Croft took a deep breath and started into Barbara Eagle’s history of trying to murder her husband, while Pam listened avidly and Sherry and Chico mumbled to each other. When Croft had finished, Pam said, “Wow.”

—

BILLY BURNETT MOVED through some trees and plantings behind the house until he could see people entering a room at a rear corner and sitting down. Dinner, he supposed. He ran the last few yards to the house, broke through some bordering shrubs, and knelt down, listening. Nothing: no alarms, no footsteps, no dogs. He rolled down his knitted cap, which covered his face but left openings for eyes and mouth, then, carefully, he stood up and looked in the window.

Seven people were around a round table, and Barbara’s back was toward Billy. He unzipped his fanny pack, took out a small battery-operated amplifier, plugged a cord into it, then he licked a suction cup, stuck it to the window, and put an earbud into one ear. They were, apparently, continuing a conversation begun in the living room over drinks.

—

“I TELL YOU,” Barbara was saying, “Ed Eagle has made my life hell for years. He’s made at least four attempts on my life, then blamed me for trying to kill him. The latest you may have seen on TV. He hired someone to plant a bomb on his airplane, and the man cocked it up somehow and blew himself up, as well. Then, of course, he told the Los Angeles police that I had hired someone to kill him. Two LAPD detectives were here until an hour before you all arrived, questioning me.”

“Why don’t you sue Eagle?” one of the women asked.

“What for? I don’t want or need his money, and, anyway, Ed is one of the best trial lawyers in the country. It would cost me millions, then nothing would happen.”

“Why don’t you go public, then?” the man asked.

“Jack, what do you mean by ‘go public’?”

“Take the offensive—give a few, select interviews to the right members of the press, and turn the whole thing back on Eagle. Show him up for the villain he is, ruin his reputation, cost him clients. Maybe he’d get the message then.”

“I never thought of that,” Barbara said. “But I wouldn’t have a clue how to go about it.”

“A good friend of mine, Hugh Gordon, is the top publicist in the city,” Jack said.

“But I’m not selling anything,” Barbara replied. “I haven’t written a book or anything like that.”