“ELISE?” DUNCAN SAID, HIS VOICE A CROAK.

He turned toward DeeDee as though seeking an explanation. She knew her expression must have read I told you so, but she refrained from saying it.

The building was dark. There were no employee cars in the parking lot. But a light was on in Savich’s second-story office window. Looking up at it, Duncan angrily muttered, “Son of a bitch.” Before DeeDee came to a full stop, he opened his car door and jumped out.

She clambered from the driver’s seat and trotted after him. “Duncan, wait!”

He kept walking. “This doesn’t change anything.”

“It changes everything.” She lunged for him, but he flung off her hand. “Please let’s regroup and talk about it.”

“I’m over talking.”

Hearing another car pulling into the parking lot, they stopped, turned, and recognized Savich’s secretary behind the steering wheel.

Duncan started jogging toward the building’s entrance, calling to DeeDee over his shoulder, “Get him before he can alert Savich.”

“Duncan!”

He didn’t even slow down.

“Shit!” DeeDee wavered for several seconds, then sprinted toward the car, where Kenny was nervously juggling his cell phone.

“Cato?” Savich repeated.

Elise nodded.

His eyes glittered with amusement. “You want your husband removed so you’ll be free to live happ’ly ever after with your hunky detective?”

“Don’t concern yourself with my reasons. It’s your situation you should be concerned about,” she said. “Cato won’t help you in court as he did the last time. To protect himself, he’ll let them throw the book at you. Duncan is seeing to that. Tomorrow you’ll be arraigned for Napoli’s murder. Following that formality, you’ll be taken immediately to superior court for your bond hearing. Cato will deny the request. You’ll go straight to jail, and you won’t live another free day. Not for your entire life.”

“Unless you recant your eyewitness testimony.”

“That’s right. You see to Cato’s destruction. In return, I didn’t see you kill Napoli.”

“Define ‘destruction.’ ”

“I want him out of commission. I want the life he knows and enjoys to be over. I’m indifferent as to how you bring that about,” she added coldly. “Now, do we have a deal?”

Savich’s smile remained in place, even as he raised the pistol he’d been holding in his lap and aimed it across the desk at her.

Her heart jumped to her throat. “What are you doing?”

“Exercising another option, Elise. Why would I accept your deal when I can simply kill you here and now and be done with it? It’s more efficient to kill an eyewitness than to make a deal with one.” Taunting her, he added, “Shame on you for not thinking this through more carefully. Before coming here you should have considered this alternative.”

“I considered you my friend.”

“Your mistake. Add it to your many. The first and primary one being that you underestimated us.”

“Us?”

He frowned. “Honestly, Elise, this playacting has become tedious. Cato and I know that you know about our working arrangement.” Leaning forward, he asked, “Do you know why it’s worked so well for so long? Because neither of us is a fool, and one is as cautious as the other. We, unlike you, don’t make mistakes.”

“Cato made one,” she said smartly. “Napoli proved to be an unreliable assassin.”

“True. Had it been my decision, I’d have been more swift and sure.”

“To get rid of me.”

“You were getting too nosy, too curious. You were making us both very nervous.”

“How…how long have you known?”

He chuckled. “From the beginning. You thought you were so clever, ingratiating yourself to us. Playing the honest and trustworthy employee to me. Being the perfect sex toy for Cato. Sweetheart,” he said, dropping his voice to a sympathetic whisper, “almost from the very start we knew you were related to Chet Rollins.”

“You never indicated-”

“No, but then we wouldn’t, would we? See, we carefully check out the people who get close to us, Elise. We’re acutely paranoid, but that paranoia has proved to be a sound policy.”

“What gave me away?”

“You didn’t fit the mold. You were so eager to work at the White Tie and Tails, and yet you went against the stereotype. You aren’t a natural hustler, and it showed. In a business where a girl’s earnings depend on getting cozy with clients, you remained aloof and detached. Naturally, that aroused my curiosity, then my suspicion. I didn’t have to dig very deep to find your connection to Chet Rollins.”

She felt the weight of Duncan’s handgun in her purse in her lap, and wondered if she could get to it before Savich shot her. She had no doubt that he would. Eventually. Right now, he was enjoying himself too much.

“When I told Cato about your kinship with Rollins, he panicked. He thought you might have hard evidence against him related to your half brother’s demise. He wanted to…dispose of you right away, have you meet with a fatal accident on the highway after you left the club one night. But I talked him into waiting. You intrigued me. I wanted to watch and see what you did next.

“It soon became apparent that you had nothing on us except your suspicions. That you were after information, evidence,” he said, whispering the last word like it was a secret between them. “When you didn’t get it from me at the White Tie and Tails, you moved to the country club. With the express intention of meeting Cato. Am I right so far?”

She didn’t reply, but she didn’t have to.

“Here’s where the story takes an interesting turn. Up to this point, you were just a name to Cato. A threat. He wanted you dead. But after meeting you, he decided he preferred you alive. He thought what better way to keep an eye on you than to marry you, have you under his roof where he could watch you day and night, have you accountable to him. And, of course, he would have your delectable body at his beck and call. He could fuck you to his heart’s content.”

She flinched, which caused him to smile.

“Poor Elise. All those nights you spent with Cato were for nothing. You were never going to find anything near him linking the two of us because, as with all my partnerships, I’m the bookkeeper.”

She glanced at the computer on the credenza behind his desk.

He chuckled. “You’d never crack the firewalls, my dear, even if I let you try. The cruel irony is, if it was evidence you were after, you married the wrong partner. And now, you’ve made another unfortunate mistake.” His mouth formed a moue of regret. “It really is a shame I must kill you. Such a waste of beauty and-”

The hand aiming the pistol at her shattered in a spray of blood.

Savich bellowed in pain. His pistol clattered to the floor. Duncan, coming from behind her, vaulted the desk. He grabbed Savich’s ponytail, twisted his head to the side, and slammed it onto the desk. His cheekbone cracked upon impact, causing him to roar in outrage and pain. Duncan jabbed the barrel of his pistol against Savich’s temple, hard enough for the metal to create a depression in his skin.

Never taking his eyes off Savich, he shouted, “DeeDee!”

“Coming!”

Her voice echoed from the far side of the building and Elise heard running footsteps approaching. She bolted from her chair, but collided with the woman detective as she barreled through the door.

“Cover her,” Duncan ordered.

DeeDee Bowen, pistol drawn and aimed at Elise’s chest, backed her into the wall.

“Where in God’s name have you been?” Duncan barked.

“I climbed the fire escape and came through a window,” she answered, panting. “How’d you get up?”

“Stairwell.” He took his eyes off Savich long enough to glance at Elise. “She’s probably got my pistol.”

Elise dropped her handbag to the floor. “It’s in there.”

“Kick it away.”