Kelly’s suntanned face remains calm, as though he were listening to a soothing piece of music. “I’m the man who’s going to end your life unless you take that gun in the house.”

“Bullshit,” Leo grunts. “Get the fuck off my property.”

“I’m here to do a job, sir,” Kelly says in the same lazy voice. “Don’t make yourself part of it.”

At last Leo really looks at Kelly, and the muscles in his jaw tighten. He has vastly multiplied his family fortune by accurately judging men’s characters. And whatever he sees in Daniel Kelly’s eyes convinces him that today is the wrong day to tempt fate. He lowers the derringer.

“You just made yourself part of my job, sonny.” He raises two fingers in a little toodle-loo gesture, then turns and walks up the broad steps of his mansion.

“Livy,” he says without turning around. “Your mother needs you.”

“I’m coming.” She steps toward me and tries to take my hand, but I pull it away. “Make a public apology, Penn,” she pleads. “Please. Do that, and I’ll convince Daddy to drop the suit.”

“It’s too late for that.”

She looks at me sadly. “You can’t play my father’s game and win. Not in this town. Not in this state. Nobody can. You could lose everything you have.”

“You’ve got a short memory, Livy. Your father lost his case against mine twenty years ago, and he’s going to lose this one.”

“That was different. It was a weak case to start with.”

“Then why did he take it?”

Unreadable emotion flares in her eyes. “I don’t know. But I do know you nearly fainted when he told you that man had been arrested. He was your last hope, wasn’t he? He was your case. If you walk into that courtroom Wednesday, you’ll be like a lamb going to slaughter.”

I step back from her, trying not to think of Peter Lutjens. “That’s my problem. Your problem is a lot bigger than that. Your whole life is built around some secret tragedy whose real victim is a girl crying alone in a room three miles from here. What are you going to do about that?”

Her eyes go cold again. “Nothing. And you’d better not either.” She turns and walks up three steps, then looks back to me. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you about the trial.”

This time she goes all the way up and through the massive door.

I get into the BMW and start to leave, but Kelly pulls his Taurus in front of it, blocking my way. Then he gets out and comes around to my window.

“Boss? To an objective observer, it looks like you’re trying awful hard to get killed.”