The gun barrel felt warm against Belle’s back, a fact she found surprising. Metal, she told herself, is usually cold. Cutlery is chilly; the band of my wristwatch is cool when I strap it on each morning. Then she remembered that the gun had been hidden within the woman’s boot. It had been prewarmed to body temperature. This process of deduction filled the space of two strides toward the woods and the person hiding there. The next step and a half Belle devoted to queries such as: What did the woman mean by “ruin this again”? If she knows me, why don’t I remember her? What roles do Ricky and his boss play? If I break free, will they help me? Or are these three people working together?

It’s amazing how fear elongates time, and how it crystallizes reason.

“Dammit! I know you’re out there!” the woman shouted as she impelled Belle toward the screen of trees. “I’m going to shoot this one if you don’t make an appearance. You wouldn’t like that, would you? Little Miss Manners.”

Belle remained mute. She studied the thick foliage, thinking that this might well be the last she saw of the earth. She noticed that the bittersweet vines had covered almost every bough and branch, leaping from one woody arm to the next like Tarzan flying through the jungle. Little Miss Manners, she thought, what a sorry epitaph. A choicer phrase inadvertently surfaced: Mark Twain’s “Be good and you will be lonesome.” I’m not all that proper and ladylike, she wanted to protest, but what would have been the use? Little Miss Manners. At least Sara would approve. But then, Belle realized, Sara would never know.

“I’m not pulling any more punches here,” the woman yelled, then slipped her free arm around Belle’s neck in a stranglehold while the gun’s muzzle continued boring into her spine. “You can bet your life on it this time . . . Now, you show your face or we’ll have an ‘accident’ on our hands, because, in reality, I caught this one trying to break into your cabin.”

“Whose cabin?” Belle managed to gasp.

“Shut your trap,” the woman ordered before resuming her forest-directed diatribe. “I’m telling you, I’m not waiting any longer. I’ve been playing too many games as it is.”

The woods remained bitterly silent, which only seemed to increase the woman’s anxiety. She prodded Belle again. “I’m running out of patience, here, and you know it. And you also know I’m renowned for my temper. You’re pushing me to do something I don’t want to do.”

The continued lack of reply made the woman’s voice explode. “Dammit! I knew we should have planned the job better. Too much was left to chance, but that’s the way he wanted it . . . ‘An accident,’ he kept saying . . . We’ve got to make it look like a tragic, freak occurrence.” Her voice rose in pitch; hysteria entered the words. “That fire should have been so easy . . . two women asleep . . . the boat engulfed in flames . . . if they manage to escape in the yacht’s tender, they’re burned and weakened . . . They can’t survive the night, and their battered inflatable finally washes ashore . . . No rescue, no remains . . . The sharks finish the job . . . Such a neat, neat scenario.”

Belle felt a tortured sigh ripple through the woman’s body. “We didn’t count on the damn propane tank blowing, and those bozos extinguishing the blaze before the Orion could sink . . . We didn’t count on you surviving. How could we have, especially after we’d taken the tender? I told him we should have killed you first, but he wouldn’t hear of it, would he? . . . And you, Miss High-and-Mighty-Fancy-Home, Miss Snooty Manners, herself . . . You couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you? Had to act like Lady Bountiful . . . Invite me to visit because I was ‘so distraught’ . . . ‘Poor Jamaica,’ getting older and uglier . . . Damn you, Genie!”

“Genie?” Belle gasped. “Jamaica?” Despite the gun and the choke hold, she tried to twist her head toward her captor. “Jamaica?” she repeated.

In response, Jamaica rammed her knees into the backs of Belle’s almost buckling her. “Shut up!”

“ ‘False face must hide what false heart doth know.’ ” The disembodied voice traveled solidly from the woods and through the trees. “Remember that, Jamaica? Macbeth, The Scottish Play . . . ? Of course you do. ‘Something wicked this way comes.’ Right?”

“The quote from the second crossword!” Belle blurted out while Genie moved slowly into view.

“Belle,” Genie said in a passionless voice. “It’s good to see you again.” She leveled hate-filled eyes on her friend, but her tone remained frighteningly serene. “You didn’t count on my finding this unsuspecting ally, did you, Jamaica? Neither you nor Tom. When your original plan failed, and I escaped, you assumed rightly I’d be too terrified to go to the police—that I’d believe any exposure would put me at risk . . . After all, Tom owns this town, you must have promised yourselves. ‘We merely have to find her . . . The rest will be easy . . .’ ”

The two women gauged each other. Although Belle continued to be held hostage between them, their enmity was so acute they scarcely noticed her.

“It must have been unpleasant for you two to find me capable of communicating anonymously,” Genie added. “I turned the table quite handily, didn’t I?”

Jamaica didn’t answer, so Genie continued. “Tom, I’m sure, was especially annoyed. His anger can be brutal, can’t it, Jamaica? . . . No, I forget, you must have been sequestered elsewhere. You could hardly afford to hole up in my house . . . Perhaps you haven’t yet experienced his displays of rage.”

“Tom has been nothing but gentle and loving with me, Genie. Very loving. A side you obviously have never seen.”

“Give him time,” Genie replied. “He’ll change. He’s a master . . . deceiver.”

“It’s been almost three years.”

“Really? My congratulations on concealing your mutual ardor so long . . . But three years of clandestine meetings is not the same as a marriage . . . I assume that’s what you’ve both been intending—a state of wedded bliss? Were you planning to scoot off to some faraway and deserted island? I’m so sorry to disappoint you. Poor Jamaica—always a bridesmaid, never a bride.”

“Damn you, Genie! Damn you for having everything—and for lording it over me every chance you got!” In her frustration and wrath, Jamaica yanked her arm from Belle’s neck. At the same time the hand holding the .38 slipped to her side, leaving Belle suddenly free, but too stunned and nervous to move.

“You’re a whore, Jamaica. You always have been.”

“At least I give my men some fun!”

“Do you let them try on your wigs while you’re going at it, or is that too kinky?”

“Are you asking me about Tom’s preferences, Genie? Because I certainly know all about yours. Your husband is a great talker, my dear . . . And dynamite in bed. Though I guess you wouldn’t know that.”

“Touché, Jamaica—although a trifle vulgar. But that was always your strong point, wasn’t it? Lessons learned from the casting couch, no doubt. It’s too bad you’re no longer young enough to use them.”

“Tom doesn’t care about age.”

Genie smiled. “Doesn’t he?” Both Belle and Jamaica felt the shift in intention. Jamaica took a single, belligerent step toward her former friend while Belle began edging slowly to the left. The gun twitched in the actress’s dangling hand. “I was waiting for you at Allyn’s Point.”

“That’s because you followed Belle.” It wasn’t a question; it was a statement, almost as if Genie had arranged the entire situation.

Jamaica heard the innuendo and hesitated while Belle soundlessly inched farther away, moving finally out of Jamaica’s reach. “Tom and I knew Belle would lead us to you.”

“And I knew Belle would lead me to you. Which she has.” Genie’s voice remained preternaturally calm. “So I’d say you and Tom are the ones in trouble now. I imagine that will be the police’s response as well—especially when I tell them how cleverly you both staged that little bon voyage party on the Orion: Tom boarding at the last minute, the concerned and caring husband armed with caviar and champagne—”

“Which you lapped up, sweetie pie—”

“At Tom’s urging. Looking back, the plan seems painfully obvious. My disingenuous husband with his professed dislike of the sea . . . his hunting cabin—and the trip he suddenly abandoned to spend time with ‘us girls’ . . .”

“No man would make me get so thoroughly soused I didn’t know which end was up—”

“Jamaica, the sensible and wise. That’s a new role for you, isn’t it?”

“It’s better than being falling-down drunk.”

Genie clenched her jaw, the only movement in her otherwise passionless face. “Too bad such a marvelous and Machiavellian plan failed.”

“It hasn’t, honey lamb. It’s only been postponed.”

“I disagree.” Genie took a languid step forward, while as if from the air, a flat black semiautomatic pistol appeared in her hand. Genie aimed at Jamaica’s chest. “Belle was my unsuspecting lure. She was the one who brought you into the open. Not the other way around. I’m the one who’s been waiting for you . . . And baiting you . . . You’ve got to be a fool if you don’t think I can have Tom back. Old age isn’t his bag—excuse the pun.”

Genie smiled. Then without drawing a breath or blinking, without a discernible motion passing across her face or through her body, she fired.

Jamaica’s hands flew helplessly through the air, clawing at her chest while her legs and torso crumpled to the reddening earth.

“ ‘An eye for an eye,’ ” Genie said as she suddenly focused on Belle.

“You must recognize that line from the last crossword I sent . . . I suppose the sixth puzzle isn’t necessary now. A shame, it would have given you a few choice nightmares . . .”

While Genie spoke she casually moved toward Jamaica’s inert body, slipped her semiautomatic pistol into her rear pocket, and picked up Jamaica’s fallen .38. For the first time Belle noticed she was wearing surgical gloves.

“It seems a pity, Belle . . . You’ve been such a help . . . But you must realize I can’t afford to have a witness . . . It would have been so much easier if Jamaica had done this for me . . . Killing her was easy. You? I’m not so sure.”

Belle took a horrified step backward. In her peripheral vision, she scanned the trees, the cabin’s rear entrance, the path that disappeared in the direction of the parking area. If she screamed, she’d be shot before the cry left her throat. If she ran, she’d get a bullet in her back. The thought, for some reason, seemed far more terrible than dying face-to-face.

“But you’ll be caught, Genie . . . If you kill me, the police will realize it was your gun—”

“Well, no, actually I’ll be using Jamaica’s gun.” Again, a horrifying stillness suffused the tone. “I’m sure you understand that I’ve had ample opportunity to plan this situation . . . You die with a bullet from Jamaica’s weapon; I shoot her in self-defense when she tries to finish the job she began on the Orion . . . That’s the story the police will hear. It’s simple and foolproof, and half the problem is already solved . . . The only person not in the mix is my darling husband . . . The poor innocent man whose wife’s best friend became so insanely jealous she tried to stage a fatal fire at sea. You have to admit my position is admirable—”

“What about the motel manager?” Belle interrupted. “What about other guests?”

“Sad to say, there are no other guests . . . And the manager, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, is totally deafened by his horrid television set.” Again Genie smiled. “I fired two test shots on Friday. Not a soul came to investigate. Even if the noise had been heard, the average apathetic citizen is far too eager to assume the sound is that of a backfiring car rather than risk getting involved . . . You’ll be missed, Belle.” Genie raised Jamaica’s .38 and leveled it at Belle’s chest.

“You’re right about that, Mrs. Pepper.” Rosco’s voice boomed forward as he darted around the cabin.

Genie spun toward the sound, but her reaction was too delayed and surprised to fight off the sudden intrusion. Rosco wrenched the .38 from her hand before she had time to fire.

Belle stared at Rosco. “There’s a second weapon in her back pocket,” she said, then gazed from Jamaica’s inert body to Rosco’s face. “How did you find me?”