"You are scaring your daughter," Lucy said gently, and Daisy turned to look at Pepper, now almost rigid with fear and guilt.

"Oh, baby, I'm sorry." Daisy hugged her close, breathing hard but holding back the cries.

"It's all my fault," Pepper wailed into her chest.

"No," Lucy said. "It was nobody's fault, it was a misunderstanding because we didn't talk to each other." She stared at her sister until Daisy met her eyes. "So from now on, we're talking."

They sat in silence, Daisy rocking Pepper in the swivel chair until the little girl's breathing slowed and her body relaxed. When Lucy was sure Pepper was asleep, she stood up and held out her arms.

"Give her to me, I'll put her on the bed," she told Daisy, and Daisy stood up, staggering a little under Pepper's weight, and handed her over.

Lucy put Pepper on the bed and covered her with her blue-checkered quilt and then stood looking at her for a moment. She could have been gone in an instant, so little. It was a miracle they'd found her in time. No, not a miracle. Thank God for J. T. Wilder, she thought, and held on to her feelings with both hands. He was a good guy, a great guy, but that was all.

Then she got two root beers out of the fridge and sat down across from Daisy.

Daisy looked like hell.

"Here." Lucy handed her a root beer. "Now, you're going to tell me everything. I was being patient and tactful, but that's over. You're in trouble and Pepper knows it and you can't take much more and neither can she. You tell me everything now."

"I can't," Daisy said, her voice a whisper.

"I won't go to the police," Lucy said, and Daisy looked up sharply. "That's what you're worried about, isn't it? That whatever Connor's gotten you into is illegal-" Daisy started to protest and Lucy held up her hand. "Forget it, I know it's Connor. He's suckered you into something and you're afraid you'll end up in jail. Well, it's not gonna happen. Not on my shoot. Gloom wouldn't stand for it."

Daisy smiled weakly and Lucy said, "Tell me."

Daisy sighed. "The backer, Finnegan. He's using the movie as a front for something. Connor won't tell me what, but it's about that helicopter. He paid me to keep my mouth shut about the changes, about how there's no continuity in the script."

"Helicopter," Lucy said, thinking back to the script. "Explosions. Armored car. Are they planning to really rob an armored car?"

"I don't know." Daisy slumped back in her chair, misery personified. "According to the script it's happening on the bridge. And there's a speedboat, it's supposed to be under the bridge for safety, but Doc slipped and said he's supposed to take it into the swamp." She swallowed hard. "Connor gave me fifty thousand dollars to keep quiet, Lucy."

"Oh," Lucy said, knowing exactly what that kind of money would mean to Daisy, to any single mother.

"And he said there'd be another fifty thousand after it's over. I want that money," Daisy said, the old stubborn look in her eye. Then her face softened and her lips quivered again. "But there's something wrong, I knew it was going to go wrong, I knew whatever it was, was so big that it had to be illegal. And then Lawton died and everybody quit, but I can't, I need the rest of the money, and…" She held out her shaking hand. "I was like this. So Connor got me something to calm me down."

"I'm going to kill him," Lucy said, grateful to have a concrete goal.

"No, no, he was good to me," Daisy said, her eyes pleading. "He helped me. Don't say anything to him, I really need the money." She leaned forward. "Lucy, a hundred thousand would be enough to support me and Pepper for a long while. Years. I can go to school and be a teacher, I'm a good teacher, Pepper's learned a lot."

"I know," Lucy said, thinking, Jesus, all she wants is a teaching degree? "Look, I can help you get that-"

"I want to do it on my own," Daisy said. "No more getting bailed out by my big sister. All that money you've sent me over the years, I'll never be able to pay it back-"

"Those weren't loans," Lucy said, appalled. "I don't want you to-"

"I want to," Daisy said, her voice rising. "I want to be strong, I want Pepper to look at me the way she looks at you. She thinks you really are Wonder Woman."

Lucy waved that away. "That's just an aunt thing. She doesn't see me enough to know I'm just like everybody else. Hell, if you could have seen me fifteen minutes ago-"

"You're not like everybody else," Daisy said, misery in her voice. "You are Wonder Woman. You always have been."

"Daisy-"

"I want to be for Pepper what you were for me," Daisy said. "And if I go to college, if I get a job, a real job, not a movie job, with a real home for Pepper, no moving around, then she'll see-"

"We'll make it happen," Lucy said. "We'll do it together, just like we used to. Remember? Stuck like glue to each other."

"Not if I'm in jail," Daisy wailed.

"Okay." Lucy patted her hand. "You're not going to jail. I'll just find some good reason to cancel the shoot on Thursday. That way, whatever it is won't happen."

"They won't let you," Daisy said, her voice sobby. "Connor will do it anyway. And I think Finnegan would do anything he had to. They're driven, Lucy, it's big, big money. Millions."

"Uh huh," Lucy said, thinking fast. "Okay, we've still got all day tomorrow and most of the day Thursday to work this out. We don't shoot until after dark on Thursday. So I can still fix this."

"How?" Daisy began to cry. "If I go to jail, will you take care of Pepper?"

"No," Lucy said, "because the only way you're going to jail is over my dead body. But Gloom will take her. They can watch High Noon and sing 'Us Amazonians' together."

"It's not a joke, Lucy," Daisy said through her tears. "You can't fix it this time. These guys are pros, they have guns, you can't fight them."

"The hell I can't." Well, guns. That might be beyond her. "Okay, maybe I can't alone, but I have a secret weapon.' Lucy tried to make her voice light. "He's a pain in the butt, but he's good with guns."

Daisy sat up, blinking tears away. "You can't tell Wilder. Connor is furious about him. He's afraid he'll snoop around and find out what's going on."

"I'll play it by ear," Lucy said.

"Lucy, you can't" Daisy said.

"Look, don't tell me how to save you, just trust me that I will, okay?" Lucy ducked her head down to look into her sister's face. "Have I ever failed you?"

Daisy shook her head as the tears started to roll down her cheeks again.

"Well, I'm not going to start now." Lucy got up and put her arms around her.

Daisy collapsed against her and cried, but it was different this time, a sort of worn-out relief spending itself in tears, not hysteria. "I just wanted to do it myself," she said, but all the fight had gone out of her.

"I will fix it," Lucy said into Daisy's ear. "I swear I will. I will. And then we will go back to New York and put Pepper in school and you can go to college and we will be a family again. I will fix everything."

"All right," Daisy said, exhausted, a dead weight against Lucy's side.

Lucy held on, patting her, and tried to make a plan.

For a start, she needed backup.

Definitely]. T. Wilder, she thought and closed her eyes.