Too slowly. Like the last few drops from a bottle of merlot.

"Sorry?" he whispered as he felt himself falling into an unfathomable rage. It paralyzed him. He knew what he had to do-what he should do-but his feet wouldn't move. All he could see was the blood as it

continued to drip, forming a gruesome puddle around her feet. Her blood. His father's blood. It all mingled in his mind in a gory mix of pain and confusion.

"Sorry?" he said again. "What the hell good is 'sorry'? That doesn't mean anything!"

She nodded weakly and a fresh set of tears glistened in her eyes. "You're right. I-I should have stopped

it. I tried. Really, I did. But...I didn't realize..." She swayed and he shed his paralysis. He stepped

forward to catch her.

She looked up at him as her blood soaked his clothes and ate through his soul. "I love you, honey." Her eyes fluttered closed.

Then the panic set in. "Hold-hold on, Mom," he sputtered through his own tears, which had finally

sprung to his eyes. "I'll call an ambulance. It's not too late." God, it can't be too late.

She just shook her head, and as he laid her down and reached for the phone he heard her whisper, "Maybe not. Maybe it's not too late. It's all there."

"What?" he said absently as he punched in those three life-saving numbers. "All what?"

"You only have to look..."

But that was as far as she got. Those were the last words he ever heard her speak.

He wrenched himself back to the present, and pried his gloved hands off the steering wheel. His

knuckles ached from the strain, and his head swam. What the hell had she meant?

"You only have to look"?

It was nonsense. For years he had dismissed it as the ramblings of a woman peering over the edge of

eternity. But considering what he had found tonight, maybe he had been wrong. Maybe she had meant

something by it. The question was, what? Maybe he could find the answers in there.

Slowly, methodically, feeling as if he were slogging through molasses, he opened the car door and stepped out into the cool night air. He could hear the distant crash of waves and smell the moisture in the air. He cast one pained glance at the driving shed, and thought that he should have had that thing demolished the day after his father's death. But part of him had wanted to keep it as a reminder, as a testament, or some twisted memorial to his father's last moments.

He trudged up the flagstone walk. It had been years since he'd walked these paths and smelled these smells. He looked at the front of the house where he had grown up, laughing and playing and loving, and thought he should have felt something. At least he should have felt something other than horror and fear.

He pushed through the front door and stepped into the foyer. He glanced around, taking in the sorry state of the place in a single glance. None of it was strange to him. It was exactly as he had left it.

He stopped and listened, and identified the source of the voices.

He set off down the hall.

Bree hugged herself against an internal chill. "It doesn't make sense," she muttered. "Somebody must have hurt themselves here recently. Maybe the kids who trashed the place." She perked up as that possibility took shape. "Right? One of them cut themselves on the mirror glass and went upstairs to clean up."

Franki didn't look at her. "If that was it they must have sliced an artery."

"Come on, Franki. You know how bad a little blood can look when it's dribbling on the floor."

"From the foyer, all the way up the stairs, into a bedroom and a bathroom?"

Bree shot to her feet. "What the hell are you implying?"

"Nothing," said Franki, obviously fighting tears. "It just doesn't wash, Bree. If it was kids they would have hightailed it outta here the second somebody got hurt. They wouldn't have stuck around and then tried to clean up the mess in a house where nobody lives!"

Bree whirled on Troy. "You've been awfully quiet."

He shrugged. "I don't know what to say." His mood had gone somber from the moment they stepped into the bathroom to inspect Franki's findings. Then when they had found the poorly hidden evidence of a blood trail that tracked through half the house he had turned almost catatonic.

"Well," said Bree in exasperation, "I can't believe you guys. You're his friends, and you obviously think he did...something terrible."

Franki chewed on her lip. "It's just that...it would answer a lot of questions."

Bree didn't want to address that. She knew all too well what questions Franki was referring to. They had been so easy to ignore...up until now.

"I never told you this, but..." Franki's voice was barely a notch above a whisper, "But my mom went to the police once after Janelle disappeared."

"She didn't disappear." Bree swallowed thickly. "She left."

"Whatever. Anyway, I pushed her and finally she looked into it."

When she didn't continue, Bree focused on her. "Obviously nothing came of it, because I never heard about any investigation."

"She said they listened politely, but essentially ignored her. She said they told her they'd look into it. But..." She shrugged. "I guess they didn't find anything, because nothing seemed to come of it. They never even talked to anybody."

"They obviously accepted Sloan's explanation. Then so should we."

She just shrugged.

"Dammit, Franki! I-"

"What the hell is going on here?"

Bree started at the sound of Sloan's voice. She turned around to see him standing in the doorway to the

library. He was dressed all in black, from black runners to a pair of black gloves that sheathed his hands like a second skin. Even his face was smudged with blacking. He had come directly from the Auction House, not even bothering to clean up. And...why had he come here? They were supposed to meet back at Bree's.

Then she looked at his eyes. They were bright. Too bright. In fact, he looked angry. "I said," he shouted. "What the hell is going on?" Bree didn't know what to say and was relieved to hear Troy's voice close behind her. "We came to clean up the place. It was supposed to be a surprise."

Sloan blinked slowly. "Well, thanks but no thanks. I want you out. All of you."

Nobody moved.

"Now." His whole body was shaking. "Did you hear me? Get out!"

"Why, Sloan?" Troy took a step toward his friend, and Bree was grateful that he seemed to be taking

charge of the situation. "Why don't you want us here?" "Do I need a fucking reason? This is my house. I can kick you out any time I damn well please. I didn't ask you here. I don't want you here. I just-" "What have you got to hide?" interrupted Franki. She had curled her legs up under her on the couch, and was watching Sloan with wary eyes.

Sloan froze. "What? Hide? What are you talking about?"

"Where is Janelle?" added Franki. "Where is she, Sloan?"

His eyes darted from her to Troy and then to Bree. She saw something there that tugged at her heart.

But it also frightened her. What she saw was panic.

"Right now she's...she's in Italy. She and Armand-"

"Cut the crap." Troy's voice was strangely soft, yet compelling. "Stop lying to us, Sloan. You have to

come clean. You have to tell somebody, and it might as well be your friends. The people who care about you."

"What the hell are you getting at?"

"We found blood, Sloan," said Bree. He needed to hear those words from her. She walked over to him and touched his hand. She could feel the warmth of his body, even through the calfskin. "A lot of it. It...it looks bad."

"It looks like somebody died here," blurted out Franki. "And nobody's seen or heard from Janelle for years."

Sloan stared at her. "What are you saying?"

"Did you kill her?" asked Franki.

Sloan jerked his hand away from Bree and took a step back, as if Franki's words had physically hit him.

"Is that what you think?"

"What are we supposed to think?" The tone of Troy's voice sent a little shiver down Bree's spine.

"People have had suspicions for years. She disappears, and then within a few days you take off for another country. Nobody sees or hears from either of you-"

"But what about the letters," he squeaked. "She's written all those letters. In-in her own hand, for

chrissake."

Bree felt an icy ball settle in her stomach. He sounded so desperate. Almost pathetic in his attempt to convince them.

"You could have forged her handwriting," Bree heard herself say. "You're very accomplished at thatsort of thing. And those letters-they were so beautifully written. Thinking about it now they don't reallysound like her. They sound like you."

He took another step back. "Get out. Didn't I tell you to get out? I don't need to put up with this shit in

my own house!"

"The cops have to know," said Troy evenly. "If you don't tell us what happened, that's what we'll have to do. It's time to give up your secrets, Sloan. They've been a weight around your neck long enough."