“I’m sorry—you cannot come in,” Howard informed her as if he was reciting an unwritten law.
Rather than argue with the man, Brianna turned toward Jackson. “Did you just hear a cry for help? I definitely heard someone crying for help from inside the house.”
“That’s a cry for help, all right,” Jackson agreed flatly.
“Sorry,” Brianna informed the human roadblock, moving him forcefully aside with her arm. “It’s our duty to answer that cry for help.”
Howard turned, furious. “There is no cry for help,” he insisted.
But they were already inside, and Brianna was hurrying toward the raised voices and cursing coming from the downstairs library. Jackson made sure that the majordomo didn’t stop her.
The second they entered the library, the anger felt almost palpable. Appearing almost frenzied, Winston Aurora was doing most of the yelling, berating his son while his daughter, also in the room, hung back, her face oddly expressionless.
His back to the door, Winston was screaming at his only son, “You have to get out now! I’ll arrange for the flight out of the country and then I am through covering for you, do you understand? Through! It was bad enough when your grandfather was alive, causing mayhem, it turned out, without a single thought to what it was costing the family. What it wound up costing me!” Winston cried. “When he died and I realized what he’d done, I thought we were all done for. But it didn’t come to light and I was finally done with it! Finally free!
“I won’t be put through this again, do you understand?” Winston fairly snarled. “I won’t! Once you are out of the country, you are on your own. I never want to see you again! Do I make myself clear?” Winston shouted, his voice almost hoarse. The veins in his neck were standing out so prominently, they appeared ready to burst at any moment.
“Very clear, Mr. Aurora,” Brianna said in a distinct voice.
Startled, Winston spun around. He appeared torn between assuming his usual genial persona and being the furious man who found himself standing in the center of hell.
Finding his voice, Winston stiffly choked out, “You’re not invited here. Please leave!”
For his part, Damien Aurora looked like a cornered animal searching for an avenue of escape.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Aurora, but I think we’re way past polite invitations,” Brianna replied. “Detective Muldare, do you want to do the honors?” she asked, nodding toward Damien.
Jackson already had his handcuffs in his hand. “Damien Aurora, you’re under arrest for the murder of Mandy Prentice.” As he came toward Damien, Jackson began to recite, “You have the right to remain silent—”
Uttering a guttural cry, Damien lunged for his father’s oversize mahogany desk and yanked open the side drawer. Before anyone knew what was happening, Damien had grabbed his father’s handgun.
Holding the gun in both hands, the younger Aurora moved the muzzle of the weapon back and forth a full ninety degrees. The gun seemed like some sort of deadly windshield wiper going from one side to the other and then back again.
“No, you have the right to remain silent,” he screamed, an almost crazed look in his eyes. “So shut up! I’m getting out of here and no one’s going to stop me, understand?”
“Damien, think of the family,” his father ordered sharply.
“Yes, the family.” Damien laughed almost hysterically. “The wonderful, saintly family—you mean like Great-Grandfather George, who never met a woman he didn’t want to ravage and enshrine in cement?” The younger Aurora was reeking with contempt. “Hell of a family, Dad. I’m an improvement.”
“Put the gun down, Damien,” Brianna told him in a calm, low voice. “There’s no reason for anyone else to die. We can help you.”
“Help me?” Damien mocked. “You want to help me?” he asked, growing incensed. “Get the hell out of my way, that’s how you can help me,” he shouted, motioning them away, his eyes on the doorway and escape.
“Leave him alone!” Jocelyn cried suddenly. As everyone turned to look at her, she moved away from the shelter of the wall she’d been all but pressed up against while her father and brother were shouting at each other. “He didn’t do it.” The nondescript young woman raised her chin defiantly. “I did.”
“Shut up, Joss,” Damien ordered. “Don’t listen to her. She doesn’t know what she’s saying.”
But like someone in a trance, Jocelyn slowly moved toward her brother, almost transforming right before their eyes.
“I killed them. I killed all five of those tramps. That’s what they were,” she went on, her voice growing stronger. “All worthless whores, throwing themselves at Damien, trying to trap him with their bodies. He was just too good to see what they were doing, but I saw. I saw it!”
“Stop talking, Joss!” Damien cried. “Stop talking!”
But she just went on as if he hadn’t said anything.
“I saw it and put an end to it. Each and every time,” she said with a pride that was unsettlingly eerie. The smile curving her mouth was chilling. “It felt good to kill them,” she said, almost talking to herself now. “They were a blight, a stain on the earth.” And then she looked at her brother. “Why didn’t you learn? Why couldn’t you stop associating with those awful women and be with me? Love me like I loved you?”
She was barely an inch away from Damien now, and rather than being protective of his sister, his eyes were widening in terror. Somehow, she’d managed to grab the gun from him, and in a blink of an eye, she was now pointing the weapon at him.
“Put that gun down, Joss,” he begged. “You don’t want to shoot me.”
“Oh, but I do,” she said with an odd little laugh. “I do. I’m tired of all this, waiting for you to come to your senses. But more than shooting you for being so heartlessly blind, I want to shoot her,” Jocelyn suddenly declared, pivoting to point the gun at Brianna. “I saw the way you two were looking at each other.
