Her jade eyes sparkled, and seemed twice as bright because they were sheened with a dewy nervousness and set back against the sunset glow of her skin.

She wasn’t unaware of her effect, either. During our entire conversation, she’d glance back and forth at Angie when speaking to her, her eyes skipping across her face. But when she spoke to me, she’d bore into me with those eyes, lean forward almost imperceptibly.

“Miss Stone,” I said, “put the gun down.”

“I can’t. I don’t…I mean, I’m not sure—”

“Put it down or shoot us,” Angie said. “You have five seconds.”

“I—”

“One,” Angie said.

Her eyes welled up. “I just want to be sure—”

“Two.”

Desiree looked at me, but I gave her nothing back.

“Three.”

“Look—”

“Four.” Angie turned her chair to her right and the metal made a short screech against the concrete.

“Just stay there,” Desiree said, and the wavering gun turned toward Angie.

“Five.” Angie stood up.

Desiree pointed the quivering gun at her, and I reached up and slapped her hand.

The gun bounced off the railing, and I snatched it from the air before it could drop to the garden six stories below. Lucky, too, because when I peered over the side, I saw a couple of kids, grade school age, playing on their ground-floor patio by the garden.

Look what I found, Ma. Boom.

Desiree’s face dropped into her hands for a moment, and Angie looked at me.

I shrugged. The gun was a Ruger .22 automatic. Stainless steel. It felt light in my hand, but that’s deceptive when you’re holding a pistol. Guns are never light.

She’d left the safety on, and I ejected the clip into my sling, pulled it back out, and placed the gun in my left pocket, the clip in my right.

Desiree raised her head, her eyes red. “I can’t do this anymore.”

“Do what?” Angie pulled another chair over. “Sit down.”

Desiree sat. “This. Guns and death and…Jesus Christ, I can’t do it.”

“Did you rip off the Church of Truth and Revelation?”

She nodded.

“It was your idea,” Angie said. “Not Price’s.”

A half nod. “His idea. But I pushed him toward it after he told me.”

“Why?”

“Why?” she said as two tears coursed her face, dropped off her cheekbones and landed on her knees just below the hem of her dress. “Why? You have to…” She sucked up air through her mouth and looked up at the sky, wiped at her eyes. “My father killed my mother.”

I never saw that one coming. I looked at Angie. She hadn’t either.

“In the car accident that nearly killed him?” Angie said. “Are you serious?”

Desiree nodded several times.

“Let me get this straight,” I said. “Your father sets up a fake carjacking. Is that what you’re saying?”

“Yes.”

“And pays these men to shoot him three times?”