“Why would you set out to steal your sister’s husband?” Sadie didn’t actually care; she was merely curious for the purposes of putting all the pieces together.

“Our mother, God rest her no-good soul, left me here with my father. I put up with his mental abuse my entire life until the COPD killed him. By then I’d considered all sorts of ways to kill him myself, but thankfully I didn’t have to. I realized, of course, what mother chose to do was not really Lana’s fault. But Lana’s decision to take her son—to whom I had grown quite attached—away from me was her fault. She shouldn’t have been so cruel. I decided it was only fair that I make her pay for that shameless decision. Oh, and I made her pay in all sorts of ways.”

Sadie gritted her teeth and let the woman carry on with her confession. Too bad she hadn’t turned on her phone’s recorder. Just went to show it was never good to be emotionally involved in a case.

Just her fucking luck to make the same mistake twice in one shitty lifetime.

“Why did you let Asher go too far?” Sadie said, her voice catching in spite of her best efforts. “Why didn’t you do something?”

“That was her fault,” Naomi said miserably. “Asher found out his mother believed his father was having an affair, and he started digging around. Sadly he found far more than the affair. He even had me fooled at first.” She sighed. “I had no idea the only reason he took the appointment here was to get close to me again. To find the truth.”

“You understand,” Sadie said, barely holding on to her emotions, “his murder is as much your fault as the shooter’s.”

Naomi nodded, her expression distant. “I do, and for that I cannot forgive myself.” She made a dry sound that was likely intended to be a laugh. “Or her.” Her lips tightened. “My idiot sister even called me in the middle of the night last night demanding to know if her husband was here.” She snorted. “Like I would have told her if he had been. Twisting the knife a little harder was all I had left.”

Sadie’s spine stiffened as her instincts kicked in more fully. “Have you spoken to or seen him?”

“Not since the day before yesterday,” Naomi said. “As I said, I presumed Lee had killed Asher, and I needed him to tell me I was wrong. Not that it mattered who pulled the trigger. Asher’s death was like my own. Worse, actually. My one goal from that point was to survive long enough to see that his killer was found.”

All those years she had spent as a cop nudged at Sadie to call for backup, but she didn’t dare slow the momentum of the conversation.

Despite her concern for what Naomi might have in mind, Sadie had to ask, “Did he tell you what happened?”

“He said he knew who had killed Asher, and he was going to have his revenge the old-fashioned way. The way they did things in the Bible.” She laughed, another of those dry, brittle sounds. “I wasn’t sure I believed him, but he refused to meet with me. Just as well, I suppose. I would probably have killed him with my bare hands, and that would have been a mistake. You see, when Lana called last night, quite hysterical, she said all sorts of unpleasant things. Including the fact that on Sunday night she and Lee had a terrible fight. She actually slapped him. Obviously, Lee couldn’t have killed Asher if he was in Boston arguing with his stupid wife.”

“Maybe your friend Emma Warren killed him,” Sadie suggested. Naomi had said she had a friend in the mayor’s office. Who knew it was the mayor herself and that they were more than friends?

But Sadie got it now. They were business partners. The puzzle pieces were all falling into place.

Naomi made a face. “Emma gives the orders. She never executes them. She has always been the real power.” Naomi smiled. “She’s just like me. Born into a man’s world. But she, too, took the power. She found herself pregnant at fifteen, and her father, who was already disappointed she wasn’t a boy, shipped her to Galveston and then to Birmingham to be rid of her. But she showed him. She achieved her law degree at Samford just as I did. We became very good friends. We had so much in common—powerful, abusive fathers. I helped her find her place in Birmingham. Introduced her to her future billionaire husband. I helped mold her into an unstoppable force, and her father had no choice but to see she was his ticket to great things in this country. A doorway. A very important one.”

For the first time in her life, Sadie found herself at a loss for words. “What’re you saying?”

The older woman smiled. “Emma’s father is very much alive. His name is Carlos Osorio. The child she had at fifteen was Eduardo. I think you knew him.”

Shock quaked through Sadie. “That’s not possible.”

She laughed. “Trust me, dear Sadie. Carlos sent her away, and she clawed her way to the top; she became the one with the power. Carlos took orders from her. Raised her son like a wet nurse.” Naomi laughed long and hard; this time the sound was full of amusement. “He became the wife and mother. How ironic is that?”

Fury burned through Sadie. Now she had her answer. “So if what you said is true, even if Warren didn’t kill Asher, she must have given the order.”

“No, no,” Naomi contended. “Emma wouldn’t do that to me. She understood what he meant to me, that he was my life. Someone else did this without her consent. It’s the only possible explanation.”

Sadie was the one who laughed this time, a dry, weary sound. “You keep telling yourself that if it makes you feel better.” She pushed to her feet. “If Warren is really who you say she is, I guarantee you she gave the order.”

“You can’t possibly know that,” Naomi argued, staggering to her feet.

Sadie drew her weapon. “You might want to get back to that joint. Finish while you can, because I’m calling this in.” Sadie fished out her cell with her left hand. “I regret that I can’t do the honors myself, but I’m not a cop anymore.”

Naomi collapsed back into her chair and reached for the lighter. “The sooner this is over, the better.”

Sadie made the call to 911.

Then she sat down to wait and keep an eye on the woman. Naomi Taylor wasn’t going anywhere before the police arrived.

She should have known better than to worry. Just before the sirens sounded in the distance, Naomi had a seizure and stopped breathing.