“That baby’s a pistol. I’ll miss having that energy around. We need to have a family bash when Lily gets home.”

“We do.”

“But for now, it’s just you and me. Do you have time to sit by the pool with an old man for a bit?”

“No old man around I see, but I’ve got time to sit by the pool with my dashing grandfather. But tomorrow?” She poked a finger in his belly. “It’s back to the gym for both of us.”

“Slave driver.”

She walked over with him, crossing the lawn, then over the stone path. She sat with the sun dancing light over the blue water of the pool, stretched out her legs. Barely had time to say ahhh before Consuela walked down from the bridge with lemonade.

“What? You’re psychic now?”

With a mysterious smile, Consuela set down the tray. “Fresh berries—good for you. No phones,” she ordered, and left them.

He adjusted his hat. “I might have mentioned I hoped to sit with you here for a while, and lemonade would go down nicely.”

“That’s a relief, because a psychic Consuela’s terrifying. I think I’ll start swimming during my afternoon break.” She pointed at him before picking up her glass. “It’d be a good afternoon break for you, too.”

“Give the weather another month. Still too chilly for me. Now.” He picked up his own glass. “How are things going between you and Dillon?”

“We’ll see tonight when he comes over for dinner.” When her phone signaled a text, she winced.

“Cheat,” Hugh told her.

“I just want to see—Oh, it’s from Dillon. Hailey’s having the baby. He’s on his way to the birthing center. Hailey and Dillon are friends.”

“Yes, I’ve met her, and Leo and Dave. Consuela’s mother and Leo’s grandparents came from the same area of Guatemala.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“It’s a small old world. Well, a toast to the new family on the way.” He tapped his glass to Cate’s. “Sláinte.”

“Sláinte. Their lives will never be the same. I don’t mean in a bad way,” she said quickly when he blinked at her. “I saw, firsthand, how having Luke changed Darlie. Example: Before, she’d have skewered Dawson, then fried him up, chopped him to bits before feeding him to the wolves. But her son’s more important than her pride, than slapping back at Dawson.”

“If love isn’t stronger than pride, it isn’t love.”

“That’s . . . that’s completely true. And I’ve seen that truth, firsthand, all my life. Like Dad did, Darlie’s choosing her work differently. She said no to this series before because she wouldn’t leave her son for weeks and months on end, and wouldn’t take him away from his father for the same reason. Now she’s a single parent with a disinterested ex, so she took it. And partly because it removes Luke from the media chaos, the gossip, the speculations. I admire that.”

“So do I.”

“Dad did that for me, gave me Ireland. And after, you and G-Lil juggled me with him. One or more of you would always be there.”

“And now you’re here for me.”

“I sort of think we’re here for each other.”

Looking away from the sea, Cate scanned the vineyard, climbing up its tiered terraces, and the pretty little orchard where the April blossoms had fallen and the fruit began to form.

Season by season, she thought. Year by year.

“I never missed her, you know. I had such wonderful women stepping into the mother role for me. I hope Darlie finds some good men to do the same for Luke. She doesn’t have a family like ours.”

“Who does?”

Smiling, she toasted again. Then set down her glass when she saw Red walking toward them.

“Hi! Sit. I’ll run and get another glass.”

“I sure wouldn’t mind it.”

Consuela met her with one halfway across the bridge.

As she started back, she looked down, saw the two men in what read as heavy conversation.

Not a social call, she decided, though she’d expected just this.

She put on a casual smile as she walked down to pour Red a glass.

“Okay, now you can start over from the beginning. What do you think, feel, believe, suspect about Sparks, about all the rest?”

After fiddling with his Wayfarers, Red puffed out his cheeks. “I hate to pull you back into this, Cate.”

“I’ve never been all the way out of it.” Reaching over she rubbed her hand over Hugh’s. “Stop worrying about shielding me.”

“It’s always the first instinct, even when I know better.”

“Let’s think about it this way. Forewarned is forearmed.”

“I wish I had more facts,” Red told her. “More definites to give you. I can start with some of those. Sparks was stabbed in a communal area, just before the start of a scheduled movie viewing, so you’ve got a lot of inmates coming in, milling around some before they settled in. The shank missed vital areas.”

Demonstrating, Red tapped a fist to the left of the small of his back. “A couple inches over, it would’ve hit a kidney, and he’d be in more trouble. Sharpened toothbrush. He says he felt a sharp pain, reached back, got ahold of it, tried to pull it out. Went down.”

“It sounds painful, if not lethal.”

“Oh, he felt it. But a shank like that, you want to hit something important, and you want to hit more than once. If someone was trying to take him out, they did a sloppy, half-assed job of it.”

“Do you think it was more of a warning? Something not a part of any of the rest. Just some prison problem.”

Taking his time, Red drank some lemonade. “That’s a theory.”

She caught the tone, angled her head. “Not yours.”

“He’s got almost twenty years inside, never an incident. Mic and I go up and talk to him a few weeks ago, let him know we’re looking at him. He gets shanked, sloppy and half-assed.

“Denby gets shanked, multiple stab wounds, gut wounds, heart wounds—nothing sloppy about it. Scarpetti’s attacked, held underwater until he drowns. Clean, quick, done. The two who came after me? Bad luck for them I know the road better than they did, bad luck they boosted a car the driver couldn’t handle. But they sure as hell killed my truck, and they sure as hell planned it out.”

She spread her hands. “Leaving us with this being sloppy and halfassed. So different than the others.”

“Could be whoever’s behind this chose poorly this time out.”

Reasonable, Cate thought, nodding. “But that’s not your theory either.”

“I’m thinking it through, running it through with Dillon after I got word on it. The morning after it happened. We’re out there moving cattle from pasture to pasture. I’m saying it doesn’t add up for me, doesn’t smell right. And he says what I’m thinking.”

Red leaned forward. “What if the son of a bitch did it to himself?”

“Stabbed himself?” The air went out of her at the idea. “But that’s crazy, isn’t it? You said he barely missed his kidney.”

“But he did miss it, didn’t he? The man knows his body. He’s spent most of his life working on it.”