Casey didn’t answer.

“I feel sorry for you,” Delilah said. “I shouldn’t-you’re a cold-blooded killer-but I do. I had a brother. He’s dead, but I loved him with all my heart when he was alive. I still love him to this day. People will do strange things for love.”

Casey had closed up. Her face betrayed no emotions.

“I bet your heart is beating like a trip hammer, just like it was beating when Terri Spencer told you her suspicions about Joshua Maxfield,” Delilah said. “You knew your brother was writing a novel about his crimes. You knew that you had to act fast to silence Terri before she told her suspicions to the police. You were afraid that the police would talk to Maxfield and he’d tell them that he was cribbing from your brother’s book. If you’d talked to Miles, he would have told you that he sent the book anonymously, but you couldn’t get through to him. So you panicked. You lured Terri to the boathouse and killed her to shut her up.”

“Isn’t that what happened, Mom?” Ashley asked coldly.

“That is pure fiction,” Casey said. “None of that happened.”

“Then Maxfield walked in when you were crouched over Mrs. Spencer,” Delilah continued, ignoring the interruption. “You grabbed the knife again. To confuse him, you shouted, ‘Murderer.’ That’s what Ashley heard from outside the boathouse, wasn’t it, Ms. Van Meter, you yelling at Maxfield?”

“This is your story, not mine,” Casey answered.

“You hoped that Maxfield would be stunned from seeing Terri’s body and paralyzed by your shout. Then you could kill him, too. But he’s a trained fighter and his reflexes took over. He blocked the knife and decked you. Poor Joshua. He never suspected that you killed Mrs. Spencer. He was so guilt-stricken by what he’d done to you that it never dawned on him that you were a murderer. Hell, everyone was real sympathetic to you when you were in that coma. You had us all fooled. We thought you were a victim.”

“I was a victim. I didn’t kill Terri Spencer.”

Delilah sighed. “I guess a jury will have to sort that out. Of course, you could avoid a trial and help yourself by testifying against Miles.”

Casey’s features hardened and she stared directly into Delilah’s eyes.

“That will never happen.”

“Then it will go hard for you. You know that draft that Maxfield copied, the one your brother wrote? It has a chapter where the killer’s girlfriend helps him torture and murder a hitchhiker. That’s where she gets her first taste for blood. There’s another chapter where the two lovers break into a house, murder a family, and have sex after everyone is dead.

“The forensic investigators in Connecticut found pubic hairs in the guestroom bed at one of the crime scenes. They thought they belonged to the victim. I wonder what a DNA test would show now?”

Casey didn’t take the bait. Delilah hadn’t expected her to.

“Henry was a cruel man in his younger days,” Delilah said. “I think you and your brother became unnaturally close while you were dealing with his cruelty. There’s Miles’s vicious attack on Norman Spencer when he learned that he got you pregnant, and there are all these teenage girls he raped and murdered. Do you think he was acting out his fantasies about sleeping with you?”

“That’s disgusting,” Casey said. She glared at Delilah. Ashley thought that she would have killed the prosecutor if she’d had a weapon.

Delilah shrugged. “My degree is in law, not psychology, but I bet Freud would have had a field day with you and your brother. That kind of twisted love would create an unusual bond. It would explain why you’re reluctant to talk about Miles. Funny thing though, it didn’t stop him from trying to take you off of life support when you were in your coma.”

Casey’s features cracked for a second.

“Henry stopped him while he was alive,” Ashley said. “When Henry died, Miles filed to be named your guardian. He made no secret of the fact that he was going to take you off life support as soon as he had the power to do it. Coleman wanted you to die, too. I was the only one who wanted to keep you alive.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“It’s true,” Ashley said. “He had to get rid of you. You were the only one who knew he was a killer. He didn’t know what you would say if you came out of the coma. He couldn’t take the risk that you’d talk.”

Ashley squared her shoulders and stared down Casey Van Meter. “He didn’t care about you any more than I do.”

One Year Later

I don’t care, Howard,” Joshua Maxfield shouted into his cell phone. “My contract calls for the best suite in every hotel I stay in on the tour. This is not the best suite. The view is shit, and the Taj Mahal suite, which has the best view, is bigger.”

“I don’t know what to say, Joshua,” Howard Martin, editor in chief of Scribe publishing, answered. “Margo checked with the hotel. They told her that the Presidential Suite was the best and the biggest. It’s the most expensive.”

“And there was a bottle of fifteen-year-old scotch in my room,” Maxfield continued, ignoring his editor.

“Isn’t that what you wanted? Wasn’t it the right brand?” Martin asked.

“Yes it was the right brand, but it was fifteen-year-old-scotch. I specifically asked that idiot to make sure that the scotch was twenty-five years old. Can’t you afford to hire publicists who know their numbers?”

“We’re here, Mr. Maxfield,” Barbara Bridger said from the front seat of the limousine. Maxfield held up a finger to silence her and continued his tirade. The chauffeur had his door open and was waiting patiently when Maxfield cut the connection. Joshua got out, still muttering to himself about the incompetence of Scribe’s publicist.

The back door to Murder for Fun opened, and Jill Lane rushed out to greet her author.

“Mr. Maxfield, you have no idea what an honor it is to meet you. I love your books.”

Maxfield plastered a smile on his face and grasped Jill’s hands in his. “The honor is all mine. Speaking at your store will be the high point of my tour.”

Neither Jill Lane nor Joshua Maxfield saw Barbara Bridger roll her eyes. She couldn’t wait for this appearance to be over so she could rid herself of this egomaniacal asshole. She debated whether she should tell Jill how Maxfield had ranted and raved about the indignity of an artiste like himself having to speak at a bookstore that specialized in murder mysteries.

“The store is packed and the press is here. You’re our biggest draw since…well, since Miles Van Meter.”

“I just hope I don’t get arrested,” Maxfield joked.

Jill laughed and led Joshua and Barbara inside and up to the front of the store. The audience applauded as soon as they spotted the author. He nodded modestly. Jill stepped to the microphone.

“A little over a year ago, Miles Van Meter, one of history’s most diabolical serial killers, was arrested in this store on this very spot after giving a reading from his bestseller, Sleeping Beauty. Sleeping Beauty purported to be a work of true crime, but now we know that it was a work of fiction that falsely accused tonight’s guest author of the horrible crimes that Miles and his sister, Casey, committed. Fortunately, the Van Meters are behind bars where they belong. Casey was sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole in Oregon in exchange for testifying against her brother. Miles Van Meter was sentenced to death in Oregon for the murders of Norman Spencer and Tanya Jones, and he received other sentences for attempting to murder Ashley Spencer. Of course, Miles and his sister are facing charges in several other states, some of which have the death penalty.

“Our guest tonight, Joshua Maxfield, suffered in prison after he was framed for the Van Meters’ crimes, but he turned his suffering into art. While on death row, he penned Caged, a work of fiction that details the horrors suffered by an innocent man who is incarcerated for a crime he did not commit. The book was published two months after Mr. Maxfield’s release from the Oregon State Penitentiary and it is still on the New York Times bestseller list, more than a year after its publication.