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this was my chance. There’s a vacancy in the CFSO horn section, and I wanted to fill it. I came here hoping to compel you to intervene on my behalf—you know, cut through the orchestral bureaucracy’s red tape. There’s an enormous prejudice against female horn players, you know.”
    “I can’t imagine why,” Graham said sardonically. “How was I supposed to help?”
    She shrugged. “I thought you might have a few ideas of your own.
    She regretted her comment at once and felt a flush coming on, but Graham, she observed with some relief, was a single-minded individual. He gave her a hard, disbelieving look. “And how was hiding in my closet supposed to persuade me to help you?”
    “It wasn’t,” she said quickly. “I chickened out when I heard you coming, and hid.”
    Graham burst out laughing.
    She started to glare up at him, but consciously altered her look to a gaze of ingenuous surprise. But even as she concentrated on her act and suppressed her irritation, she couldn’t fail to notice that he had a glorious laugh. How could a man with such a deep, rich laugh possibly have kidnapped Harry Stagliatti and done all those nasty and peculiar things to Paddie? Not that Graham wasn’t capable of surefooted action when the situation required it—hence her being hauled out of his closet at gunpoint and so forth—but that his approach would be much more direct and immediately productive.
    “A femme fatale you are not,” he said, his laughter fading. “A seductress doesn’t wear pink ballet slippers and carry around a goddamned French horn. You may be cute, but that’s about it. Sorry, dear heart, but your lie isn’t working—and my patience has run out.”
    Cute! She jumped to her feet, but Graham slammed down the receiver, picked it up again, and began punching a fresh set of buttons. “Wait—”
    “No more. You’ve had your chance.”
    “Don’t call the police. I haven’t stolen anything. I—”
    “I’m not calling the police. I’ve changed my mind. I’m calling Victoria Paderevsky. The three of us are going to have a little chat.”
    That was even worse! Paddie would never understand, and Graham would have them both at his mercy—before they could consult and work out a story to their mutual advantage. Whitney silently cursed Paddie for talking her into this bit of skullduggery. “Look,” she said in desperation, rising, “this isn’t what you think it is—”
    “Isn’t it? Look, Dr. Paderevsky and I have had our differences, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to stand around and let her send musicians out to burglarize my office! She’s going to explain—and so are you.”
    Whitney chewed miserably on her lower lip and debated ways she could regain control of the situation. Paddie and Graham and Whitney’s own easygoing nature had put her between the proverbial rock and hard place. What was she supposed to do now? Save my own skin, she thought, and Paddie’s, if I can. She smiled weakly at Graham, but he wasn’t paying attention. He had the phone to his ear and was turned sideways, glancing out the floor-to-ceiling window behind him. Twenty-one stories below, Orlando glistened in the Florida sun.
    Surreptitiously, Whitney took a step toward the desk. He didn’t notice. She refused to think. Without considering the consequences, she lunged at the desk, grabbed the gun first, then her horn, and ran.
    “Damn it, woman, come back here!”
    Whitney ignored the angry bellow. This time she knew where she was going—and she had the gun. She hoped only that Graham believed she would use it, which she wouldn’t—and that she wouldn’t trip and shoot herself in the foot. Explaining to Paddie was going to be hard enough as it was.
     
    “We’ve blown it,” Whitney said with feeling.
    “Yes,” Victoria Paderevsky replied gravely. “I’m afraid we may have only made matters worse.”
    They were sitting on the deck of Paddie’s cottage drinking gin-and-tonics and bemoaning their