He lifted his head, looked full into my face. “You are certifiably nuts,” he told me, but there was a new gentleness in the way he spoke. “Come on, Ms. Sheepshanks.” He got to his feet, leaned in and lifted me off the seat and into his arms. “Let’s get you inside before you bring shame and degradation on the family name.”

I laid my head on his shoulder.

Like I said, I was not myself.

“I killed my own parents,” I said.

“Crazy as you are,” Joseph answered, “I seriously doubt it.”

“I remembered—”

“Joseph! What in the world is going on out there?”

Joseph stopped cold. We both looked up and saw Barbara Larimer staring down on us from what was probably the balcony of the master suite.

So much for the blitzed-on-pills theory.

“Mojo’s hurt herself,” Joseph said. “She’s upset. I was just taking her into the guesthouse.”

“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.”