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me. I waited until it was worthwhile to use what I knew.”
    Kendall schooled her face to impassivity. There was one thing the woman couldn’t know, had no way of knowing, and no way of getting to even if she did. But if Alice were to even suspect there was still another copy—
    “And even if you were able to produce a copy of this supposed addendum,” Whitewood put in smugly, “I promise you, you would never be able to prove its validity.”
    “I witnessed it myself,” Kendall said, “as did Mr. Carver.”
    “Carver,” Alice said, with a thoughtfulness too studied to be genuine. “Oh, I remember. He used to be our driver.”
    Kendall went very still. “Used to be?”
    “Yes. Wonderful that he came into all that money, wasn’t it? Now he’ll be able to open his own mechanic’s garage, as he’s always wanted.”
    Kendall stared at Alice, unable to believe what the woman had admitted so easily. She had to be very, very sure she was going to win. Perhaps, Kendall thought grimly, with reason.
    “You paid Carver? To deny that he witnessed Aaron’s will?”
    “Not at all. Although I’m sure he’s grateful for the money, and wouldn’t want to see any harm come to his benefactor.”
    Kendall took a deep breath. She knew they would have an answer for what she was about to say, but she had no choice. “You’re forgetting one little detail,” she pointed out. “I witnessed that document, too.”
    “Well, now,” Whitewood said, again adjusting his cuffs, “I don’t think that will be a problem. It is, after all, a forgery.”
    Kendall whirled on the man. “What?”
    He gestured at the pasteboard envelope Alice held. “I can produce several expert witnesses to testify that that isn’t Aaron Hawk’s signature, but a forgery. A good one, but a forgery.”
    Kendall suppressed a shiver; Aaron had underestimated his wife’s viciousness. She wanted to run, to race out the big front doors and into the fresh air, away from the miasma that permeated this room. But she couldn’t. She had to stay, she repeated silently, and see this through.
    She drew in a breath. She put her hands on the back of one of the heavy mahogany chairs, trying not to grip it so hard that it would betray her anxiety as she met Whitewood’s smug gaze.
    “But I know it’s not,” she repeated firmly.
    “The court,” Alice interjected, “is not likely to believe someone who’s already been paid to produce this forged document.”
    Kendall froze, then relinquished her grip on the chair as she slowly turned to face the woman who had made her uneasy from the day she had moved into the guest wing of this house at Aaron’s behest. Alice Hawk was laughing, that chilling, malignant sound again. The woman leaned back in her chair, confident, smiling.
    “What,” Kendall said carefully, “are you talking about?”
    “Why, I’m talking about the hundred thousand dollars that was deposited in your bank account this morning, dear.”
    She didn’t bother to question it; she knew that if she checked her account, the money would be there. Alice was, again, far too gloatingly triumphant to be bluffing.
    “Deposited . . . by whom?”
    “The one person who stands to gain from this forgery, of course.”
    Kendall let out a long exhalation. She should have known. “Of course. Aaron’s son.”
    “His bastard,” Alice corrected coldly.
    Exactly.
    Jason West’s quiet, unperturbed reply to Alice’s declaration of that same fact at the funeral echoed in her mind. She felt an unexpected stab of sympathy for the man who would no doubt scorn the emotion just as his father had.
    “That hardly matters,” Kendall said. “Legitimate or not, he would still have a legal claim. Anyone looking at him would know he was Aaron’s son, but there are tests that will prove—”
    “He’ll forfeit any legal claim,” Whitewood interjected smoothly, “when it’s revealed he attempted to perpetrate a forgery for financial gain.”
    Kendall backed up a