Eve ignored him. “I think you’re done here, Beth. It will be at least fifteen minutes before Joe or Newell get here, and I don’t think it’s safe to stick around. Shall we go?”

Beth nodded jerkily and turned toward the steps.

“Wait.” Rick was suddenly standing before Beth, and he smiled the beautiful smile that he’d given Beth when she’d first arrived. “You’re upset right now,” he said coaxingly. “But you’ll think about everything I’ve said, and you’ll realize that I’m still the father you’ve always known. Perhaps there have been mistakes made, but we can make everything right.”

“How?” Her voice was shaking. “By putting me back in that hospital?”

He flinched. “No, you’re well now. My mother must not have realized that you’d made such progress. We’ll start out fresh.”

“You still believe her,” Beth said wonderingly. “And that scares me more than anything that’s happened.” She turned to Eve. “We’d better go. You were right. Coming here may have been a terrible mistake. They could have used him to bait the trap.”

“Don’t be silly,” Rick said. “There’s no trap. No force. I was only supposed to persuade you that it would be better to go back to the hospital to continue your treatment. But it’s clear that’s not necessary now.” He reached out and gently touched her cheek. “Do you know how happy I am to see you so well? It’s like a dream come true. But you’d better give me your address, so we can straighten all of this out with the police.”

“I don’t think you’ll need our address,” Eve said grimly as she followed Beth down the stairs. “Your mother has probably taken care of seeing that she’ll know where we are.” She unlocked the driver’s door and got into the car. “But we’ll work on changing that as soon as I meet with Joe and—”

The scent of sulfur.

It smells of sulfur.

Kendra’s words in Beth’s hospital room came back to her.

And Eve had caught that scent again the moment they had gotten into the car.

“Eve?” Beth was looking at her, puzzled.

“It’s okay.” She reached into her pocket and drew out her .38. “Just … get out of the car, Beth. I forgot to tell Avery something.”

“What?”

“Get out of the car!” she said sharply. “Now!”

Beth instinctively threw open the door and started to scramble out.

“Close that door. Get back in the car.” The muzzle of a gun was pressed to Eve’s head as a man’s arm slid around her neck from where he was kneeling on the floor of the backseat. At the same time, the edge of his other hand came down on Eve’s gun hand, numbing it. He took her .38. “Unless you want to see her brains spattering on that windshield.”

“Drogan?” Eve said. “God, I was stupid. I should have searched the car and not counted on just locking it.”

“It took me a good five minutes to open it. I was in full view of you for a couple of those minutes,” he murmured. “But you were very absorbed with each other. I was counting on that since I couldn’t be waiting for you in the house. I cased it before Avery came today but there was no decent place to hide. And she said that her precious boy mustn’t be involved. Now start the car and back out of the driveway.”

“Let Eve go,” Beth said. “It’s me you want, isn’t it?”

“Actually, you’ve taken second place of late. Start the car, Duncan.”

“Beth?” Rick Avery was coming down the steps, his eyes squinting against the glare of the security lights from the garage. “What’s happening? I saw you start to get out of the car. Did you change your mind? Come back into the house, and we’ll talk about it.”

Drogan muttered a curse. “Keep him away. Tell him anything, but keep him away.”

Beth was frantically rolling down the window. “Rick, stop.”

Rick had reached the bottom of the steps. “I won’t stop. This is too important to both of us.”

“Keep the bastard away,” Drogan snarled. “This wasn’t supposed to—”

But Rick was beside the passenger side of the car. He was smiling. “Beth, I knew you wouldn’t let our—”

A pop of sound.

A hole appeared in the center of Rick Avery’s forehead.

Beth screamed.

“Start the damn car,” Drogan said through his teeth to Eve. “Or I’ll put another hole in her head. Everything’s gone wrong. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.”

Eve started to back out of the drive.

“No, I’ve got to go to him,” Beth was struggling to get her door open, tears running down her cheeks. “Maybe I can—”

“He’s dead, Beth,” Eve said.

“Quiet her down,” Drogan said. “I don’t really care whether I kill her now or later. It’s up to you.”

“Beth,” Eve said. “You can’t help Rick. But you can help me. Just don’t lose it. Calm down, okay?” She didn’t wait for an answer but continued to back out of the driveway with a screech of tires. She had to get Beth away from the sight of Rick’s crumpled body. She couldn’t count on anything from Beth after she had just seen the murder of the only person in the world she loved. “Where, Drogan?”

“Just around the corner and two blocks up. We need to ditch this car and take my truck. Quinn will be able to track this car too easily. He won’t know what I’m driving.” He pocketed the gun he’d taken from Eve before pointing to an old Chevy truck parked next to the curb. “Get out. Both of you.”

“Why not just let us go?” Eve asked. “Nelda Avery is paying your blood money, isn’t she? You just said that you’d blown your deal by killing Rick Avery.”

“That was your fault. If you’d driven out of the driveway right away, I wouldn’t have had to kill him. He was going to cause trouble. I had both of you where I wanted you, and I wasn’t about to let him ruin everything.”

“And you panicked.”

“I don’t panic, bitch.”

“You killed him, didn’t you? Now you’re not going to get any more cash from her. Let us go.”

“I might still be able to negotiate with her. It depends if her love for her son is greater than her love for herself. I’d bet on her loving herself more.” He shrugged. “And, if I’m wrong, there are other satisfactions. You’re a rare prize, Eve Duncan. I was hoping to have Quinn present to participate, and that might still be an option. That would be the best scenario.”

She heard a sudden rustling, slithering sound.

Drogan chuckled. “Mama Zela agrees with me.” He held up a small cage. “She likes to perform to an audience.”

A snake. He had a snake in that cage.

Eve had a sudden memory of that part of his dossier.

His mother’s skeleton was found years later buried in a coffin with a snake wrapped around her throat.

Mama Zela was his mother’s name. And he called this snake Mama Zela. It seemed hideous that he’d name a snake after the mother he’d murdered.

She was shuddering. The idea filled her with horror. Don’t let him see it. He would feed on her fear as that snake had fed on his mother.

But he’d already sensed it. “You’ll be braver than my mother,” he said softly as he opened the car door and gestured with the gun for them to get out. “She couldn’t believe that it could happen to her, that I’d actually do it. She kept screaming for me to let her out.”

That brought a picture to mind that was even more vivid. She didn’t answer him.

He didn’t like that response. “But everyone breaks in the end. When they realize no one is going to save them. You’ll beg me just as she did.”

“Go to hell.”

He laughed. “Oh, you’ll pay for that.” He glanced at Beth, who was sitting frozen, her eyes fixed straight ahead in shock. “Or she will. I’m still annoyed with her. Quinn’s interference just managed to shift the principal emphasis.”

“You killed Rick,” Beth said numbly. “How could you do that?”

He didn’t answer.

Eve reached out and took Beth’s hand in silent support.

“How touching,” Drogan said. “You’ve obviously become very close. Maybe I should put both of you in the same coffin. I’ll have to think about it…”