Over the summer, Nathan had left several voice mail messages for her at the paper, asking her to come visit him. He said they needed to talk. In his mind, what had transpired between them was still unresolved. And yet for Sophie, the situation was clear. She’d made a terrible mistake with an old love, a man she was still drawn to, but one with whom she had no future. She’d let matters get out of hand last May, but it wouldn’t happen again.

  Even now, she continued to be amazed at how easily she’d been seduced by the intense pleasure of an old romance. Secretly, she still daydreamed about the night she and Nathan had spent together, even though she’d made a firm decision. She loved her husband; her life was with Bram.

  Before the trial, Sophie had explained all this to Nathan. She hoped it would be the end of it. But of course, it wasn’t. When she looked at herself in the mirror now, she saw a different person staring back at her, a woman who could cheat on her husband and keep it a secret. Even more amazingly, a large part of her didn’t regret what had happened. But the part that did had to live with the guilt every day. The experience had altered her in ways she didn’t even understand yet.

  Sophie sat down in the hotel lobby and opened the letter. It had been written in pencil on a piece of lined notebook paper.

  Dear Sophie:

  I’m being released at the end of the week. Thought I should let you know. I still want to talk. I’ll be returning to New Fonteney, and will probably live in the main hall until I figure out what to do next.

  New Fonteney was an old, deserted monastery a few miles north of Stillwater. Nathan had purchased the property last spring hoping to convince his mother to develop it into a Midwest campus for the Buckridge Culinary Academy. After his brother, Paul, nixed the deal, Nathan had toyed with the idea of starting his own cooking school. As a Cordon Bleu–trained chef with over twenty years’ experience, he certainly had the credentials. But then he’d gone to jail. Everything had been put on hold.

  I had the phone service restored, so you can reach me at 651-555-2095. I hope you’re well. I miss you. And I love you.

  Nathan

  Sophie felt oddly flattened by the note. In all outward ways, her life was back to normal now. Nathan represented chaos, confused emotions, frustrated desire and potential disaster. Tucking the letter into her briefcase, she rose and and asked the bell captain to send someone for her car. She gave him her usual chipper smile, but today, it almost choked her.

  12

  Sophie finally made it to the paper by ten. She’d spent the last hour driving around, trying to clear her head. It hadn’t done much good. In the end, she simply had to put Nathan out of her thoughts and get on with the day.

  Once on the ninth floor of the Times Register tower, she headed for her office. Sophie usually put in about ten hours a week at the paper. Normally, the job would have required far more time. That’s where her son, Rudy, came in.

  Rudy Greenway had grown up in Montana, living with his father, a minister in the Church of the Firstborn. It was a long, heartbreaking story. Sophie hadn’t been allowed to visit or even talk to him for a great part of his young life. After a nasty court battle, her husband had been granted sole legal custody. He’d quickly filled Rudy’s head with poison. No wonder her son wouldn’t even take her phone calls. But life—and the truth— eventually caught up with him.

  When Rudy was eighteen, he appeared on Sophie’s doorstep, asking if he could stay with her and Bram during his freshman year at the University of Minnesota. The fact was, he’d run away from his father and the repressive values he represented. Rudy was gay, not that he told Sophie that that was why he’d left. The church he’d been born into, and more importantly, the people he’d come to honor and respect, believed that homosexuality was a sin punishable by death. It was impossible for Rudy to be gay and at the same time be a good human being, loved by God as a part of His one and only true church. Rudy knew he’d either have to live a lie his whole life, try to press himself into a mold that would never fit, or leave. Coming to Minnesota, arriving on Sophie’s doorstep basically penniless, leaving his home and family—all of this must have been terrifying, but he saw no other way out. For the past five years, he’d been coming to terms with his desire to be a Christian, and his knowledge that he was—and would always be— a gay man.

  Last spring, Rudy had committed himself formally to another young man, one he’d met during his first few months in Minneapolis. John Jacoby, a few years older than Rudy, was an artist. To keep body and soul together, he worked at a brewery in St. Paul. Sophie had thrown a grand party for them at the hotel after the commitment ceremony. The next day, John and Rudy had left for Europe. They’d backpacked across Spain, France, Germany, Austria, and Italy. Rudy had just completed his degree in theater arts at the university. He’d lived such a sheltered life as a child, he was hungry to learn about the world firsthand.

  When Sophie called him in Italy and offered him the job as her assistant at the paper, he’d jumped at the chance—both as a way to get to know his mother better and as a way to pursue a genuine interest. He was young. He could always pursue his passion for the theater avocationally. Or, if he found the job at the paper ultimately uninteresting, he could move on. Whatever the case, for now, Sophie was elated to be able to work with her son. While she put in ten hours a week, he put in thirty to forty. Her name might come first on the office door, but Rudy was the heart and soul of the operation.

  Breezing into the office, Sophie found her son sitting at one of the two desks, staring at a computer monitor.

  “Hey, Mom,” he said, jumping up and giving her a kiss on the cheek. “You almost missed me.”

  “Are you all set to go?”

  “I’m just about to print out my itinerary.”

  For the next two weeks, Rudy would be traveling around Minnesota, visiting small-town cafes for possible review. He planned to venture across the border into Wisconsin, as well.

  Clicking the print icon, Rudy leaned back in his chair and stretched his arms high over his head. He was a handsome young man, with the same strawberry-blond hair, great smile, and diminutive height as his mother. While Sophie, in stiletto heels, hit the mark at five-three, Rudy, in his favorite Nikes, barely stretched to fiveseven. Taller than his mother, to be sure, but not as tall as he’d like to be. Still, he worked out in the gym several times a week and kept himself fit. More than fit. Sophie was starting to notice some major muscle development. As far as she was concerned, he had the perfect constitution to eat ten cafe meals a day. That’s what he’d have to do to canvass the region properly.

  When the printout was finished, Rudy handed her a copy.

  “You’re going to call me and give me updates, right?”

  “Yes, Commander.” He saluted.

  Ignoring his grin, she handed him the packet of pictures.

  “What’s this?”

  “As you drive through the small towns, I want you to show this snapshot around, see if anybody recognizes the man in the photo. Try the cafes first, but I also want you to take the picture to hardware stores, feed stores, whatever you think looks like it’s been around since the sixties. If you see a senior citizen center or a nursing home, try that, too. If somebody wants to keep a photo, or allows you to post one, that’s even better. Leave them the number at the paper. I realize I’m asking you to do some extra work, Rudy, but it’s important.”

  “Do you mind telling me why?”

  Sophie gave him the highlights. She could see by the gleam in his eyes that he was as fascinated by the story as she was. A chip off the old block. Or perhaps, in this case, a wing off the old turkey? “You’ve got your marching orders.”

  “Aye aye, Captain.”

  “I thought I was a commander.”

  “To be honest, Mom, you remind me of General Patton sometimes.”

  “I don’t find that amusing.”

  He gave her a peck on the cheek and was out the door.

  13

  Dour, fussy, and disdainful. That’s what Plato Washburn thought of his managing editor. Byron Jenny was a pain in the ass. Still, the man knew his job inside and out. Plato could hardly fire him when his own knowledge of how to run a paper—even a small one—would fit into a shot glass with room to spare. Jenny was the soul of the Rose Hill Gazette . He’d been the managing editor for the past sixteen years. But that didn’t mean Plato had to like him.

  Mr. Jenny, as everyone was urged to call him, was elegantly thin, in his midfifties, and never without his bow tie and pipe. The look was studied Hollywood fauxnewspaper kitsch, but nobody seemed to notice except Plato, who had never managed to have any sort of look at all. To Plato, “Mr. Jenny” sounded like the name of a gay hairstylist. If Mr. Jenny didn’t knuckle under to Mr. Plato’s wishes, he might have an opportunity to change careers.

  Today the heat and humidity made Plato look as if someone had tried to suffocate him under a mattress. Mopping his brow with a crumpled white handkerchief as he trudged up the stairs to the Gazette’s conference room, Plato cursed the weather. “Might as well live in a rain forest,” he muttered, pushing open the heavy oak door. Everything in the old brick building reeked of history. It was all so self-consciously historic, Plato had the urge to burn it down.

  Jenny looked up sharply at Plato’s entrance.

  Ever since he had been a child, Plato had been determined to avoid disagreeable situations. His current life was a veritable Victorian tableau of where that kind of philosophy got you. Facing his problems for once, he’d decided to sit in on the biweekly editorial meeting, the place where reporters’ assignments were handed out. It was only the second time he’d attended, mainly because Jenny had made it admirably clear that his input wasn’t needed. Plato figured it was about time he sent his own message.

  “Can I help you?” asked Jenny, watching Plato in that imperiously questioning manner of his, a look that no doubt sent lesser men running for their mommies.

  “No, just continue.” He pulled up a chair and sat down at the long table.

  Jenny twiddled a pen between his fingers, calculating how to handle this unwanted intrusion. “If you need to talk to me, why don’t you step into my office. I’m sure my secretary would be happy to get you a cup of coffee.”

  “It’s too hot for coffee. I’m here to listen. As I said, just keep going as if I’m not here.” Plato wanted to kick him.

  The other heads at the table shifted back and forth, as if they were watching a tennis match, their attention switching between Mr. Jenny and Plato, not sure what was happening.

  “All right,” Jenny said finally, sitting back in his chair and pressing a match to the tobacco in his pipe. “What’s next?”

  After Plato had bought the paper four years ago, the former owner had offered him some advice. “Let Byron have his head,” he said, speaking of the man as if he were a race horse. “He’s temperamental, but he’s a thorough-bred.” Since Plato had been looking for a professional situation that wouldn’t require a great deal of time and effort on his part, the idea that he had a ready-made editor who could run the shop at a profit appealed to him. Now, it irked him.

  The Rose Hill Gazette appeared twice weekly—on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Clearly, organizing this sort of rag wasn’t rocket science. It was about time Plato got his hands dirty, learned the ropes firsthand. Byron Jenny was just one more person who treated Plato as if he existed only marginally—like a bug, or a fungus, more a nuisance than a necessary part of life. That was about to change.

  “Who’s covering the funding for the new library?” asked Jenny, puffing away on his pipe, his manner entirely too urbane for the likes of Rose Hill.

  “I am,” said a woman with a face like a slab of concrete.

  Jenny nodded, then wrote something down. “Do we have any new information on the Runbeck homicide?” When no one responded, Jenny looked up. “Where’s Viv?”

  “She got a phone call right before the meeting,” said the woman with the concrete face.

  “From whom?”

  “She didn’t say, but she raced out of here.”

  Plato raised a finger. “I’ll be covering that story from now on.”

  With glacial deliberation, Jenny turned his gaze to Plato. “Excuse me?” he said, removing the pipe from his mouth.

  “I said, I’ll be covering that story from here on out. Inform Viv of the change.”

  Jenny looked as if he’d been slapped. “You can’t cover that story. Your father’s just admitted to the murder.”

  “My father,” said Plato, folding his hands patiently on the tabletop, “has just suffered a stroke. He’s confused.”

  “But, it’s a conflict of interest.”

  “I’m not a lawyer or a doctor. I publish a small-town paper. Newspapers take stands on issues all the time.”

  “In the opinion pages.”

  “Oh, come on, Byron, you know better than that. Newspapers can elect government officials, or get them fired. They shape opinion all the time simply by the way they report the news.”

  “The news is based on facts. Journalists deal in fact, not opinion.”

  “Fine. The facts are, my father is innocent. The Runbeck homicide will no longer be fodder for the bored and brutish among us.”

  Before Jenny could offer more objections, the door opened. Viv, dressed in bleached blue jeans, her ubiquitous silver-tipped cowboy boots, and a tight pink tank top, ambled into the room. “Boy, have I got a story for you.” Seeing Plato, she stopped chewing her gum. “What’s he doing here?”

  “I’ve decided to start sitting in on the editorial meetings,” Plato said casually. He could tell Jenny was about to rupture a vital internal organ. This was far better than kicking him.

  “You mean,” said Jenny, his voice dialed up to full dour, “this is going to be a biweekly event?”

  Plato gave a curt nod. “Now, Viv, why don’t you sit down and give us your news flash.” He could see she was just bursting to tell.

  “Sure thing,” she said, looking a little hesitant. “It’s just . . . with you here, Mr. Washburn . . . I mean . . . I feel a little funny. It’s about your father.”

  Plato stiffened. “What about him?”

  Viv glanced at Jenny again, then pulled out a chair. Instead of sitting down, she rested a knee on top of it. “Well, see, I was just talking to Doug Elderberg. It seems that before Kirby Runbeck’s death, he made two deposits into a newly established savings account at the First Bank of Rose Hill. Fifty thousand dollars each time. That’s one hundred thousand dollars,” she said eagerly. “Where would a man like him get that kind of money?”

  “Maybe he played the stock market,” said the cement-faced woman.

  Viv’s eyes took on a fiery glow. “He closed the account the day before he died. Doug also told me that a month or so before his stroke, John Washburn withdrew fifty thousand dollars in cash from one of his accounts at Wells Fargo. Then, a week before the stroke, he closed out a bank CD for the same amount and took the money in cash. They can’t prove it yet, but they figure Washburn was paying Runbeck some kind of hush money.”

  “Blackmail,” said Jenny, a note of triumph in his voice.

  “That’s hogwash,” said Plato, his fist hitting the table. “I’m sure there’s another explanation.”

  “The sheriff’s office thinks it was blackmail, too,” Viv continued. “They’ve got a B.C.A. guy down here from the Cities helping them with Runbeck’s murder, and he agrees. After John Washburn confessed to the murder, they went looking for a motive. They don’t have all the specifics yet, but they figure it’s only a matter of time before they do.”

  “That should be our lead headline on Saturday,” said Jenny, glaring defiantly at Plato. “Runbeck obviously had some information on John Washburn that Washburn didn’t want made public. So he paid for Runbeck’s silence. Paid twice. I’ll bet Runbeck was hitting him up for more when Washburn went tilt. Killed him instead of paying him.”

  Plato erupted out of his chair. “That’s enough! What you’re saying is pure speculation, with no basis in fact. I know my father, and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that he’s incapable of murder. I have no idea why he withdrew so much cash, nor do I know how Kirby Runbeck came by his money, but there’s no connection. If you run that headline on Saturday, Mr. Jenny, or if there’s mention of any of this in the paper, you’re fired. You’re all fired,” said Plato, slamming the door on his way out.

  14

  “I’m truly sorry, Mrs. Washburn,” said Deputy Sheriff Doug Elderberg. His eyes cast down, he turned and trotted back to his waiting squad car.

  Mary stood in her front doorway and watched him drive away. Would this nightmare never end? John had been making good progress. One side of his body was still terribly weak, and his speech was garbled and slow, but the doctors assured her he was out of danger—for the moment. He was on medications that should help prevent another stroke, although nobody was issuing guarantees. If only his spirits would improve. But how could they? His brain function didn’t seem to be impaired. He knew he’d admitted to a murder, and the sight of police officers outside his hospital room door couldn’t have passed his notice.

  Dragging herself back to the living room, Mary crumpled onto the couch to think. Doug had come by to inform her that her husband had withdrawn one hundred thousand dollars from two of their accounts at Wells Fargo in the last month, and that just before his death, Kirby Runbeck’s personal worth had grown by exactly the same amount. Doug wanted to know if Mary was aware of her husband’s actions. She assured him she wasn’t, that all their accounts were set up so that only one signature was necessary to make a transaction, but she wasn’t sure he believed her.

  Tipping her head back against the cushion, Mary had a sinking feeling that the horrific events of the past few weeks were all her fault. John hadn’t killed Kirby—that was never an issue—but if he hadn’t, why admit to it? Mary had been with him the night he learned of Kirby’s death; she’d witnessed his reaction firsthand. His blood pressure must have shot through the roof. Almost immediately, he began complaining of a headache and weakness on his left side. “Oh, John,” she whispered, closing her eyes. “What have I done to you?”