“Other people being here is not part of the plan,” Stella says calmly.

“What plan?” Rose and Mel demand simultaneously.

“Mine,” Stella replies, pulling on the parking brake. “Don’t get freaked. I don’t want to hurt anybody. I just need you two to be out of sight for an hour or two. Not even that long probably. Then I’ll let you out. You can report me to anybody you want. It won’t matter by then.”

“Why? Why out of sight? Why won’t it matter? What are you doing?” Rose’s voice is rising with each question.

Stella’s calm shatters. “Shut the fuck up! Melanie, do I have a blue-and-white tote in my lap?”

“What does—”

“Do I have a fucking bag on my lap?” Stella snarls.

“Yes,” Mel answers.

“Is my hand in the bag?”

“It is, but—”

“Tell your fucking Gigi I have my hand in the bag,” Stella snaps.

“Gigi, Stella’s got a blue-and-white bag on her lap, and her hand is in it.” Mel sounds confused, and a little scared. Rose doesn’t blame her. Suffering is boiling out of Stella like ants from a burning nest.

“In this bag is a gun,” Stella says.

Rose wonders if she is bluffing. “What kind of gun?”

“A big fucking gun, you stupid old bag. That’s what kind of gun. My hand is gripping the butt of a big fucking gun that is aimed at your darling little Melanie’s head. You hear me?”

“I do,” Rose says, ice forming in her belly.

“If both of you don’t do precisely as I tell you to, I could accidentally pull the trigger. Since it’s in a bag, I might not hit cute little Mel, but in a small space, short range, a bullet could splatter your darling little Melanie’s adorable little brains all over my nice clean dashboard. Are you listening, Rose?”

“I’m listening.”

“Do you understand?”

“I do.”

“Then nobody has to get hurt. That’s what we all want, right? Nobody getting hurt. Right?” When neither Mel nor Rose says anything, Stella jerks her right arm, and Melanie cries out.

“Right,” Rose says quickly. Shock is slowing her wits. Rose can’t think of any way this can end without her death—and now Mel’s—that will further Stella’s interests. Unless she isn’t after a marital share of the inheritance.

But she is.

There is nothing else. Nothing that locking Rose and Mel away for a couple of hours can facilitate. “Alma called you, didn’t she?” Rose asks. “Told you when to be there so I wouldn’t call a car. Mel was bait to guarantee I got in.”

“Whatever you say, Einstein.” Stella opens the driver’s door.