Yes, Natalie had always been struck by "Ruth's" eyes. They were aqua, a shade she'd never seen in nature but one she'd seen in ads for colored contact lenses.

"The houses in Port Ariel and Knoxville are rented," Constance went on. "That way we avoided any in-depth checking involved with getting mortgage loans. We didn't use credit cards. We stayed in constant contact so that all correspondence dealing with my husband's estate, as well as any other important correspondence, could be forwarded to me, then returned bearing an authentic signature, not a forgery.

"I wrote letters to the few relatives with whom I remained in touch and sent them to Ruth, who forwarded them so they would have a Knoxville postmark. Ruth also made certain to be seen every day by her neighbors. She walked her dog. I never appeared in Knoxville. Ruth is the only woman neigh bors and business people in Knoxville have ever seen." She shrugged. "There are recorded cases of this kind of scheme being pulled off for years, but I wouldn't have risked it. I only needed a few months, long enough to move here and establish myself before I began my work."

"Your work being the murders," Natalie said flatly.

"Yes, of course. I made a few friends, including little Paige's sitter, Mrs. Collins. We attended the same church, were on the same committee. I was just dropping by some leaflets to her tonight when unfortunately Paige recognized me from that night at the Saunders house. She tried to hide it, but those expressive eyes gave her away."

"You didn't go to the house to get her so you could use her to lure me here?"

Constance gave her a genuinely innocent look. "No. I'd been led to believe she couldn't possibly identify who was at the Saunders house that night. Besides, I thought she'd be in bed, and I only planned to hand the leaflets to Mrs. Collins and leave. I wasn't going in the house."

"But you had a gun."

"I always carry a gun these days," Constance said offhandedly. "Really, this wasn't how I planned things, Natalie. I didn't intend to shoot you. I intended to slash your throat, like I did to the others. But when I saw that Paige recognized me, I didn't have any choice but to make my move."

"Then let Paige go," Natalie begged.

"I can't. Not now. You don't seem to understand, Natalie, that I'm forced to do things I don't always want to do."

"Such as killing Tamara. You said you liked her."

"And so I did. But Oliver Peyton had bungled my son's case. Any fool could see that a first-year lawyer could have put on a better defense. So he had to pay by losing one of his children, just like I lost mine. I knew Tamara from the suicide hotline. She even told me about her evening walks. Choosing her instead of Lily was simply a matter of convenience."

Rage, hot and bitter, rushed through Natalie. Gentle, loving Tamara had been killed because she was a convenient target for this lunatic. Natalie wanted to rush at the woman, screaming and clawing, but that would only result in the death of Paige. Instead she clenched her fists and tried to force down her fury and disgust. "And then there was Charlotte and Warren."

"Oh, I had no qualms about killing them. Awful people. The children of awful people. Max Bishop hounded my poor boy over a couple of hundred thousand dollars, as if he'd ever miss it! And that lout Richard Hunt. My husband knew him! But he still pointed the finger at Eugene. He could have covered up the embezzlement so easily! But no, he had to show off."

To Constance, everything was personal. Her son had not been brought to justice-he had been persecuted. "I understand why you attacked Alison," Natalie said. "She's the child of Viveca. But what about Jeff? He was your nephew."

Constance smiled. "Exactly. My no-good nephew. He was fired from his job at the newspaper, you know, so he decided to hit up good old Aunt Constance for a loan. He went to Knoxville and found not me, but Ruth." She shook her head. "I'm afraid Ruth didn't handle matters well. She should have stopped him, but she has no stomach for killing. At least she did warn me about him.

"Apparently during my early days in the hospital I'd raved about getting back at the people who'd hurt Eugene by hurting their children," Constance continued. "And of course the murder of Tamara was in all the Ohio papers. Jeff was bright. He figured it out and decided to find me by tracking the people in Port Ariel that he thought I'd be tracking."

Her eyes narrowed and her voice turned vicious. "He found me through you, Natalie. He watched outside your house the night of Tamara's viewing and followed when your father took me home. He did nothing then. I didn't even see him until the day of the funeral. That's when I dropped my purse in the church. Andrew rushed me home. He waited until your father left, then he came to my door, brazen as sin. He planned to blackmail me." She laughed harshly. "He got a nasty surprise. I dragged him to the basement and kept him a prisoner until the perfect time to kill him."

"A time when you could safely leave him in front of my house so I could find the body. Why?"

"Why you?" The gun shook slightly in her hand. Even her voice trembled. "Of everyone who hurt my Eugene, I hold your father most responsible. My son could have pulled through that operation. That nurse Dee Fisher said so. But Andrew botched it because he hated Eugene for stealing that tramp, Viveca. And after he'd murdered my son, he came into the waiting room with his matter-of-fact expression and said Eugene hadn't made it. That's it. 'Sorry. We did all we could.' So blase." Her voice rose shrilly. "There wasn't an ounce of feeling, of compassion, in his eyes."

Natalie knew this wasn't true. Her father felt for all his patients, but Eugene Farley's death had especially bothered Andrew. "If he had lived, he would have been brain-dead," Andrew had told Natalie sadly. "At least he could have been an organ donor-he wanted to be-but his mother forbade it. Now nothing of that tragic young man lives on except the memory of a stupid mistake and a horrible death."

Natalie heard a crunch of gravel outside. Paige blinked and Natalie knew she'd heard it, too, but Constance didn't seem to notice, It had taken Andrew a long time to get here. Why? Were the police with him after all? Suddenly she knew she had to keep Constance distracted.

"You say you held my father most responsible for your son's death," she said. "You must have hated him, so why did you date him?"

"Dare!" Constance burst out. "I was researching! You didn't live here. You didn't even have your own place. I couldn't ask Tamara a lot of questions about someone I'd never met. But your father supplied the answers, and I would have come after you, but you came home first!" She laughed. "Actually, your arrival in Port Ariel is what set everything in motion. It was a sign, you see. All the children were here, ripe for the picking."

"Why didn't you taunt the others like you did me?"

"It would have made everyone too careful. Besides, I wanted to hurt you the most."

The creak of a door. A soft whisper of air. Someone entering the building. "But how did you pull off the things you did to me?" Natalie asked loudly. "The anonymous phone calls, for instance."

"I told you, Natalie, I knew Tamara. I've always been good at mimicry. I could imitate her voice. I called you the afternoon you found her body. I have call block-I knew you couldn't call me right back. Then there was the day you supposedly received the call from Lily telling you to come to Tamara's. I simply called your number using my cell phone while you were in the shower."

"You tried to talk me out of going!"

"Natalie, I'd heard enough about you from your father to know arguing would only make you more determined to do as you pleased!" She frowned. "Of course, when I sent you to Tamara's I didn't expect Jeff to be wandering around there, but it was really an added bonus because he frightened you."