She would affect the quality of the day in everything she did, and right now, that meant she would not sit back and let bad things happen. The development in the woods was like slashing through a masterpiece. Not a canvas, but nature.

  Sitting in the corner of the coffee shop, sipping her coffee and picking at her bagel, Emma watched the people as they came in, ordered, and then either left or settled into a table, sometimes alone, and sometimes with others. She wondered what each of them would do if, and when, they discovered that people they trusted were making money by destroying people’s lives.

  Would they explain it away to themselves? Say it had nothing to do with them? Or would they decide to learn more, and then do something to fix the problem? She thought most people would look away. They’d say they had work, or family, and not enough time.

  Would she become one of those people who only noticed what affected them? Would she start to believe lies people told because it was easier? Would she listen to people as they said, “Don’t make waves?”

  Could she remain an artist of life, an artist in life, and fight for beauty and the rights of others? She hoped so.

  When the door opened and her Uncle Daniel and Cindy walked in, Emma took it as a sign that she was on the right track. She loved and admired them both and knew they would choose to do the right thing. She waved them over to the table and when they nodded yes, she pulled another chair over. It would be a cozy fit, but she knew they wouldn’t mind.

  “I love that you’re here,” Cindy said, as she unzipped her coat and slipped it onto the back of her chair. “We can share our news with you. We could have shared it yesterday with everyone, but it didn’t seem the right time.”

  Turning to Daniel, she said, “You tell her.”

  Emma’s eyes started to fill with tears, as she looked at two of her favorite people in the entire world who looked so happy she could have painted a brilliant white aura around them and it would have fit in.

  “You can tell, can’t you?” he asked her.

  “When?”

  “As soon as possible. I’ve waited long enough.”

  “But not until this mess is settled,” Cindy said, reaching over and holding Daniel’s hand and locking her hazel eyes onto his blue ones.

  “You haven’t told the rest of the Ruby Sisters? You told me first?”

  Now the tears that had threatened started to fall. For the longest time, it had just been her and her mom. Moving from place to place. Now, since moving to Spring Falls, they had found family and friends and people that loved and supported each other.

  It was a magical place and once again she vowed to herself that she would let no one destroy it. She would not sit back and say nothing when people lied and did terrible things to each other and nature.

  But Emma said none of those things to the two happy people in front of her. She only smiled through her tears and told them how happy she was. “And did you realize that you’ll be my aunt then?”

  Cindy nodded, tears in her own eyes. “I did. Why do you think I said yes?”

  They all laughed then, Daniel only pausing for a minute wondering if that was true, and then laughing again. He didn’t care at all why Cindy had said yes. It was that she did, and he didn’t doubt for a second that she loved him the way he loved her. He couldn’t blame her for not falling for a ten-year-old boy she only glimpsed in the doorway of his father’s art studio.

  But from that moment on he had decided to be a man that someone like that goddess wearing paint spatter clothes, blond hair piled on top of her head, would consider worthy to spend time with.

  That they had found each other was a miracle. That she had said yes was another. And although they had kept their voices quiet, their joy at their table seemed to spread out across the room as everyone turned to smile at them.

  Emma looked around the room and, knowing how fast news traveled in Spring Falls, said, “You two better go tell all the Ruby Sisters now.”

  Cindy looked around and understood what Emma meant. It was time to go share some good news with her best friends before they learned it from someone else.

  Hugging Emma goodbye, they rushed out the door carrying their coffees and laughing.

  Watching them go, Emma sighed. They wouldn’t be happy if they knew where she was going, but she was doing it for them, and for every person who lived in Spring Falls. And afterward, she was going to Pedro’s to see where he lived, and find out how she could help him too.

  Her mom had given her the day off. She was going to make the most of it.

  Thirty Seven

  Joy and determination might have been what was going on at the coffee shop, but it was a different story at Tanner’s house.

  He had rolled over in bed, groaned, feeling like a hundred-year-old man. He had the fleeting thought he was too young to be feeling this terrible. But then he remembered all that had happened in the past two days and his aches and pains seemed minor compared to the worry and anxiety that had invaded his being since he had heard about Marshall’s death.

  Tanner pulled the covers up over his head, blocking out the sun that was peaking through the crack in the curtains. Usually he was so careful to make sure there was no way to look in or out, but today it amazed him he had even remembered to close them. He had barely made it to bed the night before. He had come home from the meeting at Judith’s exhausted, disgusted, and so sad he could barely think straight.

  Although on one hand he was grateful that he had been invited to Judith’s—after all, he had approached her—on the other, it had just increased the burden he felt he had been carrying around for weeks. He had wanted to speak with Judith to lighten that burden. Instead, it had just gotten worse.

  Which wasn’t Judith’s fault. But whose fault was it? No one knew. Just that two people he had known and become part of his world had died. Nothing was good about that. It didn’t matter that perhaps they had been doing all the terrible things that Judith suggested. And based on the evidence they had now, most likely it was true.

  It was simply the fact that he had known them. Talked with them. Laughed with them, and in Barbara’s case, had comforted her. It was that they died. He hated death. It was so final. He did not know what happened to people when they died. He hated it because it was the people who were left behind who suffered. Like him.

  There was only one time in his life that he had felt worse than this. It was the day his mother died, something he tried not to think about. But now, with all that had happened, all those feelings had come rushing back. So here he was, a grown man, hiding under the covers, curled up in bed, wishing he was a little boy again, and his mother was with him.

  As a child, when he was upset, she would come in and rub his back and tell him that everything was okay. She’d tell him that even when they both knew that things were not okay. She’d say it, he’d let himself believe it, and in that moment it was true.

  All he ever wanted was for things to be okay. Some people might yearn for more than that. But for Tanner, okay would have been enough. But even as a boy, he knew that thinking something didn’t mean it was true, or could make it come true.

  Nothing would stop the kids that made fun of the geeky skinny boy, who had no sports ability and found it hard to talk to people who were being so cruel on a daily basis. For them, he was the sport.

  Even now, he was the geeky man. Still skinny. Still not able to play a single sport. That the world had changed and made being geeky kind of cool, seemed only fair, but it didn’t change how hard it was for him to fit in.

  Not that he didn’t try. He did. He worked at it. Studied what clothes he should wear to fit in. He learned how to speak well so he could explain himself better. Discovered that asking other people questions and then listening as they answered made him liked by most people he met. No one seemed to notice how ill at ease he was most of the time.

  Numbers made sense to him. People did not. When he was a boy going to school, every day was a mixture of the pure pleasure of learning and the torture of not fitting in and being accepted.

  But then, his mom was always there, doing her best to help him, even though there was not much she could do. “Life can be unfair,” she’d say, adding, “but then it can be glorious too. Try to focus on the good.” And for her, he did, and sometimes that worked, and he’d feel better for a while, at least.

  As long as he could remember, it had been just the two of them. He hadn’t minded that much. In many ways, just having his mother had been enough for him. She was the kindest person he ever met. She worked hard, sometimes doing multiple jobs to make sure she could pay the rent, buy food, and keep the boy who kept growing out of his clothes dressed well.

  And because he loved her, he never told her that the other reason they teased him was that he only had a few shirts and pants. One pair of shoes. To the boys and many girls in school, he was a fatherless poor boy, too tall, too skinny, glasses, too quiet, and too clumsy.

  To make matters worse, he and his mother had moved a lot. Sometimes he was glad that they did, even though it meant starting over again. There was always the chance that at the next town, the next school, he would fit in. Eventually, he managed to look like they did, but he was always the new boy, so he never had time to make friends before they moved again.

  After his mother died, he had moved to Spring Falls. It wasn’t that far from where he had been living, and he thought he remembered his mom mentioning it once. It was as good a place as any. He wanted a place where no one knew him. Where he could start a new life, begin his practice as an accountant, and finally, maybe make friends. And he had. And now two of them were dead.

  Lying in bed watching the sun dance over the patterns in the quilt his mom had made him years before, he thought about what she would say to him right now. “What about friends who haven’t died?” she might ask. “How can you help them?”

  And that made him think of Walt. Where was he? He hadn’t seen or heard from him since the Council meeting Monday afternoon. Was he okay? Walt was both a client and friend, and he hadn’t talked with him yet.

  How selfish is that? Tanner thought to himself. Walt had to be struggling, too. Maybe Margaret and Colin were also having a hard time, but Tanner wasn’t worried about them. The two of them knew how to work the system. But Tanner knew Walt was trying to be someone better than he had been.

  Throwing the covers off, Tanner sat up in bed, only mildly surprised to see he hadn’t taken off his socks the night before. Heading to the shower, he made a list in his head of things he needed to do.

  Call Walt. No, go see Walt and make sure he’s okay. Call Margaret and ask if I can help with Marshall’s funeral. Check in with Booker to find out if there is any more news about how Barbara died. He knew Barbara’s son’s family lived out of town, but they would come in to handle her funeral.

  Ticking items off in his head made Tanner feel better. And then he’d check in with Judith to find out how he could help with uncovering what the Council had been up to. After all, he was a member of the Council. He should be able to find out what they were doing. And it was Walt who might know the most.

  Yes, Walt first, Tanner said to himself, pulling on his heavy winter coat, already feeling better. But first a stop at the coffee shop for fortifications.

  Thirty Eight

  Cindy and Daniel laughed together as they walked the few blocks to her art gallery. They took their time, saying hello to people as they passed and gazing into shop windows. Cindy thought they were probably doing that so they could see themselves in the window. She loved the way they looked together.

  When they reached the gallery, instead of going in the back way, they burst through the front door, ready to share their good news. Cindy glimpsed one of her paintings hanging on the wall, and that intensified her joy. All the years she had been afraid to let people see her art, and now it was finally hanging on her own gallery wall, the way she had always dreamed that it would.

  For years, she had suffered for no reason. Then Daniel had come into her life, and she had learned the truth. Daniel’s father, Cedric, her revered art teacher, had lied to her when he told her she wasn’t an artist. Then Cedric copied her art for years, becoming famous while she hid what she was doing in her house, not letting anyone see because she thought it wasn’t good enough.

  Now it was all out in the open. The lies had been exposed. The ones Daniel’s father had lived and told her. The ones she had been telling herself.

  Hearing the door open and Cindy laughing, Janet turned around from where she was arranging flowers in the corner, and stared at the couple. But only for a moment. Then jumping up and squealing, she ran to them, hugging them both at the same time. Not an easy feat, given that she was so much smaller than the two of them.

  Cindy often thought of Janet as the elf of the art gallery. Tiny, with spiked blond hair, today tipped with blue. Janet was wearing high-top sneakers and a bright pink sweater that swirled around her as she stepped away from them, bouncing on her toes.

  Mimi, her partner in the gallery, and Janet’s wife had stepped out of the back office to see what was going on—the picture of quiet elegance. Mimi, with her long dark hair laying sleek down her back, dressed in slacks, a jacket, and stacked tie-up shoes, looked as if she belonged in a fashion magazine.

  “Congratulations,” Mimi said, hugging them each.

  “But how do you know?” Cindy said. “We only just told Emma.”

  “At the coffee shop,” Daniel said, realizing what had happened. They had dawdled on the way. Someone had gotten there first.

  “Yep, at least one person stopped by to say how happy you were when they saw you there and what they overheard.”

  “That’s Spring Falls,” Cindy laughed, and then stopped. “Oh my God, what if the Ruby Sisters find out before we tell them?”

  Mimi laughed. “They are on their way.”

  Even as she spoke, they saw Judith almost running down the street. If the sidewalks weren’t so slushy, Cindy was sure she would be running. Then they heard the back door open, and April and Marsha spilled into the gallery.

  Judith reached the front door as Bree stepped out of her car carrying a box of donuts. Within minutes, Daniel and Cindy were surrounded by Ruby Sisters, and then dragged into the writer’s room, everyone laughing and talking about how happy they were.

  Mimi brought in a pot of coffee, and after everyone’s cups were filled, they toasted the happy couple.

  Daniel, the lone man, felt as if he had invaded Barbie Land. But he didn’t mind. In fact, he loved it. This was all because he had asked Cindy to marry him, and they were happy about it. How could he complain about that?

  The Ruby Sisters had embraced him the minute he had arrived in Spring Falls, a friend of April’s son, Robert. Struggling with his father’s death, he felt as if Robert had rescued him and then brought him to a place where the girl he had fallen in love with at ten happened to be living and where friends dropped everything to celebrate together.

  Did he believe in miracles? Yes, he did.

  The celebration didn’t last long. Everyone ate at least one donut, toasted the couple again with their coffee, and wheedled out of the happy couple as many details as possible. And then they headed home after extracting a promise to have a proper party after the mystery of the two deaths had been solved.

  No one added that they would wait until the corruption in Spring Falls was eliminated. They still didn’t know exactly what had happened, or how long it would take to unravel it.

  “Before you go,” Cindy said to Judith, “Could I ask you something?”

  “Anything.”

  “It’s probably not that important, but I did a painting for Marshall, and I would like it back. Or at least back long enough to fix something in it.”

  Seeing Judith’s puzzled face, she added, “There’s a symbol he asked me to add to the painting, and I don’t like that I did that. For one thing, I don’t normally do that kind of thing for clients, but he was so persuasive, I did it against my better judgment. And for another, I don’t like the meaning of the symbol. Or at least what Daniel and I think the symbol means.”

  Judith made a motion for Cindy to continue. She’d been doing that same motion since they were kids, so Cindy just smiled at her and continued.

  “It’s a closed eye inside a triangle with a vine wrapped around one side before reaching away. We think it means not seeing the power and hierarchy growing out into the world.

  “It was as if he was stating his mission. Not that we knew it at the time, but hearing about what the Council has been doing, I think he wanted to have power with no one knowing it.

  “I don’t want that on any painting of mine, you know what I mean? Can you help me get the painting?”

  “I’ll talk to Booker, but in the meantime, I have something to show you. Tell me if it’s the same symbol.”

  Judith reached into her pocket and pulled out the cufflink that Pedro had given her the day before.

  Cindy gasped. “Where did you get this?”

  “Pedro found it on the floor after the party when they were cleaning the room. He asked me to give it to Booker, and I forgot to because of Barbara’s death.”

  Holding the heavy gold and black cufflink in her hand, Cindy nodded. “Yes, it’s the same. And now I think I’ve seen this before. I never got close enough to see what was on it. I think this is Colin’s. He’s the only person I know who wears cuff links.”

  “Well, if it is his, then we have a provable connection between Colin and Marshall doing business together.”

  “Or it was just a gift,” Daniel said, having stood listening to the two of them.

  “True,” Judith said, and Cindy nodded. But none of them believed that. And Judith was determined to prove it.

  Thirty Nine

  Emma was getting ready to leave the coffee shop as Tanner arrived. As he opened the door, he immediately spotted her distinctive pink jacket. While he had seen her at Judith’s meeting, they had never actually spoken. Tanner had wanted to introduce himself, but the crowd, combined with his distress over Barbara’s death, had kept him quiet, limiting his interactions to brief greetings to those sitting nearby.