Five minutes later a second set of headlights came slowly down the road. Lauren’s heart beat just a little harder. She held her breath in her lungs just a little longer.

Ballencoa had been screaming for her arrest when last she’d seen him. Would they have told him at the sheriff’s office that they had sent her home? She had broken his camera—his alleged livelihood, though Lauren knew he lived as much off the proceeds of his lawsuits as he did his abilities as a photographer.

She suspected the worst of what she had damaged had been his dignity, as if he deserved to have any.

The car slowed and swung around at the gate. A car, not a van. The lights cut out.

Lauren went to her handbag and got out the Walther. Feeling more numb than frightened, she went to the door and stepped out onto the front porch. She left the door open. She could quickly dart back inside and call 911 if she needed to. A warning shot would buy her a little extra time.

The driver’s door opened on the car, and Greg Hewitt stepped out under the security light.

Sticking the gun in the pocket of her torn linen slacks, Lauren walked down to the gate.

“Are you all right?” he asked as she stepped into the pool of light.

“They didn’t throw me in jail, as you can see,” she said, lifting her arms away from her body.

He sighed and frowned. “Jesus Christ, Lauren, what were you thinking?”

“I’m tired, Greg. I don’t want to have to explain myself to you. You of all people should know what I was doing. He was taking pictures of my daughter.”

He swept a hand back over his surfer-blond hair and rubbed at the tension in the back of his neck. “If I’d gotten there two minutes sooner . . .”

“Why were you there at all?”

“I followed him there. I figured he’d be up to his old tricks. Then I had to go to the john and I lost him. Next thing I heard the commotion.”

And then he’d been there, pulling her away from Ballencoa, putting himself between them, shoving Ballencoa back as he tried to advance on her.

“I didn’t ask for your help,” she said, thinking, My God, what an ungrateful bitch you are, Lauren.

“Yeah, well, too bad. No charge,” he said. “Or maybe I could have a drink for my trouble.”

She should have dismissed him out of hand. She had thrown him off the property just a few hours before. But she was exhausted and worn down, and tired of drinking alone. He had come to her rescue at the tennis courts as if he hadn’t cared that she had belted him in the mouth just that afternoon. That could pass for friendship, she supposed. It would for now.