Trina told Brenda she couldn’t stay in New York. Since rooming with the Michigan cousin hadn’t worked out, Trina shipped a fearful Brenda off to Chicago, telling her she’d be able to get a job in the big city. Brenda hadn’t, but she’d stayed in touch with Trina and had been able to explain how her friend had come to blackmail Martin. Claudia was feeling a lot of guilt about a kid she knew, Ridley. She said he was like her little brother, but the kid was pulling crazy stunts, screaming for attention from his dad, who completely neglected him. Ridley set fire to a church, and when his dad found out, he bought the site to build on it. However, Trina hadn’t known Ridley’s last name until New York Magazine published an article about the Oracle and Martin Sklar and the controversy surrounding the church fire. Trina had realized that Ridley’s father was very, very rich, and she’d hatched her blackmail plan.

“Lily, are you afraid that Sarah Lyons is going to come after you when she gets out of the hospital?”

That was a good question. Sarah would have undoubtedly recovered quickly from the electric shock I’d given her with her own taser in Claudia’s apartment, if only she hadn’t just grabbed Jesse’s gun. The shock had made her convulse, inadvertently pull the trigger, and shoot off part of her left hand. She wouldn’t be wearing Alec Gorevale’s diamond on her ring finger anymore. She’d failed the court-ordered psychiatric exam and was in a padded cell somewhere. Sarah was mad, but not the kind of crazy the court believed. I was certain she’d duped the evaluator into believing she was nuts. In Sarah’s apartment, the police had found Dr. Gorevale’s extensive, obsessive notes about Claudia. It was suddenly clear why Sarah had known details like my mother’s three miscarriages. Ironically, Sarah had been able to do with me what she’d planned to do with my sister, using old confidences to gain my trust. It was all there in Dr. Gorevale’s tiny, precise handwriting. I’d told the police everything that had happened in my sister’s building, but I’d pretended that the gun was Sarah’s. I’d already dragged Jesse far enough into the mud with me, and I reasoned that since Sarah had to keep up the pretense of being crazy, she wouldn’t be able to argue the point. So far, it had worked.

“I can’t believe the nerve of these folks,” Jesse said. “Sick, that’s what they are.”

“Lily, are you still sleeping with Martin Sklar?” asked another vulture. Every reporter’s beady little eyes zeroed in on me.