Slowly, Alanna started to edge backward at the crazy look in Elizabeth’s eyes. She shifted her gaze downward, to Elizabeth’s hands. She was holding a bloody knife.

“Are you hurt?”

Elizabeth stepped closer, raising the bloody knife.

“No. I wasn’t the one hurt.” Elizabeth pulled the knife closer to her face to lick the blade. “It’s not my blood.”

Alanna took another step backward, unwilling to play cat and mouse with a woman whom she had adored since she herself was just a teenager.

“Whose blood is it?”

“Your lawyer’s. Oh … and the deputy’s. The sheriff really should make it a thing to look under the seats before letting people in his squad car. Any ole person could come along and hide one. Luckily for me, someone did.”

Alanna didn’t wonder who that person was. Kate.

“You hurt them?”

“Put it this way … the deputy has made his final arrest, and poor Mrs. Bates won’t be defending anyone ever again. She chose the wrong person to represent when she chose you over me.”

“Elizabeth … I don’t understand. I love you. I tried to protect you—”

“From whom? My mother?” Elizabeth screamed at her. “She’s the only one who understands me. You certainly didn’t … I hated it when she made me stay with you …” Sneering laughter came from her lips. “You were even stupid enough to pay for my moving expenses to Ohio for that lame-ass job Mom wanted me to take. I couldn’t wait to move out of that apartment … If I had to live there one more day, I would have—”

Elizabeth sprang at her suddenly, and Alanna quit trying to reason with her when she saw what lucidity Elizabeth had left was gone. She had let Elizabeth get too close to her. There was no way she would be able to outrun her.

Just then, she saw one of the Porters’ signs and turned in the direction of their property.

Please let it be true! she screamed in her head. Please let it be true that one of the Porters is watching.

If Elizabeth was about to kill her, she wanted a witness to what had happened to her and Matthew, if he didn’t survive either.

She had only gone ten steps before she ran headlong into a male chest.

“What the fuck are you doing—”

“She’s going to kill me,” Alanna managed to wheeze out. “I work for the Co—”

“I know who you are.”

A deranged scream came toward them, and Alanna turned to look, seeing Elizabeth charging toward them with the large knife raised.

The man shoved her aside to raise the gun in his hand, firing a shot off in the same motion. Blood came gushing out of Elizabeth’s chest as she was knocked backward to the ground.

Alanna took off running in the direction she had just come from.

“Where in the fuck are you going?”