Black rage poured through my soul.

“I think…I think you-We should let it go,” Mom said, blinking to stave off tears. “It’s been five years.”

“And she got away with murder. Your grandson’s murder.”

“Oh, please, don’t do this.”

“Too late, Mom. I just want to talk to her. Let her know that I’m on to her. Give her a good jolt.”

“Why would she confide in you?”

“Because they always do. Murderers want to crow. To brag about their accomplishments, or…if it truly was an accident, I’ll see her guilt, her remorse. She won’t be able to hide her emotions.”

“You think.” Clearly Mom was skeptical. From the hallway near the den came Mom’s little dog, Peppy, a brown-and-white terrier-Chihuahua mix, toenails clicking on the polished marble. The beast gave me its usual response-a nasty little snarl. “Peppy, stop that!”

The dog jumped into Mom’s lap and continued to growl as it regarded me with dark, suspicious eyes.

Time to leave.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be back soon!” I brushed a kiss over her brow, leaving a lipstick mark and rubbing it out before Peppy had the chance to lunge. Then I dashed out the door, my heels clicking on the brick walkway that curved to the front gates. Ferns and rhododendron shivered in the breath of wind and rising mist.

Mom really pissed me off. I love her to death, but she has never been one to take action. Ever. While Dad was alive she let him push her around, just so she could live in this grandiose house. Perched high on the hill, the “Old Dickens Estate” with its four floors, brick facade and glittering beveled glass windows had an incredible view of San Francisco Bay, the angular rooftops of Victorian mansions and the Golden Gate Bridge.

Nice house. But was it worth the verbal and physical abuse she’d had to endure until Dad finally decided to end it all by hanging himself in his private den?

I didn’t think so.

In the garage I found my old, nearly forgotten BMW and climbed behind the wheel, then saw her Mercedes, barely used, parked in another bay. Wouldn’t the Benz be a better choice? Arrive in a shiny luxury car and have it valet parked, rather than screeching up in the old three series with the dent in one side? Of course it would. Mom kept her keys in a crystal dish on a small Louis XVI table near the front door.

And the gun.

The damned pistol.

I’d forgotten to pack it in my purse. It was up in my bedroom where I’d left it earlier, but I’d have to make some excuse to run back upstairs. Luckily Mom couldn’t get that decrepit old elevator to move fast enough to chase me down, even if she wanted to.

I checked my watch.

No doubt I’d be late.

Even with the valet parking.

But so be it.

I hurried back inside, bolstering myself to go one more round with Lorna and her insipid dog.

Security detail.

What a laugh.

Lucas Parker walked through a two-hundred-year-old breeze-way that was part of this aging monastery. The monks were long gone, the archdiocese having sold off the stucco and stone buildings and rolling acres to Ernesto D’Amato over a century before. Nowadays the vines they’d so carefully cultivated produced some of the best grapes for Syrah in the country, making D’Amato Winery world-renowned. Thus Silvio D’Amato Junior was currently the “King of Syrah,” if you believed his overblown press.

Parker didn’t.

In fact, he didn’t give a rat’s ass about any kind of wine.

Not that it mattered. He was just the hired help tonight. An ex-cop from the local police force here to ensure that the snobs and wanna-be snobs sipping the famed wine and nibbling on overpriced cheese and razor-thin crackers were safe.

And why wouldn’t they be? Located in the hills surrounding the quaint tourist town of Sonoma in the Valley of the Moon, D’Amato Monastery Estates had never, to date, had a break-in. Not one bottle of their prize-winning Syrah had been reported stolen, never even a trespasser discovered, not so much as one grape missing.

Parker thought hiring security was overkill.

Yet, here he was, wearing a tux with a collar that was far too tight, his shoulder-holster properly hidden, feeling useless. He’d retired from the force a couple of years back. Early retirement, thanks to a stakeout gone wrong and a stray bullet that had lodged in the lumbar region of his spine.

The bullet had been surgically removed and Parker had learned to walk again, but active duty was out. His partner, Noah Kent, still felt like shit that he wasn’t able to stop the bullet that had nearly severed Parker’s spine. Like so many cops, Kent thought he was Superman. “Your name isn’t Clark Kent,” Parker still told him. Kent was still on the job and Parker was a P.I., one with a very slight limp and sometimes a lot of pain.

And he’d known he should never have taken this job.

Unfortunately he’d been chosen for this detail by Silvio D’Amato Junior himself. Silvio just happened to be Parker’s brother-in-law. Well, technically ex-brother-in-law, as Resa, a few years back, had decided that living with a cop just wasn’t her style.

Trouble was, Parker had known it wouldn’t work a long time before she’d come to terms with the truth. They’d married over Silvio Senior’s objections, then divorced over his shame. No one in Silvio D’Amato’s lineage had ever been divorced. Parker could still hear the old man ranting, that fake Italian accent rumbling as he called Theresa, “Resa, my bambina Resa. How could she do this to me? I am blessed with six children and my youngest brings shame to the family. It breaks my heart.”

There was plenty of that going around, Parker thought as he shot a look toward Silvio Senior, who had passed the family business to the hands of his namesake a couple years ago. Silvio Senior’s dark eyes were huge behind his spectacles as he pressed a plump, manicured hand onto Junior’s shoulder, whispering, always whispering in his ear.

When Parker had married Resa, he’d had no clue how enmeshed a family could be, each member tied into another, torn and tortured, loyal and yet longing to escape. From Silvio Junior’s need to please and outdo his father right down to the seething jealousies of Mario and Antonio that they had not been the chosen ones, the family was rotten with dysfunction. Anna, now collecting appetizers, would no doubt head to the restroom to purge soon. Julianna, who was greeting guests at the door, had gone under the knife so many times that Parker was convinced her eyes wouldn’t close at night. Only Theresa, his Resa, had survived the family unscathed.

Or so he’d once thought.

Add to that the sick rivalry between Silvio Senior and his brother, Alberto D’Amato, bad relations that didn’t even die with Alberto awhile back. Parker had learned, the hard way, that the D’Amato familia was one sick clan. In the end he’d found it ironic that Resa’s old man had bulked so much over their divorce while the rest of the family was quietly going to hell.

According to family lore, the divorce had nearly caused Resa’s ailing mother, Octavia, to die of mortification. However, Octavia had survived and was now holding court in the garden, a bejeweled cane at her side and a blanket on her lap. She was attended by one of her sons, Antonio, the happily married father of four who couldn’t keep it in his pants. Octavia didn’t notice Parker as she sipped from a glass that didn’t so much as quiver in her elegant long fingers. The matriarch forever. Diamonds dripped from her ears and encircled her throat, wrists and fingers. Not one to hide her wealth was Octavia D’Amato.

All six of her children were in attendance. Parker caught sight of Mario and Anna, two of Resa’s siblings, schmoozing up clients near the flowering vines that had overtaken a wall of the old cloister. He told himself he was prepared in case Resa showed.