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.“She refused to.She said we should just go on back, and I should let her take care of everything.”“Then she was trying to protect you—”“No!” She dumped the cat off her lap.“She was protecting herself! I knew she was sneaking around behind Father’s back, performing in Casino.Why Nick picked her I’ll never understand, but I don’t care.”Dani stood in front of Sara and touched her hand, the nails perfectly manicured, a pale pink.“Sara, what happened to Mother?”“She fell.”“On the rocks?”“Yes!” Fat tears rolled down her cheeks, but she remained eerily still.“I was so upset.I must have backed her up too close to the edge of the rocks, and then when she tried to tell me what to do—I shoved her.I didn’t mean anything by it.It was just a reaction.” Tears continued to drop down her cheeks, mingling with the others, dripping off her chin.She didn’t seem to notice.“It was an accident…it was so dark out there…”Dani held back her own tears.“Then what happened?”“Well, I…I buried her, of course.”“Where?”“At the pavilion.” The whites of her eyes were red, the eyelids swollen, and her speech was slurred.“I thought I’d get the courage to confess everything, but Father—he already despised me.I was too wild, I wasn’t his perfect Lilli.And Mother had just died, and I needed him, and then I thought, would it be exciting for Lilli just to have disappeared?”Dani didn’t argue with her.It was far, far too late for what Sara Chandler should have done the night her sister fell.“She’d be a mystery instead of just another dead heiress.” She smiled at Dani.“Do you think people would have made such a big deal about her role in Casino if she hadn’t been a missing heiress? You see, I gave Lilli what she really wanted.Because of me, she got her fame, her mystique.”“But, Sara—”“No, it’s true.Don’t you see? Without me, Lilli wouldn’t have achieved the status she has.”Dani took her aunt’s hands into hers and held on tight.“I’m not disagreeing with you, Sara, but I need you to listen just a moment.Okay? Just listen.”Her aunt didn’t seem to hear her.“And Father didn’t suffer.Not really.I became his Lilli for him.She wouldn’t have done half of what I’ve done for him.Look at what she did the first time she was to serve as hostess for the Chandler lawn party.She went hot-air ballooning with Mattie Witt! Left me to dress her only daughter! She didn’t even show up.” Sara looked at Dani, smiled sadly.“My only failing, of course, was that I could never be your mother.”Hanging on to the shreds of her own self-control, Dani fought an urge to tear at her hair and scream at the sky, to let out everything that was raging inside her.“Sara, what did Joe want when he came back here?”She bit her lip.“He…I’d confessed to him.I got his address from Quint Skinner when he tried to interview your father, and—and I asked him to come see me when he got out or came home on leave.I suppose I shouldn’t have.”“You told him everything that happened that night?”“Oh, yes.”And there you have it, Dani thought, feeling no sense of victory, only a crushing emptiness.But now, at least, the pieces fit together.She touched her aunt’s arm.“Sara, did you look over the rocks and actually see where Mother fell?”“Wh-what?”“Could you see her from where you were standing?”“No, I…It was dark.”“But you buried her yourself.”Sara didn’t respond.“I need to ask you one more question,” Dani said softly.“Sara, you’re not as tall as Mother was—you’ve always weighed less.How did you get her back up the rocks to the pavilion?”Sara’s eyes narrowed in confusion.“What?”“It’s a tough, steep climb.I’ve done it.”“I don’t know what you mean—”“You couldn’t have carried her by yourself.Sara, Roger knew what had happened, didn’t he? You said he was there with you at the springs.”“He…It was dark…he knew it was an accident…” She cleared her throat, struggling to reassert the cool heiress who would know what to do, what to say, in any awkward situation.“He said I should leave and he’d take care of everything.Dani, please—please don’t say anything.You have to understand! Roger’s protected me all these years.He can’t be a part of this.”Dani felt a surge of warmth and pity toward her aunt, even as the sure, inescapable agony of loss swept through her.“Sara, I met Joe on the rocks,” she said carefully.How could she go on? How could she explain? “He asked me if there was any way up from the bottom, any path.I told him there’s one that winds around and hooks up with one of the old carriage roads, which branches out into various narrow paths, one of which leads back around to the top of the cliffs.It’s the long way around—well over a mile.The only other route is straight up the rocks.”Sara frowned.“I don’t see your point.”“I found the gold key Mother was wearing on a ledge about fifteen feet below where you said she’d fallen.”“So? Danielle,” she said, reverting to Chandler formality, “what are you trying to say?”“I’m saying no one would drag a dead body—” ah, no “—a mile or more or straight up a sheer rock cliff to bury her at the pavilion.Why not bury her where she fell? I’m saying,” she went on hoarsely, “that you don’t have that kind of strength.Neither does Roger.”“Joe wasn’t there—”Dani shook her head, cutting her off.“Mother only fell fifteen feet.She landed on the ledge
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