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her eyes.
    “Oh?”
    Everything about her that had been relaxed, sensual, and sinuous as a cat seemed to change.
    “She’s one of your best friends, isn’t she?” he asked.
    “Of course,” she said quickly. Too quickly.
    “She’s disappeared.”
    “Oh, I doubt that she’s disappeared; I mean, people don’t just disappear, do they? Of course, you may be using that word in an abstract way . . . rather like abstract art. What you see is that she’s disappeared, but of course, she hasn’t really,” Lilith said.
    “So you know where she is?” he asked.
    “Me? No! Goodness, no!” She’d sipped her champagne so delicately before; now she chugged the contents of the flute.
    “Have I upset you?” he asked her.
    “No, I mean, I’m quite certain the little minx is just fine, it’s just that—well, as you said. She is one of my dearest friends.”
    She rose—rather she unwound herself—in full grace again and walked a few feet into the room, her empty glass forgotten in her hand. “Why are you looking for her?”
    “Her mother is distraught; she needs to find her.”
    Lilith laughed. It was a dry and brittle sound. She spun on him. “That battle-ax? The only thing that causes her distress is discovering a new wrinkle! Trust me: if that woman is trying to find Angel, Angel’s better off wherever she may be.”
    “Ah. I take it you don’t much like her.”
    Moving more like a wooden figure, stiff and disjointed, Lilith reached into the ice bucket for the bottle and poured herself more champagne.
    “No, I don’t much like her. And that family’s money is wound up into more trusts than you could ever imagine.”
    “And you know this from Angel?”
    “She may have mentioned it. I just, well, I just assume in a wealthy family like that . . . ”
    “That there are financial trusts. Did Angel have one?”
    “I . . . assume so. She never seemed to worry about money.”
    “And she’ll have more coming after her mother dies?”
    “I suppose. But I wouldn’t know about that. How would I?”
    “So Angel never said anything to that effect?”
    “No.” Lilith’s lips tightened around the word, as if she were lying.
    “I see.”
    “Julia Drusilla is a gorgon. She has the mothering instincts of a cub-eating papa bear.” She stopped speaking and spun on him. “Oh,I see—private eye. You’re being paid to find her for that witch who calls herself a mother.”
    “I’d never bring harm to Angel,” he said.
    Lilith sniffed and turned away from him. He saw that there was a wavering mirror that reflected one of her canvases.
    She was looking at her own image in it.
    “Could you tell me how well you do know the family?” he asked her.
    “We run in the same social circles,” she said, as if that should explain all.
    “So you don’t really know her?” he asked.
    Lilith moved slightly, arching her back as if she had a crick in it. She was gaining control; once again, her movement as sensual and sinuous as that of a cat.
    “Angel came to one of my art showings. She loved my work; she bought a painting. We began to talk about art . . . music . . . life. Then she called me a few weeks later. Poor dear, she loves both her parents, of course, the way children always do, but her father has freed himself from that dreadful woman. You must understand: Angel is a child of beauty—a child of nature. She’s young, impetuous . . . ”
    “Young and beautiful,” Perry agreed.
    Lilith brought her free hand to her face as she studied her skewed image in the mirror.
    Beautiful. Young and beautiful.
    He thought then that as rich and beautiful as Lilith was herself, she saw her own youth slipping away. She had everything she wanted, perhaps, except for the youth that might make Angel more desirable than she was herself. He couldn’t really judge her age, but he believed she was in her mid-thirties.
    She was still young, but she was, he realized, one of those women who wanted to be the most beautiful, who thrived on