Prologue
She was coming back. The cunning little tart had managed to fool them
all. She'd survived the blow on the head, the coma. So far she hadn't
said a word, but there was no counting on that happy state of affairs
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to continue.
She had a reason for her silence, there was little doubt of that.
She would have to die. Sooner or later. Before she decided to start
talking. Before she decided to turn the tables, and try her delicate
hands at a little extortion. She would have to die.
The only problem was how to arrange it. Make it look like an accident?
Or make it look like someone else had murdered her. That would be the
most delicious of all. Kill two birds with one stone. She would die.
And he would he blamed.
Ah, life could be very sweet indeed.
SHE WAS COMING BACK. He had no choice in the matter, Patrick Winters
thought as he slammed around the
empty kitchen. She'd been hurt, she needed time to recover. She'd
been implicated in a suspicious death, and she'd refused to answer
questions. The police wanted her readily available, and he was the
logical person to provide her a place to live.
He leaned back against the kitchen counter. It was just past dawn, and
if he was a decent, caring man he'd be preparing to drive across the
river toNew Jersey , to the hospital, and fetch her back to Winter's
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Edge, the only home she'd ever known. She'd lived there for seven
years, and she had no place else to go.
If she had, he'd gladly send her there. He never wanted to see her
again, not if he could help it. She'd caused too much harm, destroyed
too much, with her willful anger and childish spite. He wanted her
away from here, out of his life.
Before he made the mistake of thinking there might be something else,
some faint glimmer of hope.
He'd been a fool in the past. He wasn't about to let her make a fool
of him again. She'd come back, spin her persecution fantasies, and
then, once the police or someone was able to force the truth out of
