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had the feeling he was searching for something stronger.
    Fortunately Crissette’s photographs had saved the story. Jack had taken a look at the contact prints of the model and the good-looking hunk in the white suit, and had suddenly decided to bump the story up to the lead feature in the Sunday edition’s Modern Living section. Gaby still hadn’t gotten over her shock.
    “It’s too bad your father never put in central air-conditioning, Gaby,” Dodd was saying. “He certainly talked about it enough.”
    The year Gaby’s father had talked about installing central air-conditioning was also the year Paul Collier had fallen madly in love with an enormous Chris-Craft Challenger. It had been no contest. The next year the money had gone to rebuilding the dock for the extravagantly expensive boat, and enlarging the terrace for bigger and better parties.
    Gaby’s gaze lifted to the wall above Dodd Brickell’s head. It was covered with framed pictures, including the famous cover from the August 1956 issue of Life magazine. That elegant café-society luminary, Mrs. Paul Aston Collier, was posed on the back terrace of her fashionable Palm Island, Miami mansion. Jeannette had been ravishing thirty-odd years ago, her cool, sculpted beauty accentuated by masses of thick red-gold hair that matched her gold chiffon gown. She was already a heavy drinker then, but not yet showing the ravages.
    Above the Life cover was a black-and-white picture of Paul Collier at the polo grounds in Palm Beach, lean, handsome, and dashing, his arms around Winston Rockefeller. There was a photo of a smiling Paul Collier and Sonny Whitney at the racetrack at Hialeah, Paul Collier and Betty Grable in a sports car in Palm Springs, Paul Collier and Senator Jack Kennedy docking a sailing dinghy on Cape Cod. In the entire collection of photographs that filled the downstairs of the Colliers’ rambling old house, only a few included a small, silent, solitary child, Paul and Jeannette Collier’s daughter Gabrielle. Known not-all-that-affectionately as “Mouse.”
    In the living room, the collection continued with pictures of Miami Beach entertainers who had become world famous: a young Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis when they were a 1950’s comedy team; Arthur Godfrey and Jackie Gleason, who had streets named for them in their beloved Miami Beach; and below Godfrey and Gleason, the singing McGuire sisters with their special friend, Miami Beach celebrity and notorious Mafia mob figure, Sam Giancana.
    Gaby lowered her gaze and found Dodd studying her sympathetically. “Hard day at work, honey? Are you getting the hang of it now?”
    She was silent for a long moment, trying to think of an answer. She was indebted to Dodd and his father for getting her the job at the newspaper, more than she could ever say, but there were times when she was tempted to blurt out the truth: that she wasn’t doing any better in her job as fashion reporter for the Times-Journal than when she’d started three weeks ago.
    Gaby didn’t dare tell Dodd; she knew he would want to do something. And Dodd and his father had already done enough.
    “Dad had lunch with Gardner Hedison the other day,” Dodd said, not waiting for her reply, “and he asked him how you were doing in the new job. Hedison said you were doing just fine. He was quite pleased.”
    Gaby frowned. The Times-Journal newsroom had seemed to know immediately when Dodd’s father had had lunch with his friend the publisher. It didn’t exactly boost her popularity. “I wish your father wouldn’t do that, Dodd. Check on me at lunch with Gardner Hedison.”
    Dodd looked surprised. “Why not? From what your publisher says, you’re doing a great job.”
    Out of the corner of her eye Gaby saw her mother’s head droop forward, almost to the surface of her still-full dinner plate. With any luck, she couldn’t help thinking, Jeannette would be ready for bed early. If she didn’t pass out right where she was. “I know he