Lauren looked from one to the other of them. How the hell had this happened? How could they possibly know each other? Had Ballencoa somehow bought Hewitt off? How could he have gone from a man who came to offer her help to a man who could beat a fifteen-year-old girl for no reason?

She glared at Hewitt with her one open eye. The taste of her own blood was like liquid copper in her mouth. “You offered to kill him for me.”

“You should have taken me up on it, shouldn’t you?” he said, gingerly pressing his left hand to the wound in his shoulder. He had set the Walther aside on the table, out of reach.

Leah was crying as quietly as she could manage, her shoulders shaking.

Oh my God, Lauren thought, the full horror spilling through her like the blood spilling from the cut that had filleted her face. This is all my fault. I asked for this.

Not only had it been her mission to bring Ballencoa to justice, she had also brought Greg Hewitt into their lives.

No. That wasn’t exactly true. Greg Hewitt had come to her. He had come to her with his sympathy and concern, wanting to help, wanting to earn the fifty-thousand-dollar reward. She had accepted him for greedy, never thinking he could be something worse. He was supposed to have been her means to the ultimate end: confronting Roland Ballencoa.

I’m so sorry, baby, she thought, her eyes going to Leah.

Her daughter’s face was swollen, her left eye almost swollen shut. She was visibly shaking. To Lauren she looked so much younger than fifteen. She was a child, and Lauren wanted to take her in her arms and hold her and try to comfort her.

Comfort her by getting her killed, she thought. Comfort her by trading her life for one last shot at finding Leslie.

God help me. What have I done?

“Where are my journals?” Ballencoa asked again.

Greg Hewitt grabbed hold of her ponytail with his left hand and jerked her up off the floor like a rag doll. She grabbed the back of a chair to steady herself as he shouted at her. “Answer the question !”

Lauren wanted to spit in his face, but she refrained, afraid her defiance would be taken out on Leah. She had to think. She had to be smart.

If she’d been smart, none of this would be happening.

“They’re in my car,” she said.

“I want them back.”

“He wants them back,” Hewitt said.

He was pasty white beneath the blood on his face, and beginning to sweat profusely. He went to lift his right arm as if to strike her, but his shoulder seemed not to work. Instead, he cuffed her in the side of the head with his left hand, knocking her back to the floor. He kicked her in the ribs as she hit the ground.