Would Philippe’s face appear? No, just a pan of the conference table, a five-second view of two dozen men in suits and ties. No Philippe. She sat back in disappointment and wondered, for the hundredth time, if she should have accompanied her husband to London. She hated to fly, and he’d warned her the trip would be tiresome. Better to stay home, he’d told her; she would hate London.

Still, it might have been nice to go away with him for a few days. Just the two of them in a hotel room. A change of scenery, a new bed. It might have been the spark their marriage so terribly needed-

A thought suddenly crossed her mind. A thought so painful that it twisted her heart in knots. Here I am. And there is Philippe, alone in London…

Or was he alone?

She sat trembling for a moment, considering the possibilities. The images. At last she could resist the impulse no longer. She reached for the telephone and dialed Nina Sutherland’s Paris apartment.

The phone rang and rang. She hung up and dialed again. Still it rang unanswered. She stared at the receiver. So Nina has gone to London, too, she thought. And there they would be together, in his hotel room. While I wait at home in Paris.

She rose from the bed. “Dynasty” had just come on the TV; she ignored it. Instead she got dressed. Perhaps I am jumping to conclusions, she thought. Perhaps Nina is really home and refuses to answer her telephone.

She would drive past Nina’s apartment in Neuilly. Check the windows to see if her lights were on inside.

And if they were not?

No, she wouldn’t think about that, not yet.

Fully dressed now, she hurried downstairs, picked up her purse and keys in the darkened living room, and opened the front door. Just as she felt the night air against her face, her ears were blasted by a deafening roar.