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to the point. Ignoring Layton, she looked straight at Regina Clausen's mother. "Mrs. Clausen, I'm not at all sure that the woman who called the program earlier is going to show up. I am afraid that if she realizes you are here she may make a beeline for the door. I'm going to ask you to stay in this room with the door closed; let me see her in my office, and after I've had a chance to find out what she may know, I'll ask her to consider speaking with you. But you understand that if she does not agree, I can't allow you to infringe on her privacy."
    Jane Clausen opened her purse, reached inside, and pulled out a turquoise band. "My daughter had this ring in her stateroom on the Gabrielle. I found it when her possessions were returned to me. Please show it to Karen. If it's like the one she has, she simply must talk to me, although please emphasize that I have no wish to know her true identity, only every detail of the man she began to become involved with."
    She handed the ring to Susan.
    "Look at the inscription," Layton said.
    Susan peered at the tiny lettering, squinting. Then she walked over to the window and held the ring up to the light, turning it until she could read the words. She gasped and turned back to the woman who stood waiting. "Please sit down, Mrs. Clausen. My secretary will bring you tea or coffee. And just pray that Karen shows up."
    "I'm afraid I can't stay," Layton said hurriedly. "Mrs. Clausen, I'm so sorry, but I was unable to cancel my appointment."
    "I do understand, Douglas." There was a slight but distinct edge in the woman's voice. "The car is waiting for me downstairs. I'll be fine."
    His face brightened. "In that case, I'll take my leave." He nodded to Susan. "Dr. Chandler."
    Susan watched with increasing frustration as the hands of the clock crawled to five after three, then ten after three. Quarter past became three-thirty, then quarter of four. She went back to the conference room. Jane Clausen's face was ashen. She's in physical pain, Susan realized.
    "I could use that tea now, if the offer is still open, Dr. Chandler," Mrs. Clausen said. Only a faint tremor in her voice revealed her acute disappointment.
    8
    At four o'clock, Carolyn Wells was walking down Eighty-first Street toward the post office, a manila envelope addressed to Susan Chandler under her arm. Irresolution and doubt had been replaced with the sense of an absolute need to get rid of the ring and the picture of the man who had called himself Owen Adams. Any temptation to keep the appointment with Susan Chandler, however, had disappeared when her husband, Justin, phoned at one-thirty.
    "Honey, the craziest thing," he had said, a joking tone in his voice. "Barbara, the receptionist, had the radio on this morning, listening to some call-in advice program; she said it was called Ask Dr. Swan, or something like that. Anyway, she said some woman named Karen was one of the callers and she sounded a lot like you and talked about meeting a guy on a cruise two years ago. Anything you haven't told me?"
    The joking tone disappeared. "Carolyn, I want an answer. Anything I should know about that cruise?"
    Carolyn had felt her palms become clammy. She could hear a question in his voice, a suspicion, the sound that was the sign of mounting anger. She laughed it off, assuring him that she didn't have time to listen to the radio in the middle of the day. But given Justin's past history of almost obsessive jealousy, she worried that she hadn't heard the last of this. Now all she wanted to do was to get this ring and this photo out of her life for good.
    The traffic was unusually heavy, even for that time of day. The hour between four and five is the most miserable fame to try to get a cab, she thought, as she observed frustrated would-be passengers trying to flag down taxis, all of which seemed to be displaying off-duty signs.
    At Park Avenue, even though the light turned green, she was forced to wait at the front of an impatient throng of