“Call an ambulance.” He moaned with the rising agony.

“I’ll call an ambulance,” she promised, “as soon as you tell me who killed my sister.”

Why would he tell her anything? He wouldn’t. Dear God, the pain was unbearable. His body was on fire with it.

To hell with it. “She did,” he hissed. Better for her to suffer than him.

“Who is she?”

His son might never forgive him . . . but he couldn’t hold out. He needed help . . . he was in such pain and so afraid of dying. “Suzanne.”

“Why?” the bitch demanded.

A roar of agony wailed from his throat before he could answer. “Theo,” he moaned, “told her he was leaving her for Janelle. He was willing to give up everything. Suzanne followed her until she found the right opportunity. She ran her over and then buried her body.”

Dear God! He couldn’t bear this pain any longer. His entire being radiated with the force of it. His heart was pounding. The pressure in his chest was horrendous. “Please. I told you what you wanted to know. Make the call!”

“Where did she bury her?”

He wailed again with the rising agony.

She moved. He managed to turn his head the slightest bit to watch her. Was she calling for help?

Taking her time, she climbed the stairs. Midway up, she paused and bent down. “What’re you doing?” He howled with another flood of misery.

When he looked again, she was coming down the stairs, wrapping something around her hand as she moved toward him. Then he knew. She had put something in his path. A wire or string of some sort. That was why he had tripped.

Fucking bitch!

She crouched next to him. “Where was she buried?”

“You won’t get away with this,” he snarled.

She smiled. “I already have. Now tell me what she did with my sister’s body, and then I’ll make the call for an ambulance.”

He suddenly saw two of her. Her two faces swam in front of him.

“Tell me,” she whispered, her faces suddenly close to his.

He thought of that night. Of how Suzanne had come to him with the girl in her trunk. He’d called Lewis, and they had . . .

His mind drifted back to those frantic moments. Dear God, what they had done . . .

He stared up at the two faces peering down at him. A voice was speaking . . . was it his voice or hers? But her lips weren’t moving.

Oh, what they had done . . .

59

9:30 p.m.

Whisper Lake Circle

Suzanne parked next to T. R.’s car. What on earth was he thinking, coming here at this time of night? She shook her head. He must have some reason. She hoped it was a good one.

“I swear, I think you’re getting senile, old man.” How did he expect to be governor if he kept forgetting things and making little mistakes? Perhaps he would see that he needed her more than ever.

Suzanne had decided long ago to make herself invaluable to T. R. God only knew if she would be able to count on Theo. He was far too weak.

She climbed out of her car, hit the fob to lock it, and then dropped it back into her purse. She hurried to the front door. She assumed he was inside since the downstairs lights all appeared to be on. The door was unlocked. Did he have a key?

“T. R.?” She called his name repeatedly as she roamed through the empty house. “Where are you? Are you all right?”

Her cell vibrated. She noted the name on the screen, then answered. “What do you want, Lewis?” The idiot should be babysitting Theo tonight just to make sure he didn’t do anything stupid.

“Stay close to your husband, Suzanne. The next twenty-four hours are crucial to getting through this.”

She rolled her eyes. “You should be babysitting Theo. The two of you are the reason this all started.” She had other things to do, like see after T. R.

“You have my word. By lunch tomorrow, this will all be behind us.”

“How the hell do you know when this will end? If you had paid better attention, you could have ended this before it started.” Fool.

“I’m meeting her at the cabin in the morning at nine sharp,” Lewis insisted. “She’s told me what she wants. We’re going to end this. Just the two of us.”

Suzanne laughed. “I’d be careful if I were you, Lewis. She’s a cunning little bitch.”

“Trust me, Suz. I’ve got this. I’ll be waiting when she arrives, and when it’s done, I’ll expect a very nice bonus for cleaning up this enormous clusterfuck.”

She ended the call. T. R. was right. Lewis York greatly overestimated his worth.

Speaking of T. R., where the hell was he? “T. R.? It’s late. Where are you?”

Once she reached the far side of the great room, she stalled. The french doors were open. There were no exterior lights on. Had he gone outside? What was he doing out there? She stepped through the door and onto the patio.

Suddenly the exterior lights blared to life.

An excavator still stood next to the pool. Rubble lay in massive piles.

The air trapped in her throat. She’d thought they had this under control.

“Fuck.”

Someone had dug up the pool. “What the hell?”

She ventured across the patio and to the edge of the former pool. Some pieces still lay in the pit that had once been her mother’s beloved oasis. Another piece of equipment sat next to the excavator. It wasn’t so large and looked like a metal barrel on legs.

“T. R.?”

She should call the police. Something was very wrong.

The lights went out.

Suzanne jumped. Dropped her phone and her purse. Damn it! She couldn’t see a thing. She reached down and scratched around on the ground. Where was her phone? Couldn’t find it.

“T. R.! What the hell is going on?” She straightened and peered into the darkness, willing her eyes to adjust faster.

Something slammed into the back of her head. Pain shattered through her skull. The blow sent her pitching forward. She twisted to grab on to something, but there was nothing except air. She fell into the pool, landing on her back atop a pile of rubble. Pain exploded in her body. Her head throbbed and spun. Her eyes wouldn’t focus.

She . . . she . . .

“Hello, Suzanne.”

The bright beam of a flashlight shone in her eyes. She blinked. Wanted to shield her eyes from the brightness but couldn’t seem to initiate the necessary action.

Who . . . ? The voice sounded familiar.

“Isn’t it amazing what the right contractor will do for the right price? It was so easy to hire him to show up this afternoon and rip out this lovely pool your mother built for your children to use when they visited her.” She laughed. “If she was anything like you, she needed some sort of bribe to woo them here.” She sighed. “Anyway, I digress. The contractor even left his nifty concrete mixer loaded with the dry mix I would require. All I have to do is add water.”

Suzanne tried to get up. Why couldn’t she move? The sound of water pouring into metal brushed her dulling senses. Something started to hum. The hum soon became a growl. Fear shattered in her chest. She needed to move, but she couldn’t. Her body would not cooperate.

The pain was overwhelming. She couldn’t keep her thoughts together.

“There we go.” The growling stopped. “I think we’re ready now.”

The organ in Suzanne’s chest flopped wildly. Sela Abbott. The voice belonged to that disgusting gold digger. “What . . . what the hell are you doing?”

Suzanne’s words sounded strange. Her voice was frail, and her head was spinning again. “What’ve you done to T. R.?”

“Oh, I’m afraid he’s going to have to drop out of the race for governor.”

“You will not get away with this,” Suzanne said with as much force as she could muster. Her body began to shudder and quake, and she couldn’t stop it.

She needed help. “H-help me.”

“I know everything, Suzanne,” Sela warned. “T. R. told me what you did to my sister. If you want my help with the pain, you only need tell me one thing first.”

Suzanne tried to scream, but her throat wouldn’t form the sound. She couldn’t stop shaking. “An-anything.”

“Who killed my husband?”

60

11:45 p.m.

Neal watched for headlights in the darkness.

Suzanne had ordered him to meet her. Keith Bellemont was hounding him. The police had put out an APB on his vehicle. At this point, he wasn’t sure how much longer he could make himself available, period.

Amelia was MIA. He hadn’t been able to reach her in days.

His fingers tightened on the steering wheel. He had a bad, bad feeling.