Free Touch of Magic by M Ruth Myers

information. It would also be, in this case, a way of diverting undue attention from occasional brief contact he might need to have with his female assistant.
    "It's hard getting used to things without someone you've lived with," Mildred Farrow said, her defenses vanishing. "My husband's been dead three years...."
    Inwardly Ballieu celebrated his victory. Breaking the ice with a woman was always more useful than doing the same thing with a man. Women read more into it. They defined themselves in terms of men. Be nice to a woman and she construed it as interest. She would tell anyone who asked that you were nice. She would lie for you in a pinch.
    Besides, on the rare occasions when it became necessary to take a ready-made hostage, people were always more protective of a woman.

Seven

    By morning the resort looked to Ellery like the sort of place that would have attracted his parents and Reid: sprawling, equipped with all the upper- class amenities, and booked to capacity. A hell of a place to square off against someone like Ballieu . Which was exactly why Ballieu had picked it.
    Savoring the last cool breeze the morning was likely to offer, Ellery stopped to study the walks leading into the main building from the pool and outdoor dining areas. It was seven A.M. He'd been roaming the halls and paths of the resort for almost two hours. In his mind he went over its layout, where every door led, the location of power panels, sprinklers, walls that were likely to stop bullets in stead of letting them ricochet. Tension tugged at his insides.
    Ballieu didn't play by the rules. Ballieu , in those rare, tight situations where he'd come close to be ing trapped, had taken hostages. Insuring the safety of Channing Stuart in a place like this was going to be a problem.
    "Breakfast, sir?"
    A waiter's voice made Ellery realize he'd paused too long on the outdoor dining terrace, measuring the walkways. He was irritated by his slip into visibility. To his way of thinking, it verged on careless ness.
    "Orange juice to go," said Ellery. "Great place here."
    They'd be burying Sam this afternoon, and he wouldn't be there. It felt wrong, missing that final good-bye, but Sam of all people would have under stood. Better to prevent another death here if that's possible, huh, Sammy?
    He signed for the juice and strolled, sipping it. He hoped Channing Stuart was still asleep. He hoped she wasn't given to panic. She'd seemed close to it last night.
    Oliver had promised to pull another team from somewhere to send in, but so far Ellery hadn't seen any sign of familiar faces. If he had to keep a really tight watch on Channing Stuart, he hoped Ballieu would take him for nothing more than a red- blooded male on the make.
    Eyes squinting slightly, he marked sections of walk against the range of the .38 hidden beneath his light jacket. The gun wasn't going to be much good once these walks and dining areas filled up with people.
    That was the difference, he thought. His side had rules.
    Henri Ballieu's side didn't.

    *    *    *

        Henri Ballieu had been seventeen when he discovered how easy it was to kill someone, and how much it accomplished. Rarely did he recall such moments from his past. When he did, it usually an noyed him. This morning's memory returned to him with pure satisfaction, dislodged, no doubt, by last night's encounter with the woman who resem bled his aunt.
    Shutting off his electric razor, Ballieu slapped af ter-shave onto his cheeks. It was still a bit too early to be out and about in a place like this without attracting notice. He slid a long, razorlike blade just inside the pack of cigarettes he would carry, and let the memory of his uncle's execution flow into him.
    Ballieu's mother had been taken in, in disgrace, when the foreigner who'd made her pregnant had abandoned her. She'd sewn and cooked like one of the servants, and Ballieu , as soon as he was old enough to carry trays of lead type, had been sent to work in his