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floor lamp. She muttered an oath of her own when the lamp stayed dark.
    The power was still on. Damn it, he hadn’t replaced the bulb again. She started forward, intending to give him a good shake, and tripped over him.
    “Andrew, for God’s sake!” In a brilliant flash of lightning she saw him at her feet, still wearing the tux he’d put on the night before.
    It wasn’t the first time she’d come across him passed out in his clothes, sprawled on the floor and stinking of liquor.
    The anger came first, one hot spurt of it that pushed her to just turn around, just walk out and leave him where he’d fallen. Then the disappointment, the grief flooded in.
    “How could you do this to yourself again?” she murmured. She crouched down, hoping he wasn’t so far gone that she couldn’t rouse him and get him into bed.
    It struck her suddenly that she didn’t smell whiskey, or the sick sweat that carried it. She reached down, shook him, then with a sigh laid a hand on his head.
    And felt the sticky warmth. Blood.
    “Oh God. Andrew. No, oh please.” Her smeared and trembling fingers probed for a pulse. And the bedside lamp switched on.
    “He’s not dead. Yet.” The voice was soft, with a light laugh at the edges. “Would you like to keep him alive, Miranda?”
     
    Normally Ryan hated to repeat himself, but he let himself into Elizabeth’s suite exactly as he’d done before. It wasn’t the time for fancywork. The rooms were silent and empty, but that didn’t matter to him.
    He’d have found a way around, or through, any occupant.
    In the bedroom, he took out the jewelry case precisely as he had two nights ago. And removed the locket.
    It was only a hunch, just a kernel of ice in his gut, but he’d learned to follow his instincts. He studied the old photographs, saw no particular resemblance. Then again, perhaps around the eyes. Maybe there was something around the woman’s eyes.
    Using a small probe, he popped the elegant little oval out. She’d had it inscribed under her photo, not her husband’s. He’d thought she would.
    And his blood was cool and steady as he read it: Miranda, on the occasion of your sixteenth birthday. Never forget where you come from or where you wish to go. Gran
    “We’ve got you,” he said quietly, and slipped the locket into his pocket. He was already pulling his phone out as he hurried back out to the corridor.
     
    “Elise.” Miranda forced herself to speak calmly, to keep her eyes on Elise’s face and not on the gun that was pointed dead-center at her chest. “He’s badly hurt. I need to call an ambulance.”
    “He’ll keep for a while.” With her free hand, she tapped the neat bandage on the back of her own head. “I did. It’s amazing how quickly you can bounce back from a good bash on the head. You thought he was drunk, didn’t you?” Her eyes glittered with delight at the thought. “That’s really perfect. If I’d thought of it and had time, I’d have gotten a bottle and poured it over him. Just to set the scene. Don’t worry, I only hit him twice—not nearly as often, or as hard, as I hit Giovanni. But then Andrew didn’t see me. Giovanni did.”
    Terrified Andrew would bleed to death while she did nothing, Miranda snatched up a T-shirt from the littered floor, balled it, and pressed it to the wound.
    “Giovanni was your friend. How could you have killed him?”
    “I wouldn’t have had to if you’d left him out of it. His blood’s on your hands, just like Andrew’s is right now.”
    Miranda curled her fingers into her palm. “And Richard.”
    “Oh, Richard. He killed himself.” A faint line of irritation dug between her eyebrows. “He started falling apart right after Giovanni. Falling apart, piece by piece. Cried like a baby, told me it had to stop. No one was supposed to die, he said. Well.” She moved her shoulders. “Plans changed. The minute he sent you that ridiculous e-mail, he was dead.”
    “But you sent the others, the faxes.”
    “Oh yes.” With her free hand, Elise twisted the delicate gold chain draped around her neck. “Did they frighten you, Miranda? Confuse you? Make you wonder?”
    “Yes.” Keeping her movements slow, she tugged a blanket from the foot of the bed and settled it over her brother. “You killed Rinaldi too.”
    “That man was a constant annoyance. He kept insisting the bronze was real—as if a plumber would know anything about it. He even stormed into Elizabeth’s office, babbling, rambling.