He began to move down, one step at a time. Swift—but sure.

At the bottom, he paused again. The cat had come down after him, and he tried to see if she had heard something he hadn’t. But she sat down on her haunches when he stopped. Her eyes were on his face.

He had left all the doors open behind him when he had come up the stairs. Now that served him well.

Moving quietly, he worked his way back to the bar.

And stumbled over something on the floor, nearly pitching forward, catching himself in time on the edge of the bar.

Reaching down, Rutledge groped at his feet, and touched hair. A woman’s soft hair. There was a white patch beside her. The christening gown—

He found her throat and searched for a pulse.

There was none.

Gentle God! Holden had killed his wife—

Anger swept him, following on the heels of shock.

He remembered what Holden had told him in the rain the previous night: that there was nowhere Rutledge could consider himself safe. It was true.

Rutledge got slowly to his feet, every nerve ending alive. Eyes sweeping the black shadows. All his training in France rushing back—

He was here—but where? Rutledge could feel him like a second skin.

The cat’s sharp hiss warned him. There was a blindingly bright flash, a deafening report, and he was already dropping. Not fast enough this time. Something spun him half around, slamming into his chest.

He had been hit—

He knew the drill. It had happened before. Shock. Numbness. And then the pain.

Almost in the same instant, he acted, instinct already guiding hand and brain, throwing the dirk—aiming for the place he’d seen the flash of powder.

The Scots under his command had taught him well. The harsh intake of breath told him he’d hit his mark. Something fell heavily, taking a bar stool over with it. The clatter was appalling. And then silence.

Rutledge moved toward it, his own breathing uneven. Whoever it was still had a pistol—

He reached out, felt heavy, immovable flesh, and instinctively flinched.

There was no sound except for his own breathing—

Fumbling, he turned on his torch and looked down into the dead face of Alexander Holden. The knife, protruding from his throat, had severed the artery. There was a great deal of blood. Staining the scrubbed floor. Rutledge stared at it. Black and red, where the torch picked it out.

He realized he was no longer thinking clearly.

Rutledge told himself, Fiona will have to explain—or they’ll find my notebook—London knows about Holden too—

He remembered the torch in his hand, staring down at it, then turning it off. Why did he have to kill her—why couldn’t Madelyn Holden have lived—

I wanted to save her. Most of all I wanted to save Fiona—