Claire wasn't dead; she was still wriggling, conscious. The bullet had hit her in the middle, above her right hip, and she bled profusely. Wyatt lifted the weapon again, not to finish her off, of course, despite how satisfying it might have been. He merely needed to cover her until he found out how badly she was hurt. "Don't move," he said, "or I'll send you where you belong, into a grave right beside your fucking brother's."

The woman stared up at him, insanity and rage warring in her eyes. Then she looked just past him, as if seeing the ghost of her twisted lover, and managed a weak smile laden with evil.

She whispered, "You first."

Her tone gave him a second's warning and he tried to get out of the way. But his responses were slowed by blood loss, his reactions a split second off due to the pain. He moved too late.

By the time he realized she hadn't been alone, pain, bright and intense, exploded in his head and he was lost.

Chapter 18

Lily heard the shot. Not violently explosive, not like in the movies, but unmistakable to someone who'd been alert for that sound, or any other threatening one, every night she'd been in this house.

She didn't panic. Didn't even reach for the shower handle to turn the water off. Instead, she stepped out in silence, grabbed her shirt, and pulled it on over her wet, naked body. Underwear, too. The jeans and shoes she'd taken off in the bedroom, on the other side of the closed bathroom door, not that she'd have wasted time with them, anyway.

She inched closer to the door, listening. Who would fire a gun? Not the FBI, not the police-whom would they be shooting at? They'd be bursting in here, ordering her to get down, arresting her.

Anspaugh? He might be enraged enough, but he wouldn't have the brains to track her down so quickly.

The killer, then. She'd been followed here. Either that or he'd figured out where she'd been hiding and he'd come here to wait for her return, as if knowing she'd be drawn back to this one safe place at some point. He must have disabled the alarm system while she'd been taking her leisurely shower, not even realizing how close danger had come.

But who were you shooting at?

A horrible possibility came to mind. Wyatt. Though her first instinct was to race into the bedroom, to get the gun from her dresser drawer, she did nothing, pulling all her thoughts into one tight, blazing point in her brain.

A sound somewhere, in the house. A voice. A thump.

She edged toward the window. It was small, high. But doable.

Standing on the toilet lid, she eased the sash up, pulled the screen in, and wriggled through the opening, one foot, then the other, shimmying out on her belly. Rain assaulted her, sharp and cold, flecked with hints of ice. One story above the patio, with no way to break her fall, she slowly slid down, dangling there, trying to keep her grip on the wet frame. Then, praying she'd forgotten to pick up the exercise mat after her last workout with Sarge, she let go.

The surface on which she landed was soft, wet, squishy. The mat. So at least one thing had gone her way today.

Lily immediately crouched down on her belly, peering through the sliding door into the kitchen. The darkness within surpassed even the nighttime sky, and she had to wait for her eyes to adjust.

She saw movement beyond the kitchen, in the cavernous living area. A man was bent over a shape on the floor. A few feet away lay another dark form, crumpled and lifeless. The man turned his head slightly, so she caught a glimpse of his profile.

Jesse Boyd.

She almost vomited, being this close to the man she'd once wanted to rip apart with her bare hands. You son of a bitch, you monster, I'll kill you. The words screamed in her head, but didn't pass her lips in even a whisper, for she knew the very faintest sound could betray her.

And she greatly feared she knew what those shapes on the floor meant. People, unconscious, injured. Dead? Her heart constricted, the air thick in her throat, threatening to choke her.

Her attention was drawn from the monster. The person Jesse had been checking on began to sit up, the child murderer lending a hand. They both rose to their feet; then Jesse moved a little to the right, enough for Lily to get a better look. She saw silver glasses, a pinched face.

The lawyer. Claire Vincent.

She wasn't entirely surprised. Ever since this morning when Jackie had pointed out Claire's name on the background report, identified as Roger Underwood's stepsister, she'd been curious to learn more. Now, seeing her here, Lily began to put things together. Was it possible the attorney was the lily murderer, and Boyd now her accomplice?

Wanting to hear their plans, she risked making a sound. She slid her fingers into the crevice of the door, tugging it open one inch, no farther, glad she'd left it unlocked when she'd gotten home a half hour ago.

"Get upstairs," the woman inside was saying. "The shower's still running. With the thunder, she probably didn't even realize she heard a gunshot." She pointed toward the floor with one hand, the other clutching her right side, which was coated with blood. She'd been hurt.

God, did Lily wish she could see more. Like who that other dark shape crumpled on the floor could be. Whose gun Jesse was bending over to retrieve.

Please, please, not him. But she already knew it was. Wyatt had come looking for her and walked right into an ambush.

"Shoot her the minute you walk in the bathroom. Don't say anything-just shoot right through the shower curtain or the door. Take her down."

"I don't know how," Boyd said, his voice whiny, weak. "I never shot a gun in my life."

"You stupid fool!" Claire snarled, her face twisted with rage, her eyes sparking with an insane light. "Go shoot her or I'll do it-then I'll come back down here and kill you myself."

That would be convenient, but she couldn't hope the woman would kill her accomplice before he found out Lily was not upstairs in the shower.

"It wasn't Fletcher who killed Will Miller, was it?"

Lily had no idea who Will Miller was.

"It was you. You set this all up, wanted me to kill her for you. Do your dirty work, right?"

"Your genius is staggering," the woman said. "Now get up there and finish the job before I bleed to death. You do want her dead, don't you?"

Boyd nodded. "Yeah. But I don't like being used."

The woman swayed, but her condescension was clear. "I apologize; do forgive me for my bad manners. Now go."

Jesse went, trudging slowly, step by step, as if dreading his deadly errand. The man held the gun out to his side, as if he was afraid it would go off by itself and kill him.

If only Lily were that lucky.

In a moment, Claire Vincent was wounded and alone, but she was also psychotic. Like a trapped animal, she might be even more dangerous right now. If Lily hadn't been damn sure that was Wyatt lying unconscious-not dead, please, God, not dead-on the floor, she would have slipped over the railing, down to the beach, and escaped the two killers. But she couldn't, not without Wyatt.

She eased the door farther, never taking her eyes off Claire. The woman had sagged against the wall, bent over, blood dripping freely from between her splayed fingers.

Four steps to get past the kitchen table. Two more to reach the knife block on the counter. Second one from the right was the biggest, but the one on the far left was sharper, utterly wicked. Twelve steps across the smooth wood floor to the base of the open staircase. For seven of those, she would be blind to anyone descending, but entirely visible to the wounded woman at their base. Those last five would be the most critical. Either of the two murderers could see her and warn the other.