“You don’t have to say any more.”

But Jan only looked more hollow, more sick. “I didn’t love him, Sophie. But I cared. I never thought he’d…destroy me. And the more money he kept bleeding me for, the more frantic I got. I didn’t want to hurt anyone. I just wanted whatever pictures or CDs he had. I was ashamed. Try to understand-”

Sophie made a dismissive motion. “Hey-I’m not your judge and jury, and not looking to be. I just think it’s time all this got stopped. All the threats, all the harm, all the destruction. Before anything worse happens.”

There was nothing else she wanted to say or hear-not from Jan. She spun around and aimed for home. She stepped in the street, heard the blare of horns, jumped back on the sidewalk. Yeah, her heart was pounding, but she kept thinking how ironic it was, that she’d been fine going into that meeting with Jan…but now that it was over, her hands were shaky and her stomach pitching acid.

Maybe that wasn’t so weird, though. Facing Jan was never going to be as tricky, as hard, as unsettling…as the man she had to face now.

When she sped up the stairs, she found Jon’s apartment door wide open. Cord showed up as if he’d just been waiting to hear her footsteps. “I thought you were just going out for a few minutes, like to a quick stop. When you were gone awhile, I started to worry.”

“I’m fine.” The classic lie, but this wasn’t the kind of thing she could tell him until they could be quiet somewhere. She felt his gaze on her face, searching, studying, but she hurried on. “You ready to go? It’ll just take a minute to put my things in the back of your car. I’m hoping you’ll carry the litter box. And I’ll do something brilliant to con Caviar into the traveling cage.”

“If you have trouble, we’ll do the Caviar thing together.”

Doing that mundane running around helped calm her nerves, at least for a few minutes. Caviar wasn’t that hard to trick into the cage, but started fiercely meowing the minute the door was latched-and he got really ticked when the car engine started. Apparently, he didn’t care for car rides.

Sophie was just as miserable.

She’d intended to wait until they got back to Cord’s-it wasn’t that long a drive-but an accident created a traffic jam. They weren’t stalled indefinitely, but Cord kept shooting her concerned looks. Every conversation pushed to engage her, to understand her silences. “I’ve got classes early tomorrow,” he told her. “And the police left messages, last night and this morning both. I called the detective. They want another meeting tomorrow. I’ll keep in touch with you by phone, so you know where I am and what’s happening, but I may be not around until well after six-”

She interrupted him. She just couldn’t wait any longer. “If you’re going to see the police, there’s something I have to tell you. Well. Actually, there’s something I want to give you.”

She fished in her patchwork bag, found the original flash drive and put it on the dash where he could see it.

“What’s this?” Finally, there was a break in the stalled traffic and Cord could pick up speed.

It seemed like a million years since she’d made love with him, since her sister had come, since she’d sat on Cord’s bed, bare naked, eating shrimp. She leaned her head back against the seat. “This morning, when I was gone for an hour or so…I went to Sunday breakfast with the group. Saw Jan, Hillary, Penelope. I stopped to talk to Jan afterward.”

“You what?”

“There are a half-dozen files on that flash drive. I didn’t actually look at all of them, but I’d bet the barn they’re pretty much all…lovers’ pictures. Women. Posing for their lover. That sort of thing. Anyway, you’re the only one who knows or has that original. I made a partial copy-a copy that only had Jan’s files on it-and gave it to her.”

“You what?”

Her voice got a little waver in it, but she explained in a steadfast and calm manner, about Caviar, about how she’d found the drive. “I just did a tiny, tiny change in the original I just gave you. Jan’s file is a little darkened. As if whoever took the pictures didn’t have enough lighting. All the pictures are still there. It just isn’t obvious, in her file, who the woman is.”

“Wait a minute. Hold it. Just hold it.” Cord almost caused a second accident when he jerked to the side of the road and skidded into a sharp brake. The tires spit gravel. Cars honked behind them. He slapped the car in gear. “I must be deaf, because somehow I thought you said that you went alone. Without telling me, even after all you’ve been through. To see two of the women we already believed were suspects-”

“Actually, I didn’t believe that. Or even hear the theory until last night.”

She watched, a little fascinated, when Cord rubbed a hand over his face. She’d never seen him angry before. For that matter, she’d never seen him confounded, either.

“So let me see if I’ve got this straight. You actually went to see the person who probably broke into your place-”

“Yes. I think Jan was definitely the one who broke into my place both times.”

“And who could have murdered Jon-”

“No. She didn’t do that.”

“And you know this how?”

She’d never seen a man try to talk through gritted teeth before. As calmly as she tried to answer him, her palms were slicker than waterslides. “Because I saw her face when I was talking to her. That was partly the reason I needed to do this. So I could see her reactions. Although I was always pretty sure she wasn’t Jon’s killer, Cord, because…I kept remembering how that burglar had pushed me in the closet. How she didn’t shoot me or stab me. She did what she had to do, so that I couldn’t identify her and she could get away, but she didn’t deliberately hurt me. And that’s just not the way a killer would behave.”

“Stop. I’m really struggling to grasp this. You tampered with evidence. You’re aware that’s against the law?”

She frowned. She hadn’t really thought about it that way. “Not exactly.”

“Sophie! The way you described what you did, it was exactly tampering!”

“Okay, okay. I was in a hurry, I didn’t have a whole lot of time to think. Maybe I should have thought that part through a little more. But I just changed it a tiny bit, Cord. And this was the thing-Jan didn’t really do anything that terrible, except want Jon as a lover, care about him. She comes from this old, landed family, where she could lose her inheritance if she caused any scandal to the family name. But this wasn’t about her, Cord. I wasn’t trying to protect her from what she chose to do. When I found that flash drive…I saw a chance. A chance to push out the truth. This whole mess could go on ruining people’s lives indefinitely. If the police can’t come up with any better suspects than me, I don’t have a lot of faith-”

“So that’s what this is about, isn’t it?” he said quietly. “The police thinking you’re a suspect.”

She turned away, watched the gray-hemmed clouds drift from the west, darkening the sky. Cord slowly pulled back onto the road, started driving again. She wasn’t going to cry. She just needed a moment to swallow the fat, thick lump in her throat. “No,” she said finally. “This wasn’t about the police thinking I was a suspect. It’s about something more serious.”

“Possibly only you would think something could be more serious. So let’s have it. What really bothered you?”

She’d lied before. Who hadn’t? When a woman was struggling to survive, she did whatever she had to do. But it was odd, how the darkening sky and traffic sounds all seemed to fade to a distance. She noticed a ragged cuticle on her thumb. Bit sharply at it. Even drew blood, although she didn’t feel a thing.

“Eventually-hopefully sooner than later,” she said carefully, “your brother’s murderer is going to be found. But after that…I know perfectly well you and I won’t see each other again.”

For an instant, she thought he was going to slam on the brakes again, but beyond a sudden sway of the wheels, he kept on driving. “Why would you think that?”

“Because it’s the truth.”

“You don’t think there’s a chance that…real love, serious love, gut love could grow out of this mess?”

She kept her voice even and calm. “I think we came together in a time of stress and confusion. At a time when neither of us really had anyone else to turn to. And it’s been wonderful. I haven’t let down my guard with anyone in eons.”

“But. I hear the but in your voice.”

No, he didn’t, Sophie thought. She certainly wanted him to think she was calm enough to sound logical and honest. “But,” she echoed softly, “when it’s over, it’s over.”

“It’s not over.”

“I realize that. But giving that drive to Jan was a start. Something’ll happen from here. No one else will be breaking into my place-at least I hope not, because I’m certain she was the culprit. One by one, other suspects could be eliminated if they’re pushed a little, too. Layers are getting peeled off the onion. The smell’s out there.”

Cord was silent for a mile, maybe two. She saw the turn for his drive. Even if she wasn’t clear on the directions yet-generally, she could get lost in an elevator-she recognized the nest of white birches, the skinny creek gleaming pewter in the fading sunlight.

“Soph?”

She turned her head.

“I’m in love with you. Even if I want to wring your neck right now, I’m in love with you. We’re going to fix this mess. And then we’ll finish talking about this.”

She thought that maybe he believed that. God knew, she felt love when she was with him. But when he’d kept so much from her, especially the police’s suspicions, she felt as if something just…crushed…in her heart.

It was so hard for her to trust that she shouldn’t have been surprised Cord couldn’t find it in himself to trust her. She got it completely. It was life as Sophie always knew it. The only surprise was realizing that she’d still had a heart that could be broken.