Chapter 17

Well, shit!

Mackenzie was thrown against the bar as Karl and Taft crashed to the floor. She scrabbled for purchase as she lost her footing. Kristl gasped and her hands flew to her mouth.

Mac hung on and glanced over. Taft was beneath Karl but his hand was at Karl's throat, his expression set and deadly. Karl was trying to pick him up and slam his head into the wooden floorboards. Holy . . . God.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw a beer bottle on a cocktail napkin near her right hand. She grabbed it without looking. Slammed it into the back of Karl's head. Beer sprayed and the bottle bounced out of her hand onto the ground.

Karl yelled and Kristl screamed. The guys at the bar jumped up and the bartender was suddenly blowing a whistle so long and stridently that Mac grimaced, fearing for her hearing. Taft flipped Karl off him, but Karl grabbed him by the left arm. Taft returned a sharp left hook, knocking him hard. Karl's eyes rolled around like billiard balls as Taft jumped atop him, pressing him into the floor. His right hand was cocked.

But Karl went limp. Mackenzie's bottle and Taft's hit caused him to lay on his back, breathing hard, the fight out of him.

Taft slowly got to his feet, keeping his eye on Karl. Then he swept a hard gaze over the other men in the bar. None of them moved. Maybe they were cops, maybe they weren't. This was a cop bar, but whatever the case, they stayed where they were. The bartender came around the car and checked on Karl. "Need an ambulance?"

Karl spit some blood. "Nah," he snapped. "Fuckin Taft."

"You okay?" Mac asked as Taft shook out his left hand.

"Mighta broken the fifth metacarpal. Not the first time." He spread his fingers and almost smiled.

Men. Sheesh.

The bartender turned angrily to Kristl, whose mouth was now open in shock. "Get out and don't come back."

"What did I do?" she cried.

"All you do is cause trouble."

"Can you take her out of here?" Taft asked Mac softly, his eyes on Karl, who was being helped to his feet.

Mac stepped forward and grabbed Kristl's hand. "Come on," she said.

"I'm not going anywhere with you!" she said, snatching her hand back.

The bartender said, "You're eighty-sixed. Go."

"You can't do that!"

Mac was feeling slightly buzzed from the adrenaline rush. She turned to Taft. "Sure you're okay?"

"Never better."

He looked at her in a way that sent something deep and primal sizzling through her veins. Did he feel it, too? His gaze dropped briefly to her lips, but then he pinned his eyes back on Karl, who was on his feet, his head thrust forward. Mac practically hauled Kristl into the misting night as Karl groaned and held up his hands in a classic No more signal.

As soon as they were alone, Kristl's shoulders slumped and she started crying in earnest. She leaned into Mac, who staggered a bit, trying to hold her up.

"I still love Tim. You don't know what it's been like," Kristl gurgled. "I love him and Dale killed him. Shot him . . . just shot him and now he's gone !"

"You knew Dale Kingman." Mac said it as a statement of fact.

"I was nice to Dale. Just nice . That's all, and look what it got me. He stole from my friends, broke into their house, killed Tim! He told me he had a gun. He knew Tim broke my heart . . ." Her voice faded into a sob.

"He meant to kill Tim?"

"I don't know. I don't know. Tim went to the door . . . Dale saw him and . . ."

"Took the opportunity?" Mac supplied when she couldn't go on. Kristl nodded her head.

"I didn't want it. I didn't want to lose Tim. If Dale wasn't dead, I'd want to kill him myself!" Her body trembled against Mac's. "It all started with Gavin," she declared in a burst of anger. "He didn't want Tim to fall in love with me. He said I killed Ethan and Tim started to believe him . . . He's such an ass! I hate him!"

Mackenzie realized she didn't know Gavin had died. "Can we drive you home?"

"I've got a car . . ." She looked around the lot. "I don't want to go home." She wrenched herself away from Mac and headed toward a brown Chrysler.

"That your car?" asked Mac.

"My mom's. I don't have one. I don't have anything . . ." She started crying again.

"Let me drive you," Mac suggested as Kristl pulled her keys from the small purse on a thin strap over her shoulders.

Kristl acquiesced and Mac slid behind the wheel of the Chrysler, figuring Taft could pick her up later. All the way to her house, Kristl talked about Tim, how she'd finally found the man of her dreams, how it was like a fairy tale, a prince after a lot of ogres, how she was aware she had a sex addiction, how the rest of The Sorority would make fun of her if they knew, how taking care of her mother was harder than anyone gave her credit for, how her life was just a pile of shit.

Mac parked the Chrysler in the driveway and then walked Kristl to the front door, handing her her keys.

"Are you coming in?" Kristl looked at her almost hopefully.

"I think I'll wait out here. Taft's picking me up."

"Is he your boyfriend?" she asked sadly. "He pretended he was single."

"He's my business partner . . . kind of a boss/mentor."

She tilted her head and sighed. "I saw the way he looked at you. It kind of pissed me off that he lied to me, but whatever." She turned toward the door and as Mac headed down the driveway, she asked suddenly, "Can you come tomorrow night? The Sorority's meeting at my house. I want you to come. Please come."

"Um . . ." Mac stopped and turned back.

"Say yes!"

Mac had never been all that close to Kristl. They hadn't really run in the same circle in high school. But Natalie hadn't called her back, and neither had Erin or Leigh.

This was an unexpected and golden opportunity to meet with all of The Sorority at once.

Kristl added, "Natalie arranged it all. She still as bossy as ever, but I . . . there are some things . . . I don't know. I just think I would feel better if you were there."

"What time?" asked Mac.

"Seven thirty. Okay?"

"Okay," said Mac and Kristl smiled as she closed the door behind her.

Mac was shivering with cold by the time Taft arrived. She jumped into his car as soon as it stopped. "Brrrr," she murmured, rubbing her elbows and hugging herself.

He'd opened his own door to help her in, but she'd been too fast. Now he closed the door, then shrugged out of his coat and handed it to her. "Took longer than I thought. You okay?"

"Fine." She didn't mention the headache that was almost full blown, which was just as well because it quelled those feelings for him that had sparked at Lacey's. "Wow. What an evening."

"I don't know the last time I was in a bar fight," admitted Taft.

"How's your hand?"

"Not bad. How's your head . . . and your ankle?"

"A-okay." She leaned back into the headrest. "Kristl invited me to her house tomorrow to meet with The Sorority."

"How did that happen?"

Mac proceeded to tell him what Kristl had revealed as he drove her back to her apartment. He listened carefully and when she was finished, he asked, "Do you believe her?"

"Well, I don't think Tim's death was premeditated. I mean, yes, it sounds like Kingman got the gun with that in mind, or something like it, to win Kristl's heart, and it all tumbled together. A lot of bad decisions that culminated in a shoot-out. I don't think it was really her fault even if she was the cause. Tim was incredibly unlucky."

He humphed in agreement. "All right. I'll tell Haynes."

At her apartment, he insisted on walking her up the stairs. "Think we'll be in trouble for brawling at a bar?" she asked.

"Only if Karl complains. I don't think anyone else in there will."

"He attacked you ," she reminded.

"He doesn't like me much."

"Yeah, really?" she said wryly. "How do you know him?"

"We worked together at Portland P.D. He didn't like that I was on a faster track up the ladder than he was."

"You?" She lifted her brows.

He grinned. "Don't believe all the bad reports you hear."

"I don't," she admitted. Then, as they looked at each other, she cleared her throat and glanced down at his swelling left hand. "You should probably ice it."

"Planning on it. Thanks for the help in taking down Karl."

"Anytime."

"See you tomorrow."

She watched him head down the stairs, then closed the door and leaned against it for a moment. She inhaled and slowly exhaled, then headed for aspirin and bed.

* * *

Tuesday morning, Mia Beckwith felt her cell phone silently buzz against her skin from inside her pocket. There was no way to answer it without being seen and Mia didn't feel like having to explain herself to Ben, which was all she'd been doing these days.

She was seated on the front porch in a rocker, looking down the dusty strip of asphalt that led to the cabin and this outpost of Ben's family's legal marijuana operation. But the business's legality didn't mean their fields were immune to poachers, so the security forces the Cabreras employed were downright lethal. One trespasser had been killed the previous summer and the mood was always tense. What Mia had found exciting, dangerous, and romantic in the beginning had devolved into being a prisoner in her own home.

She'd made a big mistake. She'd been led into a cultlike relationship with Ben, whom she'd believed in totally. It had taken years for her to see that most of what he said and did was utter bullshit. She'd dropped her friends for him . . . her family . . . everyone. And she had no one to blame but herself. Shame filled her with how she'd treated her parents. It was . . . reprehensible.

Her only defense was that she was scared—deep-down scared to the core of her being, and she'd lived all the years since graduation wanting to not be scared anymore. Ben had seemed to offer her that security, that protection, that love . . . but in the end it had come with too steep a price.

It isn't just since graduation , she reminded herself, feeling a shiver start in her gut and spread to her extremities. It's since Ethan's death. And Ingrid's.

She sucked in the sharp, cool morning air and looked up at the cloud-scudded sky. She tried so hard not to let those thoughts, those memories, escape the locked box inside her head where she put all the terrible issues she didn't want to look at.

When did you become such a coward?

She swallowed and answered herself:

When I discovered those innocuous-looking pills . . .

Her first instinct had been to ask Ethan about them. How naive she'd been! Her second had been how to get rid of them . . . but they weren't hers to destroy. He told her they wouldn't be used. She was chastised for even believing they would be, but everyone knew how dangerous fentanyl was. She even convinced herself the pills weren't used . . . half-convinced herself, anyway. Losing control of his car could be from any number of factors, she inwardly argued. Nothing ever came out that Ethan and his sister had overdosed, so she'd left River Glen believing their deaths had been an unfortunate driving accident . . . though she'd wondered.

Ben had helped her forget River Glen. She'd run to him and his wealthy and protective family. The tonic to cure her from all the ills she left behind in River Glen, and that's the way it had been in the beginning.

But now . . . not so much. Truthfully, the rest of Ben's family didn't really care about her one way or another, but Ben had grown possessive. He sometimes talked marriage and she sometimes thought she wanted that, but she sometimes thought not. She'd run to him when everything else had been coming down on her. Those terrible grades, the repressed memories Ben's guru friend had pulled from her about how her parents had treated her so badly, which now she wondered if they might have been planted memories instead. Mason sure thought she'd been programmed. "You're brainwashed, Mia," he'd said enough times that she'd cut him off. For a while she would only allow Leigh's calls, and then she quit her, too, though she'd texted Mason again. He was currently her only connection to her old life, a life that didn't look so bad in retrospect, and last night he'd sent her a text that made her catch her breath:

I gave your number to Mackenzie Laughlin.

And then Mackenzie had called and left a message, asking Mia to call her. Mia had not been able to listen to that message till this morning when she had a moment alone from Ben in the bathroom. She hadn't dared called back because he would ask too many questions and she didn't have any idea what Mackenzie wanted, unless . . .

She shook her head. No . . . no . . . she wasn't going to go there. She knew from Leigh that Mackenzie had gone into law enforcement and then private investigation. But that couldn't be why she was trying to get in touch at this late date, could it?

Her heart beat deep and heavy, so deep and heavy she could practically see it through her nightgown. She thought about pulling out her phone but then she heard the screen door open and slam shut behind her, and she was glad her phone was in her pocket. It was growing cooler, almost cold, and she felt Ben place a jacket over her shoulders. She turned to smile up at him.

"What are you drinking, babe?" he asked, looking at the amber fluid in her glass.

"Iced tea."

"You can't lie to me," he said, wagging a finger in front of her nose.

Did he really think she would imbibe so early in the day? Yes, she answered herself, because that's what he would do. "Taste it." Her smile grew fixed as she watched him pick up her glass and take a big swallow.

"Iced tea," he pronounced.

He dropped into the chair next to her and reached for her hand. They sat there quietly, holding hands.

Ben was sandy-haired and blue-eyed and took after his mother, who'd been swept off her feet by the handsome and suave Miguel Cabrera. Mia could still see it in Ben's good-looking father. She'd fallen a little in love with the idea of the whole family. In the beginning there'd been fabulous trips and expensive cars and an avalanche of presents while Ben was wooing her. Maybe she'd grown too used to the extravagance. She certainly let Ben take over her life and make all her decisions. After years of getting the grades and trying to please her exacting mother, she'd just let go. She'd just . . . stopped.

But over the years Ben had tightened his grip and slowly she'd lost her liberties. Hell, she'd thrown them away. Now he gave her the third degree about any and all phone calls, any kind of connection to her old life. When she visited her parents they berated her for leaving school and then came the time she'd accused them of abuse. Ugly, ugly words that she didn't even mean! She'd just been so mad at them. She could not admit that she was struggling in school, drowning in work, on the verge of going under. They wouldn't understand. They couldn't. Not their Mia. Good, good Mia.

So, she'd just plain freaked out. Gone mental. Ended up in jail for resisting arrest at a protest she didn't even care about, for God's sake! Mia had never really failed at anything before but she was failing, failing, failing . . . she couldn't get past Ethan's death and that night when they'd all vowed to kill him in a car accident—which is how he'd died a few weeks later!

And there was Ben, ready to make it all better. His therapist friend helping her with her "memories." She'd believed it at the time because she wanted to believe it. She didn't believe any of that shit now.

Leigh had tried to tell her that maybe the abuse wasn't real. So had Mason. She hadn't listened to either one of them. She'd been pissed at them. Now, she suspected they were right all along and all she wanted to do was go home again. To that time before Ethan's and Ingrid's deaths. To when life was simple. Good was good and bad was bad and it all made sense.

But it didn't make sense, did it? That's why you ran to Ben in the first place.

Ben's cell buzzed and Mia startled. He dropped her hand and pulled the phone from his pocket. He then put the cell to his ear and answered with a friendly "Hello, there." He always seemed to be friendly until he wasn't. She watched him take the two steps down to the ground and walk away from her.

Wiping her now sweaty palm on her pants, Mia kept an eye on him as he stepped out of earshot, strolling down the asphalt drive. She glanced upward to the towering firs and pines that surrounded their compound in this fertile Northern California valley—a valley not all that far from the Oregon border.

Ben walked farther and farther down the road. When, from her perspective, he appeared to be about a half inch tall, she slid her cell phone from her pocket and looked at Mason's message again: I gave your number to Mackenzie Laughlin.

She was slightly afraid of calling Mackenzie back, but it was a moot point anyway. She couldn't explain it to Ben. She slid the phone back into her pocket just as surreptitiously and got up and went into the cabin. The main house was more lavish than their little bungalow, but she had insisted on her own place, one of the few times she'd asserted herself. The cabin was rustic in design, modern in practicality with a spa bath that would rival anything she'd seen on television. It certainly was better than anything she'd seen on Natalie's program. Such a bitch. Did Natalie realize how that came through to the viewers? Probably not.

Mia had an emergency go-bag packed. They all did. There were unpredictable criminal organizations that tried to raid their lands and it was good to be prepared. She pulled hers out from the closet and did a cursory examination of its contents. Then she examined her stash of cash, collected over the past few years from leftover grocery money, enough to get home and then some.

And it wasn't like she was a true prisoner, she reminded herself. Ben's brother would just as soon she disappeared forever because he believed, wrongly, that she had her eye on the family business and fortune. She couldn't care less about it. Sure, it had had its allure in the beginning, but she'd been confused and delirious and generally messed up. Those sinking grades . . . She'd been so mortified it had nearly killed her.

Why was Mackenzie calling her? Mackenzie had been Leigh's drama friend in high school. The rest of The Sorority hadn't known her all that well.

The Sorority.

She felt herself shiver. Was it something to do with Ethan? Did Mackenzie know what Mia suspected?

She shook her head and tucked the envelope of cash that she'd kept hidden behind feminine supplies in the closet into her go-bag. She slung the bag over her shoulder and hurried out the back door and toward the massive garage attached to the main house, a rambling mansion of redwood and bullet proof soaring windows. She saw Jim as she slipped in the side door of the garage and she smiled at him. "Going to town," she told the workman as she passed an array of vehicles that could rival a dealer's showroom. She slipped her bag into the passenger seat of a black Landrover, hoping Jim didn't wonder why her "purse" was so much bigger than usual. But he just nodded at her. Maybe he found her as uninteresting as Ben's parents apparently did.

She smiled and waved at Jimmy as she left, but he barely looked at her. In the beginning she'd wanted to prove how worthy she was. She'd damn near groveled in front of Ben's family, seeking approval they were never going to give. They didn't care what Ben did or with whom. She was simply that pretty, broken-down, part-Asian girl who occupied some of his time.

It had really fucked with her mind over time, she'd finally realized. From being the brightest star of her class, she'd become a failure at Stanford and her confidence sank to the bottom. Her professors had tried to help her, but her mortification wouldn't allow their aid. At that critical moment Ben had swept her into his world and she'd been so grateful.

The last time she'd visited her parents had been an unmitigated disaster. Ben was with her, of course, but he hadn't been the biggest problem. The biggest problem was her own brain. She'd had one of those triggering moments that confirmed her parents' belief that she was crazy, though they would never admit it, and resulted in her being more dependent on Ben.

It happened every time she went home. Those memories . . . graduation day.

Mia shut her mind down. She could excise those memories when they seeped in, which they did when she was stressed. They'd overwhelmed her back in the day, but she wouldn't let them anymore.

She swallowed as she drove down the asphalt lane, waving at Ben as she passed. He would think she was just getting groceries. She did it all the time . . . well, once in a while, rarely by herself. He looked alarmed, but she didn't care. She dropped her hand out of sight behind the dashboard and her happy wave turned into a jutting middle finger that he couldn't see. As soon she was out of sight she plucked her cell phone from her pocket.

* * *

Mac awoke late and had just gotten through the shower and dressed, feeling every ache and pain from her brutal past week, when her cell buzzed. She picked it up from her dresser and looked at the screen, feeling a jolt as she recognized the number: Mia.

"Mia?" Mackenzie answered. Every nerve on alert.

"Hi, um, you called me?" she said slowly.

"I did." Mac was enthusiastic. "Thanks for calling back." She could hear noise in the background and thought Mia was in a vehicle. "Leigh was worried about you and couldn't get hold of you, so she asked me to try."

"That's it?"

She sounded careful, maybe slightly disappointed. "Are you all right? Leigh was worried about you . . . and so was Mason."

"Mason gave you my number."

She seemed to be picking her words, almost accusingly careful. "That's right."

"I'm fine. I'm . . . actually coming your way."

"To River Glen?"

"That's right."

Mackenzie's brows knit. It felt like Mia was saying something without saying it. "Are you coming . . . alone?"

"If you mean Ben, he's not joining me on this trip."

"Did you leave a Post-it type note on Leigh's car?"

"What?" The question was edged with emotion. Fear, maybe?

"Leigh got a note that said ‘Help me,' and she was convinced it was your writing."

Mia made a sound low in her throat. "I see I need to talk to Leigh. I'll call her."

"Good. That's what she wants. But as long as I have you, can I ask you a question? Mason said something about you knowing the real cause of Ethan and Ingrid Stanhope's deaths."

Mac heard her sharp intake of breath. "Mason told you that? I don't know anything! They died in a car accident. That's it. Mason knows that."

"He said he and Sam Stanhope bought fentanyl, Ethan wanted some of the pills, and that you knew about it."

"I don't want to talk about this." This time Mac was certain it was fear in her voice.

"Mia, fentanyl was found in both Ethan's and Ingrid's systems. The toxicology report was shelved, but it's come to light now."

"I don't know why Mason would tell you that. Ethan had . . . I mean, I saw at the party . . ."

"What party? Graduation night?"

"There were pills . . . maybe . . . I saw them. I didn't know what they were. I didn't want to think about it. I still don't."

"You saw pills at the graduation party at Gavin's house?"

"No. Before . . . when he was with Roxie. I didn't know! I—I blocked it. I ran away. I thought it was Mason who made the deal because Ethan had told me his brother and Mason had the stuff . . . I didn't think it killed Ethan. I didn't know . And then Ingrid . . . I was a mess . . ." She drew a breath, the words tumbling over each other. "But Mason insisted that he and Sam had gotten rid of the pills long before that party. But . . . maybe Ethan got some of them . . . ?"

"It's possible that—"

"I'm going to call Leigh. I need to talk to her."

"Mia, maybe it wasn't Mason and Sam's—"

Click.

Mac was cut off before she could finish her thought, which was that maybe Ethan got the pills from another source. Mac tried to call Mia back but the line went directly to voice mail.

She blew out her breath. Had Mason lied to her? To protect Sam and himself? Mia clearly had all kinds of guilt and emotion over worrying that her brother was at least partially responsible for Ethan's and Ingrid's deaths, but Mason had sounded convinced he and Sam were not Ethan's source of fentanyl.

Her cell phone buzzed again. She saw it was Leigh and grimaced. Mia had said she was going to call her, and Mac figured Leigh would not be thrilled that Mac hadn't immediately let her know Mason had given her Mia's number.

Not that Leigh was great about calling her back after the messages she'd left on her voice mail. "Hi, Leigh," Mac answered lightly. "Glad you could return my call." Might as well go on the offensive a little.

" You didn't let me know you had Mia's number! " Leigh shouted into the phone.

There it was. "Well, I just learned last night."

"And you didn't think to let me know ?"

"You told me not to leave a message on your phone," Mac reminded levelly.

Leigh caught her breath, slowed down for the moment, but she recovered quickly. "Well, you could have told me. Found me. Or something."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah!" She clearly believed Mac had betrayed her somehow. She had to take several deep breaths to get herself under control. "I just thought maybe you could try a little harder."

"It was too late to go back to Parker Flooring last night," Mac drawled.

"Okay, fine. Enough said. I don't want to be mad."

"I don't, either. So, you talked to Mia?"

"She called me after she called you, apparently. She said she was leaving Ben. I told her to come home. I begged her! I don't know if she will, though, because she and her parents are still estranged."

"She told me she was coming back to River Glen."

"She told you that? Well good. I'm glad."

She didn't sound glad. She sounded like she was clearly still irked that Mac had contacted Mia first, but it was kind of a moot point at this juncture.

"Did she say she left you the ‘Help me' message?" asked Mac.

"We didn't talk about it. I was off the phone too fast," Leigh said tightly. "I told her that I was upset she cut me off and that no one in her family would help me, so I hired you. And then Mason just handed you her number? Thanks a whole helluva lot. I'm really pissed off at him for holding out."

"You didn't ask her about the note?"

"I just told you no! Why are you so on this?"

"I just wanted to know how she physically got away from Ben to leave that message on your car, but then didn't call you."

"I don't know."

Mac let it go. "I'll write up a bill and return what you overpaid me."

"No, keep the rest. It's fine. We're good." Leigh was suddenly magnanimous.

"I feel I should pay you back for a good chunk of it."

"No, no, no. Just leave it. Please."

"Okay." There was a long moment where neither of them spoke. It didn't seem like Mia had discussed the fentanyl with Leigh so Mac let it lie herself. "Are you going to Kristl's tonight?" she asked instead.

"You know about The Sorority meeting?" Leigh was clearly surprised.

"Kristl invited me."

"She did? . . . Well, good. I always said you should be part of our group." She sounded nonplused. "Does Natalie know?"

"I don't know."

"I gave Natalie a ‘maybe' when she said she wanted us to meet. If Mia's showing up in River Glen . . . maybe she'll go to the meeting, too. She said she was going to call the sisters, so who knows?"

"She sounded like she was driving when I talked to her. Unless she catches a flight from California, I don't see how she'll be here in time," said Mac.

"Okay, maybe not. But you'll be there tonight? You're coming?"

"Planning on it," said Mac.

"Okay. And . . . I'm sorry. I don't mean to be a bitch. You got Mason to give you Mia's number and that's kind of amazing, but it all worked out. See you tonight, then."

Mac clicked off and let out a pent-up breath. Leigh could be a workout.

She picked up Ethan's laptop again, her mind on what Gavin had said about all members of The Sorority being involved with Ethan before narrowing in on Kristl as responsible for Ethan's death. That certainly seemed to have ramped up after Kristl had grown close to his brother . . . so maybe he blamed Kristl unfairly? Because he didn't want Tim to be with her?

But someone had run Gavin off the road . . . in a vehicle with white paint. Not the blue Accord that had come after Mac, and not Kristl's mom's brown Chrysler.

Maybe one of the other "sisters"?

Her cell buzzed and she saw it was Taft, which gave her heart a jolt in a way that really pissed her off. She had to get over this and fast. "Hey," she answered.

"How're you doing today?"

"Still okay. I got rid of the bandage on my head. Thought it would cover up the worst of the knot, but it's too late. What about your hand?"

"It's fine," he dismissed. "I think maybe you should tell Haynes about the blue Accord, if you haven't already."

They'd discussed this and Mac had determined she didn't want to report the accident yet. "I don't want the police getting in my way. I want to keep digging into Ethan's and Ingrid's deaths. I know I'm not getting paid. Don't say it. I don't care. I just want to do it for Gavin."

"You didn't like him, and now you feel guilty that he's dead."

"Yes. Probably," she said testily. "All I know is that I want to see this through, so don't say anything. And Mia Beckwith has been found." She quickly brought him up to date about her conversations with Leigh and Mia.

"I'm talking to Haynes today. We're meeting this afternoon."

"Well, keep the blue Accord out of it. You think Kristl's confession will put suspicions about Tim Knowles's death to bed?"

"I think so. We feel that way, so Haynes probably will, too. Though none of it explains what happened to Gavin or you."

"Don't bring me into it," she warned again, and Taft reluctantly promised to keep her accident out of it.

They discussed a few more of the ins and outs of the events of the last few days, then he exhaled and said, "I have a couple of things to tell you . . ."

Those couple of things were that Anna DeMarcos had dropped by his condo and that he was meeting Prudence and her at the Mangella home this afternoon.

"You're going to see that lethal woman again ?"

"Prudence apologized and said she wants to accept the terms of the will."

"Bullshit."

He laughed. "I know it's bullshit, but she's got my curiosity stirred up."

"Well, great. That makes me feel better. She and Anna DeMarcos are probably lying in wait for you. You should tell Haynes where you're going, so he'll know who to blame after they throw you off the roof, too."

"I'll make sure I don't go upstairs."

"Ha-ha."

"I'll call you later," he said, a smile in his voice.

She went back to the laptop, trying hard to forget the amused timbre of his voice, gave it up and decided it was time to visit her mother, Stephanie and the baby, or something, anything, to clear her head.