Sour Grapes

have to take care of them.” It took Savannah’s sleep-drugged mind two seconds to realize that she was no longer dreaming. And when she did, she lunged for her nightstand and yanked the drawer open. Inside was her Beretta.
    “Don’t!” Catherine said. “If you do, I’ll shoot you dead right now. I swear I will.”
    Savannah saw the glint of the gun that was only a few feet from her head. The moonlight was bright enough for her to see the front end of the barrel and know it was high caliber.
    She froze, as she had been ordered to do.
    “If you do everything I tell you to do,” Catherine was saying, “I’ll let you live for a few more minutes. Because I want you to hear what I have to say to you. I want my words to be the last thing you hear on this earth.”

Chapter

25

    W ith a super charge of adrenaline coursing through her bloodstream, Savannah’s mind raced, thinking of a hundred plans, but discarding each one. Catherine was close, but not close enough for her to grab the gun.
    She couldn’t possibly get her Beretta out of the nightstand drawer in time to use it without being shot herself.
    No weapons were within reach, and she couldn’t imagine defending herself with a pillow against a high-caliber pistol.
    “Have you ever been married, Savannah?”
    What the hell does that have to do with anything? she wondered.
    But she said, “No, I haven’t”
    Catherine chuckled... a most unpleasant sound. “I didn’t think so. You aren’t really the sort of woman that men want to marry, are you?”
    Not sure how to answer that one, Savannah said nothing. She didn’t want to give Catherine the satisfaction of her admitting that, indeed, no man had ever asked. But then, there was no one to whom she would have said yes, so maybe it was just as well.
    “If you haven’t been married,” Catherine continued, “you can’t know what it’s like to have your husband betray you with another woman.”
    “I can imagine.”
    “No, you can’t. Until you’ve experienced it, it’s truly unimaginable. The rage that you feel, the incredible hurt, the images that play over and over and over again in your mind. You see her touching him. You see him touching her, doing all those special things with her that he’s done with you. You think of sweet things he’s told you, things you treasure, and you wonder if he said those things to her. And you lose those precious memories, because when you recall them, they don’t give you pleasure anymore, because... you wonder...” “ You’re right,” Savannah said. “I’ve never suffered that particular pain. It must be terrible.”
    “You’re damned right it is. And don’t patronize me. Don’t try to be my girlfriend here, because in a few minutes I’m going to kill you.”
    “Catherine,” Savannah said as gently as she could, “ I wasn’t the one who slept with your husband.”
    “No, but you took him away from me and our boys. I had it all fixed. I had forgiven him, and we were going to go on from there. But tonight he’s in jail instead of being home with us where he belongs. And that’s your fault.”
    “If you kill me, Catherine, you’ll get caught, and then where will your boys be? With both of their parents in prison, what’ll happen to them?”
    “Both of us won’t be in prison. After I shoot you, I’m going to turn myself in. I’m going to confess that I killed Barbara. I’ll tell them that Anthony had nothing to do it. That isn’t completely true; he’s the one who threw that little whore over the cliff. I told him that if I could kill her and get her off our backs, the least he could do was get rid of the body. And he even screwed that up. I’m telling you, men are helpless.”
    “Did he know you were going to kill her... and the other girl, too?”
    “Not until afterward, when I told him I had already done it... for us.”
    “So he had nothing to do with the actual murders?”
    “That’s what I said. You aren’t listening.”
    “But when I questioned him this evening,” Savannah said, “he confessed.”
    “He’s protecting me, taking the blame so that I can stay free and be with the boys. And I can’t let him do that. A man who’s killed two teenage girls—he’d get a death sentence. But they’ll go easier on me, a woman. I’ll tell them everything, about that little slut coming after my husband. I’ll tell them that I was temporarily insane, and if there’s one woman on that jury, I’ll be found not