How had Kellen been so wrong about her? How had she failed to see the thin coil of insanity that wound through Mara’s character and strangled all the good in it? Enunciating every word, Kellen said, “I do not understand you. You’re a serial killer.”

“I’m not, either!” Mara shoved the diary aside, and her eyes snapped with indignation. “I only kill people who deserve it.”

“I don’t deserve to die, and you don’t deserve to mete out justice.”

“I deserve every bit of power I can take.” Mara didn’t doubt herself.

“You tried to kill my daughter. She was delirious. Then unconscious. Fighting for her life!”

“If I had tried to kill her, she would be dead.” Mara took a breath that hitched in the middle. “I was going to finish her off. Because she is your daughter.”

Kellen’s heart missed a beat.

“But she…she came to warn me.”

“Warn you about what?”

“About Dylan. She told me he was dangerous. She warned me the storm was coming in. She said we had to evacuate, and invited me into your helicopter. She was nice to me.” Mara sounded as if such a thing had never happened before.

Kellen supposed it hadn’t. So Rae had saved her own life by being Rae, kind and interested. “You had met Rae a few days before, and—” oh, she understood now “—you made her promise not to tell us. You didn’t threaten her, because she liked you.”

“She did, didn’t she?” Mara sounded sloppily sentimental.

Which made Kellen want to slap her. “After you gave her that drug, she rambled. She said she liked you. She said she was worried about you. So who did you tell her you were?”

“The intern from UC San Diego.” As if bored, Mara wandered back to the overstuffed chair and reseated herself.

“The biologist.”

“Botanist. Multitasker. Whatever science was required. Don’t worry. I’ve been doing the work!” Mara assured her.

“You’ve been doing the work,” Kellen repeated. “Like that matters!”

“It does matter!” Mara’s eyes narrowed. “Was Jamie right? Don’t you care about the environment?”

Kellen had fallen down the rabbit hole, and soon Mara would be shouting, Off with her head! “I deeply care about the environment—” not right now, but in general “—and so does Rae, so of course she admired you, and came to warn you. You gave her drugs—”

“Only a half dose.”

Kellen lost her temper and shouted, “What difference does it make, half dose or full dose? If my husband and my child are lost at sea, it’s because you sent them out.”

“They won’t be lost.” Mara was blithely certain, like a three-year-old who was playing with fire. “Two days ago, I watched them from the cliff edge, sailing away, laughing. They love to sail.”