Part 22 (2/2)

The estate had an ultramodern guest or pool house, on the opposite side of the pool, with walls of windows and light peeking out between the drapery panels. I wanted to check that out after the main house, but I wasn't ready to give Eve my itinerary.

I peeked in a window of a parlor full of marble-topped tables, the kind I was looking for but none that matched my vision.

Eve grabbed my belt, yanked me to my knees, and pointed to Lolique running across the yard and around the pool, toward the guesthouse.

”She doesn't look as drunk as she did a few minutes ago,” I whispered. ”Let's go.”

I followed Lolique, Eve two steps behind me, mumbling her bald refusal to follow.

We crouched in the bushes outside the guesthouse and looked through one of the slits in the drapes. I couldn't believe my eyes. The Goodwin cousin sat in his wheelchair, his back to us, facing the sofa.

In the kitchen area, open to the living room, Lolique took a beer from the refrigerator and drank from the bottle. Not quite as flamboyant as she pretends to be.

”How did it go?” Goodwin asked.

Lolique laughed and danced without a pole. ”I did it, I did it. The dopes are dupes, and the old goat's on his way up the river. No paddle.”

”Exactly what McDowell deserves,” Gary Goodwin said, ”the way he blatantly manipulated a dying old man into leaving him the Goodwin dealers.h.i.+p.”

Lolique shrugged. ”Zachary Goodwin was the old goat's father-in-law.”

Goodwin slammed his hand on the arm of his wheelchair. ”Zachary was my uncle, dammit. Blood is thicker! That dealers.h.i.+p should be mine.”

”And it will be,” Lolique said, though she fluffed her hair in the way she did when she said McDowell had prepped his fire speech before the fire. Was she lying this time, too? Did she want the dealers.h.i.+p and McDowell's money? I couldn't believe Goodwin hadn't caught on to the woman's mean-spirited greed.

”What are you two up to?” asked a man standing in shadow, who surprised both Lolique and Goodwin.

”Stupid a.s.s,” Lolique said. ”You screwed me out of my inheritance with your spur-of-the-moment fix the other night. What are you doing here? You know the schlub doesn't want you anywhere near here.”

”He doesn't want him here, either.” Shadowman pointed to Goodwin. ”Good thing you use this as your home office, Lol, or the light in here might make the old goat suspicious.” Shadowman chuckled.

Lol. The man knew Lolique well enough to use a nickname. ”As for your inheritance,” he continued, still in shadow, ”you've got more money than G.o.d. I did what I had to do to get the job done.”

”Except leave the schlub's sweater behind,” Lolique snapped.

I saw the man's hand as he snapped his fingers. ”Oh yeah. Whatever happened to that thing?”

”You gave it to your twit of a girlfriend.”

”Hey, she's no twit. She's freakin' brilliant. Hardest con I ever pulled, pretending to date her.”

I felt fury radiating off Eve in hot waves.

Lolique turned to Goodwin and pointed toward the guy in the shadows. ”I thought you said he was out of this for good.”

”For good?” Shadowman said. ”n.o.body offs me. I'm too smart.”

Lolique laughed. ”Why the h.e.l.l are you here, then, Lazarus?”

”Sanctuary,” Shadowman wailed. ”Sanctuary,” he moaned like a ghoul as he stepped into the light for a split second, but that was all we needed.

I looked at Eve and mouthed, ”Vinney?” which she confirmed with a nod as he disappeared back into the shadows.

Lolique flopped down on the sofa and gave Goodwin the evil eye. ”Sometimes I wonder whether you're worth keeping around.”

”Don't get smart with me,” Goodwin said. ”I know who you really are.”

I turned to Eve to speculate on that one, but she must have moved to another window to get a visual on Vinney. ”Hey?” I whispered, and she put her hand over my mouth, presumably to shut me up-except when I looked up at my silencer, Eve didn't look down at me, Vinney did.

I'd lost sight of him inside. Now, he had me crushed in a headlock, one hand over my mouth, the other closing around my throat.

I saw stars, and beyond them, a cold-blooded look in my captor's eyes.

Not only could he have murdered Sampson. He could have enjoyed it.

My killer's face blurred and darkened.

Thirty-three.

1972: The first woman falls off her cork sandals. Millions follow.

-VOGUE As if through a tunnel, I heard a whomp, and then I was sucking air into my lungs in greedy gulps while my captor went down like cement shoes in deep water.

Eve grabbed my hand and dragged me toward the woods.

”My shoe,” I whispered. ”I fell off my shoe.”

”Lose the other one.”

”They cost-”

She jerked on my arm so hard I fell off the other. ”Ouch, ouch, ouch,” I whispered as she dragged me through the woods, me in bare feet, her walking like Peg-Leg Pete without the peg.

”My stockings are torn and my feet are cut,” I whined.

”You're not the only one.”

”You are not wearing stockings.”

”Yeah, that's the crucial point, here.”

I looked back. Vinney was still down. My throat hurt remembering. ”Are you packing a sledgehammer? What did you hit him with?”

”The heel of a boot.”

<script>