“Late that night you called on Lydia. She let you in: after all, you were Jason’s father. But she was set on Mooring. All the years of hate and jealousy overwhelmed you. I wonder what she felt when she realized you meant to kill her, and how—”

Kris Ann’s hands clutched her throat. In one continuous motion Cade leaped to the mantel and whirled on me with the revolver. “No,” Kris Ann screamed.

Cade turned to her. “He means to put me in prison. I can’t let him live to see that.” His voice became rhythmic, compelling. “Please, baby, you have to choose. How can you think he loves you? He used you to get my money, left you here alone when he thought you might be harmed. Now he’s accused you of killing Lydia to get at me. He knew I loved you. Everything I’ve done was for you. He used you—”

“Tell her the rest, Roland.”

“Stop,” she screamed.

“Please, baby—”

“Tell her how you strangled Lydia.”

Cade started toward me with the revolver. “She’ll choose, in time. She’ll understand what I did—”

“She’ll understand what you are. You took Lydia’s picture and mutilated it with her dead at your feet hoping the police would think her killer was insane, like Jason. It was no deception. You’re more psychotic than Jason ever dreamed of. You liked killing her.”

“No.” Cade’s voice was anguished. “She looked so new. All those years I’d wanted her, her elegance, even her distance, and then she says she’s free at last—free of Grangeville and all of Henry’s secrets, and ours—”

“Maybe she was just happy, Roland. She’d almost made it.”

He shook his head. “She insulted me. When I began moving toward her she started to beg, told me she’d do anything to please me as long as she could have Mooring. It was all for him. She was crying when I touched her.” His arm raised until he faced me over the sight of the revolver.

“It’s no good. You can’t believe Kris Ann will forget watching you kill me. You’ll go to the electric chair.”

Cade’s mouth was a harsh line. “I’m going either way. You’ve seen to that. At least now you’ll die first and I’ll have time alone with Kris Ann, to explain—”

“Daddy—no.” Kris Ann ran to him, grasping his free arm and falling to her knees. “Don’t do this.”

She looked up. Cade reached to stroke her hair. “Do you choose me, baby? I want you to choose me.”

“Don’t touch her, Roland.”

Kris Ann’s eyes closed. Her face was white and frozen. Cade kept the gun on me as he stroked her hair and the back of her neck. “She’s mine, Adam. There’s nothing you can do to stop me now.”