So Julia would be patient. She hadn’t come this far, spent all the years plotting and hatching her plan, only to rush things and blow it at the end. If James needed a little breathing room, she’d go along with that. For now, he seemed to be thawing a little, waving to her if they met in the bar. She’d give him some breathing room, even though she hated it.

She’d seen him, of course, usually from a distance, and she had caught his eye, smiling and waving. He’d returned the favor, though his smile hadn’t touched his eyes.

It was all she could do to get through the days.

Everything was falling apart. That damned Phoebe Matrix hadn’t died, had come out of her coma. No telling what she would tell the cops, and beyond that, there was Gus, out of the hospital and supposedly recovering, but he was a powder keg, ready to go off. She’d bought his silence by promising him a hundred grand, but she was willing to up it, and besides, he was the one who had killed Charity, so it was to his advantage to keep his mouth shut!

Julia had known from the moment Sophia had mentioned that Charity was at the bar, sniffing around, that the reporter would be trouble. She’d been looking for James that night, had been on the trail of a story, and, of course, had made the Cahill–San Francisco connections while snooping around. Julia and Sophia both knew Gus from working for James. With a little alcohol poured into his friend Bruce, Sophia had learned that Gus would do anything for a buck—Bruce had repeated, “anything”—and he had let it slip that Gus knew a guy who could make fake IDs, great ones, within a matter of days. With that knowledge, Julia had gone to work. And Bruce Porter—bless his little ex-con hide—had been right about Gus. It had been easy enough to work into Gus’s confidence, gain his trust, and get him involved. Gus was nothing if not greedy, and he, like Julia, had thought he’d been dealt a bad hand in life, was always looking for a quick buck. He’d not only helped with Megan’s abduction; he’d willingly followed Charity to San Francisco, where he’d dealt with her.

How had everything gone so wrong?

For the first time since concocting this plan, Julia thought she might have to cut and run. Save her own skin.

What about Sophia?