It takes Fiona another moment to remember that she has to pick it up herself.

  “Fiona Fitzgerald Public Relations.”

  “Hey, it’s me,” her twin sister says. “I’ve had three messages from you in, like, three days. What’s up?”

  “Where the heck have you been and why don’t you get a real phone?”

  “I’ve been here, and thisis a real phone.”

  “Then why don’t you return calls?”

  “Because you keep asking me if I’m coming up there for our birthday this weekend, and I’m still not sure what I want to do.”

  “Well, it’s not like it’s months away, so, obviously, you aren’t coming.”

  “Not necessarily. I’ve been toying around with it.”

  “Is it that Antoinette doesn’t want you to come up? Because you’re both welcome.”

  “No, she actually thinks I should come. And she can’t, herself, but she doesn’t care about that.”

  “So do you want me to buy you a ticket?” Fiona offers, and takes a deep drag off her cigarette, trying to calm her nerves.

  “No, I can get my own ticket.”

  “It’ll cost you a fortune.”

  “Haven’t you ever heard of last-minute ticket deals?”

  “So get one.”

  “I will…if I decide to come.”

  “Dee”—the childhood nickname spills from her lips and her sister doesn’t protest—“please come.”

  “I might.”

  “But you might not. Where’s Antoinette? Put her on the line.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m going to tell her to bring you to an airport and put you on a plane.”

  “She doesn’t follow orders, and, anyway, she’s not here right now. Listen, Fee, if I can get there, I will. I even still have the key to your house, so maybe you’ll come home from work and I’ll be there to surprise you. Okay?”

  Fiona hesitates.No. That’s not good enough. I need you. Now.

  That’s what she wants to tell her twin.

  Instead, she says just, “Okay, try hard,” and hears her voice crack.

  Terrific, she’s on the verge of tears.

  “Fee? Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.” She sinks the remains of her cigarette in Emily’s Diet Pepsi can. “Call me when you know what you’re doing.”

  As she hangs up, Fiona hears a muffled movement in the next room.

  Someone is there.

  For over a week now, Quincy has been trying to figure out where that piece of an old sorority sweater fits into the Harrington case.

  The fact is, it fits in about as well as Governor Troy Allerson would fit in working a factory assembly line.

  If it wasn’t for that scrap of gray and red wool—which lab tests proved were embedded with microscopic particles of soil and vegetation ordinarily found at a much higher elevation—Quincy would be feeling a lot better about Allerson as a potential suspect.

  No, he doesn’t doubt what Ray Wilmington revealed in his rambling note, which was primarily an apology to his mother for the shame he had brought her.

  Sprinkled in with ad nauseamPlease forgive me ’s andI never meant to hurt you ’s was that believable revelation about Matilda’s clandestine relationship with her godfather.

  There’s not a doubt in Quincy’s jaded mind that a man like Allerson, whose esteemed and promising political career is built entirely on his wholesome family-man image, would kill in order to protect that image.

  So maybe he jilted Matilda and she threatened to go to his wife. Or the press.

  More likely, maybe Ray Wilmington made that threat, as he claimed.

  Blackmail.

  That was why Ray was hanging around that night in front of the victim’s house.

  He confessed that he was planning to extort money from her in exchange for keeping quiet about her affair with Allerson. When he saw that she was inebriated—a fact corroborated by the coroner’s office—he left without confronting her.

  Or so he claimed in his letter.

  He also claimed that he never approached Allerson at all.

  Quincy’s team is doing its best to gather evidence of the high-profile politician’s involvement with Matilda Harrington. But so far, they’re having a hell of a time. Allerson covered his tracks remarkably well.

  Not just the affair, but the murder as well, if he really was behind it.

  Citing routine procedure, Mike and Deb questioned him yesterday, to no avail. They even came right out and asked him, point-blank, about an affair. They said he went pale, but kept his composure, and admitted nothing.

  Wilmington didn’t come right out in his letter and accuse Allerson of the murder. He didn’t even write that he saw him there the night of the murder.

  But did he?

  They’ll never know.

  Quincy can’t help but acknowledge that a guy like Allerson pays people to cook for him, clean for him, shop for him, and probably to buff his toenails. He wouldn’t choose to get blood—even if it is blue blood, like his own—all over that fancy wardrobe of his. Not if he could help it.

  Did he hire someone to do it for him? The lack of prints at the scene would indicate premeditation and, perhaps, professionalism.

  But the overkill element would seem to indicate a crime of passion. Or is the demonstration of passion deliberate, intended to cover up the real motive?

  And what about the bizarre calling card left at the scene?

  None of it fits together.

  And it’s giving Quincy one hell of a perpetual stomachache.

  For a moment, Fiona sits, absolutely frozen, her thoughts whirling immediately to Tildy’s murder.

  What if…?

  Suddenly, she finds herself more outraged than afraid.

  She takes her jewel-handled letter opener from her desk and clutches it in her hand like a weapon.

  Then, holding her breath, her pulse roaring in her own ears, she sneaks over to the door and pulls it open a crack.

  Emily is back, furtively going through the top drawer of the desk…which happens to be where Fiona keeps the petty cash.

  “What are you doing?” she asks sharply, and the girl jumps and presses a hand to the base of her throat.

  “You scared me.”

  “Ditto.” Fiona tosses the letter opener back on her desk. “I thought you left.”

  “I did, but…” She trails off.

  “What are you doing?” Fiona repeats.

  “Just looking for that package. I thought if I could find it—I really need this job.”

  “Forget it. You’re done. I have a copy of it that I can print out and send again, and I wouldn’t give you your job back even if I thought you really were looking for the original.”

  Emily’s eyes flare. “Are you calling me a liar?”

  Fiona shrugs.

  Emily slams the drawer closed so hard the framed photo of Ashley on its surface tips over. “Fine, I’m out of here.”

  “Wait.” Fiona reaches around the corner into her office, then extends the can of Diet Pepsi. “This is yours.”

  Emily storms silently out the door, carrying the can.

  Watching her go, Fiona finds herself smiling for the first time all day.

  The ringing telephone startles Brynn from a sound sleep, and it takes her a moment to get her bearings.

  Oh. Right. It’s the middle of the afternoon, and she’s taking a nap on the couch while Jeremy takes one in his bed.

  The cordless phone is on the coffee table; she set it there after she hung up with Garth right after lunch. He said he’ll be home late tonight…again.

  He’s been working full speed ahead on his book, fueled, apparently, by his experience at the symposium. He’s spent every weeknight and most of this past weekend at the campus library.

  Snatching up the phone before the ringing can wake Jeremy, Brynn is surprised—and dismayed—to hear Fiona’s voice.

  “What’s wrong?” she asks immediately. Fee rarely calls her; it’s usually the other way around. Especially during a workday.

  “I have an offer for you.”

  Brynn relaxes her grip on the phone a bit. So it isn’t bad news. Thank goodness.

  “What kind of offer?”

  “How would you like to earn some cash?”

  “How?” Maybe Fiona needs her to stuff envelopes again. Brynn did that for her last year, from home, and earned enough to replace the broken bedroom television.

  “I need a new assistant. I just fired Emily.”

  “Oh…Fee, I can’t come to work for you.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I have Jeremy.”And another child on the way.

  “You can put him in day care. The woman I used for Ashley is still—”

  “Fee, stop, I can’t put him in day care.”

  “Why not?” Fiona answers her own question. “It’s not that you can’t, it’s that you won’t.”

  “You’re right. I won’t. I’m a stay-at-home mom, Fee. That means I stay at home.”

  “But you guys are pinched for cash. You’ve said it yourself. How about if you just help me out temporarily, until I can hire someone full time?”

  “I can’t. I’m sorry.”

  “Fine. I just thought I’d try to help you out, but…”

  No, you didn’t. You thought I’d helpyouout.

  “Thanks anyway,” Brynn tells her. “Good luck finding someone.”

  Fiona hangs up without saying another word.

  If Cassandra Ashford’s corpse has been found by now, it hasn’t been identified yet.

  That’s going to be an interesting challenge for the investigators when they can’t immediately find her wallet, her car—her fingers, or her teeth, either.

  It was worth the extra time to painstakingly pull them out and pocket them, rendering Missing Persons’ dental records useless. And cutting off her hands to eliminate her fingerprints took no time at all.

  Itwas a challenge to dispose of the teeth and hands, but they’re well hidden, buried a good foot beneath the earth, several yards into fairly remote underbrush off a highway somewhere in central Massachusetts. The wallet was tossed into a strip-mall Dumpster, the identification removed, and burned.

  So when somebody finally does check that cabin, and finds a decomposing corpse—wearing a pointy party hat, of course, and surrounded by birthday party trappings—it won’t immediately be clear that it belongs to Cassandra Ashford of Danbury, Connecticut. She herself made sure of that, having used cash and a pseudonym to maintain her anonymity.

  So she was running for her life, obviously. Which is why her family has yet to even report her missing. She probably told them she was going away for awhile.

  Nobody is looking for her.

  Some hapless soul will have to stumble across her by accident.

  Eventually, of course, the gory details will wind up in some police database, as well, perhaps, as in the press, and a connection will be made to Matilda Harrington’s murder.

  But for now, as far as the authorities know, that was an isolated incident.

  Which means not only are the police probably not looking for Cassandra Ashford…

  But they aren’t looking for me, either.

  Not yet, anyway.

  Now what? Fiona wonders, lighting a new cigarette from the one in her hand.

  She really thought Brynn would jump at the chance to get out of the house, where, as far as Fiona can tell, she’s spent her days cooped up and paranoid.

  Plus, she can probably use some extra money, especially with Christmas coming.

  Never mind the fact that I’m left in a lurch without an assistant and I really need her,Fiona thinks, stubbing out the original cigarette and inhaling the new one.

  Who else is there?

  Deirdre.

  Maybe she should just come right out and ask her sister for help, instead of beating around the bush, inviting her to come up for their birthday as if everything is just fine.

  Yes, she should have asked Deirdre for help, and she should have told her what’s going on. She should have admitted that she needs her…

  Because I’m alone. And I’m scared. And I have no one else.

  She dials her sister’s cell phone.

  It rings several times and goes into voice mail.

  “Dammit,” Fiona mutters, and shakes her head. She hangs up rather than leave a message she knows will go unanswered for several days, and tries a new tactic.

  Clutching her cigarette between her lips, she flips through her Rolodex to find her sister’s girlfriend’s number.

  Antoinette answers on the second ring.

  “Hi, it’s Fiona!”

  There’s a brief pause.

  “Fiona? What’s going on?” Antoinette asks in her lilting island patois.

  “I’m just looking for my sister and I know she doesn’t answer her phone so I hoped you’d answer yours and put her on.”

  “I would if I could, but I can’t,” Antoinette tells her. “She’s gone.”

  “Gone?”

  “We broke up, and Deirdre moved out over a month ago. I have no idea where she went.”

  I can’t keep doing this,Garth tells himself as he peeks into the boys’ room, bathed in the golden glow of a SpongeBob night-light. His sons are both sound asleep.

  Of course they are.

  It’s five in the morning.

  Garth closes the door quietly and tiptoes down the hall, past the master bedroom where Brynn, too, was deep in slumber when he looked in on her a moment ago.

  This is nothing new, this creeping around his own house in the dead of night. But lately, it feels wrong.

  He has to start coming home at a reasonable hour again so that he can see his children, eat with them, tuck them into bed. He has to start being a better father. And, yes, a better husband.

  In the den, he settles into his recliner with a newspaper and a mug of herbal tea. He’s feeling too keyed up to sleep, but maybe if he reads, and sips—

  Somewhere in the house, a door creaks.

  Footsteps scurry.

  Another door closes.

  One of the boys? Garth bolts from his chair and makes a beeline for the hall, where he sees a crack of light beneath the closed bathroom door.