to go after Tisiphone.
Dread swept over Rafe and a tickle lurched in his throat. Swanson knew Lisa was still alive. She’d been watching Lauren’s house, which meant she knew Maria and Billy had been there. She hadn’t left here to night headed for Odyssey and the other two Furies. She was going after Lisa.
“Mierda.” Frantic, Rafe reached for his mike and whipped around. “Billy. Goddammit, it’s a setup!”
Lisa swallowed a scream. The bottle slipped from her fingers and bounced off the tile floor. Cold water splashed across her feet as she took a cautious step back.
Christy Swanson narrowed her eyes and lifted the gun at her side. “Surprised to see me?”
Lisa’s heart thumped erratically against her ribs, but she refused to let her fear show. “I shouldn’t be, should I?”
Christy shook her head slowly. “You’re resourceful. I’ll give you that much. Doug always said you were the smartest woman he knew. Used to gnaw on every one of my goddamn nerves.”
The venom in Christy’s voice made Lisa’s adrenaline spike. She darted a look over Christy’s shoulder to the doorway leading to the living room.
Glancing back at the woman holding a gun in front of her, she spoke louder, hoping Shane would hear their voices. “Not as smart as you, Christy. You tricked everyone.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. I was never good enough for Doug. He was the only family I had left. I would have done anything for him. But in his eyes I was never smart enough, never tough enough, never what he really wanted. He wanted the Furies, and I couldn’t get them. He wanted you to be the one taking care of him, not me, even after the way you betrayed him.”
Christy’s voice hardened. She moved forward. The gun wobbled in her hand. “Do you have any idea how that made me feel? I gave up my whole life to help him. The least he could have done was pay me an ounce of fucking respect. But no, he had the nerve to compare me to you.”
She laughed, an evil sound that echoed through the kitchen and sent a shiver down Lisa’s spine. “You! A lying, conniving whore with absolutely no sense of loyalty! When he learned you’d found Alecto, he was stupid enough to think it was going to bring you back to him. Can you believe that? He wanted Alan to help him find you. I couldn’t stand back and let that happen.”
Lisa’s stomach tightened with understanding, and she eased back another step until she bumped into the counter. “You killed him.”
Christy’s eyes blazed with both hurt and fury. “Mercy. That’s what I gave him. He should thank me for what I did for him. He would have died within the year anyway. I eased his suffering.”
Lisa glanced over Christy’s shoulder again. Where the hell was Shane?
“He’s not coming, you know,” Christy said in a mocking tone. “No one’s coming for you this time.”
Lisa’s eyes shifted back to Christy’s menacing glare.
“He’ll have a massive headache when he wakes up, but he’ll live. I want him to know you died because of your obsession with the Furies. I want someone else to feel an inkling of what I felt all these years.”
Panic squeezed Lisa’s chest.
Christy grabbed her by the hair and thrust her toward the patio door. “We have one stop to make first, though. Before this is over, you’re going to get me the Furies. I deserve that much at least.”
Rafe drove ninety on U.S. 1 north toward the Rickenbacker Causeway. He swerved in and out of traffic, swore at an old man out for a Sunday drive in the middle of the friggin’ night.
Billy hung onto the safety handle above his head with one hand and kept the cell phone pressed against his ear with the other. “Still no answer at the house. They’re not answering their cells either.”
“Hijo de puta.” Rafe ran a hand over his face and tried like hell not to panic. He should have listened to his gut. Goddammit. He should have listened to Lisa and brought her with him.
“Try Pete again.”
Sweat beaded his forehead. He slammed on the brakes at the tollbooth, dug change out of his pocket and tossed it into the coin basket, then punched the gas before the light turned green and tore off across the West Bridge.
Billy lowered the phone and dialed again. He darted a worried look Rafe’s direction. “Signal keeps dying.”
Carajo.
Muscles rigid, Rafe drove the six miles in silence and turned into the Village