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  A twelve-year-old Marissa had simply stayed out of the way, watching and smothering smiles. Then she saw it coming. The women had sat on the ground, Jean going strong with her carping and corrections when finally Annemarie’s mouth tightened, her eyes narrowed, and suddenly she picked up a dirt clod and threw it at Jean. The woman had been so startled, she’d simply stared agape at Annemarie. Marissa’s eyes had widened and she’d waited for Jean to jump up and stomp angrily into the house. After a moment, though, Jean had closed her hand against the loose dirt nearby and tossed a dirt clod at Annemarie, who’d promptly returned fire. Then Annemarie picked up the bucket of water sitting next to her and dashed it onto Jean, who gasped, shook her hair out of her eyes, reached for another full bucket, and drenched Annemarie. At this point the men had come out of the house to see both of their wives, wet, dirty, and laughing until they cried.

  The rose garden expanded as Annemarie learned everything she could about the growing of roses. Within three years, the side lawn was a breathtaking explosion of red, pink, yellow, and white. In the weeks before Annemarie died, she’d frequently looked out her window at the beautiful roses and they made her smile. They certainly wouldn’t now, Marissa sighed inwardly. She’d carefully prepared them for winter and knew they be glorious again in the summer, but at this time of year they simply looked bare, lonely, and forlorn like most of the other flora.

  “Well, I can’t stay here daydreaming and worrying Catherine,” Marissa said aloud. “Going in couldn’t be worse.”

  At least she didn’t think so until she reached the front door and faced an extremely large pine wreath bedecked with silver ribbons and figurines her mother had thought looked like angels. Marissa always thought the figurines resembled ghouls instead and believed she’d carefully hidden the eye-sore. Apparently, she hadn’t hidden it well enough.

  As soon as she stepped inside, Lindsay ran to her and presented a stuffed cow as a welcome home gift. Marissa bent, took the cow, and rubbed her chin on Lindsay’s head. “Just what I’ve needed all day!” she declared, holding on to the fat cow.

  “Oh, you’re home!” Catherine cried, jumping up to help Marissa with her coat as if she were an invalid. “I searched this house from attic to basement until I found the big wreath Aunt Ida made when we were kids. I thought you said it was lost. Did you notice it?”

  “How could I help it?” Marissa answered, hoping her voice didn’t betray her sarcasm. She’d have to try harder unless she wanted to betray her falling spirits. “Hello, James. How nice to see you!”

  He’d stood when she walked in, just as men had done fifty years ago when a lady entered the room. “Hi, Marissa. When you were late, Catherine was certain you’d had another wreck.”

  “I should have called her.”

  “You look exhausted and cold,” Catherine said, inspecting her from head to toe. “Why are your knees so red?”

  “I’ve been kneeling on the snow.” Catherine looked as if she was going to ask if Marissa had visited their parents’ graves, so Marissa quickly glanced at the fireplace. “Ah, nothing makes you feel better on a cold winter evening than a crackling fire. How nice to come home to one.” She sighed and nearly dropped onto the large brown armchair that had been her father’s. “Do you two have plans?” Marissa asked.

  “We’re going to the Larke Inn for dinner,” James said. He hesitated. “Can we talk you into joining us?”

  Which you’d absolutely hate, Marissa thought. “No, it’s been a hard day and I don’t have much appetite. All I can think of is how much I’d like a glass of wine.”

  “I’ll get it,” Catherine piped. “You sit right there. You look pale.”

  “With red knees.” As soon as she vanished into the kitchen, Marissa’s eyes twinkled at James. “Mother hen.”

  “I think it’s endearing.” Marissa felt a tiny burst of joy. James already sounded fond when he spoke of Catherine.

  “She loves the dining room at the Inn.”

  James’s face brightened. “I didn’t know. I guess I made the right choice.”

  “It also shouldn’t be too busy on a Tuesday night.”

  “That’s what I thought when I called Catherine right after noon. According to my mother, it’s insulting to ask out a lady without proper notice, but the idea just hit me. I’d like for us to have a cozy, uninterrupted dinner, which is impossible on a Friday or Saturday evening.”

  “Does Catherine look annoyed at being asked out improperly late?” Marissa asked, smiling. “I think your mother needs to progress with the times.”

  Catherine came back in the room and brought Marissa a glass of white wine. She looked beautiful in a heather green long-sleeved cashmere sheath dress with high-heeled black pumps. Her hair lay in waves down her back and she’d used just enough subtle liner to create mesmerizing blue-green cat eyes. Marissa caught a whiff of her own J’adore L’eau perfume when Catherine leaned forward to give her the wine.

  Marissa beamed. “You look gorgeous, Catherine.”

  “Doesn’t she?” James asked enthusiastically. “That dress looks so soft on her she’s just begging to be fondled.” Time seemed to stand still for a moment. Then Catherine turned crimson, James flushed, and Marissa burst into uncontrollable laughter.

  “That’s the first time I’ve laughed all day,” Marissa said, setting down her wine so she wouldn’t spill it. “James, you are a master of words.”

  “I speak more appropriately in court,” he answered dolefully. “And I can’t remember when I last used the word fondled.”

  “The word sneaked past the filter between your brain and your mouth. I think it’s a perfect description of her dress.” Marissa couldn’t stop grinning. “Shouldn’t you two be on your way to dinner? Even on weeknights, near Christmas the Larke dining room fills up, and I know the two of you want privacy,” Marissa said with an exaggerated wink.

  Catherine glared at her. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think that wasn’t Marissa’s first glass of wine tonight, or even her fourth. However, I think she has a good idea. We should go now, James, and leave my sister, who is so delighted with herself, alone all evening so she can giggle like a fourteen-year-old in peace.” Catherine yanked a brown wool coat from the closet, sending the hanger swinging. “You got a few Christmas cards today, Marissa. They’ll probably send you into gales of laughter.”

  “Okay. Good night, you two.”

  Catherine didn’t speak. Behind Catherine’s back, James grimaced and muttered, “Good night.”

  “Have a great time.” Marissa turned to look out the window behind her chair. James took Catherine’s arm and helped her into the car as if she were both delicate and precious. Marissa smiled. She felt wonderful seeing her sister treated with gentility and admiration by the man of her dreams. Marissa glanced at Lindsay, who sat at her feet with her head cocked. “I don’t think those two are the least in need of a love potion, girl.”

  Marissa thought of selections for dinner, but every one of them would result in a pile of dirty dishes, so she checked to see that they had plenty of Diet Coke and ordered a pizza. While she waited for the pizza, Marissa changed into a pair of sweatpants, a fuzzy sweater, and her bunny slippers. It had been colder in the cemetery than she realized and she still felt chilled and drained. No wonder, she thought. Her clash with Eric had shocked, pained, infuriated, and yet enlightened her. She’d had no idea of the maelstrom in Eric’s mind concerning her that had caused him to break their engagement after Gretchen’s death. At last, she knew why she’d lost Eric. He’d been an idiot to blame her for not disputing Tonya’s defense of Dillon more vociferously, but at least finally Marissa had an answer. The answer made her angry, but knowing it also gave her a sense of peace.

  The ring was a different matter. She looked down at the marquise-cut moonstone glowing pale blue on her finger even in this room’s dim light. Gretchen had squealed with delight when Marissa presented her with the lovely ring, then squealed again when she saw that Marissa wore one
just like it. Marissa slipped her ring from her middle finger and squinted at the symbol engraved inside. . Infinity. They’d thought their connection would last through infinity. But someone, probably her murderer, had decided Gretchen would not wear the ring that had been a sign of her and Marissa’s bond.

  Marissa shivered in spite of her warm clothes and slipped the ring back onto her finger. She would not consider the significance of finding the matching ring at Gretchen’s grave, she thought sternly. She just couldn’t handle it tonight.

  Marissa glanced at the large, beribboned box on a table near the front door and remembered Catherine mentioning that she’d gotten a few Christmas cards. A diversion, she thought in relief. She headed for the box like someone drowning, and while she waited for the pizza, stomach growling loudly, Marissa sat down on the floor with Lindsay beside her and glanced at the cards lying on top. Two from girlfriends she’d had in Chicago, one from a guy she’d broken off with a couple of months before she returned to Aurora Falls, one from a great-aunt who always called her Matilda, one from Tonya and Andrew Archer, and another with no return address and no postmark.

  Marissa opened the last one slowly and withdrew a postcard. On the front was a picture of Aurora Falls on a dreary day, obviously meant to show the various florid-leaved autumn trees against the white water and gray sky. At the top of the falls someone had drawn the figures of a man and woman holding hands, obviously poised to plunge into the frothy water below. The picture alone chilled her. Then she turned over the postcard and saw a typed message: Together forever, Marissa. The card was signed with a simple D.A.

  “Dillon Archer,” Marissa whispered.

  Abruptly pictures flashed in her mind like a slide show: the ghoulish character slithering over the guardrail, eyes seeming to burn in its skull, the car plummeting over the hillside, vines like icy tendrils appearing to creep around and imprison the car, the skull at the window again as the character diligently worked at the door handle, trying to reach her.

  Dillon, she thought again. The card was a reminder that Dillon felt forever connected with the woman who’d accused him of murder and he intended to murder in return.

  Marissa tossed the card in a desk drawer and slammed it shut, abruptly feeling alone and turned to ice by knowing someone was watching her, hating her…

  And waiting for another chance to kill her.

  Chapter 8

  1

  Marissa jumped when the doorbell rang. After she’d peeped out the family room window as well as the peephole in the front door, she finally opened the door to a boy of about sixteen with acne. “Pizza for Gray?” he asked a bit uncertainly, surely having noticed the peering she’d done before she would accept the pizza she’d ordered. She handed him money she had left lying on a nearby table, told him to keep the change, slammed and bolted the door. She watched him stroll down the front walk toward the pizza truck, shaking his head and laughing.

  Marissa carried the pizza to the kitchen and opened the box. It smelled heavenly, but she’d suddenly lost her appetite. Then her stomach growled again, a reminder that she’d eaten only a candy bar at work, and she decided she had to stop thinking about the ring and the Christmas card long enough to force down at least one slice.

  Marissa first fixed a bowl of dog food for Lindsay, who began eating as if she hadn’t eaten for days. Then Marissa set about trying to force down some nourishment for herself. When she was halfway through her slice of pizza, the doorbell rang again. Marissa stiffened. Catherine and James wouldn’t be home so early and Catherine certainly wouldn’t ring the doorbell. Who else…

  “Oh, how ridiculous!” Marissa said aloud. Lindsay, chomping greedily at her own dinner, looked up at her. “I hardly think a murderer is going to ring the bell. I’m acting like a fool.” She walked with determination from the kitchen but couldn’t help grabbing a knife lying on the counter.

  Marissa looked through the peephole, sighed with relief, and opened the door. Eric Montgomery stood in front of her holding his hat, blond curls blowing in the wind, his cheeks reddened from the cold. He glanced at her hand.

  “May I come in?” he asked. “Or do you intend to hack me to pieces with that paring knife?”

  Embarrassed, Marissa looked down at the dull three-inch blade on the knife clenched at her side. She put her hand behind her back and said, “Oh, I just had it in my hand and forgot to lay it down.”

  Eric raised his eyebrows in an “I don’t believe one word of that” way. “I’m probably the last person in the world you want to see after our earlier encounter.”

  She hesitated. “Why are you here?”

  “If you’ll let me in, I’ll tell you.”

  “I don’t want to fight with you anymore.”

  “I don’t want to fight with you anymore, either. May I come in?”

  Marissa sighed loudly. “Oh…all right.”

  “Thank you, and may I say you’re mighty gracious, ma’am.”

  Marissa shut the door just as Lindsay rushed in, ready to save her now that she’d licked her doggie bowl clean. She looked at Eric and emitted a long, low growl. Eric stooped and rubbed the ears of the valiant watchdog, which immediately stopped growling.

  “What’s wrong?” Marissa asked anxiously. “Do you know where the ring on Gretchen’s grave came from? My God, no one else has been murdered, have they? Catherine! Has something happened to Catherine?”

  “Thoughts rush like missiles through your mistress’s mind, don’t they?” Eric asked Lindsay before he stood up. “And you’ve always told me Catherine was the panicky one. No, Marissa, nothing of note has happened. I just…well…” He looked down and for a moment she thought he was going to shuffle his feet. “We didn’t finish talking earlier—”

  “Fighting.”

  “I wouldn’t say we were fighting.”

  “I would.”

  “Okay. Can we compromise? We were arguing.” Marissa gave him a noncommittal look. “Anyway, we didn’t get to finish—”

  “I don’t want to argue anymore.”

  “Dammit, Marissa, will you just let me get out what I’m trying to say?”

  “Fine. Go ahead. Make it quick.”

  “Now I feel like I’m in the fourth grade and I’ve been called to the front of the class for bad behavior.” Marissa stared at him stonily. “I want to talk to you. At least I did when I came over, but if you’re going to be too mad to even listen to me, I’ll just leave.”

  Marissa almost grabbed his arm as he turned toward the door, shocked by her response. She immediately tried to look blasé. “You don’t have to leave. I think we were having the fight, argument, whatever, we should have had over four years ago. So stay and let’s finish it.”

  “Well, that sounds like a promising beginning. Any place in particular you’d like for me to sit?”

  Eric seemed slightly more relaxed, almost friendly, and Marissa felt her muscles loosening. “If you haven’t eaten, I have a very large pizza in the kitchen I ordered because Catherine is out with James. Would you like to help me with it?”

  Eric smiled. “I thought I smelled pizza as soon as you put away your weapon and let me in. I’d be happy to have some.”

  They walked into the high-ceilinged kitchen with its shining wood floor and linen-colored glass-fronted cabinets. At one end of the kitchen, three-quarters of a wall composed of windows stood behind lowered pale yellow semi-opaque Roman blinds. In the summer, the windows provided a striking view of the rose garden. Six padded chairs sat around the large island covered with a brown-gold quartz top with a simple wrought bronze–finished chandelier above.

  “I always liked this kitchen,” Eric said, barely entering the room, obviously ill at ease. “The kitchen at my parents’ house is large but only has two fairly small windows. Mom also insisted on a kitchen table too big for the room and little rugs Dad and I always trip over.”

  “Did you go home and take a mood-improvement pill or something?”

  “Is there such a thi
ng?”

  “I don’t know, but you’re certainly acting different than you did in the cemetery.”

  “I had some time to get my temper under control, to ‘compose’ myself, as my mother would say.”

  “Okay,” Marissa said warily. She turned and opened the refrigerator. “How are your parents?”

  “They don’t go out much. I thought that would have changed by now, but I believe it’s become a habit. They were invited to about a dozen Christmas parties and don’t plan on attending any of them.”

  “They didn’t go to the Addison party?”

  “No. And frankly, I don’t see as much of them as I’d planned to when I came back from Philadelphia.” A shadow of sadness washed over Eric’s face and he looked at the floor. “I don’t think they really want to see that much of me.”

  “I’m sure that’s not true.” Marissa realized she’d sounded as if she were merely saying the proper thing. She quickly looked into the refrigerator. “We have Coke, Seven Up, milk, tonic water—”

  “Beer?”

  Marissa looked at him. “Do you intend to drink on duty, Chief Deputy?”

  “I’m not on duty, although I’ve asked to be called if anything happens.”

  “Have a seat at the table or the island. Want your beer in a glass?”

  “No, ma’am. I take mine straight from the bottle.”

  “I’m having Diet Coke. It makes no sense—a pizza with a million calories and a diet drink.” As Marissa fixed the drinks, Lindsay looked at her plaintively. “No beer or Coke for you. Just bottled water. Will that suit you?”

  It did, along with a bacon strip treat. Lindsay then parked herself beside Eric’s chair, clearly hoping he was a messy eater who tended to drop pieces of pizza on the floor.

  Marissa also supplied plates, forks, and napkins. Then she sat down across from Eric and wondered what she was going to say. She’d run out of small talk.