Then I called my mother. I had no idea what I was going to say. Thankfully, she made it easy. I told her a shortened version of events, this time without sanitizing it. Of course she was worried for me, but oddly, not as worried as I thought she'd be. I questioned her about that.

"Del, I've been worried about you for the last ten or fifteen years. You've had nothing in your life. That worried me. Obviously I'm concerned, but I hear a confidence in your voice I've never heard before."

"Really? And I thought it was fear."

She chuckled. "Maybe I should be more worried than I am," she continued, "but I have faith in you. What you're involved in is dangerous, for sure, but you're finally living. You have excitement in your life. You've never had that. Anyway, don't worry about me. I was going to visit a friend in England next week. I'll re-book it for tomorrow."

"Thanks. That'll make me feel better."

"And Del, remember, you are traveling with a famous author. She's going to bring her publisher a lot of money over the next few years, so they will do anything to keep her safe. One phone call from her and they'll send in the Marines. Use that lifeline if you need to. Stay safe and keep in touch by email. I love you." She hung up.

Okay, so that was weird. That was nowhere near the reaction I expected. Was my life really so empty before this? Yeah, it was.

I finally made it to the Weston an hour later. Sabrina greeted me with a hug. Her eyes widened when I took out the gun and laid it on the coffee table.

"That's ominous," she said.

"'Ominous' doesn't begin to cover it." We sat on the couch and I related the call from Sorenson. She began to cry. I wasn't sure what reaction I would get from her, but the tears surprised me. I thought they were tears of fear, but once again, I was mistaken. They were for Russ.

"I couldn't stand the man," she said, wiping her eyes, "but nobody deserves that. We got him into it, and now he's dead. He didn't do anything wrong."

There was nothing I could say.

"So what now?" she asked.

"We're kind of stuck," I said. "We can't move forward until we can narrow down the clue in the picture. At the same time, we can't abandon it, because Guidry is going to keep coming at us. He might need something else from us or he might just want us dead. Either way, he's dangerous."

"And we can't hand it all over to the police," added Sabrina. "There's nothing they can do with it."

She looked me in the eyes. "We really have no choice but to take this as far as we can."

I started to shake my head. I must have had a mournful look on my face.

"And Del, before you say it, you didn't get me into this. Remember, I came to you."