“Gus! No! Gus!” Jennifer Korpi screamed and attempted to run to her brother, but Mendoza restrained her.

“Stay back! Ambulance is on its way,” Mendoza said. “I called. It’ll be here in two minutes.”

Jardine’s eyes started to glaze over. “I’m gonna sue you,” he swore as he stared up at Rivers as he approached.

Rivers kicked the gun into the living room, far from Jardine’s reach.

But the injured man wasn’t done with his invective. “I’m gonna sue the hell outta you, you miserable cocksucker, and I’m going to sue that shitty Sheriff ’s Department for all it’s worth.”

“No, Gus, that’s not going to happen. You got it wrong.” Rivers squatted just out of Jardine’s reach, his gun still drawn. “I’ll tell you what’s going to happen. You’re going down. For the murder of Charity Spritz and maybe a few more. If you don’t want to spend the rest of your life behind bars, you’ll tell us everything you know and cut a deal. Not just about the murder in San Francisco, but who killed Willow Valente and what the hell happened to Megan Travers.”

“Not me,” he said. Then, before the EMTs and two deputies burst through the door, his face contorted in pain, a stain of red showing through his shirt at his right shoulder, he said again, “I’m gonna sue your ass, Rivers. And you know what? I’m going to sue everybody else’s fuckin’ ass, too.”

“Is that right?” Rivers said, spying the cigarette lighter Gus had dropped. He picked it up, slipped it quietly into his pocket, and said, “I don’t fuckin’ think so.”

* * *

How many days had passed?

Five?

Six?

Ten?

Sophia had lost count. But from the loft, wrapped in a sleeping bag, the fire gently hissing in the gas fireplace below, she’d stared out the small windows, watching the day break and pass to become the never-ending night.

With each day that passed, she felt a little stronger, the vengeance growing in her heart, a beating, palpable thing. She’d find a way to best her sister.

If she didn’t die first.

CHAPTER 50

CHAPTER 50

December 29

Rebecca was no good at this.

She just wasn’t cut out to be a detective, or a spy, or whatever.

As she sat in her rental car, huddled in a down jacket and scarf, cradling a cup of coffee in her gloved hands, she kept her eyes on Sophia Russo’s apartment and felt like a stalker. And she was getting nowhere fast.

No activity in the apartment.

Again.

The clock on the dash of the little Ford Escape, a car she’d rented so that Sophia wouldn’t recognize her, read 11:30. Rebecca took a sip of the now-tepid coffee and watched as the lights in Sophia’s apartment were turned out, one by one. Just like they had been every other night.