her, out of control, her cry of protest and pleasure.

Perhaps her cry woke him. In any event, Whit rolled away so fast he dropped off the edge of the bed. She crawled across what seemed like acres of satin until she looked down on him, sitting on the floor.

"Oh, my G.o.d!" he muttered. "I dreamed we were making love, and when I woke up, we were." Around the window a strip of gray natural light. "What time is it?" he asked.

"I don't know. There's no bedside clock." Kyla stepped over him, pulled the drapes, and let in a stream of sunlight. The window overlooked a grubby alley, the scene rather diminishing the elegance of the room. A vagrant leaned into a dumpster, a skittish cat vanished into a trash can, and the neon of Betsy Allen's Jingling Silver Casino blinked and blinked and blinked, an eternal cascade of coins.

Whit rummaged through his clothes and came up with his watch. "Eight-thirty!" he roared, shaking the watch, holding it to his ear.

"Battery powered digital watches do not tick," Kyla said.

"Eight-thirty-one It'll be afternoon before we get to Argentia."

"What's the hurry?"

Whit considered the question, almost comical in his needless distress. "None, I guess. The day's shot anyway you look at it. Let me shower and shave."

He stood before the mirror naked, the doorway a perfect frame to his shoulders and rump, his long legs. The muscles of his back moved with his arms. Before he visited her in San Francisco, before they met some Friday night in Reno, she must find a better mode of birth control. Something that allowed bonded nerves, flesh and blood in close ecstasy. Except, if they gave up condoms and safe s.e.x, they must pledge monogamy. She would have no other lovers, and he would sleep alone.

That seemed a great deal like marriage. Too close to marriage. Flesh of one flesh. The steam of his shower flowed through the open door, rose to the ceiling, and touched the golden drape. Kyla regretted that their first experience of unfettered s.e.x had occurred here, where women unlocked the cupboard and fulfilled their customer's kinky request. Selling s.e.x, like groceries at a checkout stand. Had Moira served her clients in this very bed?

Very good, my love, but the chains will cost a trifle extra.

The shower ceased to pound, Whit came into the bedroom wriggling his backside against the towel.

"Let's get out of here," Kyla said, s.n.a.t.c.hing her clothes from the chair.

"Something wrong?" he asked, disappointed.

"Yes, I feel dirty." He stared at her, baffled, then understanding crept over his face, like the sweep of sunlight down a morning mountain.

I am not falling in love with T. J. Whitaker, she said to herself as the elevator made a b.u.mpy stop at the ground floor.