“Oh, God,” Daniel whispered.

“She’s felt guilty all this time,” Ed said softly. “Poor Alex.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Alex,” Mary said.

Alex was rocking, a barely discernible movement. “I told her and she told him and he killed her. She died because of me.”

Daniel was out of the van before she finished the sentence. He ran to the bedroom and pulled her into his arms. She came willingly, almost bonelessly. Like a doll.

“I’m sorry, honey. I’m so sorry.”

She was still rocking, a terrifying little keening sound coming from her throat. He looked up at Mary. “I need to get her out of here.”

Mary nodded sadly. “Be careful on the stairs.”

Daniel urged Alex to her feet and again she came willingly. He put his hands on her shoulders and gave her the smallest of shakes. “Alex. Stop it.” At the crack of his voice, her rocking stilled. “Now, let’s go.”

Atlanta, Thursday, February 1, 10:00 p.m.

“Your aim was better tonight,” Daniel commented as he pulled into his driveway.

“Thank you.” She was still subdued, still numb. Only when he had taken her to Leo Papadopoulos’s target range had she regained some measure of control. The paper target had suffered as it became everyone she’d come to hate over the last few days. Craig most of all, but also Wade and Mayor Davis and Deputy Mansfield and whoever had stirred all this up to begin with by viciously murdering four innocent women.

And even her mother and Alicia. If Alicia hadn’t snuck out that night… And if her mother hadn’t lost control…

And, and, and…

She had aimed better. She’d held that gun steady and she’d fired until the magazine was empty. Then she’d reloaded and done it again and again until her arms were sore.

“I’ll get your shopping bag out of the trunk,” he said when the silence had become too great. “You can hang your new clothes in my closet if you want.”

She hadn’t bought that much today, just a few blouses and a few pairs of slacks. Still, hanging them in his closet felt too intimate… too much when she was so raw inside. But he looked expectant, so she nodded. “All right.”

He popped the trunk and she expected he’d shut it quickly, but he didn’t. The trunk stayed up as thirty seconds became a minute. She got out and sighed. Frank Loomis stood in the shadow of the trunk lid and he and Daniel were engaged in fierce whispers.

“Daniel,” she said, and he whipped around to look at her.

“Go up to the house,” he ordered. “Please.”

Too numb and weary to argue, she did as he asked and from his front porch watched the two men argue. Finally Daniel slammed the trunk closed loudly enough to wake the entire neighborhood and Frank Loomis stalked back to where he’d parked his car and drove away.

His shoulders heaving with the furious breaths he drew, Daniel turned and came up the sidewalk, a dark cast to his face. With jerky movements he opened the door and shut off the alarm. Alex watched him, remembering how they’d come together against that door the night before.

But Daniel only locked the door, reset the alarm, and started up the stairs, not even looking back to see if she followed. His command to do so was implicit in his body language, so she did. When she got to his bedroom her shopping bags were on his bed and he stood at his dresser, yanking at his tie.

“What happened?” she asked quietly.

He shrugged out of his coat and his shirt, flinging them to a chair in the corner, before turning, bare-chested, his fists on his hips. “Frank is being investigated by the state attorney’s office.”

“As well he should be,” she said, and he nodded.

“Thank you.” His chest expanded and fell. “He’s angry with me. He blamed me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I don’t care.” But it was obvious he did. “What made me mad is that he used our friendship to try to get me to influence the SA. Friendship. Biggest crock of bullshit I’ve heard in years.”

“I’m sorry,” she said again.

“Stop saying that,” he snapped. “Stop saying thank you and I’m sorry. You sound like Susannah.”

His sister, who had her own pain, he’d said. “You talked to her?”

“Yeah.” He looked away. “I talked to her. For all the damn good it did.”

“What did she say?”

His head whipped up and his eyes bored into hers. “ ‘I’m sorry, Daniel. Good-bye, Daniel.’ ” Pain flashed in his eyes, so intense she felt it press against her own chest. “ ‘You were gone, Daniel,’ ” he added in a snarl, then dropped his head, and his shoulders sagged. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be yelling at you of all people.”

She sat on the edge of the bed, too tired to stand. “Why not me of all people?”

“Everywhere I turn, I see lies and betrayal. The only one who’s done neither is you.”

She didn’t agree, but wouldn’t argue the point. “Who did you betray?”

“My sister. I left her in that house. Where we grew up. I left her with Simon.”

Understanding dawned, and with it a pity and tenderness that made her ache for both Daniel and his sister. “Not all Simon’s victims went to the public school, did they?” she asked, remembering how he’d tensed at Talia’s words in the afternoon meeting.

Again his head shot up. He opened his mouth. Closed it. “No,” he finally said.

“You didn’t do it, Daniel. Simon did. It wasn’t your fault any more than it was my fault my mother decided to take on Craig herself. But we think it’s our fault, and that’s not going to be easy for either of us to get through.” He narrowed his eyes and she shrugged. “Shooting lots of bullets at that paper man gives a person a certain clarity of thought. I was only sixteen, but my mother was an adult who’d stayed with Craig Crighton entirely too long to begin with. Still, I gave her information that pushed her to the edge. Logically, it’s not my fault, but for thirteen years I told myself it was.”

“I wasn’t sixteen.”

“Daniel, did you know Simon was involved in the rapes of all those girls?”

He hung his head again. “No. Not when he was alive. Not until he died.”

“See? You didn’t find the pictures until he died, less than two weeks ago.”

He shook his head. “No, when he died the first time.”

Alex frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“Eleven years ago my mother found those pictures. We thought Simon had been dead a year.”

Alex’s eyes widened. Eleven years? “But Simon wasn’t dead. He’d left home.”

“True. But I saw the pictures back then. I wanted to tell the police, but my father burned them in the fireplace. He didn’t want the bad publicity. Bad for his judgeship.”

Alex was starting to see. “How did you find them in Philadelphia if he burned them?”

“He would have made copies. My father was a careful man. But the point is, I didn’t do anything about it. I didn’t tell a soul. And Simon went on unchecked for years.”

“What would you have told, Daniel?” she asked gently. “ ‘My father burned some pictures, so I can’t prove anything’?”

“I suspected for years that he was dirty.”

“And he was a careful man. You really wouldn’t have been able to prove anything.”

“I still can’t prove anything,” he snapped. “Because men like Frank Loomis are still covering their own asses.”

“What did you say to him tonight?”

“I asked him where he’d been all week. Why he wouldn’t answer my calls.”

“And where was he?”

“He said he’d been looking for Bailey.”

Alex blinked. “Really? Where?”

“He wouldn’t tell me. He said it didn’t matter, that she wasn’t in any of the places he checked. I told him if he wanted to make things right, he’d help us find her versus running around half-cocked himself. I told him that if he really wanted to prove himself, he’d make right what he did thirteen years ago. He’d set the record straight on Fulmore and come clean on who he was protecting back then. Of course he denied he was protecting anyone, but that’s the only way I can square what he did in my mind. Frank set a man up for murder. That whole trial was one colossal cover-up.”