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“I’m dying, so that bitch is coming. She’ll take my ring. The ring Charlie gave me. Get it back for me, okay? Get them all back.”

As more blood pooled on the sheets, Sonya tried to rush forward, only to fall back.

She could only watch as Dobbs came into the room.

“With your death in this hour, your blood feeds my power. I feel it rise, I feel it surge. And your only song becomes a dirge. Onto my hand slides the ring of this Poole bride. All others who come, I will cast aside.

“For all time, the manor is mine.”

As Dobbs vanished, Clover’s eyes, almost lifeless, opened. “My poor Charlie, my poor babies. I couldn’t stop her. You can. You can.”

Sonya woke on the floor beside the bed. Yoda nuzzled against her as she wept.

PART TWOKnowledge

Knowledge is power.

—Sir Francis Bacon

Chapter Eleven

As she drew the dog to her, pressed her face to his neck, the phone beside her bed played INXS and “Baby Don’t Cry.”

Sonya just shook her head and held Yoda closer.

As she wept, her heart stuttering with pain inside her, the air chilled; the glass doors rattled.

Grief fed her.

Choking back a sob, Sonya struggled to fight her way through it. Should she call Trey at this miserable hour? She could run to Cleo for comfort.

And why? Why burden them in the middle of the night for what had been? For what she’d witnessed.

“No, no, I’m not doing that.”

Instead, she got up, and with the dog trailing her, went into the bathroom to splash cool water on her face.

“I was there.” Straightening, she looked at her own face in the mirror, saw the sorrow shadowing her eyes. “You needed me to be.”

In agreement, Clover answered with Marvin Gaye’s “Can I Get a Witness.”

“You can. You did. And I won’t forget. It’s all right, Yoda. We’re all right now.”

When he settled back in his bed, she settled in hers. And lay quiet.

She’d remember every detail, every detail of her father’s birth. She’d remember the strength and sweetness of the woman who’donly had minutes to be their mother. And in those minutes had shown them such love.

She’d remember the love she’d seen, even felt between the two people who’d created those lives. Brothers who, because of one woman’s dictates, never had a chance to be brothers.

She’d remember that tiny, squalling life had grown into a good man, a loving one who’d given her life.

“Thank you, Clover,” she murmured as she closed her eyes. “I wouldn’t exist without you. I wouldn’t be here. I promise you, I won’t forget.”

When sleep finally overtook her, she didn’t feel the presence watching over her, or the hand, slender, ringless, that lay gently on her cheek.

But she dreamed again, and again of the girl and the boy.

Now they stood in the sunlight, faces alive, so alive with love and laughter. He wore a flowered shirt, strings of beads around his neck.