A black Mustang cut him off. Cord heeled the accelerator. A local radio station had already been playing, the announcer reporting on wars, earthquakes, volcanoes and disasters. He turned it off.

He knew what disaster was-the risk of losing the woman he loved, the only woman he’d ever really loved. The only woman he knew damn well would be there for him through thick and thin.

If she could just be coaxed to trust him again.

He spun wheels turning the last corner at the birch trees, barreled down the road. He saw, with a punch to his heart, that a car was already parked in his driveway.

It was a girl car. Not because it was Mazda, but because it was a fancy red. Had a ton of bumper stickers, all political.

It had to belong to Penelope Martin.

He slammed on the brakes, parked right there, hurled out of the car and started running.


“Come on, Sophie, you haven’t even touched your coffee-and I know how much you love Irish crème. Shoo,” Penelope said, irritably, to Caviar, who seemed determined to climb on the couch between them. “Jan told me what you did.”

“Told you?”

“She and I were friends for ages. We never kept secrets from each other. I gave her a key to my parents’ place on Nantucket, so she could take off for a few days, lick her wounds. That was a kind thing you did, giving her that drive.”

Finally, Sophie thought. She’d been waiting for trouble-the trouble that mattered-from the minute Penelope showed up. “I guess I’m relieved you know,” she said.

“Jon was such a jerk. Jan always claimed she only slept with him to collect another notch on her belt. But the truth is, she never slept around as much as she put on. And the blackmail thing was a huge shock.” Penelope nudged the bag of chocolates closer to her. “They’re nougats. Thought you told me they were your favorite. Honey, you look exhausted.”

“I am.”

“You must have discovered more than Jan’s pictures. Didn’t you find a bunch of wild stuff? Did you give it all to the police, or find a way to give the evidence back to the women, the way you did Jan? Come on, you know you can trust me. How many did that son of a sea dog take for a ride, anyway?”

“Honestly, I don’t know. There were just too many to-”

“I know what’ll make you feel better.” Penelope snapped her fingers, then dug in her lizard bag until she found a small vial of ibuprofen. She shook one in her hand, than handed Sophie the pill with her coffee. “Come on. I know you’ve got a headache. I can see the strain in your eyes. One ibuprofen isn’t going to hurt you.”

“You’re right,” Sophie said, and obediently accepted the pill. She’d avoided the coffee and chocolate. It wasn’t as if she were stupid. Once Penelope arrived, it seemed obvious that her best shot at survival was appearing warm and welcoming-rather than scared out of her mind.

The way Pen kept pushing the coffee and nougats, Sophie figured they both must have been doctored. And because Penelope hadn’t left her alone, even for two shakes, she’d had no way to call Cord or the police or anyone else.

Truthfully, she didn’t expect the police to help her. Cord was a different story, but Cord wasn’t due home until past six.

Sophie couldn’t imagine stalling would work that long, so she figured she’d have to find a way to work with the pill. She popped it in her mouth, then faked a cough. Smiling, half laughing, she gestured to Penelope that she was choking, and ran into the kitchen with the coffee.

As soon as Penelope could no longer see her, she dropped the pill in the disposal, poured a little coffee down the drain and spun around…

Only to find Penelope standing there, tapping her five-hundred-dollar lambskin boots. “Hell,” she said wearily, “I wasn’t fooling you at all, was I? You were never as naive as we all thought you were, Sophie.”

“I don’t know why you’re here.”

“Oh, yeah, you do.”

“Actually…I don’t.” Cripes, when all else failed, she might as well try some honesty. “Jan didn’t say it directly, but I’m positive she was the one who broke into my place, looking for videos and files.”

“She was,” Penelope affirmed.

“And I never saw anything, CDs, pictures, letters, nothing-that had anything to do with you. You always said you never slept with him. There wouldn’t seem to be anything he was blackmailing you for-”

“He wasn’t.” Penelope sighed. “You know what?”

“What?”

“I loved the creep. I had no idea he was blackmailing anyone. Sure I knew he was a player, but when we were together…I thought neither of us were playing. It was all back pocket. No one knew we were lovers. No one. I thought that was a good sign. I thought…I was different for him. That he was ready to grow up, quit messing around, settle into a real relationship. I thought we were such a natural pair. We knew so many of the same people, had the same values and politics and all.”

Penelope dove in her lizard bag for a second time and emerged with a gun. It was actually a tiny thing, Sophie noted. Silver and black. Very shiny. There was just this little eye, aimed straight at her.

Since honesty had failed, Sophie was happy to try begging. “Come on. Why would you do this? I thought you were my friend.”

“You were. I thought. But damn it, Sophie. You can’t let anything go. You kept finding out more and more things. And sooner or later, I was afraid you’d find out about me. Jan knew.”

“Jan knew you killed him?”

“No. Jan knew I loved him.”

“Then why…?” It was hard to talk when a girl was hyperventilating. Sophie couldn’t see many more options. Her back was to the sink. At the end of the kitchen counter, before the nook table, was the back door. She was in stocking feet, and it was cold out there, and she didn’t know if the door was locked…but it was the closest exit there was. The only exit there was.

“You asked me why? It’s all…because of the day that Jan came crying to me. She was beside herself, telling me about the blackmail, about how much trouble she was in. She only told me at all because she was desperate for money. She thought she could trust me for it.”

“And I’ll bet she could,” Sophie said. “You were good friends. And you weren’t the kind of friend who’d judge her.”

“Don’t play me, Soph.”

“I’m not playing you. I’m trying to understand. I never thought for a moment it was you.”

“That makes two of us. I never thought for a minute that I could kill anyone. God knows, I never planned to. I came over, middle of the day, sure Jon would be able to explain it all. There had to have been some huge misunderstanding. I knew he slept with other women. But when I got there, he had all this…stuff around. CDs. Letters. It was his at-home afternoon.” The gun wavered like a sick butterfly when Pen tried to laugh. “He was doing his blackmail accounting. When I got there, he just…smiled at me. Invited me in.”

“And then…?” One more step. Sophie leaned back, as if she were shifting to a more comfortable position.

“I hadn’t been to his place. He always slept at mine. He seemed to think that my being upset was silly. He put all that stuff away, locked it up, taking his time. I was just amazed. He had all these different hidey-holes and secret places, in the floorboards, inside drawers-he was like a boy in an electronics shop. And then…” Again the gun wavered. “Then he said come on, let’s go to dinner. As if I shouldn’t be upset. As if he thought I should have known…that I was just another lay for him. Special, he told me, because he wouldn’t blackmail me. We were the real thing. ‘Real thing.’ That’s what he called it. The real thing. So I hit him.”

“I would have, too!”

“And then I hit him again. And again. And he fell down the stairs-”

Sophie bolted. She fumbled with the doorknob; her hands were so slick, and she was petrified it was locked, but it wasn’t. It wasn’t. She yanked it open, heard Penelope scream at her. She started to run, but stumbled-she’d never been out his back door, didn’t realize there were a set of steps.

But then she was past it-the three steps-then she was in the damp, spongy grass, running, hell bent for leather. A long slope of grass led to a fence in one direction, woods in the other. She didn’t think, couldn’t think. Just barreled toward those woods…

She heard a pop.

She ran harder. So hard, she was gasping, and her side had a sharp burn, and because she couldn’t help it, her eyes were stinging tears. And still she ran.

She heard another pop. Heard Penelope scream at her again. Screaming, more pops, then suddenly…nothing.

Confused, panting, she turned her head-and immediately stumbled over her own feet and crashed on a knee-but not before she saw a shaggy head and a set of broad shoulders, tackling Penelope. A nearby siren screamed from the street-not soon enough, as far as Sophie was concerned. On the other hand, it wasn’t as if she needed the police.

Cord was here.


Frustrating Cord no end, he hadn’t gotten his hands on her yet. Couldn’t. Damn, but what a hullabaloo. Penelope Martin had started uncontrollably crying, babbling a full confession even before the police arrived and cuffed her; then Sophie suddenly shrieked because the back door had been left open and Caviar could get loose. Bassett tried to talk to Sophie, to calm her, because the cops figured he had the best shot at getting her to spill the whole picture of how it had come down. None of the authorities seemed to realize that the parts of the story they cared about, and the parts Sophie cared about, were miles apart.

Practical issues made it even harder to get his hands on her. He’d seen her feet when she first came in…and pretty immediately, hit the bathroom to run the tub. It was no surprise her feet were bloody, with running over rough ground in the woods in stocking feet. She also had the mother of all slivers. She wasn’t ready to have it taken out yet. She said she needed something tall and powerful before anyone-including him-came anywhere near that splinter.