I felt confusion mix with the dull hammering of pain in my head as I took in the features hovering over me.

  "Jennifer?" I asked.

  She smiled, showing off a row of white teeth that gleamed in the moonlight. "So you're awake and coherent."

  Sort of. I still had no idea where I was or how I'd gotten there.

  But as Jennifer Foxton pulled a shiny silver gun from the Louis Vuitton handbag slung over her shoulder, one thing became clear—I was in serious danger.

  "Get up," she ordered.

  I swallowed, willing my body to comply as I slowly peeled myself off the ground, swaying only slightly with dizziness as I stood.

  "W-what's going on?" I asked, unable to tear my gaze from the gun.

  "I'm tidying up," she answered, her voice hard and devoid of emotion. "Move," she commanded, motioning to her left with the gun.

  I glanced around, hoping to find Max Ford and his companion nearby. No such luck. In fact, I didn't see any other warm bodies around. It seemed while I was out, Jennifer had pulled me far onto the green. I could hear the faint sound of the party still going in the distance, the lights from the main building distinguishable on the horizon. I wanted to scream for help, hoping to get their attention, but I knew they were much too far away to hear. I'd be a goner before anyone could get to me.

  With little choice, I slowly moved in the direction Jennifer indicated. Panic heightened my senses as I felt the cool grass against my toes and caught the light evening breeze bringing the scent of Jennifer's Chanel No. 5 toward me. "Where are we going?" I asked.

  "Somewhere no one will hear us," she said simply.

  I licked my lips. "You mean, hear you shoot me?" I squeaked out.

  "Oh, you are a clever little pain in the rear, aren't you?"

  Not so much. In fact, my not-so-clever little brain was whirling, trying to figure out why the socialite had a gun on me. "You killed Heather?" I surmised.

  "Of course I did," she stated simply again. Almost as if discussing her manicure or the price of caviar. "She had to be stopped."

  "Stopped from what?" I asked. Not that it really mattered now. What mattered was keeping Jennifer talking until some groundskeeper or caddie sneaking a couple rounds in at night found us. The farther we walked from the clubhouse, the more distant that hope was becoming, but I clung to it with all my might.

  Jennifer sighed in answer to my question. "I know someone like you wouldn't understand," she reasoned. "But my husband is about to be elected to Washington. DC," she added for emphasis. "John has worked hard all his life for this. He deserves a place in the senate. And then…who knows? Maybe even the White House one day."

  That was some fancy dreaming. But what I didn't get was what it had to do with Heather's murder. "I still don't understand. Where does Heather come into that?"

  I slowed, looking back at Jennifer.

  Her eyes had taken on a dilated look that betrayed the mania bubbling just below her calm surface. "You know what Heather was doing, don't you?"

  I paused. "The fake wine?"

  She let out a laugh, her lips curling into a sneer. "I knew you knew too much."

  Oops. Me and my big mouth. "Was the senator involved in her wine scheme somehow?" I asked.

  "Of course not!" she spat out, anger suddenly transforming her features. "How dare you even suggest such a thing!"

  I held up my hands in a surrender motion as the gun bobbed close to me. "Sorry. I-I'm just trying to understand."

  "Well, understand this—without me, Heather would have been nothing. You know she was a cocktail waitress when James met her?" she scoffed. "Trash. I made her into Heather Atherton. I introduced her to all the right people, vouched for her character, sponsored her to society."

  "All those right people…who Heather then sold wine to," I said, the picture becoming clearer.

  Jennifer's mouth went into a thin, hard line. "Yes."

  "Fake wine. You vouched for someone who was bilking your friends for thousands of dollars."

  "That greedy, ungrateful thing," Jennifer went on. "How shortsighted and stupid could she be? One little thing like that and you're in the midst of a scandal. You cannot have that kind of thing follow you to Washington. You have to be above reproach. It would have ruined John."

  I could think of a few current politicians in Washington who were well below the reproach line, but I didn't argue. "You were afraid someone would find out what Heather was doing and blame you?" I clarified.

  "How would that have looked for John?" she asked. "I have to be above reproach. And good heavens, think of the disaster it would be to his fundraising! You think any of those people would contribute to his campaign after that? We would be ruined. But did she care?"

  I was guessing not, but I didn't answer, letting Jennifer go on with her tirade.

  "This was all just temporary for her," she said, sweeping her arms in a wide gesture that encompassed the entirety of the golf club and momentarily took the gun off me. She must have noticed her mistake, as she quickly straight armed it back, the shiny muzzle pointing right at my heart.

  Which might have stopped beating for a second.

  "Temporary? So she was planning to leave James?" I said, honestly pretty impressed I could even find my voice. I was having a hard time remembering to just breathe as I stared down the handgun.

  "Yes," Jennifer confirmed. "She was playing him. Using him. Using me! She didn't even care if she got caught. She was milking our crowd for all they were worth. Then she planned to leave town with the proceeds."

  "Tucked away in the Cayman Islands," I mused.

  Jennifer narrowed her eyes. "What? How did you know that?"

  I shrugged off the minor details. "Lucky guess. And Heather told you all of this?"

  Jennifer sucked in her already thin cheeks, seemingly contemplating how much to tell me. But considering she was walking me on a slow hike to my death, she must have decided to indulge me.

  "Not at first, no. Cole let something slip."

  "Cole?" I asked.

  "The man has this thing for pillow talk," she said, waving the idea off as ridiculously romantic.

  I paused. "So you were sleeping with him too?"

  Jennifer laughed. "Wasn't everyone?"

  I guess they pretty much were. Eww.

  "What did he say?" I asked. Though, in all honesty, I was less interested in the golf pro's pillow talk than in keeping her talking while I conjured up some escape route from thin air. I glanced to my left—lots of well-tended lawn, a small pond, a sand trap. To the right—more flat lawn. No buildings, no trees. Great for making sure your ball didn't encounter obstacles but terrible for trying to hide from a murderer with a gun.

  "What did Cole tell me?" Jennifer went on. "Just that Heather had mentioned leaving James. Which I thought was ridiculous—we all know they had a prenup and she'd get nothing. Heather was too used to the lifestyle to leave it."

  "So you knew she had to have money put aside," I said.

  She nodded. "That's when I started asking around about how much business she was doing. You know the definition of rare wines is that there aren't very many of them. And yet, it turned out that this amateur was finding them hand over fist. I wondered how she could get her hands on so many bottles so quickly. So, I did some digging of my own. I followed her to find out what she was up to."

  "Where did she go?" I asked.

  "Dixons."

  I frowned. "But she didn't get her wine from there," I said, genuinely confused.

  "Didn't she?" Jennifer raised an eyebrow my way, a smile creeping along her lips that said she knew something I didn't.

  I thought back to the notes on Heather's inventory list. They'd all said Dixons, but I knew for a fact that none of the bottles had gone through there. However, I had seen Max Ford pulling out of their parking lot…

  "I can see you're trying to put it together," Jennifer said, almost gloating that she'd figured it out faster.

  In my defense, she hadn't just been knocked unconscious and had a gun pointed at her.

  "So help me out. What did you see at Dixons?"

  She smirked. "Her partner."

  "The Man in Black."

  She blinked at me. "Who?"

  "Max Ford."

  "Ah." She nodded. "Yes, I saw Heather meeting up with that cretin in the parking lot of the auction house. He was handing off a case of full counterfeit wine bottles. They were only using Dixons as a drop off point. Great cover, really, if anyone ever saw Heather there. It would just look like she was picking up bottles she'd bought in an auction." She paused. "She wasn't stupid, I'll give her that. And it really was quite the clever little scheme."

  "What tipped you off that the bottles were fake?" I asked.

  She smiled. "The empty bottles I saw when I looked in her trunk the next day. I borrowed her keys while she was having a 'lesson' with Cole," she went on, doing air quotes with one hand, "and took a peek in her trunk. I just wanted to see what sort of bottles she was moving. Imagine my surprise when I found not only the case Ford had handed off to her but another case of old empty bottles. I put two and two together, and they added up to Heather passing off fakes."

  "Did she know you were on to her?"

  Jennifer frowned. "Of course not," she said, as if I'd insulted her intelligence. "She didn't have the slightest clue that I knew until the night of the Wine and Chocolate party."

  "Where you confronted her?"

  "She was getting sloppy," she said, her voice going louder, hinting at emotion.

  "Oh?" I asked, my eyes darting to the green behind me. I could just make out a gathering of trees several yards to our left. If I could get to that for cover, I might be able to attract enough attention for help to come…

  "Yes, sloppy," Jennifer went on. "That partner of hers showed up at the party. I mean, she couldn't even keep him in check?"

  "He argued with Heather there," I said, retelling what I'd heard from Caroline.

  "He approached her, and I told them to take the discussion outside. People might start to stare."

  "What was the discussion about?"

  Jennifer frowned at me. "Well, I don't know. What would I care?"

  I mentally rolled my eyes.

  "All I cared about was that she was going to get caught. Someone was going to find out. And I told her as much as soon as that man left."

  "And what did she say?"

  Jennifer's expression went cold and dark. "She laughed and said she didn't care. That by the time anyone figured it out, she'd be on a tropical island spending their cash." Her eyes cut to mine. "And I'd be left holding the bag as the scandal broke." She practically snarled that last bit out, looking more animal than human in the dark shadows.

  I swallowed hard. Jennifer had always struck me as slim and slight, but with the menacing edge to her voice and the predatory gleam in her eyes, I realized she was stronger than I'd given her credit for. More dangerous.

  "I couldn't have that," Jennifer went on. "You understand. Imagine what that would do to my husband's campaign? Elections are in November!"

  "So you killed her?"

  "I couldn't afford for a scandal like that to kill the dreams that my John and I have worked so hard for. So I saw an opportunity, and I took it."

  "The cake knife," I surmised.

  She nodded. "Who better to kill the pretty new wife than the jealous old one? I slipped it into my handbag when no one was looking. Then I told Heather that odious man was outside again, waiting for her in the alleyway. Of course, she believed me. I followed behind her, and it was just too easy to end it all right there."

  I felt nausea in my stomach, reliving the scene I'd found that night. Thinking that this polished woman in front of me had been the one to create it.

  "You framed Leah," I said, anger starting to mix with the cocktail of fear that was already brewing in my belly.

  Jennifer shrugged. "It wasn't all that hard. I mean, the woman practically framed herself. The fight at the club, the way she was avoiding Heather all evening."

  "Did you vandalize the Chocolate Bar too?" I asked.

  "Oh God no."

  Well, at least there was that.

  "I had a couple of teenage caddies do it."

  Of course. "But why?" I asked.

  "That woman was let out on bail. I had to keep the police focused on her and not the club." She paused. "You know that detective had the gall to actually question members here? On club grounds? I don't even know how they let him in."

  I thought it probably had to do with his badge and gun, but I didn't think now was the time to point that out.

  "Of course, then they let you in too, didn't they," she added.

  "I'm a guest of a member," I squeaked out. Why did everyone have such a hard time believing I should be there?

  She just snorted back. "And you just had to keep picking at Heather's death, didn't you? Had to go asking questions, waving that picture of that man around to anyone who would stand still."

  "Sorry?" I tried on. But I didn't think it was very convincing.

  "Yes, me too. I'm sorry you didn't just leave it alone. Sorry you had to keep digging. Sorry you had to show up here tonight."

  So was I. More than she knew. I glanced around. No magical escape route had suddenly opened up. No weapons appeared from nowhere, no flash of inspiration from the sky. I was on my own.

  And I was running out of time, I realized as Jennifer took a step forward, her perfect pointy-toed pumps sinking into the freshly watered ground.

  "And now, you need to disappear," she decided. "Move."

  "What are you going to do?" I asked as she prodded me on, walking me farther from the main building.

  "I'm not going to do anything. You are going to trip into the pond and drown."

  "And if I don't want to trip?" I asked, the bravado in the words sounding false even to my own ears.

  "Then I'll shoot you."

  Okay, at least drowning gave me options.

  My mind buzzed between the confession she'd just made, the murky water awaiting me, and anything that possibly stood between me and it to prevent my "trip" as we walked silently across the grass toward the ninth hole pond. The evening song of the crickets competed with the drumming of my heart, which pounded like mad in my ears. As we rounded the sand trap, moonlight trailed across the surface of the small pond, guiding the way to my apparent death.

  "Get in," Jennifer commanded.

  "I-in there?" I asked, looking at the dark muddy water.

  "Yes."

  "But it's gross," I protested. Yes, I was totally stalling. Because I thought I had seen a flash of something across the lawn. It was low to the ground and could have just been a shadow or light playing across the green as a cloud rolled over the moon.

  "Are you kidding me with this?" Jennifer said, clearly at her wit's end. "You'll only feel it for a second. Then you'll be dead."

  I pursed my lips. "But it looks really cold," I said. No, it was definitely not a shadow. I saw it again. A figure moving low across the grass in the darkness. I felt the tiniest bubble of hope in my chest, even as I reminded myself it was more likely a raccoon than the cavalry.

  "Oh for goodness' sake, fine. I'll just shoot you," Jennifer decided.

  I swallowed hard as my attention shifted to the gun in her hand. I heard my breath in my ears, felt my heart beating inside my rib cage as the shiny metal gleamed in the soft light. I should have seen my life flash before my eyes, but honestly my mind was a total blank. Every thought I had, every muscle in my body, all focused on that gun barrel.

  A scuffling noise sounded in the distance to the right.

  Jennifer heard it too, her eyes flitting from me to the sound.

  Which was all the invitation I needed.

  I shot forward, tackling Jennifer in the middle. I heard a loud scream, which, in hindsight, might have come from me, as we both fell to the ground and the gun went off. The loud crack of the shot cut through the stillness of the night like thunder.

  Jennifer cursed, grabbing a handful of my hair with her free hand. I cried out, gripping her right arm and slamming it into the ground over and over until the gun broke free from her grip.

  I dove for it at the same time Jennifer did, our hands colliding and pushing it down the muddy banks of the pond and into the murky waters.

  "Look what you've done!" she cried, her anger coming out in a primal scream as she jumped on my back, flattening me to the ground.

  The taste of grass filled my mouth as I spat out a wad of it. I bucked up, pushing her off me.

  "This is not how it's supposed to happen!" she screeched, her eyes big and wild.

  I tried to stand, but Jennifer was quicker. She grabbed another handful of my hair and dragged me toward the lake on my hands and knees. I was crawling at an intense pace, stuck between holding my scalp, trying to keep up, and listening to Jennifer yell obscenities. She only stopped dragging as my knees hit the water.

  I tried to get my feet under me, but she jumped on my shoulders, forcing my face into the murky pond. Inhaling a lungful of water, I panicked, kicking out and using my hands to try to get her off me.

  My face hit the muddy bottom, and time stood still. Everything moved in slow motion as oxygen became limited and she held my head down. The light from the moon above permeated the dirt suspended in the water around me, and reeds slowly danced against my cheeks. My chest squeezed with panic, and tears stung as I became lightheaded. My hands stilled and my mind slowed.

  I couldn't die like this. I still had so much to do. I had to let Grant know that Jennifer was the killer. I had to save the winery. I had to make my father proud. I had to be there for my mother.

  Finding a renewed strength from some forgotten store, I pushed my hands into the dirt and forced myself up, gasping for much needed air. Jennifer tried to push me back, but I rolled over, forcing her into the water, splashing and cursing. As she tried to gain her footing, I clawed my way back to the grass, gasping as I got my feet under me.

  And ran.

  Jennifer was a second behind me, sloshing from the pond as I took off toward the lights of the clubhouse. My breath was loud in my ears, my ankle throbbed, and my lungs screamed for air. I heard Jennifer behind me, getting closer with every step. I had no plan. I was running blindly, praying I got to someone before she got to me.