"By millionaires?"

"I wouldn't doubt it. And people are murdered every day for reasons other than money. How well do you know your wife? Psychologically, I mean?"

"Pretty damn well."

"Good. That's good."

Chris was starting to dislike Agent Morse intensely. "You think my wife murdered her first husband, don't you?"

Morse shrugged. "I didn't say that."

"You might as well have. But Red Simmons had a long history of heart disease."

"Yes, he did."

Morse's inside knowledge of events was pissing him off.

"But no autopsy was done," she pointed out.

"I'm aware of that. You're not suggesting that one should be done now, are you?"

Agent Morse dismissed this idea with a flick of her hand. "We wouldn't find anything. Whoever's behind these murders is too good for that."

Chris snorted. "Who's that good, Agent Morse? A professional assassin? A forensic pathologist?"

"There was a mob enforcer some years ago who prided himself on this kind of work. He was a very reserved man with a massive ego. He had no formal medical training, but he was an enthusiastic amateur. He's nominally retired now. We've had some people following him, just to make sure."

Chris couldn't sit any longer. He rose and said, "This is nuts. I mean, what the hell do you expect me to do now?"

"Help us."

"Us? That's only about the third time you've said us in this whole conversation."

Agent Morse smiled more fully this time. "I'm the lead agent. We're spread pretty thin on these kinds of cases since 9/11. Everybody's working counterterrorism."

Chris looked deep into her eyes. There was sincerity there, and passion. But he saw something else, too-something not so different from what he read in the eyes of those patients who tried to con him out of drugs every week.