“You want Charlotte to pay?” Cate smiled. A Sullivan knew how to sell dialogue, even on the fly. “Me, too. The bitch had me kidnapped, her own daughter! She’s used me all my life. How the hell is killing me making her pay? She doesn’t care about me and never has.”

“They’ll think she did it.”

“Really?” Defiantly, Cate rolled her eyes. “They’re going to think Charlotte Dupont figured out how to get through the security, came in here, and shot me? Why the hell would they think that? If you do this, they’ll just look at Sparks again.”

“No, they won’t.”

“Of course they will. She’s got the best lawyers money can buy. She’s spent years crying about how she wants to be my mommy again. And you want to give her an excuse to wail over her dead daughter? Sparks will take the fall.”

“He won’t!”

But Cate heard the doubt this time.

Take the spoon, she thought, and pry the nails out of the window locks. Take the steps.

“When you’re dead I’m going to write her name on the floor with your blood.”

“Please, that’s just pitiful, and it’ll never work. You know what will? A live witness.” She wiggled a finger at her own head. “Telling the police some man broke in here, tried to kill me, and told me Charlotte hired him. Me, the poor, innocent daughter of the manipulative bitch. God, why didn’t I ever think of this before? We can ruin her. Finally.”

“You need to walk over here!”

“You need to listen to me.” Risky, yes risky to put that much authority and anger in her tone, but she needed to dominate to survive.

Make a rope out of the sheets.

“You need me alive if you want this to work. Oh, put the gun down. A pro wouldn’t shoot me.” Cate waved a hand at the gun. “Somebody could hear. I may need you to hit me, leave some bruises. Or . . . How could we make it look like an accident? I mean that the hired killer tried to make it look like one? That’s the way she’d want it. But I get away, and he has to run off, and he’s told me she hired him.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Why?” Fury erupted on Cate’s face.

Climb down, climb down. Get out of that locked room.

“I was ten. And what did she do when she got out, after spending less time in prison than I’d been alive when she had me drugged and locked in a room? She used me again, and again and again. She terrorized me so I had to give up my career. Does she pay? No, never. Instead she marries one of the richest men . . .”

It wasn’t easy to put admiration on her face when her heart raced. “Was that you? Holy shit, did you poison her meal ticket to try to pin it on her?”

“It should’ve worked!”

“Oh yeah, but she always slips through. Fucking snake. It took guts to do that. You must really love him.”

“I’d do anything for Grant. He’s the only one who’s ever loved me. The only one who’s ever seen me.”

“I know how that feels. She used him just like she used me. He must be disappointed killing Buster didn’t blow back on her.”

“He is, but he’s so brave.”

“Did he tell you to come here and shoot me?”

“I’m doing it for him. He doesn’t know. I can’t stand seeing him so tired and worn out. We were so sure she’d pay. But none of it’s gone right.”

Time to run for the woods.

“Because there was no one alive to pin it on her. They’d believe me. Why wouldn’t they? They’d believe me, and she’d finally get what she deserves. Now stop pointing that gun at me so we can think this through, work it out. I want a drink. Do you want a drink?”

Jessica lowered the gun. “I could just wound you.”

“I’ll take a punch, but I’d rather not get shot.”

Keep running, keep running until you see the light.

“Let me just . . .”

Through the glass she saw the dogs, and Dillon with a market bag. Her pounding heart simply stopped.

“Wait! I’ve got it.” Quickly, deliberately, she moved to the right so Jessica turned her back to the glass wall. “Simple, that’s best. Simple, straightforward. I don’t have to know how he got in or out. I’m hysterical. Say he tried to push me down the stairs, so it would look like I fell. He’s wearing a mask so I don’t see his face.”

She couldn’t run now, because the light was coming to her. So she had to take the wheel, make the turn.

“Oh, a clown mask, like that bastard Denby wore. You know, I think he worked with my mother to set Sparks up.”

“He did!” Tears of gratitude sprang to Jessica’s eyes. “Grant told me everything. He made a terrible mistake, but—”

“Yes, he did,” Cate said as the door opened.

She lunged forward as the dogs ran in, as Jessica swung toward the noise, the movement.

Frantic, she grabbed Jessica’s gun hand, yanked it up. The gun fired at the ceiling as Jessica struck out.

She took a punch after all, but kept both hands locked around Jessica’s wrist.

Her hands, the wrist, both so slippery. She thought of falling, falling, falling, and gripped tighter.

Let out a scream, one of her best bloodcurdlings.

Then a hand, hard, strong, closed over hers, wrenched the gun away.

She went down in a heap, Jessica on top of her, wailing, flailing, then screaming as the dogs growled and snapped. Snarling herself, Cate tried a punch of her own, felt her knuckles sing as it connected.

She sucked in air, let it out in a stream of curses in every language she knew. Reared back to punch again, but hit air as Dillon dragged Jessica to her feet.

He shoved her into a chair. “Sit where I put you. Guard,” he ordered the dogs, who sat growling while Jessica wept.

“Are you hurt, Cate?”

“No. No.”

“You need to call Michaela now,” he told her without taking his eyes off Jessica. “Can you do that?”

“Yes.”

“It’s not fair.” Jessica wept into her hands. “She has to pay.”

“She doesn’t mean me,” Cate said as she picked up her phone off the counter. “She means my mother.”

“I don’t care who she means. Lady, you put a mark on my woman’s face, and I broke about a dozen eggs dropping that bag. I’ve never hit a woman in my life, but if you don’t shut up, you’re going to be the first.”

Ignoring him, she raged at Cate. “I should’ve shot you! I should never have listened to you! You’re a liar.”

“No.” The smile Cate sent her was fierce. “I’m an actor.”

Instead of looking at wedding dress designs that afternoon, Cate sat with Dillon’s hand over hers in the gathering room of the house her great-grandparents had built.

Her father paced. She wasn’t sure she could have kept still if Dillon hadn’t held her hand. Like an anchor right now, keeping her grounded.

Julia and Maggie sat together on one of the small sofas. Hugh sat in Rosemary’s favorite chair, with Lily in the chair beside his.

Consuela, eyes red from weeping, came in with a fresh ice bag. “You put this on your face now.”