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your holiday?”
    â€œOn the run with a bounty hunter, handcuffed to a bed in a cheap motel, being shot at by a couple of creeps—with a little detour up to your place in the mountains.”
    Bounty hunter, Grace thought, trying to keep pace. The man named Jack, she supposed, with the bronze-tipped ponytail and the stormy gray eyes.And the killer grin. Handcuffs, cheap motels, and shootings. Pressing fingertips to her eyes, she latched on to the least disturbing detail.
    â€œYou were at my place? When?”
    â€œIt’s a long story.” M.J. gave a quick version of a handful of days from her first encounter with Jack, when he’d tried to take her in, believing her to be a bail jumper, to the two of them escaping that setup and working their way back to the core of the puzzle.
    â€œWe know someone’s pulling the strings,” M.J. concluded. “But we haven’t gotten very far on figuring that out yet. The bail bondsman-cum-black-mailer who gave Jack the fake paperwork on me is dead, the two guys who came after us are dead, the Salvinis are dead.”
    â€œAnd Melissa,” Grace murmured.
    â€œIt was Melissa?” Bailey turned to Grace. “In your house?”
    â€œIt must have been. When I got home, the cop was there. The place was torn up, and they’d assumed it was me.” It took a moment, a carefully indrawn breath, a steady exhale, before she could finish. “She’d fallen off the balcony—or been pushed. I was miles away when it happened.”
    â€œWhere did you go?” M.J. asked her. “When Jack and I got to your country place, it was lockedup tight. I thought…I was sure you’d just been there. I could smell you.”
    â€œI left late yesterday morning. Got an itch to be near the water, so I drove down the Eastern Shore, found a little B-and-B. I did some antiquing, rubbed elbows with tourists, watched a fireworks display. I didn’t leave until late today. I nearly stayed over another night. But I called both of you from the B-and-B and got your machines. I started feeling uncomfortable about being out of contact, so I headed home.”
    She shut her eyes a moment. “Bailey, I hadn’t been really thinking. Just before I left for the country, we lost one of the children.”
    â€œOh, Grace, I’m sorry.”
    â€œIt happens all the time. They’re born with AIDS or a crack addiction or a hole in the heart. Some of them die. But I can’t get used to it, and it was on my mind. So I wasn’t really thinking. When I started back, I started to think. And I started to worry. Then the cop was there in my house. He asked about the stone. I didn’t know what you wanted me to tell him.”
    â€œWe’ve told the police everything now.” Bailey sighed. “Neither Cade nor Jack seem to like this Buchanan very much, but they respect his abilities. The two stones are safe now, as we are.”
    â€œI’m sorry for what you went through, both of you. I’m sorry I wasn’t here.”
    â€œIt wouldn’t have made any difference,” M.J. declared. “We were scattered all over—one stone apiece. Maybe we were meant to be.”
    â€œNow we’re together.” Grace took each of their hands in hers. “What happens next?”
    â€œLadies.” Seth stepped into the room, skimmed his cool gaze over them, then focused on Grace. “Ms. Fontaine. The diamond?”
    She rose, picked up the purse she’d tossed carelessly on the end of the couch. Opening it, she took out a velvet pouch, slid the stone out into her palm. “Magnificent, isn’t it?” she murmured, studying the flash of bold blue light. “Diamonds are supposed to be cold to the touch, aren’t they, Bailey? Yet this has…heat.” She lifted her eyes to Seth’s as she crossed to him. “Still, how many lives is it worth?”
    She held her open palm out. When his