Lauren got in the car because she didn’t know what else to do. This is what we do, she thought. We pretend to be normal. Their world had come so far off its axis she didn’t know what normal was anymore.

Normal had become carrying a gun.

Normal had become pills to sleep and alcohol to numb the pain of being awake.

Normal had become the obsession with a daughter she didn’t have, and the neglect of the daughter she did have.

Normal had become raw, dirty sex with a man she didn’t like, and an offer to murder a man she hated.

I just want it to stop, Leah had said.

Me too, Lauren thought.

The silence fell between them again like an iron curtain as Lauren started the car and drove out the gate.

They were halfway to the ranch before she spoke again.

“I love you, Leah,” she said. “Don’t ever think that I don’t love you just as much as I love Leslie. If you were taken from me, I would fight just as hard for you.”

Leah stared down at her hands in her lap. “I’m afraid, Mommy. I’m afraid something bad is going to happen to you,” she said in a small voice.

Lauren didn’t answer her right away. She weighed what she was about to say, deciding it was necessary to say it.

“You know you would never be left alone,” she said. “If something ever did happen—and I’m not saying that anything will—but you need to know you will always be taken care of, sweetheart. Your aunt Meg would take care of you—”

“Don’t say that!” Leah snapped. “You’re scaring me!”

“I’m not trying to scare you. You said you were already afraid. I don’t want you to be afraid.”

“Stop it! I don’t want to talk about it!”

Once at the ranch, Leah got out of the car, slammed the door, and ran for the stables. Lauren watched her go, her daughter’s earlier words echoing in her head: I just want you to make it stop.

She needed to make it stop. For both their sakes. Roland Ballencoa had destroyed half her family in a single act. She couldn’t let him destroy what was left of it by allowing this madness to go on. That was why she had come here after all. To end it.

A strange calm settled over her as she turned out of the Gracida ranch gate and headed toward Oak Knoll.

Chapter 44

44

“I finally got a line on that rental car,” Hicks said, coming into the war room.

They had decided to set up just as they did for a homicide investigation, utilizing the giant whiteboard at the front of the room to lay out a time line.

“What rental car?” Tanner asked as she organized the files she had brought with her from Santa Barbara.