'On his way to get me.'

'So you think he followed you here?'

An audible swallow. A tiny nod.

Beside her, Chip rolled his eyes. Ken found himself laughing in surprised agreement.

'I think your father is right for once, Stephanie. Drake's not coming to save you. He's halfway to the border by now.' He texted the boy's name to Sean, Decker, and Burton, instructing them to find Drake Connor ASAP. 'Considering he committed murder this morning, it's doubtful he'll be running to the police for assistance. And on the supremely wild chance that he tries to stage a rescue on his own, we'll catch him on his way in. But don't count on that, honey. You're more likely to be struck by lightning or win the Powerball.'

Ken finally saw a flicker of defeat in her eyes. She'd held out for hours, waiting for Drake to save her. It was almost sweet. In a gagging kind of way.

He stood up, dusted his palms on his trouser legs. 'Well, I think I've got what I need from you and dear old Dad here,' he said, perusing the instruments on his cart.

Stephanie made a terrified noise when his intent finally sank in. 'Wait. You said you'd help me if I talked to you.'

'Well that was before you wasted more than half of my day. I do have an actual job, you know, and you've kept me from doing it. I'll probably have to work through dinner to catch up. But don't worry, I won't kill you. I will kill him, though,' he said, gesturing at her father. 'He has no value. You set this in motion by taking Tala out without permission. But since he got you into it by buying Tala and her family in the first place, I'll let you pick how he goes. Gun or knife?'

Stephanie's cheeks darkened, fury bending her mouth. 'Which hurts more?'

Ken threw back his head and laughed. 'Oh, I wish I could keep you. But you'd try to get away and I'd eventually have to kill you too.'

Her chin lifted, but he could see the fear in her eyes. 'I'll try to get away from whoever you sell me to,' she said with a bravado that was as fake as a three-dollar bill.

His grin softened to a smile. 'That'll be his problem. But remember, Tala tried to get away. Didn't work out too well for her, did it?' He clapped his hands once. 'So, Stephanie, darling. What's it to be? The knife will hurt more, but it's messy.'

She started to glance down at her mother, but twisted her face away at the last minute. 'Messy works. Just make him scream. And I have a special request.'

Again he was impressed with her guts, and the depth of her anger. 'Depends.'

'I want to tell him something and I want to see his face when I do. But I don't want to see my mother again, not like that. Can you move him?'

He considered it, then nodded. 'That's not unreasonable,' he said. He dragged Chip, chair and all, to where Stephanie could see him without looking at her mother's body.

The stare she directed at Chip was positively glacial. One side of her mouth lifted. 'You might want to ungag him for this. You might enjoy his reaction too.'

One hand firmly gripping his knife just in case Ken pulled the wadded cloth from Chip's mouth, anticipating that the man would try to spit at him and easily stepping out of the way when he did. 'Go ahead, Stephanie,' Ken said. 'I'm a busy man.'

'That little bastard baby wasn't yours,' Stephanie told Chip, her tight smile maliciously gleeful. 'It was Drake's.'

Already pale, Chip went white as a sheet. 'You're lying.'

She smiled at him, pure ice and hate. 'No I'm not. When your little bitch whelped, I had a DNA test run, just so I'd know. It was Drake's. Zero chance of error.'

Chip was looking like he wanted to say something but couldn't figure out what. Stephanie turned to Ken. 'You can kill him now. I'm done with him.'

'Wait,' Chip said hoarsely. 'Your mother . . . She would have said something.'

'She didn't know. I didn't tell her.'

Ken stood back, deciding another moment or two wouldn't make a difference, especially when it was getting interesting again. 'Why didn't you tell your mother?' he asked. 'You said that seeing the baby hurt her.'

Stephanie swallowed hard. 'She was mad when I got arrested at school, said if it happened again she'd cut me off and take my car. So I kept the secret as leverage.'

'You would have traded the secret to keep your car?'

'And my credit cards,' she mumbled. 'Doesn't seem important now.'

Ken felt a sting of pity. He sighed heavily. 'Dammit, girl. Now I'm going to have to find you an extra-specially kind buyer. You yanked my heartstrings with that, but now I'm out of time. If you don't want to watch old Chip here bite it, close your eyes.'

But she impressed him once again, coldly watching Ken slit her father's throat. He did it slowly, leaving Chip gurgling at the end.

He cleaned his knife and stripped off his gloves. 'How did you know the baby wasn't Chip's?' he asked her, genuinely curious. 'What made you do a DNA test?'

'I didn't know, exactly,' she said dully, watching the man who'd raised her gasping for his final breaths. 'It had a birthmark on its ass, just like Drake has. I'd found out that Chip wasn't my real father a few years ago, when I got my blood type in school. I thought at first I was adopted and confronted my mother with it. She admitted I wasn't Chip's, that she'd had an affair. Asked me not to make it an issue.' She shook her head. 'I was planning to, of course, but had been saving that for a rainy day. Nothing stops parents from yelling at you like making them yell at each other. I'd been saving the news about Drake being the kid's daddy for a really rainy day, mainly because I knew that Chip wanted more kids.'

'You knew it would hurt him.' Once again Ken was impressed. Not many girls Stephanie's age could hold on to a secret like that for such malicious reasons. Alice could, but hell, she's my daughter. And Ken had made sure of that. He'd run paternity tests on both Alice and Sean.

She nodded. 'He was so thrilled to have that little brat. He thought that damn baby was his. That she was nursing it was the only thing keeping Tala alive. Mother would have killed her without batting an eye. She hated how much Chip wanted that kid.' She lifted a shoulder. 'So I guess it worked out that Drake killed her first. Tala's brat wasn't going to nurse forever. Maybe that's why Tala risked double-crossing us.' She looked up at him, meeting his eyes squarely. 'Don't you have an office in Singapore or Bangkok or somewhere outside the country where you need qualified help? Bora Bora, maybe? Or Cameroon? My French is flawless.'

He chuckled. 'Damn, now I wish I did. But I don't, and I have a mess of my own to clean up here. Too many people got involved in this, and Chip there hurt some of my people, so I'm short-handed. And FYI, the cops rescued Aunt Tabby and have sent her to the hospital. I've given the order to have her finished off there.'

Stephanie absorbed this. 'So no one was ever coming to help us, were they?'

'Nope. Sorry.' Bitch of it was, he did feel sorry. And oddly reluctant to leave her tied to the chair, even though he had work to do. He felt oddly reluctant to leave her at all. 'Why did Drake take Chip's gun to the alley?' he asked. 'The truth.'

She lifted a shoulder. 'Tala had been meeting some guy in the park. I was supposed to walk the dog, but I hated to. Stupid dog. I made Tala do it, to get her out of the house when I wanted Drake to myself. I'd send her out at two, three in the morning. A few days ago I caught her humming a tune and got suspicious. Drake and I checked the logs and saw that some nights she stayed in one place for five minutes or more.' Stephanie's smile was reptilian. 'I beat her within an inch of her life. It was a wonder the bitch could walk.'

'How did you know she was meeting a man?' Ken nodded, immediately seeing his own mistake. 'Oh, right. The audio files.'

'Yes. Drake was livid that she was sniffing around the guy in the park. He set her up by telling her we were going into the city that night to buy drugs. He left his jacket in the room with her, with his cell phone in the pocket. He wanted her to use it, and she did. She met the guy in the alley, and . . . you know the rest.'

'Thank you,' he said, and meant it. He carefully locked up his cart with all of his weapons, then left her sitting there. He was halfway up the stairs when she spoke again.

'Excuse me,' she called. 'I don't know your name.'

'You don't need to.'

A frustrated huff. 'How much are you going to ask for me?'

'I don't know. It'll be an auction. But I'll make sure the winner won't beat you.'

'That's not a major comfort,' she said sarcastically. 'How much is the "buy now" option?'

'Like on eBay?' He laughed. 'We're a little more sophisticated than that.' But because she'd intrigued him, he gave her a number that was over-the-moon inflated. 'Two million.'

She considered it. 'I'd like to buy myself, then.' Startled, he came back down the stairs to stand five feet away, carefully avoiding the pools of Chip's blood. 'What do you propose using for money?'

'I have Chip's bank account passwords.'

'You're lying,' he said, although he appreciated the effort. 'If you had them, you wouldn't have been worried about losing your credit cards.' He went back up the stairs, chuckling at the vile curses she flung at him. 'I'd take you myself, but I'd never sleep a wink,' he said. 'You'd go all Sharon Stone on me the second I closed my eyes, and they'd find me with an ice pick through my heart.'

'What does that even mean?' she demanded, and he laughed again.

'That you are far too young for me, Stephanie. I'll send someone down with some food in a little while.'

He locked the door and texted Alice to come out to the house. He'd send her down to tend to Stephanie, along with Burton. Then he'd have Burton dispose of the bodies.

For a moment just a moment he'd been tempted to allow Stephanie to buy herself outright. But that was a crazy thought and Ken Sweeney was not a crazy man. Just once, he'd like to let go with a woman and not worry so much . . . But not with that one. She was trouble with a capital T.

He forced himself to march away from the basement door and into his office, where he planted his ass behind his desk. But rather than working, he opened his phone and checked his tracking program once again. Reuben and his right hand, Jason Jackson, were both still AWOL. Demetrius was still sitting near the Ledger's front door. Burton was on his way back to Ken's house, to do a forensic examination of Reuben's car. Joel was in his home office, no doubt working the books, and Sean and Alice were in the office downtown.

Decker's phone was at County General, which hopefully meant he was taking care of dear Aunt Tabby. The old woman was a loose end they couldn't leave unsnipped.

Everyone was where they should be except for Reuben and Jason Jackson. Ken sent a group text to them all, telling them to come to his house for a mandatory meeting.

His company was spiraling out of control and things had to change. Otherwise Ken would take them all out every last one of his so-called trusted group and start all over again on a beach in the Turks and Caicos.

Seventeen.

Cincinnati, Ohio

Tuesday 4 August, 3.25 P.M.

Marcus breathed a quiet sigh of relief when Scarlett turned on to her street. He hadn't been certain that she actually intended to bring him to her house. She'd been totally rattled after that kiss, worried that she'd let go so completely that she'd forgotten her job. Even as the knowledge made him feel ten feet tall, he knew that if she'd turned around mid-route and taken him back to his office, he wouldn't have complained or cajoled. It would have been her choice and he would have honored that. Because that kiss had rattled him too. He wanted her unfettered in her pleasure, wanted to make her forget her own damn name. But she had to want that too.

Now that they were so close to her house, he let himself believe that she did want him enough, that this thing between them had a real chance, whatever 'this thing' was.

He sighed to himself. And now that they were so close to her house and to her next-door neighbor he had something he needed to set straight. He hoped what he was about to tell her wouldn't make her change her mind. 'I, um, have a confession to make,' he said, breaking the silence that had filled the car since Scarlett had gotten back on the highway. 'I told you that I drove by your house.'

She downshifted as they started up the enormous hill atop which her house sat as if holding court with the houses gathered around. 'Four times, I think you said.'

'Yeah, well, I did a bit more than just drive by and look. When I saw your big Land Cruiser always parked in the driveway, I wondered whose it was.'

'It's mine,' Scarlett said sharply.

'I know that now. I thought at first it might belong to a . . . significant other.'

'How did you find out it was mine?' she asked.

He braced himself. 'I kind of sort of asked your neighbor.'

Her brows shot up. 'You kind-of-sort-of asked Mrs Pepper?' She huffed in exasperation. 'Oh for God's sake. She's the biggest gossip in the neighborhood.'

'I didn't intend to,' he said defensively. 'And I didn't come straight out and ask her. I have a little more finesse than that.'

'If you managed to get one by Mrs Pepper, then you're a better man than most.'

But he wasn't. He knew that. He was a better man than some, but not most. For months the truth about his mission at the Ledger had kept him from pursuing this woman he'd never been able to get out of his mind. No longer, he thought. He still had no intention of dragging her into his bend-the-law world. He wouldn't ask her to look the other way or to betray her integrity by helping him. But he wasn't letting her go. He'd find a way to have it all.

If she hadn't been interested, he wouldn't have pushed her. Hell, he wouldn't even be here right now. But she was. She hadn't pushed him away earlier. Far from it.

He had to touch her again soon or he was going to burn up, from the inside out.

'I'm not sure I managed to get anything by Mrs Pepper. She might remember me.'

'I have no doubt she will,' Scarlett said dryly. 'That woman is old, not dead. She has an appreciation for the male form. She paints, you know. I wouldn't be surprised if you ended up on one of her canvases.'

He grinned at Scarlett's sideways compliment. 'Really? That wouldn't be so bad.'

'She only paints nudes.'

Marcus coughed. 'Well. I'm . . . Thank you, Scarlett. Now I have that image in my mind.'

'Hey, you're the one who tangled with her.'

'I only got out to check the license plates on the Land Cruiser. They were covered in mud.'

She glanced at him from the corner of her eye. 'When was this?'

'Late March.'

'Ah, we'd just had some snow.' She motioned with her hand. 'So, keep going.'

She was enjoying this, he realized. Which was fine with him. 'Well, your neighbor takes her watch responsibilities seriously. She saw me checking out the Land Cruiser and came out to your driveway. "Young man,"' he mimicked in a falsetto, '"do you mind telling me why you're on Detective Bishop's property? The woman owns guns, boy. Lots of guns."'

Scarlett laughed. 'She didn't really say that.'

Marcus thought he could watch her laugh all day. And all night. 'She totally did, I swear it. I told her that I was interested in buying the Land Cruiser and asked if she knew the name of the owner. She told me that you owned it and always had. I was very relieved.'

'You could have just run my plates,' Scarlett said tartly. 'I'm sure you have the resources to do that.'

'I do, and I did,' he said. 'The search confirmed what she said. Anyway, I did it mainly because I needed to know if I had a chance or if you were already taken. I'm sorry. I should have just asked Deacon. I thought you should know in case your neighbor remembers me.'

'She will. She's almost ninety, but she's still sharp as a tack.'