Bernadette's head was spinning.

She was sitting in the smaller of the two conference rooms at Hillyer, Jones -- along with the media-planning staff -- listening to the presentation of a private research company that had a new way of measuring audiences for Internet-related "programming."

Just what Bernadette needed ... another advertising medium to get familiar with.

At the front of a table covered with yellow legal pads, pencils, and styrofoam coffee cups, a twenty-two-year-old kid was pitching the services of this research group -- wasn't there anyone in this business over twenty-five anymore? -- and he was droning on endlessly about "clicks" and "hits" and "visits" and "links." The agency's young media-planners sat in rapt attention. Bernadette knew she should have been paying attention too, but her eyes had glazed over. She was, frankly, worried about having loaned the money to Hollis.

She'd had a confirmation back from the bank that the money she'd sent had indeed been transferred to Hollis's account in Great Falls. But it had been two days now and she hadn't spoken with Hollis. At all. She'd called once, then sent a fax. But nothing. Was Hollis just incredibly busy teaching his seminars and leading his workshops? Had he tried to call her, not reached her, and simply not left a message? Bernadette didn't want to think what she was thinking ... that he had duped her and absconded. It was too awful to ponder. "You see," the research company representative went on at the head of the table, "every time a consumer clicks a mouse he or she is registering a preference of some kind ..." Bernadette couldn't stand it any longer.

Professional victim. Fear not, dear reader. The man hasn't been born who can trifle with Bernadette Dacapo and get away with it. But be prepared. This could get ugly.

She took the note pad on which she'd been scribbling, gently pushed back her swivel chair on the brown Berber carpeting, mouthed the words "Excuse me" to Sydney Chen, who was sitting across from her, and quietly padded out of the room. She shut the heavy mahogany door ever so quietly behind her, and walked down the hall toward her office.

Moments later, Bernadette was behind closed doors pacing, her cellular phone in her hands and her eyes fixed on the awesome midtown Manhattan view that struck visitors each time they entered her office.

She had asked the operator in Great Falls to check for trouble on the private line she used to call Hollis, and was waiting for an answer. She stared vacantly out the window, her heart pounding, and feeling as though she were going to be sick.

"Ma'am?" the chirpy western-sounding operator said.

"Yes, I'm here," Bernadette answered, a little too quickly, betraying her mood of near-panic.

"I'm sorry, but that line has been disconnected."

Bernadette paused a moment, stunned.

"You mean, for repair?" she asked, sounding both pathetic and stupid.

"No ma'am," the operator said. "I mean permanently disconnected. Account closed."

"Murdered?" The word fell meaninglessly, almost, out of Lucien Brandt's mouth.

"Yes, Mr. Brandt." The voice answering him was that of Jane Berkowitz. Detective Jane Berkowitz of Manhattan's Midtown North precinct. "We're questioning everybody about this. But your name and telephone number were written prominently on his hotel stationery. I'd like to sit down with you and have you tell us what you know, if you don't mind sir."

Wish fulfillment. Okay, Lucien had wanted Artemis out of his life. Had even made plans to kill him. And now Artemis was dead. Problem solved, right? Not quite, dear reader. Not in the moral universe WE inhabit, anyway.

This wasn't happening, Lucien thought. The reason Agnes Ramirez had summoned him out of the meeting with Cummings was that a police detective had come to see him. Artemis Bagley was dead. Lucien's brother. Dead. Lucien led Detective Berkowitz down the corridor to his office in the art department, past the conference room where Jill Campbell was still meeting with Cummings Footwear, past the conference room from which Bernadette DaCapo had just excused herself. His mind was racing. Did this police woman know his relationship to Artemis, or was she just calling on him because she'd found Lucien's name and number in Artemis's notes? What to do? What to say? Stay calm, he told himself. Stay calm. If the detective did know they were brothers ... did she know that Artemis had been blackmailing Lucien? If so ... was he a suspect in the murder? And how, in fact, had Artemis been murdered?

This was unreal!

"Right in here," Lucien said to Detective Berkowitz, ushering the heavy-set olive-skinned woman with short-cropped dark hair into his office. She could have been a housewife from New Rochelle, he thought, rather than a police detective. But now wasn't the time to get bogged down in stereotypes.

As Detective Berkowitz sat in a black anodized-aluminum high-tech office chair, Lucien sat at his desk -- where he always felt the most comfortable and "in control." As he offered his inquisitor a glass of water from a carafe he kept on his desk -- which she refused -- Lucien wondered if he should even be speaking with her.

Should he be calling a lawyer? Would even asking that question give him away? He poured some water into a plastic glass, and prayed that Detective Berkowitz couldn't see his hand shaking. Of course, she could -- and did.

"Mr. Brandt," Detective Berkowitz began, "this isn't the kind of thing I see every day, I must tell you." "What do you mean?" Lucien asked, honestly wondering what she meant. "Oh, we see drug fights, overdoses, crack-house fires. Over on Eighth, Ninth, Tenth Avenue in the 40s, we see a little bit of everything. But not often do we see a homicide that (a) doesn't involve drugs, (b) doesn't involve a robbery, (c) seems to have happened in broad daylight, and (d) takes place in a fairly respectable hotel room and not some total flea-bag. Know what I mean?" "Well, not exactly," Lucien responded, confused. Detective Berkowitz didn't acknowledge Lucien's answer, and continued.

Drink up, Lucien. Better you should down a glass of water and keep silent at this point, than spill your guts to the lady Kojak sitting in your office. Oh, and your question about whether you'll be be needing a lawyer? The answer is yes.

"Mr. Brandt, I don't have a lot of time to play games here, and this is one of several stops I've got to make. So I'm going to ask you flat out, and I expect the truth."

Lucien stared at her, simultaneously thankful for, and frightened by, her directness.

It had finally happened, Lucien marveled to himself.

The other shoe had dropped.