up!” Kate pleaded furiously.

“—so that you can cheat on that pompous asshole you’re marrying!”

Kate’s temper and anxiety exploded simultaneously, and she silenced him with the only means available—she flung what was left of her champagne at his face. There wasn’t enough liquid to reach her target, but a few drops hit his chest and splotched his shirtfront, and with a mixture of fright, shame, and satisfaction, she braced for an explosive reaction.

gesture lacked the spontaneity it had in Anguilla—” he remarked imperturbably as he began casually flicking droplets off his shirt,”—however, this color is a definite improvement.”

Kate gaped at him; then she jerked her head to the left, where a solicitous waiter was already lowering a tray of champagne. Belatedly desperate to appear normal, Kate traded glasses with him and picked up a napkin with shaky fingers; then her attention swerved back to Mitchell as he continued in that same cool, conversational drawl, me your napkin and paste an apologetic smile on your face—”

Kate automatically handed him the napkin.

He took it and completed his sentence, his gaze on the spots he was dabbing off his shirt. “—or else Bartlett may figure out he’s marrying an amoral bitch with an ugly temper.”

’m warning you—” Kate said frantically, but she had nothing to threaten him with, so she glanced around to see if they were being observed and tightened her grip on the stem of her champagne flute, because it seemed like the only solid reality to cling to in a world gone mad.

When she didn’t complete her threat, Mitchell slanted a glance at her and noticed her fingers tightening on her champagne glass. Without taking his eyes off his shirtfront, he said in a silky voice, “If you so much as tilt that glass in my direction, you’ll be sprawled on your ass before the first drops hit the floor.”

Mistaking her stillness for indecision, he lifted his head and looked at her with eyes like shards of ice. me, Kate—” he invited softly. ahead. Test me.”

Kate’s stricken paralysis gave way to a trembling realization that repelled her so much it reduced her voice to a shaking whisper when she said it aloud. God . . . underneath all your phony charm and slick social polish, you’re actually . . . amonster. ”

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Instead of being insulted or angered, he looked at her in baffled amusement, then he chuckled and shook his head. were you expecting to find there, sweetheart—a heartbroken, jilted lover?”

Before Kate could react to that, he touched his glass to the edge of hers in a mockery of a toast and said in a bored voice, -bye, Kate.”

He left, and Kate found herself staring straight into Meredith Bancroft’s narrowed eyes. Without a word, Meredith turned on her heel and followed him.

Chapter Thirty-five

KID GIVESme the creeps,” MacNeil told Gray as he stood outside the interrogation room watching a tearful Billy Wyatt give Joe Torello the details surrounding his father’s ” death. They’d picked the boy up that morning and brought him in for questioning, accompanied by Caroline. can’t believe she hasn’t called the family lawyer yet.”

Folding his arms over his chest, Gray contemplated Caroline’s somewhat surprising behavior. think she’s feared Billy had something to do with his father’s death from that day in my office when he called Wyatt for us. She looked shocked and a little sickened by his ad-lib performance. Later, when I told her the button found at the well was the same as the ones on Mitchell Wyatt’s coat, she accepted that very quickly. She didn’t ask me if we’d made sure, or checked all of his other clothes for identical buttons, or any of the questions you’d expect her to ask. Caroline has been on Chicago’s best-dressed list several times; she knows handmade buttons are very unusual.”

still can’t figure out why she hasn’t called a lawyer yet.”

Gray thought about that for a moment. loved William, and she loves Billy. I think she figures her only chance of saving her son is to make him tell the truth and get it off his chest. The family lawyer is Henry Bartlett, and she knows Bartlett will do whatever Cecil tells him to do. Cecil would tell him to shut Billy up and then find a way to get him off.”

don’t know how she can stand to be in the same room with the kid.”

’s easy. She’s blaming herself for not realizing how much damage Mitchell Wyatt’s presence in the family was doing to her son.”

In the interrogation room, Torello handed Billy a pen and a tablet of paper. you write it all down, let’s go over everything one more time to make sure we’re all clear.”

Caroline was standing behind Billy, her hands protectively on his shoulders. he have to go through it all again? Can’t he just write it down?”

In response, Torello looked at the kid. more time, from the top.”

The fourteen-year-old rubbed his eyes with his palms and said shakily, “I went out to the farm with my dad, just like we planned to do that weekend. I thought we might scare up some quail on the Udall place, so I took the shotgun from the house. While we were walking, my dad told me he was going to sell our farm to the developer who’d bought Udall’s. We started arguing. I told him he couldn’t do that, and then—”

did you think he couldn’t do that?”

the farm was supposed to be mine!” Billy said fiercely, his meek attitude vanishing. grandpa Edward always said it would be mine someday, but he forgot to leave it to me in his will.”

, and then what happened?”

dad and I were arguing, and I was so upset that I wasn’t looking where I was going. I tripped and the gun went off.” Reaching for a box of tissues on the table, he scrubbed at his eyes. “My dad was only a few feet in front of me when he fell. I tried to give him CPR, but there was a big hole in his chest, and I got blood all over me, and I freaked out. I was scared my mom would never forgive me and I’d go to jail. The old well was just a few feet away, so I pulled the cover off of it, and I . . . I . . . You know the rest.”

me anyway.”

dragged my dad over to it, and pushed him down the hole; then I threw the shotgun in after him.”

Caroline lifted one hand from his shoulder and briefly covered her eyes while a visible tremor shook her entire body.

about fingerprints on the shotgun?” Torello prompted. did you do about those?”

, yeah. I wiped them off on my jacket before I threw the gun down the well.”

what?”

went back to the house, but then I started thinking I’d done the wrong thing. I should have called an ambulance and the police, so I called Grandpa Cecil, and I told him what had happened. I asked him what I should do. He told me to sit still and not call anyone until he got there. It took him a long time, because it had started to snow.”




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