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Ignoring her, he scrambled over the roof tiles, just like either Lance or his stunt double had done in a dozen films. The flash seemed to have come from the big tree that draped the property between Bram’s house and his neighbor’s. “You’re going to break your neck!” she cried.
He lowered himself over the edge of the veranda roof, hung by his fingers for a moment, then dropped to the ground.
All the security lights in the rear of the house came on. He clambered to his feet, shot off across the yard, and disappeared behind a thicket of bamboo. Seconds later, his head and shoulders emerged as he climbed the high stone wall that divided his property from next door.
Of all the stupid…She rushed downstairs and ran out into the backyard, which was lit up like midday. The idea of having such a private moment exposed to the world made her sick. She hurried along the path to the wall, her Crocs slapping her heels. The wall rose a good two feet above her head, but she found some footholds in the stones and began pulling herself up. A sharp edge scraped her calf. Finally, she climbed high enough to brace her arms across the top and see what was happening on the other side.
The neighbor’s yard was bigger and more open than Bram’s, with formally clipped shrubbery, a rectangular swimming pool, and a tennis court. Here, too, the security lights had come on, and she could see Bram racing across the lawn, chasing a man who was gripping what could only be a camera. He must have climbed the tree to spy on them, but he had to be using some kind of high-speed film, so the flash must have gone off accidentally. Who knew how many pictures he’d taken before he’d given himself away?
The photographer had a long head start, but Bram wasn’t conceding. He jumped over a row of shrubs. The man hit an open space of lawn. He was small and wiry, no one she recognized. He disappeared around a cabana.
A woman flew out of the neighboring house. In the light flooding the yard, Georgie saw long, light hair and a silky peach robe. The woman rushed down a set of semicircular stone steps into the yard, which didn’t seem like the brightest thing to do with an unknown intruder on the prowl. As she stepped into a pool of bright light, Georgie realized two things at once.
The woman was Rory Keene…and she had a gun.
Chapter 11
Georgie called out softly…ever so softly…and in her friendliest, most soothing voice. “Uhm…Rory? Please don’t shoot.”
Rory spun toward the wall, her blond hair flying. “Who is that?”
“It’s Georgie. York. And that man you just saw running across your yard was Bram. My…uh…husband. You probably shouldn’t shoot him either.”
“Georgie?”
Her toes were going numb inside her Crocs, and she was starting to slip. “A photographer climbed your tree to take pictures of us. Bram went after him.” She tried to cling tighter to the top of the wall, but her arms were getting tired. “I’m…losing my grip. I have to get down.”
“I think there’s a gate at the end of the wall.”
Georgie made it to the ground, but not before she’d scraped her other shin.
“It’s here somewhere,” Rory called from the ot
her side as Georgie picked her way along the stones. “The studio owns the house, and I haven’t lived here long, so I haven’t really looked for it.”
Georgie located the wooden gate, partially hidden behind some shrubs. “I found it, but it’s stuck.”
“I’ll push from my side.”
The gate dragged but eventually gave way enough for Georgie to slip through. Rory stood on the other side with the gun resting in the folds of her nightgown. Despite her long, sleep-rumpled blond hair, she looked cool and calm, as if confronting nighttime intruders was all in a day’s work. “What’s going on?”
Georgie looked around for Bram, but he was nowhere in sight. “I’m really sorry about this. Bram and I were out on our balcony when a flash went off. A photographer was hiding in that big tree of yours. Bram went after him. It happened so fast.”
“A photographer sneaked on my property to watch your house?”
“It looks that way.”
“Do you want me to call the police?”
If Georgie were an ordinary citizen, that’s exactly what she’d do, but she wasn’t, and the police weren’t an option. Rory arrived at the same conclusion. “Stupid question.”
“I need to…I’d better make sure Bram hasn’t killed anybody.” She took off in the direction he’d disappeared. Just as she reached the pool, she spotted him coming around the side of the house. Other than a slight limp and a murderous expression, he seemed unharmed. “The son of a bitch got away from me.”
“You could have killed yourself jumping off the roof like that.”
“I don’t care. That cockroach stepped way over the line.”
Just then he spotted Rory coming toward him, the gun dangling at her side like a Prada purse. Georgie couldn’t help but envy her. A woman as coolheaded as Rory Keene would never wake up in a Las Vegas hotel room married to her oldest enemy. But then a woman like Rory Keene controlled her life, not the other way around.
