Julian wheeled him out of the room and I heard the wheels squeak on the marble as they made their way past the grand staircase toward the kitchen.

“All those hams!” Trevor cried. “All those leeks!”

Desiree straddled me and placed the gun against my left ear. “Here we are.”

“Isn’t it romantic?”

“About Danny,” she said.

“Yes?”

“Where is he?”

“Where’s my partner?”

She smiled. “In the garden.”

“The garden?” I said.

She nodded. “Buried up to her neck.” She looked out the window. “Gosh, I hope it doesn’t snow tonight.”

“Dig her out,” I said.

“No.”

“Then kiss Danny good-bye.”

Knives danced in her irises. “Let me guess—unless you make a phone call by a certain time, he’s dead, blah, blah, blah.”

I looked at the clock over her shoulder as she shifted her weight on my thighs. “Actually, no. He’ll be getting a bullet in his head in about thirty minutes regardless.”

Her face sagged along the jawline for just a moment and then her hand tightened in my hair and the gun dug into my ear so hard I half expected it to pop out the other side. “Unless you make a phone call,” she said.

“No. A phone call won’t cut it because the guy holding him doesn’t have a phone. I either show up at his door in thirty—no, twenty-nine—minutes, or we have one less lawyer in the world. All in all, who’s going to miss a lawyer?”

“And where’s that leave you if he dies?”

“Dead,” I said. “Which is where I’m going to be anyway.”

“Have you forgotten your partner?” She cocked her head toward the windows.

“Oh, come on, Desiree. You’ve already killed her.”

I looked in her eyes as she answered.

“No, I haven’t.”

“Prove it.”

She laughed and leaned back on my thighs. “Fuck you, buddy.” She wagged a finger in my face. “Your desperation’s showing, Patrick.”

“So’s yours, Desiree. You lose that lawyer, you lose it all. Kill your father, kill me, you’ve still got only two million. And we both know that’s not enough for you.” I tilted my head so the gun slipped from my ear, then nuzzled the slide with my cheekbone. “Twenty-eight minutes,” I said. “After that, you’ll go through the rest of your life knowing how close you were to over one billion dollars. And watching as other people spend it.”

The butt of the gun hit the top of my head so hard the air in the room turned scarlet for a moment and everything spun.

Desiree came off my thighs and slapped me across the face with her open hand. “You think I don’t know you?” she screamed. “Huh? You think I don’t—”

“I think you’re short a lawyer, Desiree. That’s what I think.”