“Nobody has any influence over Whit,” I protested. “He’s senile. And what do you mean you heard me talking to your mother?”

“I was in the kitchen. You must have heard me-I dropped a plate. Unless you were stupid enough to believe my mother’s line about the cat.”

“Did Barbara know?”

“That I was listening in? Of course not. She’s pretty clueless.” He snickered yet again. “She even thought Tom died of a heart attack.”

“Tom did die of a heart attack,” I said, confused.

“Sure he did. After I put a massive dose of my mother’s diet pills in his morning coffee. She’s addicted to the stuff, ephedra. It causes heart attacks and it’s especially dangerous for someone with a history of heart disease.”

“You killed Tom?” I asked, stunned. Although, now I had the answer to at least one question. Adam had put his plan to work before Tom’s death, which explained why the activity in the stock had preceded Tom’s actual demise.

“Uh-huh,” he said, clearly very pleased with himself. “Mom’s weight obsession came in handy for once. She has to buy the stuff online now that it’s been banned, but she has a huge stash, and she doesn’t seem to notice when any of it disappears.”

“Jesus.”

“And that’s not all,” he continued. He was on a roll now.

“What do you mean that’s not all?”

“Well, Sara will be dead soon. I need to figure out how, but they say the third time’s a charm.”

“Oh my God.” Stark realization washed over me. Jonathan Beasley hadn’t attacked Sara. Adam had. And how dense was I? I’d gotten into a car with him. “You are a total jerk.”

“A jerk with a gun,” he answered smugly. “And soon to be the CEO of a pretty important company.”

“That’s why there was no security at the hospital on Friday night. Your mother said you’d arrange for it, but you never intended to.”

“Nope. Sara was supposed to be dead by Friday night. Paying for a security guard would have been a waste of money.”

“What else have you done?” I asked in horror.

“You mean, besides killing Tom? And you, and Sara?”

“I’m not dead. And neither is Sara.”

“Yet. Well, let’s see. Sara’s parents were easy.”

“What do you mean? They died in a car accident.”

“That accident wasn’t an accident. They lived down the street from us, so it was no big deal to slip into their garage and tinker with their brake line. And it went off without a hitch-nobody even realized there was a problem with the brakes since the car caught on fire. The only downside was having to play sick for an entire weekend. Although, after a weekend of my mother’s chicken soup, I really was sick. She’s an awful cook.”

“Good to know. But I don’t understand why you killed Sara’s parents in the first place.”

“You’re not very bright, are you?” I assumed that was a rhetorical question and didn’t bother to reply. “I thought that if Sam were out of the way, Tom would take over, and then one day I’d take over from him.”

“But Tom wanted Sara to take over.”

“I thought he’d come around eventually, but we had a conversation a few weeks ago in which he made it clear he wouldn’t, which was a lot like signing his own death warrant. Bad things happen to people who get in my way.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“You won’t have to. You’ll be worm food.” With that, Adam steered the car off the turnpike.

“Worm food? Who do you think you are? Clint Eastwood?”

He didn’t answer.

We drove several miles down deserted, snow-covered country roads with Adam making smarmy comments the entire way that, like the “worm food” line, seemed to have been lifted from bad movies. We passed a forlorn strip mall and a couple of lonely-looking houses, but that was about it. Soon we’d pulled into the empty parking lot of a state park, identified as such by a green sign cut in the shape of a pine tree.

Adam got out of the car and walked around to the passenger side. I was digging frantically in my bag for a weapon of some sort when he opened my door, but, alas, it had never occurred to me to keep cans of Aqua Net handy. “Take your bag with you,” he suggested. “I’ll throw it in after you.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“Okay, let’s go.”

“Where?”

He nodded toward the woods and grasped my arm in a rough hold. “This way. There’s a path to the ravine.”

He pushed me in front of him. Trees crowded in on either side of us, and the path was more ice and slush than path. My feet sank deep into the snow, and I cursed my unfortunate choice of footwear. Not only would my shoes be following my suit directly into the trash bin, they weren’t the most practical thing to be wearing when one had to figure out how to escape from an armed narcissist. Running was not an option given the terrain. And the gun.

“Don’t you watch CSI?” I asked, batting a branch away from my face.

“Sure.”

“Then you must know you’ll never get away with this. They’ll trace the gun, they’ll figure out I was in your car, or they’ll find your tire tracks. Or something.”

“Nothing like a blizzard to really mess with forensic evidence,” said Adam in the same smug tone he’d been using for the past half hour. “I’m not worried.”

Besides the fact that it looked like he was actually going to kill me, his tone really pissed me off.

“You suck,” I told him as he propelled me inexorably forward. This elicited a shove that nearly knocked me over. I grabbed on to a tree branch to keep from falling.

“Why don’t you shut up already and keep walking.”

“Okay,” I said.

Then I had an idea. I looked more carefully at the path before us. “How far is this ravine, anyhow?”

“We’ll be there in a minute.”

Fortunately, the opportunity came soon enough. A sturdy-looking pine tree ahead of us had a nice, flexible-looking branch that protruded onto the path before us. I sized it up as we approached. It would have to do.

I pretended to slip again in the snow, and reached for the branch, grasping it firmly. Summoning up every ounce of force I possessed, I pushed it back toward Adam as hard as I could.

It hit him full in the face. The impact wasn’t much-I’m a bit of a weakling-but it dislodged a spray of snow and ice that temporarily blinded him. He sputtered, trying to wipe the debris out of his eyes.

And while he was sputtering and blinded, I took a few steps back to make sure I had a running start.

The feeling of my foot connecting with his groin felt even more satisfying than when it had connected with Grant Crocker’s groin the previous day. The practice paid off. The blood drained from Adam’s face, and he collapsed wordlessly to the ground.

A dam seemed to be unconscious, but I wasn’t taking any chances. I gave him another kick in the groin, but it didn’t even elicit a grunt. He still had the gun, but it was loosely held in his limp fist, and I took it from him without a struggle. I was squeamish about handling a gun; I was about as fond of the NRA as I was of Adam himself, but I didn’t want to risk leaving it there. It was heavier than I expected, and I grasped it gingerly. Now all I needed were his keys. Fortunately, he’d put them in his coat pocket, so I didn’t have to rummage very deeply into his clothing, which would have been distasteful even in the best of circumstances.

He moaned, signaling that he was returning to the land of the living. I probably didn’t have much time, and I wasn’t willing to shoot him, so I decided to take advantage of whatever head start his temporary incapacitation might afford. I scurried back up the path with the gun in one hand, dodging tree roots and branches as best I could. By the time I got to the car I realized I was limping, and I did a quick check to figure out what I’d hurt. Bodily, I seemed to be intact, but the heel of my right shoe was missing, which accounted for my uneven gait.