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  “Sorry.” Elizabeth was silent for a moment. “Do you think Hatch likes you? I mean, just you?”

  “You mean me without the business attached?” Jessie thought about the kiss that had taken place in her kitchen last night. She remembered the sensation of banked fires and relentless self-control. “Maybe, Elizabeth. But with Hatch, business will always come first.”

  “He's started asking you out a lot these days, hasn't he? And he didn't have to go to lunch with us today. I think it was because he really wanted to be with you.”

  “Right now I'm a priority for Hatch. That means I'm the focus of a great deal of his attention. It wouldn't last five minutes after the wedding. Heck, we'd probably spend our honeymoon with a fax machine and a modem hooked up beside the bed so he could stay in touch with the office. Hey, don't you have soccer practice this afternoon?”

  “Yep.”

  “I thought so. Don't forget to wear your sun-block cream.”

  “Geez, Jessie. I'm not a kid any longer. I won't forget.”

  “Sorry. What are you doing after soccer practice?”

  “Jennifer and I are going to the mall to hang out with some friends.”

  “Alone?” Jessie asked sharply.

  “No,” Elizabeth said with elaborate patience. “I just told you, we're going to hang out with some friends. Jennifer's mother is going to drop us off and pick us up later.”

  “I don't think it's a good idea for a kid your age to be hanging out at the mall at night without an adult,” Jessie said firmly.

  Elizabeth giggled. “Mom and Lilian say you're overprotective.”

  Jessie sighed. “Maybe I am.”

  There was a slight pause before Elizabeth said, “Hey, Jessie?”

  “Uh-huh?”

  “You think Dad'll be too disappointed on Saturday if Eric Jerkface gets first place at the science fair?”

  “Nope. He might be mad at the judges, because he knows how smart you are and he'll probably figure you got ripped off if you don't get first place. But he would never be disappointed in you, Elizabeth. No matter what happened. You know that, don't you?”

  “Yeah, I guess so.” Elizabeth relaxed. “Kind of hard on Dad, I guess, having to go through all this dumb school stuff a second time around. You and me being so far apart in age and all.”

  “Don't worry about it, kid,” Jessie said grimly. “This is the first time around for him.”

  At five o'clock that afternoon Jessie opened the office door labeled “Dr. Glenna Ringstead, Ph.D., Clinical Psychology,” and went into the softly lit waiting room. It was empty. Her aunt's secretary, a sober-looking woman with short graying hair, looked up and smiled in recognition.

  “Hello, Jessie. Dr. Ringstead's just finishing up with her last patient of the day. Have a seat.”

  “Thanks, Laura.”

  The inner door opened at that moment and a woman in her late thirties emerged. She was wiping her tear-reddened eyes with a tissue. Jessie discreetly studied a print on the wall. Her aunt's waiting room always made her uneasy. The people one found in it always appeared so terribly depressed.

  The patient went over to Laura and mumbled something about an appointment for the following week, paid her bill, and then left. Glenna Ringstead stepped out of her office a moment later.

  Jessie's Aunt Glenna was Lilian Benedict's sister, but it was easy to forget that fact. The two women were as different as night and day. In many ways Lilian was a lot closer to Vincent Benedict's other ex-wife than she was to her own sister.

  Glenna had been married once. Lloyd Ringstead had been an accountant at Benedict Fasteners who had walked out on his wife and son years ago and never contacted them again. Jessie barely recalled her Uncle Lloyd. Her aunt had never remarried.

  Glenna was an attractive woman in a severe sort of way. She was in her early fifties and she wore her silvered blond hair pinned in a no-nonsense coil that gave her the regal look of an Amazon queen. Her large black-framed glasses were something of a trademark. She had worn them for years. They went well with her trim, tailored beige suits and her air of grave authority.

  “Hello, Jessie.” Glenna smiled her cool, remote, professional smile. “Come on in and sit down. I assume you're not here to consult me in my professional capacity. You haven't asked for advice from me since the day I told you not to try so hard to force a relationship with your father.”

  “Let's see, that was when I was about fifteen years old, wasn't it? Right after Elizabeth was born.” Jessie grinned cheerfully. “Don't take it personally, Aunt Glenna. I haven't taken advice from anyone else since.”

  “The entire family is well aware of that.”

  “I appreciate your taking some time to see me today. I won't keep you long, I promise.” Jessie trailed after her aunt into the inner office and flopped down in a chair next to a table that held a massive box of tissues. She stuck her jeaned legs out in front of her and shoved her hands into her front pockets. Something about Glenna's depressing office triggered all her irreverent impulses.

  “Don't worry about the time, Jessie.”

  “Thanks.” Jessie glanced at the tissues sitting on the table next to her. “I guess your patients must go through a lot of these.”

  “Therapy can bring a lot of deep emotions to the surface,” Glenna pointed out.

  “Yeah, I'll bet. Mrs. Valentine keeps a big box on hand too. Amazing how clients in both of our lines of work tend to cry a lot.” But at least Mrs. V's clients rarely left the office crying, Jessie thought silently.

  “Speaking of your new line of work, how are things going at Valentine Consultations?” Glenna sat down behind the desk and folded her hands in front of her as if preparing to discuss a particularly troublesome form of neurosis.

  “Terrific. I know how someone in your profession must feel about Mrs. Valentine, but I assure you, we're not stealing any business.”

  “I'm not worried about it. People who are going to a psychic are obviously not yet ready to deal with their real problems. I can wait.”

  “Because sooner or later they'll wind up in your office?”

  Glenna nodded. “If they're serious about resolving their inner conflicts, yes. How did the date go last night?”

  Jessie made a face. “Not you too, Aunt Glenna.”

  “That bad, is it? I suppose Lilian and Constance have already grilled you?”

  “I'm afraid so. I'm trying to let everyone down easy.”

  Glenna studied her intently. “Then you're really not interested in Hatch?”

  “Oh, sure, I'm interested. But I could never marry the man, Aunt Glenna. He's too much like Dad. Beating one's head against a stone wall is damn hard work. It's taken me years just to put a few dents in Dad. I'm not about to start all over again with another workaholic.”

  “Is that how you see Sam Hatchard?” Glenna asked seriously. “As a man who is too much like your father?”

  “When it comes to his attitude toward work, yes. But that's not what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  “What did you want to talk about?”

  “I need to know something about the psychology of cults.”

  “Cults? Religious cults?”

  “Any kind of cult, I guess.” Jessie recalled Susan Attwood's long, rambling letter to her mother. It had contained very little hard information, just a lot of grand promises to save the world. “The particular cult I'm interested in appears to be telling its followers that there's an environmental catastrophe on the way and the members are the only ones who have a shot at finding the secret to survival.”

  “The principle behind most cults is a belief that only the chosen few will be saved,” Glenna mused. “The members see themselves as the only ones who are on the one true path. Everyone else will be damned. Jessie, for heaven's sake, tell me you haven't gone off the deep end this time. You're not seriously interested in joining a cult, are you?”

  Jessie grinned. “Gone off the deep end? Is that technical jargon?”

&nbs
p; Glenna sighed ruefully. “Hardly.”

  “Don't fret. I'm not about to join a cult. We all know I don't take orders well.”

  “That's true enough. And the people who tend to join cults are people who like clear-cut rules to follow. Rules make them feel safe. They are not required to think for themselves or to make decisions. You would be surprised at how many people will cheerfully give up those rights in exchange for rules. So what is this all about?”

  “Actually, I see this as a major career move for me.” Jessie hunched forward in her chair and began to tell her aunt about the new case.

  Ten minutes later Glenna Ringstead leaned back, looking resigned. “I suppose it won't do any good to advise you to drop this so-called ‘case’?”

  “I can't, Aunt Glenna. This is my big chance.”

  “That's what you said a year ago when you joined Exotic Catering,” Glenna reminded her.

  Jessie flushed. “How was I to know it was really an escort service? I thought I was actually going to learn how to run a gourmet catering operation. It could have been the opportunity of a lifetime.”

  “Oh, Jessie.” Glenna shook her head.

  “Look, Aunt Glenna, I'm really serious about this job. I like working with Mrs. Valentine. She feels I might have genuine talent or at least a healthy dose of intuition, which she says works just as well. I'd like to prove myself useful to the firm by helping her develop a larger clientele and expand her operations.”

  “Jessie, this is ridiculous. You can't go on hopping from one job to another for the rest of your life. Furthermore, your choice of careers is getting more and more bizarre.”

  “I've found my niche this time, Aunt Glenna. I'm sure of it.”

  “You're much too smart to believe in this psychic nonsense.”

  “I think Mrs. V really does have some psychic ability.”

  “Jessie, really.”

  “Maybe it's just intuition combined with a lot of common sense. Who knows? Whatever it is, she does have a certain talent, I'm sure of it. Aunt Glenna, I love this job. I want to make a go of it. What do you say? Will you give me a few pointers on the cult mentality?”

  “I can't believe I'm letting you drag me into this. This is definitely outside my field of expertise, you know.”

  “Hey. You're the only shrink in the family. I'll take what I can get. Oh, before I forget, how's David doing? Has he heard from any of the grad schools he applied to yet?”

  Glenna picked up a gold fountain pen and examined it closely. “He's been accepted into the Department of Philosophy at Parkington College. He got the word yesterday.”

  “He made it into Parkington? His first choice? Aunt Glenna, that's terrific.”

  “It's certainly what he seems to think he wants more than anything else in the world, isn't it?”

  Jessie nodded with great certainty. “It's the right thing for him, Aunt Glenna. I can feel it in my bones. David was made for the academic world.”

  “I hope you're right.” Glenna carefully put the pen down on her desk, aligning it neatly with her clipboard. “I had rather thought for a while that he would eventually join Benedict Fasteners.”

  “That was never a viable option for David, and you must know that as well as I do.”

  “Vincent did try to encourage him.”

  “We all know Dad was desperate for a son, and for a while he thought he could ram David into the mold. But I saw right off it would never work and I told him to stop trying to force the issue. It was hopeless.”

  “David was certainly very grateful to you for getting him off the hook with his uncle. He's always been somewhat in awe of Vincent. I think he might have tried to make the situation at Benedict work out if you hadn't stepped in.”

  “Hey, rescuing him from Dad's clutches was the least I could do.”

  “Yes, you're definitely the little Miss Fix-It of the Benedict clan, aren't you? Everyone in the family turns to you when someone is needed to intercede with Vincent.”

  Jessie's smile faded. She eyed her aunt thoughtfully. “You know as well as I do that David would have hated the corporate world. He would have been especially unhappy working for my father. David has spent enough of his life trying to please Dad and he feels he's never succeeded. He deserves a chance to pursue his own goals.”

  “Only time will tell if you're right, won't it?”

  Jessie's intercom rang at seven-thirty the following evening. She paused on the verge of tossing an entire pound of cheese ravioli into a pot of boiling water. With a groan she wiped her hands on a dish towel and went to answer the summons.

  “It's me,” Hatch announced over the speaker. He sounded bone-tired.

  Jessie froze in front of the speaker. “What do you want?”

  “Let me in and I'll tell you.”

  She frowned. “Have you been drinking, Hatch?”

  “No. Working.”

  “Figures. What are you doing here?”

  “I just left Benedict for the day. Haven't had dinner yet. What about you?”

  “I was just about to eat.”

  “Good,” said Hatch. “I'll join you.”

  Jessie could not think of a reasonable excuse not to open the downstairs door. Then again, she chided herself, maybe she was just not trying hard enough. Something in Hatch's weary voice was sparking a decidedly dangerous flare of womanly sympathy. She tried to squelch the sensation. The last thing she could afford to risk was to go all nurturing and empathic toward a shark like Hatch.

  She punched the lock release, wondering if she was doing the right thing.

  Three minutes later Jessie heard footsteps out in the hall. The apartment doorbell chimed. She answered it with a sense of reluctant anticipation.

  Outside in the corridor she found Hatch leaning negligently against the wall, expensive suit jacket slung over one shoulder. He looked exhausted. His dark hair was tousled as if he had been running his fingers through it and his subdued gray-and-maroon-striped tie had been loosened with a careless hand. His eyes gleamed as he looked down at her.

  “Seriously, Hatch,” Jessie said, holding the door open cautiously, “what do you want?”

  “Seriously, Jessie,” he retorted, not moving away from the wall, “what I want is to find out what it would take to get you to send me flowers.”

  She blinked and groped swiftly for a way to hide her startled confusion. “Well, for starters, you could make yourself useful to Valentine Consultations.”

  “Yeah? How?”

  “Tell me how to go about investigating a cult. I've been reading like crazy for the past day and a half, but I'm getting nowhere fast.”

  “Hell. Are you still on that stupid Attwood case? I was afraid of that.”

  “If that's the best you can do, good night.” She started to close the door in his face.

  “Follow the money,” Hatch said wearily.

  “What?”

  “Follow the money trail. It takes money to finance something like a cult, just like any other business. Find out how the cash comes into the organization and where it goes. Once you know that, you'll know everything.”

  Jessie stared at him, astounded. “Hatch, that's brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Why didn't I think of that? Come on in, pour yourself a drink, sit down, and make yourself at home. We have got to have a meaningful discussion.”

  Ignoring the flare of surprise in Hatch's eyes, she grabbed hold of the end of his boring tie and hauled him forcibly into the apartment.

  Hatch did not put up much resistance.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  A hissing noise from the kitchen made Jessie release her grip on Hatch's tie. “Oh, my God, the boiling water.” She whirled and rushed back into the kitchen.

  Hatch followed more slowly.

  “There's bottle of wine on the counter,” Jessie said over her shoulder as she picked up the package of ravioli. “Go ahead and open it. And then start talking.”

  “About what?” Hatch tossed his jacket down and picked up the win
e.

  “About following the money, of course.”

  “Were you planning to eat that entire package of ravioli all by yourself?” He went to work on the cork, his hands working in a smooth and controlled fashion.

  “Yeah, but now that you're here, I'm feeling generous. I'll let you have some.” She dumped the cheese ravioli into the boiling water. “I've got some sourdough bread and enough salad to fill in the gaps. Now, what about following the money?”

  “If you're not a little more subtle, I'll get the impression you only invited me to stay for dinner because you're planning to use me.” The cork came out of the bottle with a small, polite pop. “Where do you keep the glasses?”

  “To the right of the sink.” Jessie concentrated on gently stirring the boiling ravioli. The kitchen was suddenly feeling very warm. Hatch seemed to be taking up all the available space. Predictably, she could feel a wave of klutziness coming on. She reminded herself to be careful. “And you're right. I am using you. Start talking.”

  “Always nice to feel wanted. Mind if I sit down first?” Hatch took one of the counter stools without waiting for permission. “Damn, I'm really beat tonight. Hell of a day.” He loosened his tie a little more and took a swallow of his wine.

  Jessie risked a sidelong glance and realized he was telling the truth. Hatch had definitely had a long, hard day. She firmly suppressed the little flicker of guilt that immediately assailed her. “Your own fault, Hatch. You shouldn't spend so much time at the office. You're as bad as my—”

  He cut her off with an upraised palm. “Don't say it. I'm not in the mood for another comparison between me and your father. You know, this is the first time I've had a chance to see your domestic side.”

  “Don't blink or you'll miss it.”

  “I'll keep that in mind. Still, there's something appealing about seeing you standing there at the stove.”

  “Is that the way you like your women? Chained to the kitchen?”

  “I think I'll avoid that question. Aren't you going to ask me about my hard day at the office?”