"I'm sorry," she said firmly.

"If enough attempts are made on your life, you'll always have a few escape tricks ready, too. Next question " How did you get past those locks?" he asked, motioning toward the apartment door. She smiled.

"Your mistake is with your reasoning" she said.

"The way you phrased the question precluded outside possibilities.

I didn't use the door." His gaze was skeptical.

"Look in the next room," she said.

Thomas was hesitant to take his eyes off her. But he stepped into the bedroom and glanced around. The small pane of one of the windows was broken inward. She'd climbed the fire escape from the outside, broken the gla.s.s, then unlocked the window and climbed in.

"Pretty fair job of breaking and entering," he said without admiration.

"Have you had practice?"

"I needed to get in," she said.

"I was frightened."

"Of what?"

"Of those men!"

"They we're merely local police. Detectives. From a homicide investigation . He grimaced slightly and sat down again.

"I don't think running away from them made them any less suspicious.

And the vanishing act. That will have them working overtime' ' "I'm very selective about whom I trust," she said evenly"I consider myself honored " He was about to ask why he'd been so chosen as a recipient of trust. Then the telephone began. It rang twice loudly.

"It was ringing when I came in, too," she offered.

"Someone's been trying to get you " He looked at her as he picked up the receiver.

"If I'd known you were going to be here I would have had you take a message' ' Thomas picked up the telephone and heard the voice of Andrea Parker on the other end. To say she was angry would have been to understate greatly.

"What the h.e.l.l are you trying to do to me?"

"What are you talking about?" asked Thomas.

"The fingerprints" snapped Andrea, not a.s.suaged a bit.

"Did you level with me a about them?"

"Completely."

"The one thing I don't need is a ha.s.sle."

"You're rambling. Tell me what you're talking about."

"The fingerprints " she said icily.

Thomas turned and looked at Leslie. She was still seated across the room on a sofa, now leafing through a magazine. But Thomas got the impression that she was listening to his end of the conversation very intently.

"Go ahead", said Thomas noncommittally.

"Okay," said Andrea, calming slightly.

"Augie Reid sent them to the State Detective Bureau. Nothing. Then, automatically, they went into a New York Police Department computer at One Police Plaza. From there, when nothing turned up in N.Y.C.

records, they went through a computer linked to Washington. It took a couple of hours."

"And?" asked Thomas calmly.

"Nothing turned up in New York. But in that Federal computer the lights must have started flashing from here to h.e.l.l and back."

"Oh, really?" asked Thomas with guarded evenness. He watched Leslie as he listened. Her position on the sofa was now subtly seductive. Or perhaps it was the angle from which he was watching her.

"I had a visitor this afternoon," said Andrea.

"A Fed."

"A what?" He'd heard it properly the first time, but wanted to be sure.

"A Fed. A p.r.i.c.ky career Treasury Department type named Hammond. Paul Hammond. Name mean anything?"

"Nothing. Should it?"

"Secret Service" crackled Andrea as Thomas Daniels listened without replying.

"Those prints blew a f.u.c.king gasket on the Federal computer. Not only were the prints cla.s.sified as to ident.i.ty, but this Hammond p.r.i.c.k was G.o.d-awful anxious to find out where I'd gotten them."

"Did you tell him?"

"No. But I might have to."

Why?"

"I told him they were from a minor piece of evidence in an article on a case I was working on. Not important at all."

"What did he say?"

"He told me I was a liar. Which I was."

"Then what?"

"Then I told him I wasn't telling him anything else. I told him I had the right to protect my source of information. He cursed my G.o.d-d.a.m.ned ear off and told me I'd be getting written orders from the nearest Federal court to tell everything. Then he stalked out."

Thomas put his hand slowly to his head, as if to welcome an enormous headache. He was still looking at the woman who, in some way, had begun this.