Well see for how much longer, Lane muttered.

{ 368 }.

FORT Y- THR EE.

S ix hours later, as Lane sat in an interrogation room down at the county jailhouse, he tried Lizzies cell phone for the sixth time" and decided that she must have found out about the situa- tion. Maybe someone had called her? Or maybe shed turned on her ra- dio, after all? She didnt have a television.

Hell, maybe somebody had put up a neon sign in downtown Char- lemont and she could see it all the way in Indiana.

Were almost done here, Samuel T. said as he came back in the stark grey room. The good news is that youve been downgraded to a person of interest, but things are going to be in limbo until the investigation is concluded. At least you can go home now, though, and theres no mug shot.

Lane ended the call and rubbed his aching eyes. Theyd given him his phone and his wallet back about fifteen minutes ago, and the first thing hed done was try to get ahold of Lizzie again.

Given the way hed left her house, there was no scenario where she wouldnt have picked up his call if shed wanted to speak with him.

Clearly, she had no interest in hearing his side of things.

{ 369 }.

How much longer? he said as he rubbed his aching head. Can I leave now?

Almost. Theyre just checking with the DA" who happens to be a hunting buddy of mine. Samuel T. sat down. I know its politically in- correct, but thank God the old boys network is alive and well in this town" or youd be getting strip searched right now.

Youre a miracle worker, Lane said numbly.

It helps that Chantals story had some holes in it. She obviously was operating on her own when she came up with this bright idea. Who the hell takes a bath right after theyre attacked" and is careful to clean under her broken manicure? Makes no damn sense. And then there was the happy little fact that she called both the paper and two TV stations"

from her ER bed.

Told you. He checked his phone in case Lizzie had called back and hed somehow not heard the ring. Shes ruining my life, that one.

Not if I have anything to do with it.

Lane tried Lizzie a seventh time. Put the phone back down. What did she look like? You know, Chantal. When she got to the hospital.

You sure you want to see the photographs?

Yeah, I need to know how bad it is.

Samuel T. got up again. Ill see what I can do.

As the interrogation room door opened and shut once more, Lane fiddled with his phone. He thought about sending a text, but doubted that was going to make any difference at all.

Unbelievable. He literally could not believe this was happening to him again" same two women, same vocabulary . . . as for the out- come?

He was shit terrified he knew the answer to that one already: Lizzie had locked him out once. Clearly, this was the way she intended to han- dle him again.

Samuel T. came back ten minutes later with a manila envelope.

Here you go.

Lane took the thing and opened the flap. Sliding out four glossies, he frowned at the top one.

{ 370 }.

Two black eyes. Bruises on the sides of her face. Ligature marks around her throat.

This is bad, he said roughly. Jesus . . .

There was no love lost for him when it came to Chantal, but he didnt like to see anyone in this condition" especially a woman. And no, he thought, there was no chance she had done this to herself. Someone must have hit her" repeatedly and hard.

Had she paid somebody? he wondered.

The second and third photos were close- ups. The fourth was"

Lane went back to the third one. Leaning in close, he studied a de- tail of her cheek" a cut in her skin under her eye.

Suddenly, he dropped the images on the table and sat back, closing his lids.

What? Samuel T. asked.

It was a long while before he could speak. But eventually, he turned the photo around and pointed to the bleeding cut on Chantals skin. My father did this to her.

How do you know?

With god- awful clarity, Lane remembered once again that terrible New Years night, back when hed been a kid and his older brother had taken a beating for the rest of them. When he used to hit Edward, his signet ring would leave the exact same mark. My father hit her back handed, across the face . . . the gold makes the cut.

Samuel T. cursed under his breath. Are you serious?

Dead. Serious.

Hold on, let me bring the investigator back in. Theyre going to want to know about this.

A s Lizzie drove in to work at the crack of dawn, she couldnt help thinking about the trip in from a couple of days ago, when that ambulance had passed her and proceeded up Easterlys hill.

She had the same feeling of foreboding now. And the same dread at seeing Lane.

{ 371 }.

No radio today on her commute. She didnt want to run the risk of the local NPR station cutting in with the big news that one of Charle- monts most prominent men had put his pregnant wife in the hospital.

Further details about the situation werent going to change the story, and she was feeling badly enough already.

Proceeding past the BFE main entrance, she went down to the staff road and traveled by the fields and the greenhouses, up to the parking lot.

Thanks to her coming in so early, there was no one else around, not even Gary McAdams.

Shed planned it that way.

On autopilot, she turned off her truck and reached across for her purse. Crap.

Shed left the thing at home. Which meant no sunglasses, no sun- screen, no hat.

Whatever. She wasnt driving back now.

And it was probably a good thing that she didnt have her phone.

Lane hadnt stopped calling her" as early as four a.m. this morning hed still been ringing her.

The walk up to the back door of Easterly took her a good long time, and she told herself it was a simple case of exhaustion. After Greta had finally left her house around one a.m., she had stayed up to watch the sunrise over the wreck in her front yard.

Nice little metaphor for her life.

Entering through the kitchen, she found Miss Aurora at the big stove. Good morning, she said in what she hoped was a halfway nor- mal voice. Have you seen Mr. Harris?

Miss Aurora flipped the eggs in her skillet with a spatula. Hes in his suite of rooms. I had no family orders this morning, so Im making this for you and me and anyone else whos around. Ill have it in the break room in ten.

Im so sorry. I have to"

See you in there.

Lizzie took a deep breath. Ill try to make it.

{ 372 }.

You do that. Miss Aurora looked over her shoulder, her black eyes gleaming. Otherwise, Im going to have to come find you and talk to you about how you shouldnt believe everything you hear or read.

Ducking her eyes, Lizzie pushed her way out of the kitchen and went across to Mr. Harriss door. Before she knocked on it, she glanced back at Rosalindas. A CMP seal had been put on the panels, and caution tape had been run between the jambs.

Yet another crime scene in the house, she thought. Wonder what Chantals bedroom looked like.

The butler opened his door and jumped back. Miss King?

Lizzie shook herself. Oh, sorry. Listen, I need to speak with you.

Mr. Harris frowned, but something about her affect must have reached through his haughty attitude. Do come in.

Predictably, the decor was proper English, all kinds of leather- bound books, antique chairs, and garnet- colored Orientals filling out the space. Beyond the sitting area, there was a galley kitchen, and sim- ilar to Miss Auroras quarters, on the far side there was a closed door she guessed led to his bedroom and bath.

It smelled good, lemony and clean, not stuffy.

Im giving my notice, she said abruptly. Two weeks. I would have told Rosalinda, but . . .

Mr. Harris stared at her for a moment; then he went over and sat behind a carved desk that had paperwork but no computer on it. This is a surprise.

Its in my contract. I only have to give two weeks.

May I ask why?

Just a change of focus. Ive been thinking about it for a while.

Have you. He steepled his hands. So this has nothing to do with the reports that came out last night?

Im very sorry that the family is having to deal with such ugliness.

Mr. Harris cocked a brow. Is there nothing I can do to convince you to stay?

My mind is made up, but thank you.

{ 373 }.

She left it at that, returning to the hall and shutting the door behind her. Standing by herself, she blinked away tears, tilting her head back while praying that her nose didnt start to run.

Of all the ways she had imagined leaving Easterly, it had never been like this. But there was no going back. She had come to her decision to quit with Greta while they had polished off a half gallon of chocolate chip ice cream, in between her first crying jag and her second.

At the end of the day, she didnt actually believe that Lane could have hurt Chantal like that" it just didnt seem possible. But that wasnt the point.

It didnt even matter whether or not the woman was pregnant" or whose it was if she were having a baby.

The simple truth was that after nearly a decade with the family, Lizzie had come to realize that they were different from her in a funda- mental way" and not because the Bradfords had more money than she would see in several lifetimes. The thing was, where she came from, people got married and had children; they contributed to their 401ks; and they went on one family vacation a year, to a place like Disney or Sandals. They paid their taxes on time, and celebrated marriages and births with potlucks, and they didnt cheat on their wives or their husbands.

They lived dignified, modest lives unmarked by the kind of crazy drama that went on with the Bradfords.

And the thing was, as much as she was attracted to Lane" hell, maybe she was drawn to the very insanity that also repelled her" she simply didnt have the energy or the wherewithal to keep going with him in any capacity. She fell too hard, too fast for him" and just as be- fore, what he brought to her life was nothing but a pit in her stomach, more sleepless nights . . . and a feeling of profound depression.

Some risk pools you couldnt volunteer for. Whether it was certain cancers, or bad accidents, or other kinds of tragedies, you couldnt al- ways reduce your chances of getting hurt"because you were alive and that was the reality for all the living things on the planet.

Other problems, issues and dangers, however, you were free to step { 374 }.

out of, step away from" and when you were a responsible adult, who wanted to lead a halfway healthy existence, it was incumbant upon you to take care of yourself, protect yourself . . . nurture yourself.

Clearly, she couldnt be trusted to keep her head on straight around Lane Baldwine, so she was going to solve the problem of her lack of self- control . . . with a lack of proximity.

Time to leave.

Like an addict who was going cold turkey, she was just taking off"

and no, she didnt want to talk to him about any of it. That just seemed like a junkie wanting to enter into a deep- and- meaningful with a sy- ringe of heroin. Undoubtedly, Lane was going to have his side of things, but no matter what that was, it couldnt change the fact that her heart was broken all over again and her decision to quit her job was not sub- ject to negotiation.

And now . . . she was going to do her best to get on with her day.

Heading down to the greenhouses, she went into the first one she got to and was more than ready to work on the seedlings" which were now not seedlings at all. But before she went over to the supply station to gather her pruning shears, she stopped and took out her phone.

What she did next took no more than a moment.

And was probably a stupid thing to do.

But she transferred seventeen thousand, four hundred, eighty- six dollars, and seventy- nine cents from her savings . . . to her mortgage account.