“Chantal, will you stop—”

And that was when the flashbulb went off.

From over behind a beech tree trunk, a camera captured the altercation as fast as its shutter could blink open and closed.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, seriously—”

“Lane! Stop, Lane!”

At first, he wasn’t sure who was trying to get his attention. But then he realized it was Lizzie, and he did his best to talk over Chantal. “I know, I saw the camera. Go get in the car—”

“Lane! The blood!”

“What?”

As he froze, Chantal curled up a dainty fist with her free hand and served it like a Louisville Slugger, catching him right on the jaw. The impact caused his teeth to clap together, but she wasn’t done with him. Ripping her wrist free, a second shot came flying at him and nailed him in the nose, the pain like a bomb burst in the middle of his face.

Oddly, the only thing that went through his mind was those combat classes she’d taken at that health club she was a member of.

Guess they’d done more for her than just burn calories.

“Lane! The blood!”

Yes, he was bleeding and he stepped back from Chantal, bringing up his hands to his face. Meanwhile, Lizzie was right on it, coming to his defense and holding the other woman back.

“Chantal, you’re bleeding! You’ve got to stop this! The baby!”

And that was when the cops showed up.

Yup, that was definitely a police vehicle with its lights going, coming to a halt right behind the Rolls-Royce.

Like a streaker about to get chased off the fifty-yard line, the photographer bolted from behind the tree, the man running like hell across the field of gravestones. But Lane didn’t care about that.

What had Lizzie just said? What about the baby?

As Sutton got out of the front of the state-police vehicle, she wasn’t sure what she was looking at. Yes, that was the Bradford family crypt, with its iron gating open and both brass doors wide. And yes, that was Lane Baldwine, with his Lizzie—and Chantal Baldwine, whom he was in the process of divorcing.

But the rest of it didn’t make any sense.

Lane had blood running down his face and staining the shirt under his suit jacket. Worse, however, was the bright red rush on the inside of Chantal’s white jeans.

Had someone been stabbed . . . or shot? Or . . .

Even though Sutton wasn’t sure how to help, she rushed up the steps—and the police officer came with her.

“Chantal,” Lizzie was saying, “calm down, you’re bleeding!”

Whether it was the state policeman, the squad car, or the fact that there were now two more people involved, Chantal fell back into Lizzie’s arms and went lax as if she had either given up . . . or fainted.

Lane stared at the stain on the jeans. “Oh, dear Lord . . .”

“What’s going on here?” The state policeman who had driven Sutton over from Sanford Airport had been at the end of his shift, but now, he was clearly back on duty. “Do we need an ambulance?”

“Yes,” Lizzie said urgently as she helped Chantal lie on the marble landing.

Chantal widened her thighs, looked at the brilliant red stain, and let out a scream that flushed birds from a magnolia tree. “My baby!”

Lane ripped off his jacket and put it across the woman’s legs. “Call nine-one-one!”

As the policeman raced back to the squad car, Sutton crouched down. “What can I do?”

“How did you know we needed help?” Lane asked.

“Chantal,” Lizzie said to the woman, “just take some deep breaths. You need to stay calm—if you want to help your baby, you have to stay calm. . . .”

Chantal’s frantic eyes were the kind of thing you never forgot. “What’s happening to me? What’s wrong?”

Sutton glanced at Lane and tried to remember—oh, right. “I came in from the airport. I needed a ride over here to make it on time.”

“In a state-police car?”

Chantal let out a groan and then stiffened. “My baby!”

“Here.” Sutton took off her loose over-shirt. “Your nose is bleeding badly.”

As she held the folds out to Lane, he seemed momentarily confused. But then he took what she offered and put it to the lower half of his face.

“T-t-take me inside,” Chantal stammered. “There are photographers all around here—I don’t want this on the Internet!”

Lane leaned down closer. Through the muffling of the shirt, he said, “Chantal, we don’t know what’s going on here, so maybe we shouldn’t move you—”

“This is embarrassing! I’m bleeding!”

Sutton could only shake her head. “I’ve got her feet.”

Together, the three of them picked the woman up, carried her into the crypt, and laid her down again. Then Sutton went and closed the great brass doors.

“Is the ambulance coming?” Chantal’s panic echoed inside the interior. “When is it going to be here? What is happening to me?”

Sutton took a step back and wondered if she should leave. But no, she couldn’t do that. Instead, she cracked the doors and stared outside, praying for the ambulance to come—and it seemed like they were in there forever with the dead, with what possibly was another death happening in stages.

In reality, probably no more than ten minutes passed before distant sirens announced that the medics were somewhere in the twisted lanes of the cemetery.

“I see them!” she said. “They’re here!”

The state policeman went forward and waved the boxy vehicle over and then Sutton stepped aside as a gurney and equipment were carried up the stairs by a woman and a man in blue uniforms.

“That’s my husband,” Chantal said as soon as the EMTs entered. “Lane Baldwine is my husband and I’m eleven weeks’ pregnant.”

“Sir,” one of the medics said to Lane, “can you please help me get some basic information down while my partner examines your wife?”

Without thinking about it, Sutton went over to Lizzie and whispered, “Let’s step out, shall we?”

“Yes,” Lizzie said roughly. “I think that would be best.”

As they came out on the front step and went down to the lawn, Sutton blinked in the sunlight. She still wasn’t sure why she had come. Didn’t like to consider why she couldn’t seem to stay away. Really wanted just about everything here to be different.

“Your timing couldn’t have been better,” Lizzie murmured.

“It’s a little uncanny. And I know I shouldn’t intrude . . . I mean, this is not my family. But I—”

“Oh, God—”

Lizzie wobbled on her feet, threw out an arm, and Sutton caught her just as she seemed about to fall down. “Are you okay?”

“I’m going to be sick.”

Sutton glanced about and couldn’t see any paparazzi, but who the hell knew. “Come over here.”

Drawing Lizzie around the corner of the tomb, Sutton held the woman’s hair back as Lizzie crouched and dry-heaved.

For some reason, tears came to Sutton’s eyes.

Oh, who was she lying to. She knew exactly why.

Edward should have been here. And in her convoluted thinking, she had come as his proxy.

Yes, because that made sense. It wasn’t like they were together or anything. Then again, she supposed that when someone was in your heart to the degree Edward was in hers, it was as if you carried them with you wherever you were. And he should have been here for them all.

“Shh . . .” Sutton murmured as she rubbed Lizzie’s back. “It’s all right. . . .”

When the heaving relented, Lizzie collapsed on the ground, sitting against the tomb. “Oh, that’s cool. That’s good.”

With a curse, the woman let her head fall back. Her flushed cheeks were cherry red, but her mouth was a slash of white. And then she dropped a bomb.

“I think I’m pregnant,” she said in a thin voice.

TEN

“No, I’m not going in the ambulance with her.” As Lane shut that idea down, he didn’t care that the medics looked shocked. “We’re separated. She is not my wife and that is not my child.”