“Bring her in here instead,” Barbara ordered. “If she’s hurt, we ought to call a doctor.”

“It’s pretty minor,” Joseph told her.

“I might get blood on the carpets,” I added, trying to be helpful.

“Shut up,” Joseph rasped.

“I’m coming down there,” Barbara decided. “I’ll need my chair.”

Joseph swore softly. Then he said, “Right away, Mrs. Larimer!”

“Suck-up,” I said.

“Are you drunk?”

“I really, really wish I were.”

Joseph opened the front door of the guesthouse, carried me through it and set me on the swanky leather couch. That done, he flipped on a couple of lamps, took a better look at the bottoms of my feet and swore again.

“Stay here,” he said. “Right here.” He pulled my car keys from his pants pocket and jingled them for emphasis. “Read my lips. You do not have transportation.”

“Gotya,” I replied.

When he returned, Barbara was with him, motorized and very, very concerned.

Unfortunately, between the time of Joseph’s departure and their return, I’d dropped onto my side and fallen into a drooling sleep. I sat bolt upright when the sound of their entering jolted me awake, and wiped ineffectually at the spit stain on the leather couch.

“It looks like a nervous breakdown to me,” Joseph told his employer, who whizzed around the end of the coffee table to give me the once-over, up close and personal. “She’s been muttering some nonsense about killing her parents.”

“Go and call Dr. Henderson,” Barbara said to Joseph.

“Please, don’t,” I said. I’d driven for an hour and a half in my nightgown and bathrobe. I’d confessed to murdering my mother and father. Talk about a blight on the family name. I wasn’t up to the questions a doctor would ask.

“You’re not well, dear,” Barbara assured me. For a moment, I thought she was going to pat me on the head. “You need medical attention.”

I had planned—insofar as I’d done any planning at all—to tell my uncle what I’d remembered, leaving out the part Nick played in the revelation, of course, and ask him what to do next. In my confused mental state, I’d never figured Barbara into the equation at all. And I was not anxious to be alone with her.

“I’m really—just—drunk,” I said.

Joseph left the room. I heard the low murmur of his voice and knew he was summoning the medicos. If they brought a net, I’d make a run for it, sore feet or none.

“Drunk?” Barbara asked, sniffing delicately. “I don’t smell alcohol.”

I started to cry. Why hadn’t I called Jolie? Now I’d painted myself into a corner, and I might never get out. I would probably go to jail, even if I had been only five when I committed the crime. Uncle Clive would advise me to turn myself in, I was sure. And plead insanity.

Joseph came back. He carried a first-aid kit in one hand.

“What did the doctor say?” Barbara wanted to know.