through happy.”
“It is.” Aidan looked after her. “I’ll be happier when this investigation’s over. I’ve stretched things so I could stay a little longer. I can stretch them again.”
“One minute I convince myself Conrad Buster’s death has nothing to do with Cate, with us.” Hugh pushed his coffee aside. “The next I’m convinced it has everything to do with her.”
“She’s a smart, sensible woman.” Lily laid a hand over Hugh’s. “We’re smart, sensible people. We’ll do what we always do, and look after each other.”
“Spoiling the mood.” Aidan pushed the coffee back toward his father. “It should be about wedding talk and scripts. Just what’s this one about?”
Willing, Hugh picked up his coffee again. “Well, I’ll tell you.”
They lingered another half an hour before strolling back to the house.
Then nothing and no one stood between Jessica and the cottage. Excitement built as she covered the ground—but she covered it carefully. She had to avoid the sea-facing side and that impressive glass wall. So straight in the front door. Unless someone looked out from high in the main house, in just the right direction, at just the right moment, she was home free.
After one glance back, she walked to the front door. She took out the gun, turned the knob.
Nice she left it unlocked, Jessica thought. But why not? Secure estate, security cameras, staff all over. She took one big breath, leaped in.
Despite knowing about it, the sight of the Pacific rolling through that wall stunned her. Ordering her pulse to level—and being ignored—she crossed the empty living room, the open kitchen, trying to move with her gun the way they did in movies.
Competently, but carefully, sweeping from side to side.
She glanced at the stairs, but heard nothing. Absolutely nothing but the sound of the sea.
She saw the door, closed, with a sign on it that read: RECORDING IN PROGRESS
Angling toward it, she kept an eye on the stairs, just in case. Unlike the front door, this one was locked. Frustrated, Jessica stepped back, considered shooting the lock—they did that in the movies, too.
But she wasn’t sure if it would work, and if it didn’t, it might give Cate time to call for help.
Trembling a little, she checked the time. She’d eaten up more than an hour, might need that much time to get back to the car. That meant she still had plenty of time to do what she’d come to do.
Once again she waited, and as she waited scanned the cottage to decide just how to set Caitlyn Sullivan’s final scene.
Cate completed two thirty-second spots. Edited them.
A productive hour, she thought as she sent them. She intended to have fun with the video game work and thought she had the character voice nailed down. But she wanted one more read-through, one more rehearsal. She decided half a Coke would set her right up, give her a little pump before the read-through.
And unlocked her studio door.
She didn’t see the woman or the gun until she’d taken two full steps out.
“Stop right there.”
Instinct had Cate throwing up her hands.
“I want you to walk right to the center of the room. Slow.”
Two steps back, she thought. Could she make it? Then what? She didn’t have a phone inside the studio. Out the window? Maybe, maybe.
“I can shoot you where you stand. I’d rather not.”
The voice shook, but Cate couldn’t tell, not yet, if it was nerves or excitement.
“Who are you?”
“I’m Grant Sparks’s fiancée, and I’m here to pay back the woman who ruined his life.”
Nerves, Cate decided. And some pride. “That wouldn’t be me, since I was ten when they kidnapped me.”
“Not you. You’re the same as you were then. Useful. I’m going to kill you, and Charlotte Dupont’s going to get the blame. She’ll finally pay. Now walk over here.”
“You want Charlotte to pay?” Cate smiled. A Sullivan knew how to sell dialogue, even on the fly. “Me, too. The bitch had me kidnapped, her own daughter! She’s used me all my life. How the hell is killing me making her pay? She doesn’t care about me and never has.”
“They’ll think she did it.”
“Really?” Defiantly, Cate rolled her eyes. “They’re going to think Charlotte Dupont figured out how to get through the security, came in here, and shot me? Why the hell would they think that? If you do this, they’ll just look at Sparks again.”
“No, they won’t.”
“Of course they will. She’s got the best lawyers money can buy. She’s spent years crying about how she wants to be my mommy