“You could wait for me in the car,” she suggested to Sergei and Ricky with mild sarcasm when the elevator arrived. The door opened; they followed her on in stony silence, one on each side.

On the fourth floor Eve found a nurses’ station manned-and that was the word-by a very large woman who looked like a cross between somebody’s mama and an M.P. “Family only in the patient’s room,” she announced, sizing up Eve’s companions with an implacable eye. “You two can wait in the waiting room, if you want to-down there to your left.” She pointed the way. Neither Sergei nor Ricky were stupid enough to give her any lip.

To Eve, she said kindly, “Miz Starr’s room’s right down there-number 412.” She pointed in a direction opposite the one to which she’d dispatched Sergei and Ricky. “Her sister and her husband are with her, but you can go on in.”

Eve said, “Thank you,” and hurried down the corridor, past doors standing open to reveal weary but happy-looking women propped up and surrounded by clusters of relatives. Some of them cradled tiny pink- or blue-wrapped bundles in their arms. All of them wore ecstatically happy, bemused or besotted expressions on their faces.

Oh, God. Eve prayed as she glanced enviously at them, please let Bella and her baby be all light… Her own troubles suddenly seemed ridiculously small.

The door to 412 was closed. She paused in front of it to blow her nose and take a deep breath, then, resolutely smiling, heart pounding, she turned the knob and went in.

The first thing she saw was Mirabella, cranked up in the hospital bed almost to a sitting position, obviously still pregnant, also rosy-cheeked and smiling-no, laughing-at something Summer had said. Summer stood beside the bed, and the two of them had turned their heads to look at her, both bright-eyed and breathless, as if they shared some delicious joke.

Eve halted. What was wrong with this picture? Suddenly wary and suspicious-the exact same feeling she’d occasionally had right before someone jumped out at her and yelled, “Surprise!”-she ventured a cautious “Hi, what’s going on?”

“False alarm,” sang Mirabella gaily. “They think it must have been muscle spasms. Guess I overdid it, raking leaves yesterday.” She and Summer exchanged that secretive look. “Anyway, the baby-John William-and I both check out fine.”

“Thank-” Eve did a double take. “John-does that mean…?”

Mirabella looked ready to burst with delight. “Ultrasound confirms it-we’re having a boy.”

“You know that child is going to wind up being called John Willie,” said Summer in mock disgust. “Or worse.”

“Over my dead body,” promised Mirabella blithely. “Anyway, they gave me some stuff for muscle pain, and now I feel just peachy. Sorry you had to come all this way for nothing.”

“That’s okay…” Weak in the knees, Eve sat on the edge of the hospital bed. She looked around. “Where’s Jimmy Joe?”

“Who? Oh-” Mirabella waved a hand “-somewhere between here and Houston, I imagine. Why?”

“I just assumed… The nurse said your husband was here.” Eve looked at Summer. “Riley came with you?”

Summer shook her head; she seemed to be holding her breath. But before she could say anything, the curtain surrounding the bed next to Mirabella’s was drawn back. A voice, gravelly and solemn, said, “I believe she meant me.”

To Eve it felt as if her heart exploded. A powerful electrical surge shot through her body; her scalp prickled, her hair lifted and her hands and feet tingled with it. “Jake…”

“Evie, are you all right?” That was Summer.

“Don’t faint,” said Mirabella tartly. “And don’t get mad. This was my idea. We had to think of some way to get you away from You-Know-Who so we could make our plans.”

“P-p-plans?” Eve sputtered, recovering fast. “Our plans?” She rounded on Jake, who was watching her from under lowered brows, a look of appeal in his eyes. Which she ignored. She felt cold; her scalp prickled now with fury. “You told them?”

“Yes, he did,” Mirabella answered for him, “and I’m sure glad he did. I knew something was wrong about that guy-I knew it.” She glared at them all in happy triumph; there was nothing Bella enjoyed more than being right.

“I wanted them kept out of it. You knew how I felt.” Eve’s voice was pitched low and for Jake alone. She was trembling with shock, stunned by what she saw then only as a terrible betrayal. “You knew. You had no right. Not without-”

“Yes, he did.” This time it was Summer who broke in, and her voice was so uncharacteristically sharp that Eve turned to stare at her. “We had a right to know. How could you even think about keeping this from us? We’re your sisters. And what about me? This was my fight a long time before it became yours.”

Eve had to look away from her sister’s tear-filled eyes before she could speak. “All right, maybe I should have told you what was going on. But-” and she threw Jake a glaring glance “-I do not want you guys involved in this. I will deal with it. We-Jake and I-will deal with it. You stay out of it.”

“Oh, no,” said both of her sisters together. And Mirabella continued, “Don’t even think about going it alone. The Sisters Waskowitz, remember? Nobody can beat us if we stick together.”

“Don’t forget,” Summer added softly, “I tried it. It doesn’t work. Trust me.”

“It’s too dangerous,” Eve whispered, already knowing it was futile. “You both have families… children to protect.”

Summer nodded. “That’s exactly why you can’t shut us out. That’s why we’re doing this-to protect our families. Sonny’s a danger to all of us, Evie, not just you. If there’s one thing we can do to help put him away, of course we’re going to do it.”

“Yeah…okay.” Ignoring Jake, Eve reached for the box of tissues on the bedside stand. But his presence was a drumbeat inside her chest, a silent scream in her ears, a bomb burst inside her head. She blew her nose, cleared her throat. “Fine-I understand that. But there isn’t anything you can do. So-”

“But,” said Mirabella gleefully, “that’s where you’re wrong. We already have a plan.”

“Plan?” Eve stared over her wad of tissues with a feeling of foreboding. “What plan?”

“Well…it involves Christmas-”

“-which we’re going to have at my house,” Summer continued, firing the words with machine-gun speed, hoping to get it all in in one burst before Eve could object. “We’ll all be mere-except Mom and Pop-we’ll send them off on a cruise, or something. Troy and Charly will be there, too. Troy’s an ex-SEAL, which should come in handy in case something goes wrong.”

“Which it won’t,” Jake growled.

Summer glanced at him and smiled tranquilly. “Of course not. Anyway, apparently, Sonny thinks Hal hid something there that can incriminate him, right? So-we’ll let him look for it. Jake’s going to have the whole house wired for surveillance.”

“No,” Eve choked out. “No.” She bolted for the bathroom.

Summer and Mirabella looked at each other. After a moment, Summer said, “That went well.”

Jake muttered, “Excuse me,” and went to knock on the bathroom door. There was no answer. He glanced at the two sisters, who both gave him a nod. He opened the door a crack, then pushed it the rest of the way and went in, shutting it behind him.

She hadn’t turned the light on, so he did. Then for a few moments he stood where he was, not knowing what to do or what to say to her. His heart felt as if it would pound a hole in his chest. He didn’t know when he’d felt so unsure. So exposed.

She stood with her back to him, hands braced on the sink. For some reason she’d taken the collar off; the pieces sat askew in the basin in front of her. Her head was bowed and her shoulders hunched, and her nape looked unprotected and vulnerable as a child’s. Seeing it like that, he thought about what she’d had to endure these last few weeks, what she must be feeling now, and anger burned in his belly like acid.

“Eve,” he began in a cracking voice, reaching toward her.

About as vulnerable as a cougar kitten, she rounded on him, eyes spitting dark fire. “How could you do this? How could you go to them without even telling me? You knew how much I wanted to keep them out of this. Couldn’t you at least have told me?”

“You didn’t give me a chance,” he said stonily. “You haven’t been going to your therapy sessions lately.”

Her mouth twisted, and she looked away. “I went to the first one after…the holiday. You weren’t there.”

“I was in a meeting with Coffee-getting authorization for all this.” But he’d talked with her sister by that time, and that knowledge was heavy in his belly. He took a breath, but it didn’t ease it much-or the pounding of his heart, either.

“Eve-” he said, and her name was thick and scratchy m his throat. But she interrupted him before he could say what he wanted to say, gazing at him and slowly shaking her head.

“I don’t understand, Jake. I mean, I know how important it is to you to bring Sonny down-I know you’ve been working on it for years, I know you feel that it’s at least partly to blame for the breakup of your marriage. But just a week ago you wanted me out of it completely. You were going to ‘bring me in.’” She raised two sets of fingers, setting that off in quotes. “You wanted me to break up with Sonny and call the whole thing off. I’m the one that wanted to keep on with it. And then you turn right around and get my whole family involved? I don’t understand, Jake. What’s going on? What’s changed?”

“What’s changed…” He released a breath that was like a pressure valve letting go. She’d asked him that before, and he hadn’t had the courage to answer her. “What’s changed? For starters, we-” And he stopped, suddenly terrified, like a man walking on thin ice, hearing it crack under his feet.