"She stabbed me . . . drugged me . . . I got it out . . . I got it out . . ."

As West drew nearer he made out the gun on the ground, just outside the reach of Andre's right hand. Andre was lying on his back, his arms outstretched, staring up at the sky.

West moved in quickly and kicked the gun farther out of reach. Then he bent down to him. "She stabbed you?"

"Aimee . . . hypo . . . dermic . . ."

"Aimee Thomas?" he asked incredulously. That was the woman Andre had apparently shot?

Andre seemed to focus on him. "West?" he asked.

"We need to get you to a hospital."

"I am The Messiah . . ."

Before Tucker could get to the house on the adjoining property the door of a dark SUV, also aimed down the hill, swung open. The interior light didn't come on, and Callie skidded to a halt, alert to danger. What was this?

But Tucker, whose young eyes seemed to see through the darkness with ease, stopped short, then ran directly toward the man stepping out of the driver's side. "Knock, knock!" he yelled, and threw himself into the man's arms.

"Teddy?" Callie asked, hearing her voice crack with relief. "G.o.d, is it really you? What are you doing here?"

"I heard there was some action going on here," he said lightly, hanging on to Tucker. "Need some help?"

"He is a bad. And Aimee is bad!" Tucker declared, pointing toward the house.

"Yeah?" Teddy Stutz asked, a hint of amus.e.m.e.nt in his voice. "Better get in the car, then, and be safe," he said, opening the back door.

"Wait," Callie said, alarm sizzling down her nerves. "Who gave you this address?"

"Oh, I think you know," he said as Tucker jumped inside.

"What do you mean?" Callie blinked in the darkness. Was that a gun held loosely in his hand?

Yes, it was a gun. Because now he waved it at her. "Get in the car, Callie."

"No."

"You want to save your little friend here, don't you?"

"You wouldn't hurt him," she said, her mouth dry.

"You don't know what I'd do. Get in, before I stop asking nicely."

West would be here. If she stalled, West would be here. "You're a part of this?" she asked in disbelief.

"I told you I knew Teresa," he said. "I knew what she was going to do long before she went through with it. The way she flirted with Edmund Mikkels . . . He was no match for her. I had to work pretty hard to make him pull that trigger, though. But Stephen had to die, otherwise he'd inherit everything."

His tone was conversational, but he'd stepped forward while he was talking. Callie jerked backward, but he pressed the gun straight into the hollow at her throat. "Get in the car," he said in a pleasant tone that made her muscles quiver with fear.

This time she did as she was told, climbing into the pa.s.senger seat. West, where are you? She prayed to G.o.d he was okay. But she couldn't count on him to save them. There wasn't enough time.

Maybe she could stop Teddy. Get the gun away. "Don't try anything," he warned her, correctly interpreting her hesitation. "You don't want me to wreck the car with the kid in the back, like your husband did."

She buckled herself into the pa.s.senger seat, sending a smile back to Tucker that she hoped wasn't as tremulous as it felt.

Gotta keep him talking . . .

"Why would it matter to you if Stephen had inherited?" she managed to get out.

"Have you been asleep all this time? Victoria loves my father. And she should, because he's a good guy. Me, on the other hand. The proverbial bad seed. Gambling . . . shirking work . . . stealing . . . Oh, yeah. I've earned all the labels." He grinned as he turned the ignition. Callie hoped West would hear it. Would somehow sense she and Tucker were in trouble.

"Good old Cal's never given up on his only son, though," he went on, "so, I'm next in line, as long as the dominoes all fall in place."

"Like getting rid of Stephen," she accused.

"You just don't know how hard I had to work to orchestrate that, and then Teresa gets all conflicted. Can't trust a woman," he said. "Actually, you can't trust anyone but yourself. . . ."

He pulled out and started to drive down the hill. Callie was beside herself. How was she going to save them?

"Stephen never did the job around the ranch that my dad did," Teddy said. "When I knew Teresa wanted Stephen out of the picture, I saw the opportunity. And then I knew when she was going to Martinique. I hacked her e-mail account. Who do you think told Victoria to get the computer expert? Moi," he said on a short laugh. "So, I went to Martinique myself and met the love-sick and thoroughly misguided Aimee Thomas." He glanced in the rearview. "And saw Tucker again. Didn't know he'd recognize me and the knock-knock joke I told. That shook me up a little."

"You were in Martinique?" Callie asked, stealing a glance in the side mirror. No sign of West and they were approaching the main highway.

"I tried to tell Aimee that Andre was a no-go, but she had to see for herself and even when the whack-job showed up two weeks ago and she got to see his full-on crazy for herself, she wouldn't quite let go."

"You're the one who got Teresa on the boat," Callie realized.

"With Aimee's help," he said with false humility. "She can be surprisingly imaginative when she has to be, but I couldn't count on her with Andre. One moment she loves him, the next she hates him. Totally dysfunctional." He smiled, then asked, "Who shot who, back there?"

Soon they would be in a busier area. Could she hit him at a stoplight? Have time to get out of the car and save Tucker? "Andre shot Aimee."

"What about Aimee's hypodermic?" When Callie didn't respond, he said, "Oh, she tried and failed." He snorted in disgust. "You know what she uses? A little gift from me. A tranquilizer used to subdue cattle on the ranch. I just helped myself to some. It's been a boon having to 'help out' Cal during this trying time while Victoria decides whether she's going to live or die."

"You tell me jokes," Tucker accused from the backseat.

"Well, one joke," Teddy confided to Callie, as if Tucker wasn't all that bright. "The wharf rat was only there the one time when I met with Aimee."

"You're the real black sheep," Callie said coldly.

He laughed. "You just figured that out? Oh, I get it. West isn't the black sheep. He couldn't be, could he? He's the white hat in this fiction you've created."

"You're taking us to the ranch," she guessed.

"Now, why would I do that? I wasn't really counting on having to deal with the boy so soon, but Andre pushed up the timetable by bringing you both to the house. Guess it's karma, how these things work out." His smile chilled Callie to the soles of her feet. She and Tucker were doomed to die unless she came up with a plan.

Keep him talking. You need more time.

"West will find us," she predicted with more confidence than she felt.

"After he gets done chasing Andre? Sure. He'll find you. Just don't know . . . when."

She understood that he believed West would find them after they were dead.

"Then, he'll have to be dealt with, too, apparently," he added. "Victoria always acted like he didn't even exist, but that all changed when she hired him."

"How did Teresa meet Stephen?" she asked, desperate for anything to say. They were driving with traffic but they'd entered a main surface street.

"I'd seen Teresa around LA. Even in this town, she was hard to miss when she was trolling for a guy with money. I wanted to test the waters and so I told her I was part of the Laughlin family who owned Laughlin Ranch. She must've gone straight back to Andre with that information because she suddenly wanted to get real friendly-until Andre figured out I wasn't Stephen. Then they went right by me and she started hanging out at the BBQ until the real Stephen Laughlin walked in. Edmund had been d.o.g.g.i.ng after her for a while and he introduced them. Something he was sorry about later."

They were behind about three cars in the outside lane, slowing for a stoplight. The curb and sidewalk were to her right. Could she do it? Leap out and round the car to get to Tucker in time? Could she yell at him to jump out? Did she dare? Traffic was stopped. But could she save him from Teddy?

She tensed, her hand stealing toward the door handle. Tucker suddenly leapt out of his seat and jumped forward, grabbing Teddy's head and clamping his teeth on his right ear. Teddy let out a howl and lifted the gun still in his right hand. Callie slammed her hand down on his forearm and the Glock discharged. A bullet zinged into the roof of the vehicle.

"Get out of the car!" Callie screamed at Tucker but he was way ahead of her. He threw open his door while she yanked back on the handle of hers. "Tucker, look out!" she yelled, her heart seizing as he stepped into still-stalled traffic.

"Hands up!" a familiar voice ground out. West suddenly appeared at Teddy's driver's window.

Teddy's answer was to slam his foot on the gas and ram the car in front of them. West jumped back, but then stepped forward again, his gun leveled at Teddy's head through the window. "So help me G.o.d, Stutz. Get out or I'll shoot," he snapped.

Teddy slowly dropped his gun and lifted his hands, and Callie heard still distant but approaching sirens. West had called in the cavalry.

West yanked open the door and hauled Teddy out as Tucker ran around the back of the vehicle and into Callie's arms. She could feel Tucker's small body shaking and held him close. On the sidewalk, she burbled, "How did you do that? How did you know to do that?"

His face had been buried in her neck, but now he pulled back enough to say, "Furrall cats bite. And I does, too."

Four hours later they were released from the police station and allowed to return home. West drove them in his Explorer and Tucker was nodding off in a car seat borrowed from one of the administrative a.s.sistants who'd overheard Callie worrying about the issue and had offered hers up.

"I heard the car start," West had told her earlier. "Andre was unconscious by then and I'd called for help, and that's when I heard the car. Coulda been the neighbors, but I knew it wasn't. I ran out the way Tucker did and saw you and Tucker's heads in the Trailblazer. Didn't know whose it was, but I just followed and called in the plates. Ted Stutz. Figured it wasn't Cal."

West had gone on to say that Andre was at Cedars-Sinai Hospital. He was going to survive, but he was scheduled for neurological tests. "Fast-growing tumor, squeezing his nerves," was the educated guess at this point. He'd probably been suffering hallucinations and an extraordinary amount of pain. Whether he was really Andrew Laughlin was yet to be determined, but both West and Callie were fairly certain it was true.

Aimee did not survive the gunshot wounds. Nor did Derek, but then Callie had known he was dead before Andre had ever taken them away.

West, at Callie's request, had taken Tucker and her to his apartment. Derek's body was picked up by the coroner's van, and other officers had collected Callie's purse and phone and locked the door to her house. Diane Cantrell had been asked to identify the body and had screamed at the ME and his staff all the while she was there. She'd been given a sedative and officers had driven her home.

As they pulled into West's parking spot, Callie lifted her head from the seat rest and asked, "Are we home?"

"Yeah," West said, leaning over to kiss her lightly on the lips. "We are."

Together they gathered Tucker from the backseat and carried him upstairs to West's couch. He lay on his side, the sweep of his lashes resting on his cheeks, his chest rising and falling evenly.

"Think he'll be okay after all this?" she asked.

"He's tough," West said.

"Teddy called him a wharf rat. Made me angry, but I don't know . . . it's almost a badge of honor."

"It is," West agreed, putting his arms around her. "Teddy's going to jail for a long, long time. Did I tell you that Victoria woke up and recognized who she was and where she was?"

"That's good news."

"Mmm-hmmm." He guided her down the hall to his bedroom. "We just have to convince her that Tucker would be better off living with us."

"Are we planning to live together?" Callie asked, pulling him down on the bed beside her.

"Well, I need someone to help me with home decor."

She laughed silently, holding him close, relieved and happy to be safe in his arms. "Yes, you do."

Epilogue.

Callie slid the gray, metal box from the slot and took it inside a special room within Security One. Opening the lid, she found stacks of hundred-dollar bills. Without counting, she did a quick estimate and decided a good deal of the money from the mortgage was still there. There were also two pa.s.sports. She opened the first and saw her deceased husband's smiling face. The second was her own. Her name. Her state of residence. Her birth date. But it was Teresa's picture smiling up at her.

She didn't know how he'd done it, but Jonathan had managed to have a fake pa.s.sport made. Had Teresa even known about it? She somehow doubted it. Whereas Jonathan had been obsessed with her and planned for them to run away together, Teresa had been just as obsessed with Andre, at least at that time.

There were snapshots as well. Digital pictures printed on photo paper, probably from the jump drive labeled MARTINIQUE, if she were to guess. They were candid shots of Jonathan and Teresa, most likely from their earlier time together. Behind them was a panorama of sky, sand, and beach. Both of them looked tan and beautiful. Not a care in the world. Nothing like the Jonathan she'd come to know who'd become surly, tense, and dissatisfied.

She wondered who'd taken the photos . . . Andre, perhaps ?

She emptied the contents of the box into the duffel bag she'd brought with her. Diane could have the money. It was hers, along with the house, though she'd lost her fire over the last few weeks. It had been extinguished when she'd lost Derek.

Callie slid the empty box back into its slot, then went to the outer room to meet Victoria's lawyer, Gary Merritt, who'd greased the legal wheels to gain her access to the box. Victoria was out of the hospital, wan, but as sharp and in control as ever. She'd insisted on Callie using Gary, and Callie had been grateful for the help.

William Lister was waiting with Gary. Callie kept the pictures, jump drive, and pa.s.sports, then handed over the bag of money. "You're sure?" William asked. He was looking worse for wear himself.

"I'm sure. I think Jonathan spent some of it looking for Teresa, but most of it is there."

Gary Merritt cleared his throat and reminded her again, "As his wife, it's rightfully yours."

She shook her head and headed outside into bright LA sunshine. A lot of people had thought somebody else's money was rightfully theirs, whether it was or not, and all it had gotten them was misery and death.

West was leaning against his Explorer, which was parked at the curb. The back door was open and she could see Tucker inside, his skinny legs swinging to the sound of something he was listening to inside a pair of headphones.

"You good?" West said.

"I'm excellent."

"I'd have to agree."

They'd moved into his apartment together and were looking for a new place as a family of three. Victoria hadn't liked having Tucker outside of her control but had let it happen.