Get real, he told himself, as Vivi pushed the door open.

She didn’t waste time in the sad, quiet house, just flipping on the light over the stairway, and then the light for the steep stairway leading up to the attic. Jack followed her up, fuming. His neck crawled. His discomfort grew as she pried open box after box. “What the fuck are you looking for, Viv? Christmas decorations?”

“Shut up and let me concentrate,” she replied calmly.

She finally found what she sought, although she would not let him see it. She hid it with her body, wrapping it in a big plastic sack.

“Okay,” she announced. “We can go now.”

He led the way down the stairs, muttering imprecations as they went back to the car. Vivi frowned at him as he opened the trunk for her. “I wish you’d relax a little,” she complained. “You’re making me tense.”

“I? I’m making you tense?” He opened the car door for her, and circled around, slid in, and started up the engine in one movement. “Let me tell you about my tension level, Viv.”

That instant, he registered the smell. Already too late. There was a rustling sound, like a flock of bats. Panic exploded inside him—

Vivi’s gasp choked off into a squeak. A heavy arm was clamped across her throat. A gleaming blade was pressed right beneath her eye.

John grinned from behind her car seat, a panting, stinking death’s head, his face swollen, bruised and shiny. The point of the blade traced its slow, cruel way down over Vivi’s cheek, leaving a thin red line in its wake. It ended up jammed against her throat. Point digging in.

“One move, and she bleeds out in forty seconds,” John rasped.

Vivi’s system was so burnt out from adrenaline, she barely reacted. She felt blank. Empty. No matter what she did, no matter how she fought, the way out of this trap was always barred.

“I’m sure it would be fascinating to hear about your tension level,” John said, with a wheezing, giggling laugh. “We can compare it to your tension level while you’re watching me cut your little fuck buddy here into bite-sized bloody pieces.”

Jack’s hand moved. John pressed the knife tip harder against her throat and clucked his tongue. “Not one muscle. Hands where I can see them. On top of the wheel. Now!”

Jack complied. Vivi wanted to look at him, but she was afraid the knife would jab right into her artery. Her voice box bobbed against it, stinging. “It’s too late to get the sketches,” she said, her voice thin and high. “I’ve told everyone. Curators at the art museums. Sotheby’s, the press. I’ve scanned pictures of them to the New York Times, to—”

“Don’t bother, you stupid bitch,” John hissed. “I know you haven’t done any of that yet. I watched you. I have vidcams all over Knightly’s house. What a bunch of careless, stupid fucks you all are.”

“Cameras?” She was startled. “At Liam’s house?”

He laughed, and the hot cloud of his foul breath made her gag. “All that time they spent in Denver with Liam’s dear old dad,” he said. “I rigged his house. Saw every minute. You never called the press. Just that curator bitch—what was her name? Jill Rosseau. Is she cute?”

She gathered her nerve. “You still won’t be able to sell—”

“You think I give a fuck?” His laughter was shrill and explosive. “If I can’t sell them, I’ll wipe my ass with them the next time I take a shit. I just want to make…you…scream.” He jerked her head back, dragging the blade over her tendons. He stank, of sweat, and worse.

“So with Haupt dead, there’s nobody left to pay you for the job, though, right?” Jack remarked, in a conversational tone.

“Oh. Haupt. That’s another bone I have to pick with you, slut. You killed the old bag of bones before I got a chance to do it myself.”

“You’re doing this for revenge?” Jack sounded casually interested.

Vivi’s hand clenched in the folds of the dress Nancy had lent her. It closed over the linked pendants that Nell had slipped into the pocket. She slid her trembling fingers inside, felt for the lever with her thumb.

“I’m doing it because you guys fucked me,” John snarled. “Nobody fucks me. You have to pay.”

His voice was shaking. So was the hand that held the knife. Vivi pushed the tiny lever of the linked pendants. The thin gold blade snapped out, pressing against her thumb, sharp as a box cutter.

“Must have hurt you quite a bit, with that head smash,” Jack said. “You must have one motherfucker of a chronic headache.”

“Fuck you,” John said sullenly. “Shut your mouth.”

“And that kick to the knee. Did I fuck up your knee? And don’t you have a bullet wound? Your arm, or your shoulder, or something? Has it gone septic? Smells like gangrene, man. You should have somebody look at that. You probably need IV antibiotics.”

“Shut up!” John shrieked.

“Come to think of it, you look like you’ve got a fever, too,” Jack offered. “You should pop some Tylenol. That smell is intense. Whew.”

“You fucking bastard! Shut the fuck up!” John whacked his hand across Jack’s face.

Vivi used that brief instant of distraction to snap the pendant up, slashing it into John’s face. He shrieked, jerked back. Jack twisted—

Bam, bam, bam. The pistol blasts were deafening in the small car.

The force of the bullets punched John back against the corner of the backseat. His big, heavy face went slack. Eyes blank.

His head tipped, slowly and heavily to the side. Mouth slack.

They waited, several heartbeats. Jack reached back, gingerly, and pressed his finger to John’s carotid artery, for a long, cautious moment.

“Gone,” he said, his voice hoarse and exhausted. The gun slid from his hand, thudded to the floor. He sagged, breathing hard.

“Oh, Jack.” She lunged for him.

They rocked together, in a tight, trembling embrace. It was over.

It was several hours later, after a long, complicated, emotional stint at the police station, before Jack and Vivi managed to get to their hotel. They’d scrounged yet another car from Vivi’s long-suffering family, since the blood-drenched Jetta had been sequestered, and it was long past dawn by the time they checked into their room.

Vivi’s sisters had begged for her to come back to stay with them in Hempton, but Vivi quietly insisted on some time alone with him. Thank God. He was pathetically grateful for that small grace. Her sisters were lovely and great, and he liked them fine, but the conversation he needed to have with Vivi required privacy. No winking, nudging, or giggling.

Vivi flipped on the light, dropped her bags by the door and leaving blackout curtains closed against the morning sunshine. She sat on the bed, big eyed and solemn. She looked like a girl from another century, hair tangled and soft around her like a red cape. She wore a blue print dress that one of her sisters had lent her, but it was too big for her. The neckline drooped low over her bosom, showing off her tattoo. She followed his eyes, and smiled.

“Hey. You’re staring at my Eranthis hyemalis, buddy,” she said.

“Does it make you nervous?” he asked.

She reached up to touch the little yellow flower on her bosom, giving him a smile that made his crotch tighten. “Not in the least.”

He fought his surging sexual hormones down, and sank to his knees in front of her. It seemed appropriate, considering.

“You promised me that if the axe got lifted, we could have this conversation,” he said. “About us. And our future.”

“So I did,” she said demurely. “The axe is gone. And here we are.”

He stared searchingly into her face. “Why were you such a hard-ass, Viv? Were you punishing me for being a dickhead before?”

She shook her head, and stroked his jaw. “Hell no,” she whispered. “I was just trying to be a grown-up. How could you hook up with a woman who was nothing but a black hole of problems? What kind of a future could you possibly plan with a woman like that?”