"He raped me, Daddy. I should have told you when it happened, but I was too afraid. He told me he would kill Mother if I did. All these years I let you think Penn was the father. He wasn't. It was him."

Leo's face goes through a dozen different emotions, only a small number of them readable. But the one that finally settles in his features is rage. Pure, unalloyed rage. This is the natural reaction of any father, but there is more here. Ray Presley served Leo for more than thirty years, performing deeds too dirty for his master to soil his hands with. But whatever bond this forged between them, Presley was always a servant. A hired man. The realization that he transgressed this class boundary-trespassed into the very flesh of the Marston family line-probably offends Leo more than the act of rape itself. His jaw muscles are working with enough force to grind his teeth to nubs if he keeps it up, and his blue-gray eyes burn with a fearsome light.

"You white-trash bastard," he says, each word dripping with contempt. "You touched my little girl? I'll snap your neck like a stick."

Presley shakes his gun in front of him like a man waving a crucifix before a vampire.

"You're the one, goddamn it! Ratting me out after all I did for you? So I fucked your slut daughter. You think I was the first? She handed it out like candy in school, and God knows what she did after she left this town. Like father, like daughter, I guess."

To my surprise, Leo does not explode at this but instead seems to calm down. He drops his hands to his desk drawer. "How much will it take to buy you off, Ray? To make you go to Mexico and never come back?"

"More than you got, Judge."

"I've got a lot."

"That's the Lord's truth. But you ain't got enough to buy your life. Not this time."

Leo reaches into the drawer and feels around inside. His mouth goes slack.

Presley smiles darkly and takes a step forward. "What you lookin' for, Judge? You lose something?"

Leo freezes, his hand still in the drawer. His face has lost all color. It's the face of an animal, a predator backed into a corner by a larger one.

Presley reaches into his pocket with his left hand and removes the derringer Leo pulled on me the day Kelly backed him down. "You're too predictable, Judge." He points the derringer at Livy, who's standing to his left, and straightens the arm, pointing the.357 at Leo's head.

He means to shoot.

I have only one weapon to hand, the half-empty wine bottle on the bar behind me. Presley's attention is divided between what he perceives as the most immediate threats. He probably figures I won't even mind him shooting Leo. Visualizing the bottle as I saw it last, I reach back with my right hand, relaxing my fingers so that I won't knock it off the bar by mistake.

My fingertips touch cool glass.

I close my hand around the neck of the bottle. Now it's a matter of peripheral vision. If Presley would glance at Livy again, I could swing without him seeing the bottle until it's too late. Focusing on Livy, I concentrate the full power of my will on communicating to her what I need. Her eyes search mine, trying to read my thoughts. As she stares, I incline my head very slightly toward Ray.

Presley cocks the hammer of his.357, and Leo at last gives in to terror. "Ray, I'm begging you. Please don't do it."

Presley wrinkles his lips in disgust.

Livy says, "Our daughter looks just like you, Ray."

Presley's profile vanishes as he looks toward her, and in a single fluid motion I swing the bottle in a sweeping arc that terminates at the base of his skull. The impact of the heavy glass club slams him forward, and he falls over the front of the desk.

Somehow he still has both pistols in his hands. I leap forward and hammer at his head with both fists, thinking of Livy lying under him with her dress stuffed down her throat. As I flail away, I see Leo's huge hands take hold of Presley's IV-scarred wrists and pin them to the desktop like brittle sticks.

Presley pulls the trigger of the derringer.

Leo flinches as though stung by a hornet, but he looks less hurt than pissed off. He rakes a huge right hand down Presley's left wrist, stripping the derringer from the smaller hand and tossing it on the floor. With his other hand he yanks the.357 out of Presley's right, which is still pinned to the desk.

Presley tries to raise himself off the desk, but all my weight is on him.

Leo presses the.357 to Presley's forehead.

"Let him go, Cage."

I smack Presley once more for good measure, then heave myself off him. Despite the blows to his head, he straightens up, like a punch-drunk boxer who can remember only one thing: stay on your feet.

Leo pulls open his jacket long enough to reveal a bloodstain on the right side of his shirt, but he doesn't examine the wound any more closely than that. "This creates a problem," he says, the anger gone from his voice. Already he is computing the calculus of how Ray's actions will affect tomorrow's trial. "Cage, you and I should try to-"

He stops at the sound of Livy's voice. I'm not sure, but I think she said, "Ray? " in the intimate voice of a lover. She must have, because Presley turns from the desk to the sound of her voice, his eyes glassy but still curious.

"I wanted you to see this," she tells him.

Then she brings up Ike's Sig-Sauer and shoots him in the chest.

Ray sits down on Leo's desk as though he has decided to have a think there. Then his eyes bulge as he looks down at the red river flowing from his upper chest with a depressingly regular rhythm.

Livy stands with the automatic held stiffly before her, smoke drifting from its barrel, exactly the way it looks in old westerns. She doesn't look the slightest bit upset. She seems, in fact, to be contemplating a second shot. Before she can fire again, I jump in front of her and grab her wrist. She doesn't resist as I pull the gun from her hand.

"Lock the door, Cage," Leo orders from behind his desk. "Hurry."

I obey without hesitation, though I'm not sure why.

"The guards will be here any second," he says. "/ shot Ray. Do you understand? He broke in, tried to kill me, and I shot him." Leo's eyes are full of paternal concern. "Will you back me up?"

"Are you kidding? You can't lie about something like this. Not these days."

His eyes glow with hypnotic intensity. "Listen to me, Cage. We can tear each other to pieces at trial tomorrow. But if you've ever cared for my daughter, help me protect her now."

"You can't pull it off. Not nowadays. There are nitrate tests… a hundred things." I look at Ray, who, despite horrific blood loss, is still sitting on the desk. "Besides, he's still alive."

Leo walks around his desk and takes the Sig-Sauer from my hand. Before I can ask what he means to do, he backs three feet away from Ray, aims at his head, and blows his brains out. Presley flips backward over the desk and lands with his head in the corner.

"Now he's dead," Leo says, giving me a look so matter-of-fact that it makes a psycho like Arthur Lee Hanratty look like a Cub Scout. "So much for your nitrate tests."

The study door shudders under a sudden barrage of rapping.

"Judge Marston!" shouts a male voice. "Judge! Are you all right?"

"Cage?" Leo asks calmly, the Sig-Sauer still in his hand. "Are we agreed?"

I look at Livy, who seems to be undergoing some sort of delayed shock reaction. Then at Ray Presley, the man who engineered the murder of Del Payton and the living death of Ike Ransom… who killed Ike in the end and probably killed Ruby Flowers. Who raped the girl I loved at eighteen, dooming us to lose each other forever.

"Agreed," I say softly.

The off-duty cops are still rapping and yelling at the door. Leo crosses the study, opens it, and waves the officers in. Two uniforms step into the room, guns drawn.