“A perfect foil to put some pressure on Price,” I said.

“Then Desiree figures out where the money is. But she’s got a problem. If she just steals it, not only will her father be looking for her, but so will Price and Jay.”

“So she has to get dead,” I said.

“And she knows Jay will settle up with Price.”

“And probably go to jail for it.”

“Could she be that devious?” Angie said.

I shrugged. “Why not?”

“So she’s dead,” Angie said. “And so’s Price. And then Jay. So, why show herself to us?”

I didn’t have an answer to that.

Neither did Angie.

But Desiree did.

She stepped out onto the balcony with a gun in her hand and said, “Because I need your help.”

30

“Nice gun,” I said. “Did you pick it because it matches your outfit, or was it the other way around?”

She came out onto the patio, the gun shaking slightly in her hand, pointing somewhere into the space between Angie’s nose and my mouth.

“Look,” Desiree said, “in case you can’t tell, I’m nervous, and I don’t know who to trust, and I need your help, but I’m not sure about you.”

“Like father like daughter,” Angie said.

I slapped her knee. “Stole my line.”

“What?” Desiree said.

Angie took a sip of her beer, watched Desiree. “Your father, Miss Stone, had us kidnapped so he could talk to us. Now you’re pointing a gun at us, ostensibly for the same reason.”

“I’m sorry, but—”

“We don’t like guns,” I said. “The Weeble would tell you that if he was still alive.”

“Who?” She stepped gingerly around the back of my chair.

“Graham Clifton,” Angie said. “We called him the Weeble.”

“Why?”

“Why not?” I turned my head as she edged along the balcony rail, finally came to a stop about six feet from our chairs, the gun still pointing at a space between us.

And good God, was she beautiful. I’ve dated some beautiful women in my time. Women who based their worth on their external perfection because the world judged them by pretty much the same standard. Lithe or lush, tall or petite, achingly attractive women around whom men forgot how to speak.

But none of them could come within a country mile of Desiree’s radiance. Her physical perfection was palpable. Her skin seemed to have been lathered onto bones that were both delicate and pronounced. Her breasts, unencumbered by a bra, swelled against the thin material of her dress with every shallow breath she took, and the dress itself, a simple, unstructured peach cotton affair designed to be functional and loose, couldn’t do much to hide the tight cords of her abdomen, or the gracefully hard cut of muscle in her thighs.