Praise for the novels of
CARLA NEGGERS

“Neggers’s characteristically brisk pacing and colorful characterizations sweep the reader toward a dramatic and ultimately satisfying denouement.”

— Publishers Weekly on The Cabin

“Tension-filled story line that grips the audience from start to finish.”

— Midwest Book Review on The Waterfall

“Carla Neggers is one of the most distinctive, talented writers of our genre.”

—Debbie Macomber

“Neggers delivers a colorful, well-spun story that shines with sincere emotion.”

— Publishers Weekly on The Carriage House

“A well-defined, well-told story combines with well-written characters to make this an exciting read. Readers will enjoy it from beginning to end.”

— Romantic Times on The Waterfall

“Gathers steam as its tantalizing mysteries explode into a thrilling climax.”

— Publishers Weekly on Kiss the Moon

Also by CARLA NEGGERS

THE RAPIDS

NIGHT’S LANDING

COLD RIDGE

THE HARBOR

THE CABIN

THE CARRIAGE HOUSE

THE WATERFALL

ON FIRE

KISS THE MOON

CLAIM THE CROWN

Watch for CARLA NEGGERS’S

next novel of romantic suspense

DARK SKY

Stonebrook Cottage
Carla Neggers

www.mirabooks.co.uk

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Special thanks to Christine Wenger (again!), Fran Garfunkel and her lawyer friends, my lawyer friends and Zita Christian, for their expertise and willingness to dig for answers…and to all my friends in Connecticut—Zita, Leslie O’Grady, Liz Aleshire, Linda Harmon, Bea Sheftel, Mel and Dorothy and CTRWA gang, for reminding me that the beauty of your state isn’t just the lay of its land, but also its people.

Closer to home, many thanks to Paul and Andrea for helping me keep in shape—okay, get in shape!

Amy, Dianne, Tania, Jennifer, Meg—what a year it’s been! Thanks for everything!

Sam and Kara’s story was great fun to do. I love hearing from readers. I hope you’ll visit me at www.carlaneggers.com or write to me at P.O. Box 826, Quechee, VT 05059.

Take care,

Carla Neggers

This one’s for you, Joe

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Prologue

B ig Mike Parisi was the first-term governor of Connecticut and a dead man. He knew it even before he hit the water.

He couldn’t swim, an embarrassment not a half-dozen people knew.

His big, tough body belly-flopped into the water of his elegant pool and dropped hard and deep, hitting the blue-painted bottom that so beautifully reflected the summer sky. He managed to push up off the bottom and out of the water and yell for help.

“I can’t swim!”

No help would come. His voice barely rose above the gurgling fountain halfway down the classic, kidney-shaped pool. His own damn fault. He’d refused to let his state trooper bodyguards out back with him. If I get stung by a bee, I’ll yell bloody murder. You’ll hear me. What the hell else could happen?

Someone could try to kill him.

He’d rented a house for the summer in Bluefield, a picturesque town in northwest Connecticut. Stockwell country. People assumed he wanted to be close to his lieutenant governor, Allyson Lourdes Stockwell, so they could strategize. The truth was, he was worried about her. Allyson had problems. Big problems.

Hadn’t occurred to Big Mike to worry about himself.

“Help!”

As he splashed and kicked, he saw the bluebird that he’d been trying to save. It was barely alive, soaked in the chlorinated water, slowly being sucked toward the pool filter.

They were both doomed, him and the bluebird. It was a juvenile, its feathers still speckled. It looked as if it had a broken leg. It couldn’t have been in the water long.

Clever. His death would look like an accident. Michael Joseph Parisi drowned this afternoon in his swimming pool apparently while trying to rescue an injured bluebird…

Christ. He’d look like an idiot.

Some murdering son of a bitch had dumped the bird in the deep end, knowing he’d bend over and try to scoop it up. Bluebirds were his hobby, his passion since his wife died six years ago. They’d had no children. His desire to help restore the Eastern bluebird population in Connecticut and his personal interest in bluebirds weren’t a secret.

Not like not knowing how to swim. That was a secret. Hell, everyone knew how to swim.

His mother had regularly dumped his ass in the lake as a kid, trying to get him to learn. It didn’t work. She’d had to get his brother to fish him out.

Was the bastard who’d planted the bluebird watching him flail and yell?

It’d look like a goddamn accident.

Rage consumed him, forced him up out of the water, yelling, swearing, pushing for the edge of the pool. It was so damn close. Why couldn’t he reach it? What the hell was he doing wrong? He could hear his mother yelling at him. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Michael, you’re such a wienie. Swim, for the love of God.

These days a mother like Marianne Parisi would be arrested for child abuse or put on pills or something. Total nutcase, his mother was, though she meant well. She died of a stroke when Mike was twenty-four, still thinking her second son would never amount to shit.

The pool water filled his nose and mouth, burned his eyes. He coughed, choking, taking in even more water. He couldn’t breathe.

There’d be a lot of crocodile tears at his funeral.

Allyson would do fine as governor…

Who the hell was he kidding? Allyson had her head in the sand. He’d tried to help her, and he knew that was why he was drowning now.

Murdered.

They’d have to cut him open. They’d find out he hadn’t hit his head or had a heart attack or a stroke. He’d drowned. The autopsy wouldn’t pick up where he’d been poked in the ass. It’d felt like a stick or a pole or something. The pool was fenced in, but the deep end backed up to the woods. His murderer could have hid there and waited for Mike to come outside, then tossed in the bluebird when he had his back turned.

Easier to shoot him, but that wouldn’t have looked like an accident.

He stopped yelling. He stopped flailing.

The faces of the living and the dead jumbled together in his head, and he couldn’t distinguish which was which, couldn’t tell which he was. Thoughts and memories, sounds came at him in a whirl. He could see bluebirds all around him, dozens of them, iridescent in the sunlight.

Ah, Mike, you had it good….

But all of that was done now.

He prayed the way he’d learned in catechism class so long ago.

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee…

His mother came into the bright light now, shaking her head, not with disgust this time, but with love and bemusement, as if she hadn’t expected him so soon. His wife was there, too, smiling as she had on their wedding day thirty years ago.

They held out their hands, and Big Mike laughed and walked toward his wife and his mother, and the bluebirds, into the light.

One

A ustin was in the grip of its fifteenth consecutive day of ninety-plus-degree weather, a quality of Texas summers Kara Galway had almost forgotten about during her years up north. Even with air-conditioning, she was aware of the blistering temperatures and blamed the heat for her faint nausea. The heat and the seafood tacos she’d had for lunch.

Not Sam Temple. He was another possibility for her queasy stomach, but not one she wanted to consider.

She’d been putting in long hours since Big Mike’s death two weeks ago, but memories of their long friendship would sneak up on her no matter how deep she buried herself in her legal work. Kara had met him through her friend Allyson Lourdes Stockwell, now the governor of Connecticut. She and Kara had gone to law school together, before Allyson’s husband died of cancer and left her with two toddlers to raise on her own.

Henry and Lillian Stockwell were twelve and eleven now. After Big Mike’s funeral, they’d flown back to Texas with Kara, and she’d dropped them off at a kids’ dude ranch southwest of Austin, a long-planned adventure that Allyson had decided not to cancel, despite the trauma of Mike Parisi’s death. Henry and Lillian had loved him, too. Everyone had.

The kids wrote to Kara, who was their godmother, from the ranch, complaining about the food, the heat, the bugs, the snakes. They never mentioned Big Mike.

Kara tried not to think about him, or his funeral. How he’d died. The Connecticut state police and the state’s chief attorney’s office were conducting a joint investigation. But none of that was her concern. All she should concentrate on were Henry and Lillian, who would be spending a few days with her after their dude ranch experience, then flying back to Connecticut to enjoy the last of summer and get ready for school.

Seeing them would be a welcome distraction.

George Carter stopped in the open doorway to her office and peered at her. “You sick?”

Kara focused on her boss. “I think I had bad seafood tacos at lunch.”

He winced. “There’s no such thing as a good seafood taco.”

At sixty-two, George Carter was a man of strong opinions, a prominent and respected attorney in Austin, a founding partner of Carter, Smith and Rodriguez, African-American, straightforward, brilliant, father of three, grandfather of two. He was also one of Kara’s biggest doubters. He made no secret of it. He said he liked her fine and didn’t hold her Yale education or her years as an attorney in Connecticut against her. He’d never even asked her about her Texas Ranger brother. His doubts weren’t personal. George was a buttoned-down lawyer who fought hard and played by the rules, and Kara was an out-of-the-box thinker, someone who came at problems sideways by nature, training and experience. She liked to get a fix on the complexities of a problem, understand every angle, every approach, before committing herself to a strategy. In other words, the two of them were polar opposites.

He’d agreed to hire her the previous fall on a one-year contract because, he said, he thought she brought skills and a way of thinking to the firm that it needed. At the end of the year, if the fit between her and Carter, Smith and Rodriguez worked, she’d become a full partner. If not, she’d be looking for work.

“Damn, it’s freezing in here.” He gave an exaggerated shiver. “I’m getting goose bumps. What’s the air-conditioning on?”

“Sixty-eight. I’m still acclimating to August in Texas.”

“You’re wasting energy and running up the electric bill.”

He was six feet tall, his hair just beginning to turn gray, an impressive figure in court with his deceptively understated suits and manner—but Kara didn’t believe for a second he was cold. He had on a coat and tie. She just had on slacks and a simple top, and she wasn’t cold.

She felt her stomach roll over. Maybe she’d developed an allergy to seafood.

She thought again of Sam Temple. She was accustomed to men who preferred to love her from afar. Romantics. Nothing about Sam Temple was from afar—it was up close and personal, immediate. And crazy, inexplicable, totally unforgettable. She pushed him out of her mind because thinking about him was insanity. Having a Texas Ranger for a brother was one thing—sleeping with one was another. George would hold that against her.

He shook his head. “A born-and-bred Texan like you, fussing about the heat.”

“When I first went up to New England, I was always complaining about the cold. I thought I’d never get used to it, but I did. It’s like that now with the heat.”

“There’s no end in sight to this heat wave, you know.”

She’d seen the long-range forecast on the news that morning. It was August in south-central Texas. What did she expect? She pushed back her chair slightly from her desk. Her office was small, with standard furnishings. She hadn’t bothered adding pictures and her own artwork, the lack of personal touches giving it a temporary feel, as if she was stuck between the kid she’d been here and the woman she’d become up north.

She smiled at George. “You didn’t come here to listen to me complain about the heat.”

“No, I didn’t. Kara—” He sighed, obviously not thrilled with what he had to say. “You’ve had a rough couple of weeks. I can see they’re taking their toll on you.”

She knew what he was talking about. “Mike Parisi was a good friend.”

His warm, dark eyes settled on her. “Nothing more?”

“No.”

But Big Mike had wanted more. He admitted as much after she’d decided to move back to Texas. He was half in love with her, he’d said, and had been since his wife had died, but didn’t want to ruin their friendship by saying anything. Now that she was leaving, he wanted her to know. When she met a man in Texas, he’d told her, don’t hold back. Go for it. Life was too short, his own missed opportunities too numerous, too bitter, to contemplate.

Would it have made any difference if he’d told her sooner?

No, she thought. She’d never been in love with Big Mike. Nor had he been in love with her—not really. He knew it that day in Connecticut and so did she.

Kara smiled, picturing him in his cluttered office, a fat cigar stuck in his mouth. “He liked to tell me bad Texas jokes,” she told George Carter. “He thinks—he thought we were all hard-asses down here.”

“The new governor, Allyson Stockwell, is a friend of yours, as well?”

Kara nodded. Allyson’s husband, Lawrence Stockwell, had died ten years ago, now Big Mike. Two strong, powerful men in her life. Lawrence’s half brother, Hatch Corrigan, didn’t have that kind of magnetism or influence, but he was all Allyson had left.

Allyson had insisted for months Hatch was another one who loved Kara from afar. Kara, who never noticed such things, refused to believe it until Hatch decided to tell her at Big Mike’s funeral. We were both in love with you, Kara. Stupid as hell, huh?

No wonder she had a sick stomach.

“Worried about her?” George asked.

“I don’t know. Allyson’s only thirty-seven—she let Big Mike talk her into running as his lieutenant governor. But she’s devoted to public service…”

Kara trailed off, remembering her friend’s panicked voice the night of Big Mike’s death, not long after she was sworn in as governor. I’m not ready, Kara. I’m just not. She’d called on her cell phone to give Kara the terrible news. Kara had just arrived at the Dunning Gallery in Austin for the opening of the Gordon Temple exhibit. Temple was a prominent Cherokee artist, raised in Oklahoma, a former teacher in Texas who was now based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Getting him for their gallery was a coup for Kevin and Eva Dunning, whose daughter Susanna was married to Kara’s brother Jack.

That Gordon Temple and Sam Temple, a Texas Ranger, shared the same last name was, Sam said, just one of those things. Kara didn’t believe it.

Every second of that surreal evening was etched in her mind.

“Big Mike was a larger-than-life kind of guy,” she went on, aware of George’s scrutiny. “He won’t be an easy act to follow, but people shouldn’t underestimate Allyson. Once she gets over the shock of his death, she’ll do fine.”

Kara blamed her own shock for her subsequent behavior that night at the gallery. She’d turned off her cell phone after Allyson’s call and slipped it into her handbag so she wouldn’t have to hear more, know more, and when she swept up a glass of champagne off a passing tray, Sam Temple was there. He was not unfamiliar to her. They’d met a few times at her brother’s house in San Antonio—she was not as oblivious to Sergeant Temple’s black-eyed charm as Lieutenant Jack Galway no doubt would have hoped.

But she never thought she was crazy enough to go to bed with him. He was so dark and sexy and irresistible, and when he suggested they sneak out for coffee, she’d seized the moment.

They ended up at her house a few blocks away. He stayed all night and all the next morning, and never once did Kara mention Big Mike’s death.

She’d had no contact with Sam since. She left that afternoon for Mike Parisi’s funeral in Connecticut. She talked to the state detectives about his death and how she’d come to know he couldn’t swim, that she’d never told anyone his secret. Although not specifically assigned to the case, Zoe West, Bluefield’s sole detective, asked Kara about Big Mike’s interest in bluebirds and exactly who knew he couldn’t swim. When she questioned Kara on her whereabouts the night of Mike’s death, Kara ended up giving her Sam’s name and number. It had seemed like the thing to do at the time. She thought Zoe West would be satisfied once Kara offered up a Texas Ranger to corroborate her story.

“It was an accidental drowning,” she said half to herself. “Big Mike’s death.”

“You really called him that?” George’s voice was unexpectedly soft, and he tapped the far edge of her desk, not looking at her. “Take tomorrow off,” he said abruptly.

Kara was instantly suspicious. “Why? It’s been two weeks. I can do my job.”

George headed for the door. “You’ve been putting in ridiculous hours, even for an attorney. You’re going to crack.” He glanced back at her, none of his usual doubts about her apparent now. “Trust me on this, Kara. I know from experience. Take a day or two off, all right?”

“I’ll look over my workload and see what I can do.”

He didn’t push—at least not yet. After he left, Kara took out the compact mirror she kept in her tote bag and checked her reflection. Pale, definitely on the green side. No wonder George was concerned about her. She looked awful.

It had to be the seafood tacos. A touch of food poisoning—she’d be fine tomorrow.

Morning sickness…

She snapped the mirror shut and shoved it back in her tote bag, but she noticed the white opaque bag she’d stuck in there after an impulsive side trip to the pharmacy at lunch. She’d bought two different home pregnancy test kits. Pure drama. She wasn’t pregnant. It had only been two weeks since her craziness with Sam. Surely she wouldn’t have morning sickness this early.

She’d throw the pregnancy test kits in a garbage can on her way home tonight. Get rid of the evidence of her hysteria. She was thirty-four years old and had never had a pregnancy scare.

Of course, there were commonsense, biological reasons for that, one being that she’d have had to have sex once in a while. She didn’t have blazing, short-lived affairs like her weekend with Sam—she didn’t have affairs, period.

Big Mike had often teased her about her love life, or lack thereof. “Kara, a tough-minded attorney like you—what’s the matter, are you deliberately practicing abstinence? Or do you just not like Yankee men? Jesus, go home. Take yourself a Texas lover. I know you’re not afraid of men.”

If she should have been afraid of anyone, it was dark, handsome, black-eyed Sam Temple. There wasn’t a woman in Texas who didn’t feel sparks flying when he was around. Her brother had told her as much, to the point that Kara had felt compelled to assure him she had no intention of falling for any Texas Ranger, never mind Sam.

“Good,” Jack had said. “Don’t.”

At least Sam didn’t know she had limited experience, sex and romance the one area in her life that always made her want to run.

For damn good reason, it turned out. She hadn’t run two weeks ago, and she’d ended up in bed with Sam Temple.

Better she should have run.

Sam Temple was driving back to San Antonio after nearly two grueling weeks working on the Mexican border when he checked his voice mail and discovered that a detective from Bluefield, Connecticut, was trying to reach him. “Call me back as soon as possible,” she said, then left her name and number.

He pulled into a filling station and dialed Zoe West on his cell phone. He’d heard about the death of the governor of Connecticut not long after he’d left Kara Galway’s house—and bed—in Austin. Not one thing about it sat well with him, starting with why she hadn’t mentioned the governor’s death to him before they’d slept together. She’d known. It was in the papers. The first call Allyson Lourdes Stockwell made after learning of Parisi’s death was to her law school classmate and friend, Kara Galway, in Austin, Texas.

Sam had checked the times and decided Allyson Stockwell must have called just before Kara had grabbed her glass of champagne at the Dunning Gallery.

At least that explained why she’d slept with him. She’d been distraught. Out of her head with shock and grief at the news and looking to put it out of her mind.

Sam had no such excuse. He’d made love to a woman—his friend’s sister—without even realizing she was damn near a virgin. He remembered his shock at her tightness when he entered her. He’d seen her wince and bite down on her lower lip. He’d asked if she was okay, and she told him oh, yes, fine, don’t stop, as if she regularly met men for coffee and took them back to her house for sex.

He knew she was lying, but he hadn’t stopped.

No excuses.

Even with the air-conditioning blasting, he could feel the August heat, see it rising off the pavement. A half-dozen eighteen-wheelers idled in the parking lot. He’d had less than eight hours’ sleep in three days. He needed a long shower, a dark room and cool sheets.

He didn’t need Kara Galway. She was a complication. A mistake. Making love to her had been damn stupid, even if he couldn’t bring himself to regret it—not for one second, no matter how hard he tried.

Zoe West answered on the first ring. “West.”

“Detective West, it’s Sam Temple. I’m returning your call.”

“Oh, right—thanks. Just a couple questions. Kara Galway said you were with her at a gallery opening in Austin when she heard about Governor Parisi’s death. I’m just following up.”

“You’ve talked to her?”

“Briefly.”

Sam frowned. “Why are you following up?”

“Routine.”

He doubted it. There was nothing routine about the death of a governor or Zoe West’s call. “Isn’t this a state investigation?”

“Big Mike died in my town. I’m assisting.”

In other words, she was sticking her nose in the investigation, whether the state cops wanted it there or not. Sam said nothing. He had his white Stetson on the seat beside him, his tie loosened, his badge still pinned to his shirt pocket. Two weeks on a serial murder investigation in an impoverished area in near-hundred-degree heat, and here he was on the phone talking about a rich man who’d drowned trying to save a damn bird.

“When did Ms. Galway arrive at the gallery?” Zoe West asked. “Did you see her?”

“She was already there when I arrived around seven o’clock.”

“That’s eight in the east. We figure Parisi drowned sometime around seven.”

Sam could see Kara now in her little black dress, her dark hair pulled back with a turquoise comb that he’d tugged out later, threading his fingers into her thick waves of hair even as he warned himself to leave while he still could.

“Aren’t you from San Antonio?” Zoe West asked.

“Detective West, I’m not seeing the point here.”

She made a clicking sound, as if she was thinking. “San Antonio’s about ninety miles from Austin, isn’t it?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“What?”

“I said, ‘Yes, ma’am.’”

“Are you being sarcastic, Sergeant Temple?”

“No, ma’am.”

“People only call me ma’am when they’re being sarcastic.”

He almost smiled. “All right, Detective West. I won’t call you ma’am.”

“It’s a southern thing, right? The ma’am?”

Sam realized she was serious. “I like to think of it as a manners thing.”

“Oh. Well, yeah, I guess. Okay, back to this gallery. It’s in Austin, which is about ninety miles from San Antonio. It has reduced hours during the summer while the owners—Kevin and Eva Dunning—are at their summer place on Lake Champlain, but they came back special because this was the only time they could get Gordon Temple. Right so far?”

“Right so far,” Sam said, careful to avoid any hint of sarcasm. He’d let Detective West ask her questions. Why not? He might learn something about Kara and why she’d acted the way she had that night.

“The Dunnings are the in-laws of another Texas Ranger, a lieutenant, Jack Galway. He’s Kara Galway’s brother. Your superior, right?” West paused, adding, matter-of-fact, “This was all pretty easy to find out on the Internet. I read a couple articles about that business in the Adirondacks last winter. You got shot, didn’t you, Sergeant?”

Sam didn’t answer right away. Zoe West had done her homework. In February, he’d gone up north to help Jack sort out a murder investigation that had ended up involving Jack’s wife and twin teenage daughters. They’d done snow, ice and bitter cold, and Sam swore he’d never complain about the heat again. And, yes, he was shot.

Kara had slid her fingertips over the scar on his upper thigh.

Damn.

“It was just a flesh wound,” he told the Connecticut detective.

“The Galways are doing okay now?”

“Yes.”

“Gordon Temple’s a famous Native American painter—Cherokee, lives in New Mexico. You any relation?”

“That’s irrelevant, Detective.” But he’d spotted Gordon Temple that night and remembered the black hair streaked with gray, the dark eyes and muscular build that were a lot like Sam’s own.

Zoe West paused a beat. “So you were there, what, for the art?”

Now who was being sarcastic? Sam watched an overweight man with tattoos on his upper arms carry a bag of food to a big rig. He tried to picture the Bluefield detective in her small-town Connecticut police station.

“Okay, so why you were in Austin is beside the point,” she said. “Governor Stockwell called Ms. Galway shortly after seven your time. Did you see her take the call?”

“Yes. We left together about ten minutes later.” Sam had never talked to Gordon Temple, never complimented him on his paintings or said, “Oh, by the way, I’m your son.” He shifted, losing patience. “Detective West, you’re on a fishing expedition. I have things I need to do.”

She made another couple of clicking sounds. “All right, here’s the deal. Kara Galway is one of a very few who knew Governor Parisi couldn’t swim. She told you that, right?”

Sam didn’t answer.

“Oh. I guess it didn’t come up over coffee, huh? If someone wanted him dead and tossed the bluebird into the pool deliberately, hoping he’d fall or seeing to it he did—well, they’d have to know he couldn’t swim.”

“Stupid way to kill someone.”

“It worked. He’s dead. And it looks like an accident.”

“Maybe it was an accident.”

“Too many accidents around here for my taste,” Zoe West said.

Sam sat up straighter, hearing something in the Bluefield detective’s voice he recognized, maybe just because he was in the same line of work. “There’s been another accident?”

“You didn’t hear? Allyson Stockwell and her two children had a close call during a Fourth of July bonfire at her mother-in-law’s place here in town. A gas can exploded. Someone left it too close to the fire. No one’s owned up yet, of course.”

“Injuries?”

“Not from the explosion itself. A local guy—Pete Jericho—shoved Mrs. Stockwell and the kids out of the way just in time. He had some minor cuts and bruises. Scared the hell out of everyone.”

“Governor Parisi was there?” Sam asked.

“He was. What if someone tried and failed to arrange a fatal accident for him that night, then tried again and succeeded a few weeks later?”

“Is that your theory, Detective?”

“Just the sort of question to keep a law enforcement officer up nights, don’t you think, Sergeant?”

“What about the state investigators?”

“They say they don’t want to speculate. Hey,” she said suddenly, “I’m supposed to ask the questions.”

Sam wasn’t fooled. Zoe West wanted him to have this information or she wouldn’t have given it to him. She might not have wide experience as a small-town detective, but she obviously wasn’t stupid.

“I guess it’s easier to call the explosion a backyard accident,” she went on. “Same with Big Mike and his injured bluebird. I mean, I know he was a nut about bluebirds and everything, but wouldn’t you think he’d be careful scooping one out of the drink when he knew he couldn’t swim? I would.”

“He could have lost his balance.”

“Could have.” She took in a breath. “Thanks for your help, Sergeant Temple. Keep my number handy if you think of anything else.”

Sam promised he would, and she hung up.

He sank back against his seat and shut his eyes a moment, the fatigue crawling at him. He was ten minutes from Jack’s house. He could stop in and have a cold beer and not mention Zoe West’s call, then head home and sleep.

But that wouldn’t be smart. Jack was protective of his entire family, his little sister no exception. Bad enough Sam had slept with her—now he’d just hung up with a Connecticut detective checking out Kara’s story from that night. Best to keep some distance between himself and Lieutenant Galway, at least, Sam thought, until he’d sorted out just how pissed he was at her.

Kara knew Mike Parisi couldn’t swim. His big secret. She was at the Dunning Gallery when he was falling into his swimming pool and therefore couldn’t have been in Connecticut killing him.

Theoretically, she could have hired someone to kill her governor friend. He doesn’t know how to swim. Get him to the deep end of his pool. Make it look like an accident.

But that didn’t fit with what Sam knew about the Galway character, and as far as he could see, she had no reason to kill the guy. It was more plausible, but still unlikely, that she could have inadvertently told the murderer Parisi couldn’t swim. Zoe West would want to know if Kara had kept her governor buddy’s secret—maybe she’d already asked, when the two of them talked. Kara obviously hadn’t seen fit to tell Sam about her conversation with the Bluefield detective or that she’d given Zoe West his number.

He swore under his breath. He didn’t believe Kara had anything to do with Parisi’s death, but she should have told him about it at some point before he’d left her house that Sunday—preferably before they’d landed up in her bed.

She damn well should have told him she was among a chosen few who knew Michael Parisi couldn’t swim.

Sam didn’t like being anyone’s alibi.

Two

F or the first time in weeks, Allyson Stockwell felt almost normal. The late-afternoon shade soothed her taut nerves as she swung gently on a hammock strung between two maple trees on Stockwell Farm in Bluefield, deep in the Litchfield Hills of northwest Connecticut. The taste of her iced tea, the smell of her mother-in-law’s roses, the sounds of birds in the nearby trees—all of it seemed so blissfully normal.

She felt like such a phony. She’d never lusted for power and title. She’d been content as lieutenant governor, half believing people when they said Mike Parisi had urged her to run only because she was Lawrence’s widow and he needed the Stockwell name behind him.

No…I won’t think about that now.

She’d had a postcard that morning from Henry and Lillian in Texas. They seemed to be enjoying themselves at the dude ranch. She felt good about her decision to send them. She wanted them to carry on as normally as possible as they adjusted to all the changes in their lives. Big Mike had been an enormous, charismatic presence in so many people’s lives, her children’s included.

If not for Lawrence, Allyson wondered, would she ever have met Mike Parisi? He and her husband were such unlikely friends—Lawrence, the Connecticut blueblood, and Big Mike, the self-made man from a working-class neighborhood—but they’d suited each other. Lawrence, dedicated to public service, preferred to work behind the scenes and appreciated Mike’s passion and drive, just as Mike had appreciated his wealthy friend’s genuine concern for the people of his state.

Twenty years older than Allyson, Lawrence was just forty-seven when he died ten years ago. She never thought she’d make it without him. She didn’t lack for anything material, just for the man she’d fallen in love with at twenty-one. Use your law degree, Big Mike had told her. Use your brain. Don’t wither away. Do something.

She had, and now she was governor. And alone again, on her own with so many responsibilities. Children who needed her, grieving friends, a grieving state.

She breathed in the warm, clean summer air. She hadn’t been out to Bluefield since Mike’s death. Lawrence had grown up out here on Stockwell Farm, the sprawling estate set amidst rolling hills and fields that his grandfather had purchased and expanded. His mother still lived here, but, as was the case with Allyson, Stockwell Farm would never be hers. Madeleine Stockwell could live in the white clapboard, black-shuttered house for as long as she chose—no one could throw her out but it and the grounds, all of Stockwell Farm, were held in trust for Lawrence’s children.

Allyson had never wanted the main house. She and Lawrence had converted the barn on the edge of the fields, and she continued to take Henry and Lillian there. Allyson thought they liked it better than the main house. The barn, too, would go to them. But Stonebrook Cottage, across the fields and through the woods from the main grounds, was Allyson’s and Allyson’s alone, a bit of Stockwell Farm that Lawrence had carved out for her. She liked having it for guests but planned to leave it to her children, too.

Once they got back from Texas, they’d all move into the Governor’s Residence in Hartford. Henry and Lillian would continue to attend their school in West Hartford, and Allyson had no intention of getting rid of their permanent home there.

At least the kids were having fun at the dude ranch. They loved it out at Stockwell Farm and would have liked nothing better than to run loose there all summer, but that was out of the question. Madeleine wouldn’t stand for it. Allyson remembered Lawrence telling her how his father had fancied himself a gentleman farmer and had horses and apple trees and gardens. He would have Madeleine and Lawrence cart jugs of water from a spring in the woods just so they’d know where it was and how to do it. He wanted them to be self-sufficient, capable, never helpless or idle.

When Lawrence was eight, Edward Stockwell cut his femoral artery with an ax and bled to death before his wife could get him to a doctor. Madeleine remarried three years later, beginning a string of marriages that ended with her divorce from her fourth husband five years ago. She vowed never to take another. Allyson believed her mother-in-law when she said that if Edward had lived, the two would have grown old together.

What a horrible blow to lose Edward’s only child to cancer ten years ago.

Now Lawrence and Mike both were dead, Allyson thought, and she was governor.

I don’t want to be governor.

It complicated everything. She had secrets of her own she wanted to protect.

Her heart raced, and it felt as if someone were standing on her chest. Her doctor was encouraging her to learn stress reduction techniques. Kara had dragged her to a yoga class last year before she left for Texas and demonstrated a simple breathing technique she used before trials. Allyson tried to remember it. In through the nose to the count of eight…hold for eight…out for eight…

She got to four and coughed, nearly dumping herself out of her hammock.

Her cell phone rang, almost paralyzing her. She’d forgotten she’d left the damn thing on, but since it was the number Henry and Lillian would use to call her she hated to turn it off. She sat up, her blond hair snagging in the knotted rope as she threw her legs over the side and groped for her phone in her canvas bag. With Mike’s death affecting them so deeply, the children’s counselors at the dude ranch had agreed to let them call home more often than was ordinarily permitted.

Allyson anchored herself with her feet and fumbled for the right button on her cell phone. It might not be that sick jackass who’s been calling.

But it was. She could tell by the quick intake of air on the other end. “Ah, Governor Stockwell. You like the sound of it, don’t you? What would the people of Connecticut think if they knew the truth, hmm? Their slut governor, screwing her working-class ex-con in secret. Do you think they might wonder if Big Mike had found out?”

Click. The call was over, the voice was gone.

Allyson shook. She’d never said a word to the caller. Never. She didn’t want to do anything to encourage another call or escalate the harassment into action. She just wanted the calls to stop. Each time she received one, she tried to convince herself it was the last.

The first one had come a few days before Big Mike’s death. Ye shall reap what ye sow. That was it. She’d dismissed it as a crank call, political harassment, nothing worth mentioning to anyone, never mind Mike or her security detail. Then, after Mike’s funeral, she received another one. Do you really think you can keep your ex-con lover a secret now?

And she knew. Someone had found out about her and Pete Jericho.

Pete was the salt of the earth, a man of the land. His family had owned the two hundred acres on the south border of the Stockwell Farm for generations. They used to be dairy farmers, but now they sold cordwood and Christmas trees, and for the past three years had worked a gravel pit. They plowed driveways and built stone walls and managed their rich neighbors’ properties, the mini-estates that had sprouted around Bluefield.

Pete had served six months in prison eight years ago for a stupid barroom brawl that should have been settled, and stayed, among friends—he wasn’t anyone’s idea of an ex-con. Yet Allyson had kept their affair a secret, begging the question of what she thought of his past. He’d undoubtedly saved her life—her children’s lives—when the gas can exploded during the Fourth of July bonfire. She could still feel his strong arms around her, his body covering hers, as she’d tried to protect Henry and Lillian from the blast.

Somehow an illicit affair with Pete Jericho was different now that she was governor. The anonymous calls didn’t make figuring out what to do about him any easier.

Mike had known. He’d given her an ultimatum a few days after the near disaster at the bonfire. He wanted her relationship with Pete out in the open or over and done with. No secret affairs. Period.

“But what will people say?” she’d asked.

“What the hell do you care? We’re not talking about your position on capital punishment or gay marriage. We’re talking about who you love. You do love the guy, right?”

“Yes, but—”

“But what? He served six months in the pokey for a bar fight.” Big Mike had laughed, amazed. “Come on, Allyson. People’ll be thrilled you’re not just another rich, watery-eyed WASP.”

She hadn’t taken that very well, but Big Mike loved to tease—it didn’t matter who. Kara was the one who could always give it right back to him. Allyson had enjoyed watching the two of them. She was more reserved herself, more formal by upbringing and temperament. Kara was a Texas hard-ass with a big heart, a combination that’d probably get her hurt one day.

But Mike hadn’t been teasing that day. He could be judgmental, calculating when it came to political advantage and appearances.

Did her caller know about the ultimatum? Would he—or she—try to make people wonder if she’d had something to do with Big Mike’s death?

What did the bastard want?

She jumped to her feet, knocking over her canvas bag, the contents spilling into the cool shade. She saw a state trooper, a woman, make a move toward her and waved her off. The special unit in charge of guarding the governor had come under heavy criticism for “letting” Big Mike die. Allyson had defended them. She knew what Mike could be like. He’d told her countless times he’d never get used to people hovering.

She squatted down, scooping up her wallet and Rolaids and Palm Pilot, three tubes of the same shade of lipstick. She was shaking uncontrollably now, crying. Ridiculous. She was overreacting to the cryptic phone calls, reading into them something that wasn’t there. There was no real threat, and harassment was part of being in the public eye. Even if she mentioned the calls to her bodyguards, what could they do? The caller hadn’t even made a request for any action one way or another on her part. Get rid of Pete, keep him. Tell the world, don’t tell the world. Give money, support a particular piece of legislation—nothing. Maybe the calls were designed to soften her up—maybe they were just to get under her skin.

“Allyson!”

Hatch Corrigan ran across the shaded lawn toward her. Lawrence’s half-brother was always on the move, a hothead like his father, Frank Corrigan, Madeleine’s third husband, whose early success as an actor hadn’t panned out the way either one of them had hoped. Madeleine raised their son largely on her own—she hadn’t wanted Frank’s help after their divorce. Hatch and Lawrence both had their mother’s rangy build and sharp nose, but Hatch had his father’s clear blue eyes, auburn hair and dimpled chin, his notorious flair for drama. Hatch, though, was content to remain behind the scenes, like his older half-brother. Not Frank, who’d wanted the stage and an audience, but died five years ago when he fell off scaffolding in a rundown off-off-Broadway theater, dead drunk.

Hatch didn’t stand to inherit a dime of Stockwell money, but Allyson couldn’t remember him ever complaining about it. His mother had some wealth to hand down, but not a lot, not compared to her first husband’s family fortune. Hatch loved Stockwell Farm and spent as much time as he could with Madeleine at the main house, when he wasn’t cooking up political schemes and gathering information, plotting, strategizing, advising. He’d been indispensable to Big Mike and, now, to Allyson.

He slowed slightly as he approached her hammock. It wasn’t uncommon, she thought, to see Hatch Corrigan in a rush, grim-faced and focused.

She grabbed on to the edge of the rope hammock and pulled herself to her feet, brushing away her tears. In time she might come to feel like a governor, but right now she felt like the thirty-seven-year-old mother of two middle-schoolers, a widow who could never again have romance in her life.

“Allyson,” Hatch repeated, breathing hard when he reached her. “We have a problem. That damn dude ranch in Texas just called. The kids—”

“Hatch!” She clenched his upper arms, her chest constricting, her knees going out from under her. “What’s happened? What’s wrong? Henry and Lillian—they’re okay, aren’t they?”

“Let’s hope.” His expression hardened, reminding her that he was forty-seven and childless, not a man who got along easily with children, even his only niece and nephew. “They took off on their own this afternoon. They’re on the loose somewhere in Texas.”

Susanna Galway called Sam at home, waking him up, and invited him to dinner, refusing to take no for an answer. He didn’t argue. Under the circumstances, showing up for dinner would be less provocative than not showing up. He buttoned his shirt, pulled on his boots and headed out.

Dinner was hell. He hated hiding anything from his friends, but if Kara hadn’t told her brother and sister-in-law about her weekend with Sam, he didn’t feel it was his place to open his damn mouth. He was being a gentleman, he decided, not a coward. It wasn’t as if he’d taken advantage of her. Kara Galway was in her thirties, and she’d wanted their night together as much as he had.

Jack, his wife and their twin daughters didn’t seem to notice he was suffering. Susanna was a slim, graceful, dark-haired, green-eyed financial whiz who’d tried to keep millions and a murderer showing up in her kitchen a secret from her Texas Ranger husband, not that there was keeping anything secret from Jack Galway, something that Sam knew he should keep in mind. Susanna was smart, and she liked her secrets. In her own way she was as protective of her family as Jack was. All four of them had come close to losing each other in a harrowing experience in the Adirondack woods six months ago. These days, Susanna seemed content with her work and her life in San Antonio. She was redecorating their suburban home and restoring a historic building downtown that nobody quite knew what she’d do with—including, apparently, her.

The twins were getting ready to head to college in a few weeks. Maggie had decided on Harvard, following in her father’s footsteps, Ellen on the University of Texas, which she liked to say was following in the footsteps of no one in her family.

They didn’t bring up the subject of Kara tonight, but Sam knew they all had welcomed her move back to Texas, teased her about losing some of her accent during her years up north. They expected her to take up with another lawyer or a University of Texas professor, maybe one of the artists who hung out at the Dunning Gallery. Not a Texas Ranger. Not Sam.

He hadn’t taken up with her, he reminded himself. He’d slept with her that one night and one morning two weeks ago.

After dinner, Susanna and Jack made espresso using the espresso machine Maggie and Ellen had given their father for Christmas. The girls retreated to the family room to watch television. Whatever the lingering effects of their ordeal this past winter, the twins were handling them, just a couple of high-school graduates excited about college.

Susanna handed Sam a tiny white cup and saucer and eased onto a chair at the new, glass-topped table. She smiled over the rim of her own steaming cup, which didn’t look out of place in her slender fingers. “You look as if you’re afraid you’ll break the china. Relax, Sam. You like espresso, don’t you?”

“I can drink it.”

Jack downed his espresso in about two sips. He was one of the finest law enforcement officers Sam knew, a big, broad-shouldered man, a Harvard graduate, a dedicated Texas Ranger who tried to maintain a precarious balance between work and family. He was fifteen and his sister just nine when their mother was killed in a car accident. Sam knew some of the details. How mother and daughter had gone out shoe shopping and were hit broadside on the driver’s side by a speeding delivery truck.

Kara had had to sit still, covered in shattered glass, splattered with her dying mother’s blood, until the paramedics could get her out. She’d suffered only minor physical injuries. After the accident, her father had encouraged both her and Jack to stay busy and excel, apparently believing the less time they had to think about their mother and grieve, the better. At eighteen, Kara headed north to Yale, not to return until last year.

If she hadn’t moved back, would Mike Parisi be dead now? Sam wondered if that was a question Kara had asked herself, one she’d been running from that night when she’d landed in his arms.

Susanna set her cup down after the tiniest of sips. “Sam, I understand you were at the opening of the Gordon Temple exhibit a couple of weeks ago. You’ve been so busy, I haven’t had a chance to talk to you about it. Mum and Dad are thrilled to have him at the gallery. Jack and I couldn’t make it to the opening. He’s an incredible artist, isn’t he?”

Sam shrugged. “The paintings looked fine to me. I don’t know that much about art.”

“My mother said you didn’t stay long. They’re curious because you two have the same last name.”

Jack shifted in his chair. “I wondered about that, too. Sam, you’re part Native American. This guy’s Cherokee. He used to live in San Antonio. What’s the story?”

“No story.”

It was a true answer, if not a complete one. Sam had known for the past five years that Gordon Temple was his father. Biologically. He had never had a real father. His mother, an elementary-school art teacher in a poor section of San Antonio, had finally told him the truth when Gordon’s fame was on the rise. Sam had already known his mother and Gordon were briefly married when they were both twenty. Gordon left after a year. Loretta Temple said she never expected him to stay. He was a nomad, an artist who needed his freedom. It was a rationalization, maybe, but Sam didn’t resent her for it—she wasn’t the one who’d left. She didn’t find out she was pregnant until a month after Gordon Temple had withdrawn from her life. She thought it would be easier on him, and ultimately their child, if she said nothing and didn’t tempt him to come back.

Thirty-five years later, she admitted she wasn’t sure she’d made the right decision in not putting a father’s name on her son’s birth certificate, but it had been the only choice she’d felt she could make at the time.

No, no story, Sam thought. Just a string of simple facts.

Susanna fingered the delicate handle of her espresso cup. “Did you run into Kara at the opening? I understand she didn’t stay long, either. She got the call about Governor Parisi’s death and left quickly. Mum didn’t realize what was going on at the time or she’d have made sure she was all right.” Susanna fixed her vivid green eyes on Sam. “I hate to think of Kara dealing with such a terrible shock all alone.”

Sam sipped his espresso, which was very hot and very strong, and offered no comment. This explained the invitation to dinner. Susanna was suspicious of what had happened at the opening, but she would be. She was convinced women fell all over him. It happened, but not every time—and it hadn’t happened with Kara. Her grief and shock had more to do with their night together than any attraction to him. But Sam couldn’t be sure his preoccupation with Gordon Temple hadn’t affected his own judgment.

Jack shook his head, finished with his espresso. “You following this governor’s death?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “I can’t get Kara to talk about it. She’s buried herself in her work. She went up to Connecticut for the funeral. The new governor’s a friend, as well—Kara’s godmother to her children. They flew back with her to go to a kids’ dude ranch.”

“We sent Maggie and Ellen to a dude ranch that one time, remember? Ellen loved it, Maggie thought it was hell on earth—”

But Jack was not to be distracted. “I don’t like reading my sister’s name in the paper in conjunction with the unexplained death of a governor. At least she was in Austin and not up there when Parisi drowned. I’d hate to see her get involved in something like that.”

Sam understood Jack’s reaction, but decided it wasn’t his place to bring up Zoe West’s call checking Kara’s story. Let Kara tell her brother two weeks after the fact that she was one of the few who knew Mike Parisi couldn’t swim.

“Dad!”

The panic in Ellen’s voice instantly brought Jack to his feet, Sam a half beat behind him. Susanna rose unsteadily, grabbing the back of her chair, her dark hair catching the glow of the white dinner candles. Her face was pale, as if she were back on that day six months ago with her daughters at the mercy of a killer.

Jack caught Ellen by the shoulders in the doorway, strands of dark hair matted to her cheeks. Her breathing was shallow, rapid. “Dad, it’s Aunt Kara. Something’s wrong—”

Jack swore and pushed past her into the family room, but somehow Sam reached Kara first. She was standing, ashen-faced, Maggie Galway at her side. Sam managed not to touch her, but she clutched his upper arm, her fingers digging into his flesh, her dark eyes wide. “Sam…”

“Kara,” Jack said sharply. “What the hell’s going on?”

She shifted her gaze, focusing on her brother. “Henry and Lillian Stockwell are missing.” Kara took in a breath, obviously trying to calm herself, but she maintained her death grip on Sam’s arm. “They took off from the dude ranch late this afternoon. At first everyone thought they were hiding somewhere, or misunderstood instructions—”

“The ranch is about an hour from here,” Sam said.

Jack nodded. “These kids are what, twelve?”

“Henry’s twelve, Lillian’s eleven.” Kara’s voice was tight with fear. “Allyson called me a few minutes after I left work. I was south of town, anyway, meeting friends. I decided to head straight here, in case you’d heard anything.”

“We haven’t,” Susanna said gently. “Kara, why don’t you sit down? Tell us what you know.”

She seemed to give herself a mental shake, some color returning high in her cheeks. She released her grip on Sam. “I held it together all the way down here and sort of fell apart when I walked in the door.” She brushed her hand through her hair, pulling out the turquoise comb she’d worn the night of the opening. She gave no sign she remembered him taking it out of her hair. She cleared her throat. “I’m sure they’re fine.”

Sam glanced at Jack. “The two preteen kids of the governor of Connecticut on their own in Texas—I don’t like it.”

“Sit,” Jack told his sister, firmly but gently. “Catch your breath. Tell us everything. Goddamnit, I was just saying I didn’t like any of this business.”

Ellen started for the kitchen. “I’ll get her a glass of water.”

“Come on, Aunt Kara,” Maggie said, taking her aunt’s hand and pulling her onto the couch beside her. Maggie had her mother’s build and her father’s temperament, her Dunning grandparents’ creative flair. She was wearing one of her bizarre outfits, a vintage loud-striped dress from the 1960s and turquoise sneakers. “It’ll be okay. Ellen and I ran away once. Mom, Dad, you remember, don’t you? We were going to take a bus to Hollywood, but we got hungry and came home.”

Sam didn’t share her optimism, possibly because of Zoe West’s call. Susanna smiled reassuringly. “Maggie has a point. Kids don’t usually run off for long. It’s barely nightfall now—”

Kara nodded, calmer. “Allyson said someone would call me if they turn up. There’s still time.”

Jack grunted. “How the hell could this dude ranch lose two kids? Did they have the same schedule?”

“No, and they were in separate cabins,” Kara said. “They must have had a plan to meet and sneak out. The ranch isn’t superremote. Allyson said there’s no reason to suspect foul play or think they’re lost—”

“I’ll drive out to the ranch and see what’s going on,” Jack said. “We can put out an alert—”

Kara frowned. “Allyson doesn’t want law enforcement to get involved at this point.”

“Not her call. She’s the governor of Connecticut not Texas.”

Sam could sense the escalating tension between brother and sister. So, obviously, could Susanna. She licked her lips and touched her husband’s arm. “Kids this age do impulsive things, sometimes for reasons only they understand. The important thing right now is to find them.”

“They have to be all right,” Kara said, half under her breath. She withdrew a small stack of postcards and letters from her handbag. “The kids wrote to me from camp up north earlier this summer, then from the dude ranch. Lillian more than Henry. She got me to read the Harry Potter books.”

Sam had seen them stacked on Kara’s nightstand.

She shoved the stack of letters and cards at her brother. “Here. Go through these. Maybe there’s something I missed, some clue as to what they’re up to. If you find anything, tell me, and I’ll call Allyson.”

Jack took the cards and letters. “Do you think they’ll come to you?”

“How? They don’t know where I live, they have no transportation—”

“They have your address.”

“But they’re kids. ”

Jack and Sam exchanged glances. Kids were capable of a lot. Sam said, “Do they know how to get in touch with you?”

She nodded, not looking at him. “I gave them all my phone numbers when I dropped them off at the ranch.”

Ellen returned with the water, her dark eyes huge as she handed the glass to her aunt. “You don’t think someone snatched them, do you, Sam? The Stockwells are rich, and Henry and Lillian have been in the news because their mother’s a woman governor and so young—”

Kara gasped, though, Sam knew, it had to be something she’d considered on her drive south to San Antonio. “Ellen, no one…I’m sure they haven’t been kidnapped.”

Jack slung an arm over Ellen’s shoulders. She was strongly built, a rugby player with a big heart. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” her father said, the professional in him taking over. “Kids sneak off from camp from time to time. They didn’t like lunch, they’re homesick, they’re mad at some other kid. Henry and Lillian are probably emotionally volatile right now. It’s still not too late for them to turn up on their own tonight.”

Kara sipped her water and let her gaze drift to Sam, and she asked tensely, “Did Zoe West call you?”

Her brother’s eyes flashed with suspicion, and Sam knew the question was Kara’s way of giving him permission to do what he planned to do, anyway. He saw Susanna wince, confirming what he already suspected—that she knew that something had happened between Kara and Sam at the Gordon Temple opening.

“Who’s Zoe West?” Jack asked his sister. “Why would you know anyone who’d call Sam?”

Sam decided to get straight to the point. “Zoe West is a detective in Bluefield, Connecticut. She’s doing a little solo investigating of Governor Parisi’s death. She called me this afternoon.”

Jack’s arm dropped from Ellen’s shoulder, and he straightened, drawing himself up to his full height. Behind him, Susanna sat on an armchair and exhaled, as if she’d been waiting for this particular shoe to drop. Maggie stayed at her aunt’s side, Ellen next to her father. Jack kept his eyes on Sam.

“She was checking my story,” Kara said.

Jack turned to her, his eyes steel. “What story?”

“Allyson Stockwell called me at the Gordon Temple opening and told me about Big Mike’s death. I didn’t say anything to Sam about it, but he sensed something was wrong. We went out for coffee.” She un-twisted her hands, some of the renewed color going out of her cheeks. “This heat. I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to it again.”

Her brother didn’t let up. “Kara, why would Zoe West want to know where you were when you heard about Parisi?”

“She’s not convinced his death was an accident. If it was murder—well, whoever did it presumably would need to know he couldn’t swim.”

Jack hissed through clenched teeth, understanding the implication of what his sister was saying, just as Sam had when he’d heard it from the Bluefield detective. “Jesus Christ. You knew?”

Kara nodded. “He told me several years ago. It was his one secret.”

“Detective West doesn’t like the injured-bluebird theory,” Sam said.

Susanna rose, gesturing to her daughters. “Let’s try that new gadget that makes frothy milk. I think it’s café au lait all around.”

Mother and daughters retreated to the kitchen. Sam remained on his feet. Jack tossed the stack of cards and letters on the coffee table and swore once, viciously. Kara suddenly looked flushed and self-conscious, and Sam wondered if she was thinking, picturing, remembering everything about their hours together two weeks ago. He was, but he pushed the images out of his mind, not letting them distract him now that two children were missing.

He glanced at the top postcard, which was lying facedown, noted the graceful handwriting. Eleven-year-old Lillian Stockwell. Dear Aunt Kara, I saw a snake today. I hate snakes!

Anything could have happened to Allyson Lourdes Stockwell’s children. Anything. Sam knew it, and he knew Jack did, too. And Kara. They were all in professions that taught them that ugly reality, but they didn’t need knowledge or experience to tell them the obvious, only common sense. Two middle-schoolers were out there somewhere, thousands of miles from home. It didn’t matter if they’d left the ranch on their own. They needed to be found.

“All right,” Jack said heavily. “Tell me what’s wrong with this damn bluebird theory.”

Three

K ara couldn’t get out of her brother’s house fast enough. She ignored the heat and her spinning head, her queasy stomach, and ran down the walk to her car parked on the street. She’d just been interrogated by two Texas Rangers, one her older brother, one a man she’d slept with in a moment of sheer insanity. The more they talked and got into Ranger mode, the less comfortable they were with the events in Connecticut. A near-fatal July Fourth bonfire, an accidental drowning and now two missing middle-schoolers, all involving the political elite of a wealthy New England state—none of it sat well with either Lieutenant Jack Galway or Sergeant Sam Temple.

Their instructions to Kara were simple: stay out of it.

Jack found the injured-bluebird theory unpersuasive. Was the pool deck wet from rain, someone swimming, watering the flowers? What was Big Mike’s blood-alcohol level? Who else was at his rented house that day? Who owned the house? Kara had to explain Big Mike’s passion for the Eastern bluebird, a native species that had lost ground to the more aggressive starling and English sparrow non-native species that were also cavity nesters and competed with bluebirds in an increasingly scarce habitat. Mike had been a big promoter of bluebird trails, uninterrupted networks of bluebird houses suitable for nesting, thus encouraging a resurgence in the bluebird population.

Her brother had listened to her, dumbfounded. “A bluebird with a broken leg ends up in the pool of a man who happens to have a thing for bluebirds and can’t swim? I don’t buy it,” he’d said. “Not for one damn second.”

It was obvious his fellow Texas Ranger didn’t, either. Kara had tried to insert her own professional opinion into the conversation. “The police need proof of a crime.”

Jack was unmoved. “It’s not going to drop out of the sky into their laps. It’s their job to investigate.”

“They are —”

He’d turned his dark gaze onto her, but she’d never been intimidated by her brother. “Then why did a local detective check your story instead of one of the state detectives on the case?”

“Zoe West is new to Bluefield, but I understand she’s like that. Very independent. I’d bet the state cops would slap her down hard if they knew she was meddling in their investigation. It doesn’t mean a thing that they haven’t called me themselves—I’m the last person anyone would suspect of killing Big Mike.”

She’d hated even saying it. Killing Big Mike.

“Who else knew he couldn’t swim?” her brother asked.

“I don’t know.”

Jack didn’t like that, either. There wasn’t anything about the events in Connecticut that he or Sam liked. “No one wants the unsolved murder of a governor on their hands. I understand that. If it’s an accident, it’s over. Everyone can move on. What toes do the investigators have to step on even to look into this as a possible homicide?”

Kara saw his point, but disagreed with it and didn’t mind saying so. “If you and Sam were in their place, would you worry about what toes you stepped on? Not a chance. You wouldn’t give up until you were satisfied that you knew exactly how Big Mike died. Give Connecticut law enforcement some credit. I think they’re inclined to regard what happened as an accident because that’s what the evidence suggests—”

“Then they know something we don’t know or they’re idiots.”

Sam concurred. “Jack’s right. This thing stinks.”

Kara knew it did, too, but she couldn’t resist arguing with them. Maybe it was the attorney in her—maybe it just gave her something to do instead of worrying about Henry and Lillian. More likely, it kept her from looking at Sam the wrong way and alerting her brother to what they’d done after they’d had coffee two weeks ago.

“Lord,” she muttered as she reached her car, “no wonder I have a bad stomach.”

She’d forgotten about the two home pregnancy test kits still in her tote bag when she’d dug out the kids’ cards and letters. She could just imagine the scene if either man had spotted them.

“Kara—wait up.” Susanna trotted down the walk to Kara’s car, coming around to the driver’s side. “Are you all right? That was a little rough in there. I’d like to strangle those two. You’d think you were a murder suspect.”

“I’m fine, Susanna. Thanks. I put up with that kind of attitude all the time in my work. I didn’t tell anyone Big Mike couldn’t swim. I didn’t push him into his pool. End of story. I just want to find Henry and Lillian.”

“I know. But do you think Governor Parisi was murdered?”

“I’m trying hard not to get too far ahead of the facts. Anyway, I have no say—it’s up to the investigators.”

Her sister-in-law crossed her arms on her chest, the milky, humid darkness deepening the green in her eyes. “You hid it well tonight, Kara, but I know something happened between you and Sam at the Gordon Temple opening. Come on. I know. I admit he’s one of my favorites, but he’s not—well, you’re not stupid. You know what Sam’s like.”

Sexy, straightforward, independent, dedicated to his work as a Texas Ranger. Ambitious. People liked him—Jack often said Sam could be governor if he ever wanted to quit the Rangers and go into politics. But who knew what Sam Temple wanted? Kara remembered him smiling at her over coffee, so unexpectedly easy to talk to. Her heart had jumped, and something more than superficial desire seemed to suffuse her mind and body, awaken her to a longing so deep and complicated she didn’t know how to describe it.

Since that night, she’d tried to dismiss what she’d felt—what she’d done—simply as a by-product of the shock of learning about Big Mike’s death. But it was more than that, only it didn’t matter now. Whatever Sam Temple had been to her, those sixteen hours were over. She didn’t have to understand what had happened between them because it would never be repeated. Their lovemaking was like some kind of out-of-time experience that would stay with her forever—she didn’t hold it against him.

But her brother would.

“Sam’s the classic dangerous man,” Susanna went on.

“Yes, I know.” Kara managed a smile. “I promised myself when I moved back here that I’d stay away from Texas Rangers. Having one for a brother is bad enough. They’re all know-it-all rock heads.”

Susanna laughed. “Well, if it’s a question of rock heads, you fit right in, Kara. Honestly. Sam? What were you thinking? ” She held up a hand, stopping Kara from answering. “Never mind. You weren’t thinking.”

“What happened was just as much my responsibility as Sam’s.”

“Jack won’t see it that way.”

An understatement. “He doesn’t suspect—”

“No. He hasn’t thrown Sam out a window.” Susanna dropped her arms, shaking her head with affection. “You were away a long time, Kara. A part of Jack still sees you as his naive little sister, not an experienced, thirty-four-year-old professional.”

Not so experienced when it came to sex, Kara thought, stifling a surge of awkwardness. At least Sam didn’t know how inexperienced. “Jack can mind his own damn business. I haven’t seen or heard from Sam since we—since the opening.” She paused, the heat settling over her, making her feel claustrophobic, unable to breathe. “It’s over.”

Susanna eyed her sister-in-law knowingly, skeptically. “Nothing’s over. I saw you two tonight, Kara. Don’t kid yourself.” She pulled open Kara’s car door, touched her shoulder gently. “Go on. See about those kids. I hope they’re back in their beds at the ranch by now. Jack’s getting ready to saddle up and go over there—”

“He doesn’t have to.”

“I wouldn’t try to tell him what he has to and doesn’t have to do right now. He’s on a tear.”

“What about Sam?”

“Ditto, I would think.”

Kara nodded, holding back sudden tears. Nausea burned up into her throat, cloying, bringing a tremble to her knees. Maybe it wasn’t nausea—maybe it was fear. But she rallied, easing behind the wheel of her car. “They’re scrappers, those two.” She hesitated. “Susanna—I don’t have to ask you to keep this conversation between us, do I?”

“Absolutely not. Jack’s mad enough as it is about the kids and this bluebird theory.”

It was a ninety-mile drive back to Austin, an hour and a half for Kara to obsess on where Henry and Lillian could be, the dangers they could encounter, whatever the hell had possessed them to run off. The clear, deep water of the ranch’s lake, the possibilities of rabid animals, hundreds of acres of trails and hills, reckless drivers, pedophiles—the list of dangers was endless. It didn’t matter that they were smart, clever or rich, that they’d run off deliberately. They were kids.

And Sam and Jack were on the case. Her fault.

God, what was she to do about Sam Temple?

“Nothing,” she told herself as she pulled into her short driveway. There was nothing for her to do because he was running as fast from their weekend together as she was.

She locked her car door and headed up the short walk to the front porch of the little Craftsman-style bungalow she’d bought in Hyde Park not long after she’d moved to Austin last September. It was just a few blocks from the historic house Susanna’s parents were renovating, another few blocks from their art gallery. Kara liked the tree-lined streets and diversity of the neighborhood, so different from the 1830s house she’d rented in a Hartford suburb on the west side of the Connecticut River. She’d never bought property in Connecticut. That should have been a sign to her, but it wasn’t—it took Big Mike to get her finally to admit it was time to go back home.

She’d met him in law school, on a weekend visit with Allyson and Lawrence to the Stockwell Farm. Her friends were deeply in love, the twenty-year age difference never seeming to matter to either of them.

Big Mike was already a force in Connecticut politics, wealthy, blueblood Lawrence Stockwell an unlikely friend and ally. Lawrence had guessed Kara and Mike Parisi would hit it off, and they had. When Big Mike said something factually incorrect about the law, Kara corrected him, arguing her point with all the hubris of a first-year law student—Mike insisted it was because she was a stubborn Texan, too. They became instant friends. He was her mentor on so many things, but not politics—she wasn’t interested. She wouldn’t even tell him whether she’d voted for him.

When June, Big Mike’s wife, was charged with driving while intoxicated, he asked Kara to take the case, and agreed when she insisted she do it her way and he stay out of it. June admitted to her alcoholism and entered treatment. Mike stepped back and let his wife, whom he loved so much, take responsibility for her recovery. The incident could have undermined his friendship with Kara, but instead it deepened it.

June died six years ago, and not until he came out and told her did it occur to Kara that Big Mike was half in love with her.

He’d tried to make light of his admission. “Christ, don’t tell me you’re going to fall for Hatch, after all.”

“Hatch? He doesn’t have a thing for me.”

“Ha.”

Mike Parisi and Hatch Corrigan. Instead, she’d ended up in bed with Sam Temple.

This, she thought, was why she had her problems with men.

Mike had always known she’d go back to Texas. “No bluebonnets in Connecticut,” he’d say, then pull up every stupid stereotype he could think of about Texas and Texans, just to goad her—just to make her realize she was chronically homesick.

Maybe he’d known telling her he was in love with her would seal the deal, his way of making sure she didn’t get cold feet. “You have demons to lay to rest, Kara,” he’d told her, his worn, lived-in face without any hint of humor, “and you can’t do it here. You need to go home.”

In her months back in Texas, she’d only managed to stir up new demons. She hadn’t laid any of the old ones to rest.

The night air was still hot, without even a hint of a breeze. Her little house had a decent front yard that needed reseeding and a front porch that needed scraping and painting—well, the place was a fixer-upper. She didn’t know why she’d bought it. Why not a brand-new condo? She didn’t have time to cook, never mind scrape paint and strip hardwood floors. The previous owners had kept the place clean and tidy, maintaining the original woodwork and floor plan, giving the house, as her Realtor had put it, potential.

She heard someone laughing down the street, music from a nearby house. She unlocked her front door, feeling less panicked. If she didn’t hear anything more tonight, she’d call Allyson in the morning and drive out to the ranch herself. She knew she wouldn’t sleep.

When she pushed open her door, the cool air from inside washed over her, but she stopped abruptly, hearing something. And when she glanced in her living room, there on the floor, eating microwave popcorn and watching television, were Henry and Lillian Stockwell.

The missing children of the governor of Connecticut looked up at Kara from their bags of popcorn. They were blond, blue-eyed and well mannered for eleven and twelve. Even sweaty and tired, they were obviously well off. They had on neat khaki shorts and polo shirts, and Lillian had tied a western-style red bandanna on the end of her single long braid, wisps of white-blond hair sticking out of it. Henry had dirt smudges on his chin.

He spoke first, his tone everyday casual. “Hi, Aunt Kara. We found your spare key under a flowerpot.”

“ I found it,” Lillian said. “Henry was looking under the doormat.”

“Does your mother know where you are?” Kara walked into the living room from the small entry and raked a hand through her hair, debating how to handle the situation. “How did you get here? What did you do, hide in a hay wagon? Steal a horse? Come on, you two. Fess up.”

“We took the ranch shuttle to the Austin airport,” Henry replied calmly. “It makes the trip twice a day, once in the morning, once in the afternoon.”

“The shuttle? How? Didn’t anyone ask questions?”

He shrugged. “We were prepared.”

Lillian flipped her braid over one shoulder. “Henry arranged everything on the camp computer—he even printed out a form we needed. The driver thought we were meeting Mom. When we got to the airport, we pretended to see her and jumped out with our backpacks. It was easy.”

“It’s not like we’re little kids,” her brother added.

Kara stared at the two of them. “You mean you conned your way out here. At the very least you owe this poor driver an apology.” She could think of two Texas Rangers who’d be interested in the kids’ story. “How did you get from the airport to my house?”

“Taxi,” Henry said.

“When?”

“A little while ago.” His chin was thrust up at her, as if he was daring her to try to pin him down to an exact time or tell him he’d done anything seriously wrong.

Kara paced in her small living room, its cozy fabrics and woods having no soothing effect on her. The kids’ backpacks were leaning up against her couch, unzipped, water bottles and CD players poking out. Who wouldn’t believe anything they said?

“Did the cab take you to my door?” she asked.

Henry stretched out his legs and dipped his hand into his popcorn bag. “We had him drop us off on the corner.”

That wouldn’t divert Jack and Sam for half a second. “You left a hell of a trail. I’m surprised I got here before the police. You know they’re bound to be looking for you by now, don’t you?” She groaned at the mess these kids had made for themselves. And they no doubt thought they were so smart. “You’re calling your mother right now. ”

Lillian glanced at her brother, and his mouth drew into a straight, grim line. “She knows we’re here.”

“No, she doesn’t. I talked to her earlier—”

“Then she lied to you because someone was listening and she couldn’t tell you the truth.” Henry gazed up defiantly, Lillian following his lead. Given her years as a criminal defense attorney, Kara could sense fear behind defiance, bravado, loud, false protests of innocence—and she did now, with her godchildren. There was a quaver to his voice when Henry went on. “Mom told us we had to get out of the ranch as fast as possible and go to you. She couldn’t come for us. We had to get away on our own. She knew we could do it.”

“Henry. Lillian.” Kara continued to pace, her head pounding. The smell of popcorn turned her stomach. “Your mother would not have asked you to run away like that. No one in their right mind would. She’d call me and have me go pick you up—”

“She didn’t, ” Lillian said.

Kara sighed. “You two have put me in a hell of a position,” she said, not unkindly.

“We know.” Henry spoke softly, but his eyes—a clear, pale blue almost identical to his father’s—grew wide and serious. “Aunt Kara, we’re in trouble.”

Lillian nodded, gulping for air. “Big trouble.”

There was no bravado now, no pride in having slipped off to Austin on their own, with no one the wiser. Kara stopped pacing, staying on her feet as she waited for them to continue. Their fear was palpable.

“That’s why Mom’s acting so weird,” Henry said.

Lillian reached into her backpack and withdrew the first of the Harry Potter books, its cover greasy and torn. She opened up to a page marked with a twig and stared down at it, her braid flopping down her front, hands greasy from the popcorn.

“Mom sent us a letter to give to you.” Henry unzipped the outer pocket of his backpack and pulled out a grimy water bottle, a CD player, two fruit-bar wrappers, a compass and, finally, a limp, rumpled envelope. He handed it to Kara. She noticed it was sealed, no postmark. He said, “She put it in with other stuff she sent down for us. We didn’t read it.”

Kara sat on the edge of an overstuffed armchair a few feet from her godchildren. She’d gone to a store decorator with the dimensions and style of her living room and said go to it. She liked to think she’d have time one day to fuss with proper renovations and decorating, but this was her life, she thought. Here she was, listening to two middle-schoolers defend their inexplicable actions.

Henry had always been precocious and quiet, skilled at getting people to do what he wanted them to do without them even realizing it. He wasn’t manipulative so much as an effective negotiator, always certain of what he wanted the outcome to be. In this case, apparently, it was to convince his godmother that he and his sister had run away with their mother’s permission because they all were in big trouble.

Kara recognized the heavy cream-colored stock and dark green ink, the elegant lettering, of Allyson’s personal stationery. Nice touch. The letter inside was handwritten. Smart. If it had been typed, she’d have nailed Henry and Lillian immediately. The handwriting was similar enough to Allyson’s to pass initial muster, and whoever had done the writing had even thought to use her signature black fountain pen. Kara still wasn’t willing to declare the letter genuine. She read skeptically:

Dear Kara,

I know this will come as a shock, but you’re the only one I can trust right now. Henry and Lillian are in grave danger. We all are. I’ll explain everything when I see you. Please take them to Stonebrook Cottage and wait for me there. Tell no one! Don’t call me. It’s too dangerous. I’ll come to you. Please, Kara. I’m trusting you with my children. I have no other choice.

Please believe what they tell you and do as they ask. I’ll see you soon.

Love,

Allyson

When she finished, Kara quelled any sense of panic or urgency she felt in response to the dramatic words she’d read. She had to stay calm and reasonably objective, and above all, she had to think. At the very least, she had a tricky situation and two troubled kids on her hands. But if the letter was genuinely from Allyson, it was a dangerous situation, confusing, mystifying, illogical…and, still, she had two troubled kids to see to.

Stonebrook Cottage was located at the end of a dirt road on the southern border of Stockwell Farm. Allyson owned it, and Kara had stayed there a number of times during her years up north.

“Henry, Lillian. Listen to me.” Kara refolded the letter and placed it back in the envelope. “If this is a forgery, I’m not going to be happy about it. Do you understand?”

They nodded solemnly, their expressions serious, frightened, tired.

Kara was unmoved. These were her godchildren, and she loved them, but she couldn’t let that lower her defenses. “What grades did you get in English?” she asked. “You first, Henry.”

He gave her a blank stare. “What?”

“Language arts, English, writing—what were your grades?”

“A’s.”

“He got a D in math,” Lillian said without looking up from her book.

“What did you get in language arts?” Kara asked her.

“A’s.”

Henry and Lillian are in grave danger. We all are.

The letter didn’t make any sense. Allyson was the governor of Connecticut. If she thought her children were in danger down in Texas, why not call Texas authorities? Or send a couple of state troopers to fetch them? At least why not call Kara and ask her to intervene? Why take such a huge risk and have them sneak off to Austin on their own?

If she didn’t want to involve law enforcement, Allyson was rich—she could hire a private bodyguard.

Nothing in Allyson’s call had prepared her for this development. Her friend had sounded genuinely near panic.

Kara knew how to shoot and had taken a couple of self-defense classes, but that was it. She didn’t have the training, the expertise, the weaponry or the mandate of the Texas Rangers, the Austin police. Allyson had to know the entire state of Texas—including Kara’s brother—would be on alert for the two missing kids of a New England governor. How did she expect Kara to get them out of Texas on the sly? Allyson’s actions defied logic.

For two middle-schoolers to engineer such an elaborate plan and think it made sense—that might not defy logic. The trauma of Big Mike’s death, homesickness, isolation and a natural sense of drama could have gotten Henry and Lillian plotting, but there had to be more. Something else had to be going on.

What?

Suddenly hot and frustrated, Kara shot to her feet and turned the air-conditioning up a notch. She heard it hum, felt the rush of cooler air. It was almost ten o’clock. Eleven o’clock in New England. She recalled her brief conversation with Allyson. “I have a million people around right now, so I can’t talk, but Kara—please, keep an eye out. I know you’re a ways from the ranch, but maybe they’ll turn up.”

Was that a hint?

Not bloody likely, Kara thought. Henry and Lillian’s story had to be bogus. It was the only reasonable conclusion, and it meant their mother and the people at the dude ranch were still worried sick about them. It meant the searches for them would continue. It meant all hell would be breaking loose in Texas and Connecticut until someone tracked them to their godmother’s doorstep—or until Kara called her brother and told him what was going on.

Lillian yawned, her book looking heavy on her skinny thighs.

“Don’t you two want to call your mother and tell her you arrived safely?” Kara asked.

Henry seemed to know she was trying to trip him up. “She told us not to call. You’re supposed to take us to Stonebrook Cottage and wait for her there. Doesn’t she say that in the letter?”

He’d know if he wrote it, wouldn’t he? Kara tried to keep her skepticism from showing. Her godchildren had gone through a lot of trouble to get her to believe them—it was important to them. She needed to be very careful about how she unraveled their story.

Lillian lifted her thin shoulders. “We’re just doing what Mom told us to do.”

Kara returned to her armchair, sinking into its soft cushions. She was still hot, the cooler air making little difference, and she was tired and torn about how to proceed.

One thing she knew for certain. The kids’ story had a million holes.

“Aunt Kara, you’re a lawyer, right?”

She narrowed her eyes on her godson, wondering what was coming next. “Yes, why?”

“I was just making sure. If you’re a lawyer, that means everything we tell you is confidential. You can’t tell anyone. Right?”

Kara stared at him. “Henry, I’m a lawyer, but I’m not your lawyer.”

“But that’s why Mom sent us to you! She said we can trust you because you’re our lawyer. Aunt Kara, you can’t tell anyone! We trusted you!” He balled his hands into fists, his mouth set, his face screwed up with determination. “We wouldn’t have said anything if we didn’t think you were our lawyer.”

“You mean you told me this whole story believing I was representing you? Henry, Lillian—I’m your godmother. I can’t be your attorney! Well, I can be, but I’d need explicit permission from your mother, or a court would have to appoint a guardian ad litem for you and then you could hire me.” Kara groaned, her head screaming now. “I’m not your lawyer, so get that out of your heads.”

Henry was near panic. “But that’s the only reason we told you—”

“Hold on—relax.” Kara got back to her feet, wondering who was in control of this situation, her or the kids. “If you told me this whole tale believing I was acting as your attorney and it was privileged information, then that’s what it is. Privileged information. I can’t tell anyone.”

“We’re not fugitives.” Lillian was blinking back tears, clearly exhausted. “We didn’t break any laws.”

Kara studied the two tired, frightened children. Something was wrong. Their story didn’t add up, but they hadn’t run off just because they were bored. Maybe Big Mike’s death was too much for them—maybe they’d overreacted to innocent events and created some wild scenario involving secrets and grave danger and were so wrapped up in it that, at this point, they couldn’t distinguish fiction from reality.

Regardless of their motives, however real their fear, they were here now, and they were her obligation. Her sole obligation. Nothing else mattered. Connecticut politics, bluebird theories, concerned authorities in two states, not even their mother. If Allyson wrote the letter, she had to be out of her mind. If she didn’t write the letter, she would expect Kara to do her best to sort out the situation and get Henry and Lillian safely home as soon as possible.

“We could call your mom on her cell phone—”

“No!” Henry yelled in panic, and Lillian almost cried. “We can’t call her. She told us not to call. We’re supposed to have you take us to Stonebrook Cottage and wait. Aunt Kara, please, you have to believe us!”

“All right, all right. Look, you two need baths and a good night’s sleep. I only have one bedroom, but you can share my bed. I’ll sleep out here on the couch.” Kara hugged them, one arm around each one, as they got up from the couch. “Let’s get some rest and come at this fresh in the morning.”

Henry looked up at her, his thin face etched with concern. “Then what?”

“I don’t know, but I’m on your side. Okay? Do not doubt that for one second.” She thought a moment, the bare bones of a plan coming together. One way or another, these kids were going back to Connecticut. “Unless I have good reason to do otherwise—you tell me it’s a forgery, or I find out by other means or get new information—I’m going to do what it says in your mother’s letter and get you to Stonebrook Cottage.” She thought of the trail they’d left and didn’t imagine they had much time if they were going to keep this little adventure among themselves and out of the public eye. But she needed to think. Staying a step ahead of Jack and Sam now that she’d enlisted their help—and aroused their suspicions—wouldn’t be easy. “Don’t be surprised or scared if I have to wake you up in the middle of the night.”

Lillian’s eyes widened. “Why would you have to do that?”

“Her brother’s a Texas Ranger.” Henry whispered as if the place was bugged. “Everyone at the ranch probably got nervous when they couldn’t find us and called the police or something.”

His sister gasped. “Oh! Does that make us fugitives?”

“It doesn’t matter. Aunt Kara will help us. Big Mike used to say she was the best defense lawyer he ever knew.”

“Big Mike exaggerated,” Kara said. “Go on, you two. Get cleaned up and get some sleep. I’m not worried about my brother.”

Well, she was, but she was more worried about Sam Temple. He’d made it plain he hadn’t liked the call from Zoe West. When he found out the missing Stockwell kids sneaked a ride to Austin—and he would—he’d be in full Texas Ranger, by-the-book law enforcement mode. Kara didn’t object to him doing his job, but his interests weren’t necessarily compatible with her sense of obligation to her godchildren. She needed to get them back to their mother as soon, and as quietly, as possible.

There was nothing by-the-book about this situation.

She led Henry and Lillian down a short hall to her bedroom and the bathroom. Lillian was the first in the tub, Henry next, and twenty minutes later, the lights were out and they were asleep.

Kara cleaned up their popcorn mess and flopped onto the couch, rereading the letter purportedly from Allyson. You’re the only one I can trust right now…don’t call me…I have no other choice.

It had to be phony.

And Henry not mentioning attorney-client privilege until after he and Lillian had told Kara everything—what a ploy.

“Smart-ass. He knew what he was doing.”

She ground her teeth and placed her palm on her lower abdomen, but her nausea had finally abated. It had to be seafood tacos, the heat, her still-palpable grief over Big Mike’s sudden death—she wasn’t pregnant. She tried to remember any slips she and Sam had made, but stopped herself short because it entailed replaying every move, every caress, and that was pure torture.

She thought of her towheaded godchildren asleep down the hall. They were so damn young. How could Allyson have sent them on such a crazy trip?

She didn’t.

But something was wrong—very wrong. Henry and Lillian weren’t bad kids. They wouldn’t deliberately scare their mother and manipulate their godmother if they weren’t frightened themselves. But of what?

Kara knew she had to think. She didn’t have much time, and she had to get this one right. Too much was at stake.

Four

F atigue clawed at Sam and had already had an adverse effect on his judgment—after all, he was in Austin, not home in bed—but he continued up Kara’s walkway and onto her porch, anyway. A light was on. It was almost midnight, but he doubted he was getting her out of bed. Not that it mattered.

Henry and Lillian Stockwell had apparently conned their way to the Austin airport. Now, why could that be? It wasn’t to fly. No flights had taken off with them on board, and their mother was up in Connecticut still sounding the alarm.

Just as Sam started to ring the bell, Kara pulled open the front door. “Sam—scare the hell out of me, why don’t you?” She held up a pottery vase and smiled. “Consider yourself lucky. I was going to bonk you on the head. I don’t normally get visitors at midnight.”

“You don’t own a gun?”

“No way. I hate guns.” She hadn’t changed out of the work clothes she’d worn down to San Antonio earlier in the evening. Sam noticed her crisp blouse was a little rumpled. She set her vase on a small hall table. “Do you have news? I haven’t heard a word.”

She made no move to invite him in. Everything he knew about body language—and Kara Galway—told him she was trying to keep this exchange simple and short and get rid of him as fast as possible. There could be innocuous reasons for that, sensible ones that had nothing to do with the Stockwell kids.

But he was playing this one his way. “Henry and Lillian conned the shuttle driver at the ranch to take them to the Austin airport.”

Kara frowned. “Why on earth would they do something like that?”

Sam rested back on his heels, eyeing Kara. Something wasn’t adding up, but she was an experienced attorney, accustomed to not tipping her hand to the other side. And somehow, he’d become the other side. He’d felt it the second she opened the door. “The Austin police are checking with the airport, taxis, buses. The kids told the shuttle driver they were meeting their mother. They claimed to see her and took off. He didn’t realize anything was wrong until he got back to the ranch.”

“Allyson knows? Someone called her?”

“The people at the ranch. Jack talked to her brother-in-law, Hatch Corrigan. He’s some kind of adviser?”

Kara nodded, her dark eyes distant, unreadable. “He must be having fits. I can’t imagine what’s gotten into Henry and Lillian—” She sighed, breaking off. “What’s your involvement? Austin isn’t your jurisdiction.”

“Wrong. All of Texas is my jurisdiction.”

“That’s not what I meant. I meant you’re stationed in San Antonio—” She stopped herself, squaring her shoulders as she eyed him coolly. “Sam, is this an official visit?”

“Do you mean if you lie to me can I arrest you?” He took a step toward her, aware he was even more intense than usual. She drew back, as if a little shocked at his closeness, but he didn’t ease off. “You opened your door loaded for bear. Why?”

“For God’s sake, Sam, it’s the middle of the night.”

“You knew it wasn’t an intruder. Your door has glass panels. You saw me.”

She took a breath, the light from behind her casting shadows over her face. He saw her intensity, her determination, and knew she had no intention of easing off, either. “Okay. I didn’t want you to think I open my door to near strangers unprotected.”

As if he was a near stranger and a vase would have protected her. Sam decided not to push his point. “Why didn’t you tell me about Governor Parisi’s death?”

His question seemed to catch her off guard. He saw her swallow, remembered kissing her smooth throat. She averted her eyes. “I couldn’t get the words out. It was as if saying it out loud would have made it real.”

“Kara, we were together for a long time.”

Her dark eyes lifted to him, met him dead-on. “I know what you must think. It was a weird weekend. Let’s just forget it.”

“I don’t regret what happened between us.”

“Neither do I.” She took a breath, dropping her hand from the door. “Look, it’s late, and I’m worried about Henry and Lillian—”

“I smell popcorn.”

“What? Oh—oh, yeah. I didn’t have any dinner.”

Sam leaned toward her, making no secret that he was trying to peer into her living room. “You’re not going to invite me in?”

“Not without a warrant, Sergeant Temple.” She smiled, but there was no mistaking her seriousness of purpose. He wasn’t getting past her. She had her vase, and she had the law.

“Kara, if you have something to tell me, get it out on the table. Now.”

No impact. “It’s been a long day,” she said smoothly. “We’re both worried about Henry and Lillian. So, let’s not do this. You turn around and go do your Texas Ranger thing, and I’ll let you know if I need you.”

He had to remember she was a respected attorney. If she was afraid or troubled, she could handle it. She knew where to turn for help.

She also knew how to skirt the truth with him if it suited her. She’d come right up to the line—if not cross it.

Sam placed one foot on the threshold and narrowed his eyes on her. He saw her lips part and knew she was thinking he might kiss her. He was tired enough that it seemed a natural thing to do, kissing Kara Galway in the doorway of her little house, never mind that she was trying to get rid of him—hiding something from him.

Instead, he tapped her chin with one finger. “I wouldn’t cross me if I were you.”

She shrugged, unintimidated. “Fine. I won’t cross you.”

“If you know anything about the Stockwell kids—”

“It’s a family matter, Sam, not a law enforcement matter. It’s sure as hell not a matter for the Texas Rangers. You’re supposed to assist in major criminal investigations. This isn’t one.”

“Are you sure you never told anyone Mike Parisi couldn’t swim?”

“Go away, Sam. I’m tired.”

“When did you find out? Did he tell you for a specific reason or did he just let it slip? What was he to you? What was he to your godchildren?”

He didn’t expect her to answer his questions. He was simply demonstrating how having the runaway kids of the new governor of Connecticut on the loose in Texas was his business if he decided it was.

Not that it had any effect on her. “Give it up, Sergeant Temple. Mike’s death and Henry and Lillian skipping out of summer camp are at most only peripherally related.”

He stepped back onto the porch, the hot night air mingling with the cool air coming from her house. He remembered her soft, white sheets, one of Eva Dunning’s hand sewn quilts hanging on the wall above her bed. Kara, Kara. What had he done?

He pressed two fingers to his lips, then touched them to hers. “I went too fast with you. I’m sorry.”

“Sam—”

But he straightened, removing any hint of softness from his expression. “If those kids don’t turn up at the airport, I’ll be back.” He started down the porch steps, his back to her as he added, “You can make more popcorn.”

Kara locked her front door behind her and stood in the foyer, her head pounding. A suspicious Texas Ranger was just what she needed. Now what? Sam or the Austin police would find the cabdriver who’d taken Henry and Lillian to Hyde Park. Two rich kids on their own—the driver would remember them.

The effects of her long day ate at her nerves, threw her off her normal manner of doing things. She wasn’t one to panic. When she was nine years old, she’d had to sit motionless next to her dying mother while they waited for the paramedics. Ranger Temple wasn’t getting under her skin. She wouldn’t let it happen.

Except it already had. Her reaction to him on her doorstep had been instantaneous and overpowering, a mix of attraction and desire, frustration, a touch of embarrassment, even fear, although not for herself. Having a tight-lipped Texas Ranger at her house gave weight to what Henry and Lillian had done in running off from the dude ranch, what their lives had become now that Big Mike was gone and their mother was governor.

Tell no one…I’m trusting you with my children…

Kara shook off the words in the letter. Replaying them in her head would get her nowhere, and it was her own damn fault she had Sam on her case. She’d given his name to Zoe West in Connecticut, figuring it couldn’t hurt to have a Texas Ranger vouching for her whereabouts. She hadn’t expected the Bluefield detective to go to the trouble of checking out her story and actually calling him.

Then, after Allyson had told her about Henry and Lillian, Kara immediately drove to San Antonio in a panic. It wasn’t just to see her brother and Susanna and get their moral support. She’d half hoped Sam would be there.

She’d more than half hoped.

She pulled out sheets in the hall linen closet, figuring she might as well make up the couch and at least get some sleep before she had to deal with Sam. Or should she wake up the kids and clear out before he got back here? She couldn’t think straight. She started back to the living room with her armload of sheets.

“Aunt Kara!” Lillian called in a panicked whisper, crab-walking up the short hall from the bedroom. Her face was ashen. “Get down! He can see you!”

“Lillian, good God—”

“Get down!”

Doing as she asked, Kara crouched down with her sheets and made her way to Lillian. “What is it, Lil?” The frightened girl was barely breathing. “Did you have a nightmare? Did you see my friend Sam—”

“It’s the man…” She faltered, unable to speak. Purple splotches spread across her pale cheeks as she gulped in more and more air, not breathing out.

“Lillian…honey, you need to hold your breath for a couple of seconds. You’re not exhaling. If you get too much oxygen into your bloodstream, you’ll pass out.”

She raised her huge blue eyes to Kara and dutifully held her breath for two seconds, then blew out a sharp breath and blurted, “It’s the man from the ranch!”

“What man? Where?”

“Outside. I saw him. Henry said we shouldn’t tell you about him until we get to Stonebrook Cottage, but he’s here. Mom doesn’t even know about him.”

Kara could feel Lillian’s near hysteria infecting her. Wisps of blond hair matted the girl’s damp forehead and temples, beads of perspiration formed on her freckled nose. Kara steadied herself. “Lillian, where? Where is this man?”

“Out front. He’s in a car. I saw him from the bedroom window.”

“Are you sure? This is the city. There are lots of cars—”

“It’s him. Come on, I’ll show you.” She tugged on Kara’s arm, but when Kara tried to stand up, Lillian gasped and dug her fingernails into her godmother’s wrists, almost drawing blood. “Stay down.”

Whatever was going on with these kids, Kara thought, it was serious and undoubtedly more than she could handle alone. She set the sheets on the floor and tried to maintain an outward air of calm, if only to reassure Lillian, who was scared out of her wits. The girl’s hyperventilating wasn’t an act. Kara had seen enough faked fear and panic attacks—on the part of witnesses, clients, even young attorneys before a big trial—to recognize the difference.

Staying low, she followed Lillian to the bedroom. Henry was on his knees at the window, peering over the sill in the dark, an angle of light from outside catching his pale face. He silently motioned for Kara and his sister to join him.

“I wasn’t going to tell you,” he whispered when Kara crouched next to him. “I didn’t want to scare you, but Lillian wouldn’t listen. He’s out there.”

“Who, Henry?” Kara asked.

“Do you see the black car? That’s him.”

She looked up past the neighbor’s house, craning her neck, and saw a black sedan parked on the street. Someone was in the front seat, but she couldn’t tell if it was a man or woman.

“Look,” Lillian said, kneeling down on Kara’s other side, “he’s smoking a cigarette.”

Kara frowned. “I can’t see the cigarette never mind who’s in the car. How do you two know he’s from the ranch?”

“He got out of the car a few minutes ago,” Henry said. “He stared right at your house. Lillian and I got a good look at him, didn’t we, Lil?”

“Uh-huh. He was under the streetlight.”

“Okay, I believe you,” Kara said. “So who is he?”

Henry sat down on the floor, leaning back against the wall under the window with his knees tucked up under his chin. Kara noticed a smattering of small scratches and bruises on his tanned bare legs, a twelve-year-old at summer’s end. How had his and Lillian’s summer come to this?

“We saw him watching us at the ranch,” he said. “Well, I did, and I warned Lillian to look out for him. He showed up the first of this week.”

“Are you sure he wasn’t an employee? He didn’t introduce himself—”

“Sometimes he had on a disguise,” Lillian said. “I saw him with a fake mustache. I thought he looked stupid.”

A fake mustache. It could have been another man altogether and Lillian had just leaped to the conclusion it was her strange man in a disguise. “Did you ever talk to him?” Kara asked.

Both kids shook their heads. “That would have been dumb,” Henry said.

“Yeah,” Lillian said, “what if he dragged us into the woods and chopped our heads off?”

Kara winced, but realized Lillian was serious. Bad things could happen if you talked to strange men. Why hadn’t it occurred to them that bad things could happen if you lit out on your own?

But Kara stuck to the issue at hand. “Did this man ever approach you, ever try to talk to you?”

“No.” Henry was remarkably calm. “He just watched us, usually from where no one else could see him. I asked one of my friends who he was, but the man disappeared—it’s like he knew I was checking him out.”

Kara peered out at the parked car and wondered if the stress of the past weeks—the isolation they’d felt after Mike’s death and their mother becoming governor, coupled with the unfamiliarity of being on a Texas dude ranch—had pushed these two bright, imaginative kids over the edge. They had to be making this stuff up.

“You didn’t tell your counselors about him?”

“I wanted to,” Lillian said, “but Henry wouldn’t let me.”

He pursed his lips, as if contemplating the logic of his decision. “I was scared to say anything. Then Mom told us to come here. I knew something was wrong.”

“Lillian says your mother doesn’t know about this guy.”

“We didn’t want to worry her. She was already worried enough.”

Kara tried to follow his thinking, but he was twelve years old. “Okay—are you sure this is the same guy?”

“Yes,” he and Lillian said simultaneously.

They argued over everything—the rules of a card game, television shows, favorite rock groups, where to sit in a restaurant. Kara had put a stop to their bickering enough times to realize that agreeing, without hesitation, about the man outside had to mean something. She sighed, wishing she could be neutral and objective where Henry and Lillian Stockwell were concerned. If they could successfully manipulate anyone, it’d be her. She loved them unconditionally, and they knew it.

Sam would want to know about the man in the black sedan.

Both kids were back on their knees, spying out the window. The car’s headlights popped on, catching them by surprise. Lillian dived to the floor, sobbing and gulping for air, and Henry ducked down low and went stone-still, as if any movement might give away his position.

Kara touched Lillian’s trembling shoulder. “Stay here. I’ll be right back. Trust me. ”

She ran up the hall into the foyer, tore open her door and shot out onto the porch, catching the car as it moved up the street. It had a Texas tag, but she couldn’t make it out or tell if the car was a rental.

She debated calling Sam. Her brother. 911. Never mind the damn letter—never mind Henry and Lillian’s irrational fear. This was her decision to make. She was the prevailing adult here.

When she returned to her bedroom, her godchildren were hoisting their backpacks onto their shoulders, grim-faced, as if they knew exactly what Kara was considering doing and now they had to go find someone else to help them.

She sighed. “What are you two doing?”

“We’re getting out of here.” Henry spoke calmly, seriously. “He’ll come back. We don’t want him to find us—or you. We have no right to endanger you, Aunt Kara.”

She ignored a sudden, overwhelming wave of nausea and forced herself to focus on the problem at hand. These kids were on the verge of spinning out of control. She had to do something, say something, that would settle them down.

Sam would be back before long. Wouldn’t they feel safe with a Texas Ranger?

Henry straightened, as if what they did next was entirely up to him. “Come on, Lil. Let’s get out of here. If Aunt Kara won’t come with us, we’ll just have to manage on our own. We can do it.”

Lillian seemed less confident, but nodded.

“Listen,” Kara said, “there’s someone I can call—”

Henry shook his head, adamant. “No.” His face had turned a grayish white, and he started to shake uncontrollably, his self-control crumbling. He stiffened visibly, but the shaking didn’t ease. Tears rolled down his cheeks, shining in the light from the street. “Aunt Kara… please, you have to believe us. We’re in danger.”

If they were in danger, there was no question she should call Sam, but she’d never get that far. The kids would bolt. They’d skipped out on the dude ranch and made it all the way to damn Austin on their own—they’d skip out on her, too.

She still had to deal with the letter from Allyson. Did she believe Allyson had written it? Did it even matter at this point? It demonstrated what Henry and Lillian believed was at stake.

And if they didn’t release her from attorney-client privilege, there wasn’t much she could tell Sam, anyway.

“All right.” Kara tried to sound decisive, although her plan was still sketchy, in its early stages—and crazy, every bit of it. “You’re going to have to trust me and let me make some decisions. I’ll get you to Stonebrook Cottage and your mother, okay? I’ll do what she says in her letter.”

They nodded, Henry brushing at the tears on his thin cheeks. Lillian was solemn, very pale.

Kara hugged them both, squeezing hard, smelling the rancidness of their fear. The hell with everything. She had to get them safely to Stonebrook Cottage and their mother and stay one step ahead of anyone who might be after them—no matter the reason, good, bad, real or imagined.

She couldn’t believe she was cutting out on Sam Temple, Texas Ranger.

She smiled suddenly, and she noticed how reassured her godchildren looked now that she was taking charge—and they were getting their way. Well, what else could she do?

“Let me throw a few things together,” she told them. “Then we’re out of here.”

Five

P ete Jericho regarded the stripped logs piled on the edge of the gravel pit with satisfaction. He’d always liked work he could see getting done. Finish one job, move on to the next. Hard, physical work suited him. He squinted up at the hazy August sky, the humidity on the rise, seeping in from the south. He had a lot of work to get done before the first killing frost. Maybe keeping himself busy would put in check his anger and frustration—his sense of loss since Allyson had stepped up to the governorship.

Stupid to fall in love with her in the first place. He’d known it years ago, when he’d see her and Lawrence up at the Stockwell place, around town. She was a few years older than Pete, but that never mattered to him. After Lawrence died, Allyson was so overwhelmed and quiet, and Pete realized what he felt wasn’t just an infatuation. He was truly in love with her.

But Madeleine Stockwell had recognized it before Allyson did—maybe even before he did—and that was his undoing.

He started back to his truck, knowing there was no point in trying to blame Madeleine for his current predicament. Even without the prison record, he suspected Allyson would want to keep their relationship secret. He was the blue-collar guy down the road. He lived on the family homestead and worked with his father chopping wood. The Jericho family had been working their land for seven generations. They used to dairy farm, but now they scraped together a living cutting wood, growing Christmas trees, leasing hay fields to the few dairy farmers left in the area, raising chickens and sheep. Bea Jericho, Pete’s mother, handled the chickens and sheep. She was talking about getting some goats and making her own goat cheese, something Pete’s father wasn’t too keen on.

But these days they earned the bulk of their money managing other people’s property, the trophy country houses rich part-time residents built on ten-acre mini-estates carved out of land once owned by people like Charlie and Bea Jericho.

Pete knew his parents didn’t know about him and Allyson. Otherwise they’d have said something. Just as well, because it looked as if he’d been dumped; she didn’t even plan to call and tell him. He was supposed to figure it out. An affair with Allyson Lourdes Stockwell, lieutenant governor, was difficult enough. Now that she was governor, it was impossible.

Six months in prison eight years ago for a stupid barroom brawl would end up costing him the woman he loved.

He hadn’t been involved with Allyson then. Madeleine Stockwell had done her job and made sure he knew her son’s widow deserved better than a Jericho. She nipped any romantic intentions on his part in the bud. He remembered that bright, cold afternoon when Madeleine stood out on the patio of the only home she’d known since marrying Edward Stockwell and told Pete he had no ambition, no real prospects. “You’ll make a living. You’re a Jericho. That’s what you do. But it’s all that you do.”

She knew he had a “crush” on Allyson, a choice of words designed to further diminish him. And if he loved her, he would understand it was in her best interests that he never act on his feelings.

Furious, humiliated, he hadn’t gone home and hit the heavy bag or chopped wood. Instead, he’d headed to O’Reilly’s Pub in town and intervened when an idiot he’d known from high school harassed a woman. Words were exchanged. Fists flew. A couple of beer bottles. He ended up with torn knuckles and a broken nose, the idiot a cut on his jaw that required five stitches. Pete figured the score was even. O’Reilly went along. He wasn’t looking to see an account of a brawl in his pub in the local papers, and he hated cops and lawyers.

Walter Harrison thought otherwise. He was an off-duty cop who happened to witness the brawl. He made a wimpish attempt to break it up, then pushed to have Pete arrested on felony assault charges.

Stories changed. The woman, who was from out of town, said she wasn’t really being harassed and begged Pete not to get involved. Not true. The former classmate said Pete threw the first punch and smashed the first beer bottle and was generally out of control. Walter corroborated their versions. O’Reilly stayed out of it. Pete was convinced, then and now, and so was his father, that Madeleine Stockwell had her hand in it. A few greased palms, a little intimidation. A criminal record would make any romantic relationship between him and her daughter-in-law that much more unlikely.

He knew he was screwed, but Mike Parisi, a man who understood barroom brawls and the ways of Madeleine Stockwell, recommended Kara Galway, said she was a hell of a lawyer. Big Mike spent a lot of time in Bluefield even after Lawrence’s death, wooing Allyson into state politics; he’d always gotten along with the Jerichos.

Recommending Kara hadn’t worked out, at least in Pete’s estimation. He’d expected her to find a way to bring out the truth. Instead, she suggested he take a plea bargain when it was offered. The odds were against him if he went to trial, she explained. If he was convicted of felonious assault, he could count on spending three years in a nasty state prison. Plead guilty to a misdemeanor, and he was in and out of the local jail in six months.

Pete took the deal. He didn’t like it, but he took it. He supposed it was unfair of him to blame Kara, but he knew he’d lost any hope of having Allyson in his life the minute he heard the jailhouse doors shut behind him. It was as if Madeleine Stockwell had planned it that way.

Then last fall, he ran into Allyson when he was delivering wood up to the barn she and Lawrence had converted. She was alone, the kids off for the weekend with friends, and it was like two old friends suddenly seeing each other for the first time, that old cliché. Since then, they met each other when they could, content to watch television together when she was at the barn alone on weekends. Pete would sneak through the woods so Madeleine and Hatch wouldn’t find out. That was no longer possible now with round-the-clock security.

And a secret affair wasn’t what he wanted. It couldn’t last. He didn’t want it to. He wanted to tell everyone—the whole world—that he was in love with Allyson Lourdes Stockwell. But it was different for her with her high-profile life, her responsibilities, the commitments she’d made.

Madeleine was right, after all. He and Allyson just weren’t meant to be. He was a goddamn jailbird. It stuck to him like rot.

He hadn’t heard from Allyson since Big Mike drowned. Now that she was governor, she was probably wishing she’d never gotten involved with him in the first place. She tried to pretend she wasn’t ambitious, but she was—he liked that about her. She sometimes ranked on her abilities, her self-doubt always a surprise to him, because he believed in her to his core.

Charlie Jericho drove up on his old tractor, and Pete waved at his father, a bandy-legged man in his early sixties. He and Madeleine Stockwell had been feuding for as long as Pete could remember. Lately she was mad at him about the gravel pit, accusing him of having dug it on the border of Jericho-Stockwell property just to goad her. Charlie said he wouldn’t go to such trouble, it just happened to be where the gravel was located. The gravel pit would play out in three years and the land would be restored. She’d just have to live with it.

Charlie climbed off the tractor, wearing his habitual navy work pants and pocket T-shirt. “Madeleine wants us to deliver her cordwood early this year. Says to make sure it’s super-dry. Like we’ve ever given her green wood. The old bat.” He coughed, pulling out a pack of cigarettes as unconsciously as someone else might grab a handkerchief. “We should charge her double for being such a pain in the ass. Call it combat pay.”

Pete laughed. “Why not? She keeps saying she gets screwed by the locals. It’d give her something real to bitch about.”

His father tapped out a cigarette and stuck it in his mouth, fished out his lighter. He had a bad, wet cough, but he had no intention of quitting. He liked to smoke, he’d say, and you have to die of something. When Big Mike drowned, Charlie Jericho had said, “See, would it have made a damn bit of difference if he’d had a two-pack-a-day habit?”

The cordwood was still drying in the August sun. They’d cut the trees over the winter, trimmed them in early spring, before the leaves sprouted, then dragged the logs out here with a tractor and cut them into eight-foot lengths, setting them up on wooden platforms, off the wet ground, to dry. When the weather cooled off after Labor Day, they’d cut them into cordwood, mostly sixteen-inch lengths. It used to be they could sell four-foot lengths and people would cut them down themselves, but that wasn’t the case anymore. Some people even had Pete stack it for them. Hauling it to the wood box was enough of a chore, he guessed.

“Madeleine pays on time, I’ll say that for her.” Charlie puffed on his cigarette and grinned. “And her checks never bounce. Listen, I was out talking to the gravel guys this morning and noticed somebody’s been up on the ridge above the pit. Hunters, kids. Looks like they’ve built some kind of platform in an oak. If it’s kids, it’s dangerous up there. One wrong slip, and they’re in the pit. That sand and rock is unstable.”

“I’ll check it out and dismantle whatever’s there,” Pete said.

“Good. I don’t want anyone getting hurt.”

Pete nodded. “It’s a long way to get help.”

“A short way to the nearest lawyer. People get hurt, they start thinking lawsuits.”

“Pop,” Pete admonished.

Charlie waved a hand and climbed back on his tractor, his cigarette hanging from his lower lip. He could have walked out here, Pete thought. The exercise would have done his father good, but Charlie Jericho’s attitude toward exercise was similar to his attitude toward quitting smoking—not for him.

After he finally puttered off on his tractor, Pete headed across the barren landscape of the gravel pit. No one was working it today. They’d finish taking out the last load of sand and rock this fall, then restore the land in the spring. Right now it looked awful, a gaping hole dug out of the hillside, a desolate stretch of stripped ground, with huge piles of sand and rock, the dump truck, backhoe, rock-crusher and sifter all idle today. Pete could picture what it would look like in a few years, when nature had reclaimed the land.

He made his way into the light, untouched woods on the edge of the pit and walked up the hill, the steep, unstable descent into the gravel pit to his right. He pushed through ferns and ducked under the low branches of pine and hemlock, staying in the shade of small maple and oaks. This was the northernmost corner of Jericho land. Their house was back in the other direction, past the gravel pit, through the fields to the main road. The endless acres of Stockwell land stretched out over the rolling hills to the north.

Straight down the hill, to the south and west, the mini-estates started. Charlie had fits every time he saw evidence that the estate owners had been through the backwoods with their horses. He kept talking about putting up No Trespassing signs, a bother and an expense he’d never considered before and probably wouldn’t at all if the worst offenders hadn’t plastered their own property with them. “What’s mine is theirs, and what’s theirs is theirs,” Charlie would grumble.

Pete came to an old oak, the tallest tree on top of the hill, so close to the near-vertical edge of the gravel pit, some of its massive roots were exposed to the sand and erosion. A crude ladder of skinny, split cordwood led up the trunk on the safer side, above a cushion of fallen leaves. Saplings of maple, beech and ash grew densely on the south side of the hill, which led down to the mini-estate Mike Parisi had rented for the summer.

High in the tree, Pete spotted a platform tree house, a half-finished mishmash of old boards.

Kids. Had to be.

He climbed up the crude ladder, which barely held his weight, and at the top, grabbed hold of a branch above his head and swung onto the platform. It was sturdier than he’d expected, built across two branches above a V in the tree, maybe four feet by four. Someone had left behind a rusted hammer, a few nails, a water bottle and an old pair of binoculars.

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