“Merry! How nice of you to call. Merry Christmas.” Mrs. D’Angelo was dressed for an evening at home in jeans and a badly pilled brown sweater with yellow stripes. She looked down. “And a very merry Christmas to you too, Mattie.”

  He woofed.

  “I thought you were going to your sister’s tonight. Is everything okay?”

  “Oh yes. How kind of you to check. I’m going tomorrow instead. A close friend of Iris was in a car accident earlier today. She’s not harmed but badly shook up, as you can imagine, so Iris offered to spend the night at the friend’s house so she wouldn’t be alone.”

  I almost wished her a good evening and turned away, but instead I said, “Now you’re alone on Christmas Eve. Would you like to come to my parents’ for dinner? You know you’d be welcome.”

  “Thank you, dear, but I’m fine. I’ll enjoy my Christmas tomorrow, and I want to get on the road first thing.”

  “Are you driving?”

  “I’ve rented a car for the journey. I parked it at the Smiths’ house to leave room in the driveway for you and Steve and Wendy to get in and out as you need.”

  “That was thoughtful of you. Merry Christmas, then,” I said.

  “Same to you, and please give your parents my best wishes.”

  * * *

  I showered, applied makeup, and dressed in record time. That done, I gathered up my gifts and put them into a tote bag to take with me. Mattie would not be going to the party, but he and Ranger would enjoy a special Christmas treat at breakfast tomorrow. I fed Mattie and waited for Alan to arrive. He’d drop off Ranger and then drive us to my parents’ house for the festivities.

  It was unlike Alan to be late, and I was looking out the front window for signs of his truck approaching when he phoned. “Sorry, Merry, but I don’t think I’m going to make it tonight.”

  “What’s happened? Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. Well, sort of fine. Ranger is not. He’s been sprayed by a skunk.”

  “What!”

  “Yup. Full on, right in the face. As for me, I went outside to see what he was barking at, and I caught some of the, shall we say, fallout.”

  It was awful, but I couldn’t help but laugh. “When did this happen?” The sounds of doggy moaning and groaning came down the phone line.

  “Like two minutes ago. I let him out for a romp before we left, and … boom.”

  “I didn’t know skunks were active in the winter.”

  “They don’t hibernate, but they usually stay pretty close to their dens. Something must have brought this one out and he encountered Ranger. I should be able to clean myself up and be nice and fresh tomorrow morning, but Ranger will likely be confined to home for a few days. Sorry, but I don’t think your parents would appreciate having me in their house tonight.”

  I was disappointed, but it was only one night, and no matter how stinky Alan might be, we could still spend Christmas Day together as planned. “How about I come around to your place tomorrow morning? I have all the brunch things I bought; easy enough to throw them in the car.”

  “That’d be nice. You don’t want Ranger in your apartment.”

  “I wonder what Mattie will think of it.”

  “Nothing good, Merry, nothing good. Can you drive yourself tonight?”

  “I think I’ll walk. It’s a nice night, and that way I can enjoy a couple of glasses of wine. Mom’s sure to have bought some champagne to toast the season.”

  After exchanging seasonal greetings, words of affection, and a few skunk jokes with Alan, I hung up.

  “No company for you tonight,” I said to Mattie as I pulled on my coat and boots. “I won’t be too late. If you hear Santa coming down the chimney, don’t do anything to scare him away.”

  The walk, I decided, would do me good. It was a nice night. Cold and crisp with a sky full of stars.

  Poor Alan would not be enjoying it.

  I ran lightly down the stairs, swinging my tote bag. I’d bought a bottle of top-shelf whiskey for Dad, leather gloves for Mom, hand-painted silk scarves for Vicky and Eve, and a few small tokens for whoever had been invited to join us tonight and might have bought something for me.

  I walked down the driveway. One car drove slowly past, but otherwise no one was in sight. The front door opened before I reached the sidewalk, and Mrs. D’Angelo’s head popped out.

  “Merry!” she called in some combination of a whisper and a shout. Thinking she’d changed her mind about coming with me, I started toward her before I realized she still wore the same clothes as earlier. Christmas Eve at my parents’ house is a formal affair. Formal as far as Rudolph goes, at any rate. Mom would be in an evening gown and diamonds, Dad in a tux with a bow tie featuring a Christmas image of some sort. (The tie changed every year.) Not all the guests would be quite so done up, but everyone would wear their festive best. I was in the dress I’d last worn to Vicky’s wedding. Vicky told me she was going to wear her wedding party dress—the cute little pink tulle thing she’d worn for dinner and dancing after the church ceremony.

  Mrs. D’Angelo beckoned frantically to me as her eyes darted around, searching for I didn’t know what.

  “Is something the matter?”

  “Come inside, quickly.”

  I moved, quickly, and she shut the door behind me. “Someone’s in the Johannesen house.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know why. And that is the point, Merry. It can’t be a prospective buyer. Even Marlene wouldn’t work this late on Christmas Eve, and besides, her car isn’t parked out front.”

  “I mean, why do you think someone’s in the house?”

  “I saw a light.”

  I peeled back the thin curtain next to the door and peered out. I saw no more lights on than I’d noticed earlier. “Maybe the lamps are on a timer.”

  “This light was not very bright, and it was moving.”

  “Moving? Like a flashlight?”

  She nodded.

  I looked again. I could see nothing. A car came slowly down the street, heading into town. Its headlights washed across the sign on the lawn of the house across the street and the unshoveled driveway and continued on their way.

  I sucked in a breath. A single line of footsteps marched up the driveway and turned onto the small path leading to the rear of the house. They did not come back.

  “You might be right,” I said. “Those footprints in the snow were not there earlier. I’m positive.”

  “Should we call the police?”

  I hesitated. It might be anyone. A kid taking a shortcut. A prospective buyer who wanted to check out the neighborhood and property before contacting the realtor. Beth or Richard Torrone checking on their own property, although it was unlikely they’d come on foot.

  The light Mrs. D’Angelo thought she saw might have been a reflection from the flashlight of a dog walker or a neighbor hurrying to a party.

  “Why don’t I have a quick look around first?” I said. “You stay here, and if I’m not back in ten minutes, call the police. If you hear me screaming before that, call the police.”

  Mrs. D’Angelo reached for her coat. “You are not too stupid to live, Merry Wilkinson. Isn’t that what they say about young women in the movies who go into haunted houses alone?”

  “That house isn’t haunted.”

  “It might be now. And not by a ghost. I’m coming with you.”

  “Then we’d both be too stupid to live. Okay. I’m going to send Vicky a text and tell her if I don’t send another text in twenty minutes to call the cops.”

  I pulled out my phone, typed the message, and sent it as we slipped out of the house.

  The street was empty of traffic, and we crossed quickly. The town sidewalk had been plowed earlier, and the snow that had fallen since was crisscrossed with footprints and paw prints. One set of prints—human, not animal—stepped off the sidewalk, and I studied them. They were about average size for a man, big for a woman, but not impossibly big. Thick treads in a zigzag pattern with solid heels, indicating winter boots.

  “Maybe the killer came back to get the counterfeiting equipment,” Mrs. D’Angelo whispered. “It must be worth a lot.”

  “The police would have taken it away. It isn’t something to be left lying around for the new buyers to use if they so choose.”

  “Or they’re after something they hid, maybe.”

  And then I knew. Memories tumbled all over themselves in my mind. Events fell into order.

  I’d first seen Graham Johannesen on our street before I met him at the Muddle Harbor Café. He hadn’t been watching my house because he was so enamored of my feminine charms. He hadn’t been watching my house at all. He’d been watching what had been his aunt Dorothy’s house, and meeting me later was a convenient pretext in case he was asked what he was doing here. He told me he’d been close to his aunt and was visiting the house to capture his memories. I might have bought that excuse once, but it had been a long time ago he’d cut the lawn and done odd chores for Dorothy Johannesen.

  Town rumor said Dorothy had had a substantial income, but she didn’t appear to spend it on anything. That she didn’t often leave the house and never traveled far from Rudolph. That she spent little more than the minimum required to maintain her house and property. That she didn’t trust banks and paid her property taxes in cash.

  What, then, I asked myself now, did she do with that substantial income?

  Hide it?

  Graham had expected to inherit the house on his aunt’s death. Instead, it had gone to Beth Torrone, Dorothy’s niece. Beth was, in the order of things, a closer relative to Dorothy than Graham. I remembered the trace of bitterness in his voice when he said Beth Torrone never had the time of day for her aunt Dorothy. Yet she, Beth, Raquel’s mother, inherited the property rather than Graham, who’d faithfully cut the lawn and helped with chores. Had he done the work in expectation of inheriting? Possibly. But, in the end, he hadn’t inherited, and more than ten years had passed since Dorothy died and the ownership of the house passed to Beth Torrone. Beth and her family never lived there; instead, they rented it out, and it was now for sale to anyone with the funds to buy it. It was a big house, with a substantial lot, in a good neighborhood in a prosperous town. Was it more than Graham Johannesen could afford? Again, possibly, as he was still in his thirties, trying to make a go of a small business in Muddle Harbor.

  If Graham had been in and out of the house over the years, likely doing minor jobs such as hanging pictures or changing lightbulbs, did he know what Dorothy Johannesen was doing with all the money she wasn’t putting in the bank?

  Again, possibly.

  My phone buzzed with an incoming text.

  Vicky: What on earth does that mean!

  Me: Graham Johannesen killed Raquel.

  Vicky: So?

  I suddenly realized that while I’d been remembering, putting it all together, and texting Vicky, Mrs. D’Angelo had gone ahead without me.

  Head down, watching where she was placing her feet, she was following the path of the footsteps in the snow.

  I shoved my phone into my coat pocket and ran after her. I reached her as she opened the gate to the backyard. “I’ve decided we need to call the police after all.”

  “Just a quick little peek first.” She went through the gate and tiptoed around the house. What could I do but follow?

  The single line of footsteps went directly to the back deck and climbed the stairs. The glass in the sliding doors leading to the kitchen had been replaced since I’d broken it, but whoever had done that might as well not have bothered. Tonight broken glass was sprinkled across the clean snow, glittering like diamonds tossed onto white silk sheets. More glass sparkled on the kitchen floor. The footprints we were following went into the house, and the sliding door had been closed after them.

  The blinds were pulled down, but the edge of one was caught on a fragment of broken glass, leaving a large gap in the window coverings. From deeper inside the house, a dim light flickered. We heard a muffled crash, as though wood was being torn up or a sledgehammer applied to the drywall.

  “What’s happening?” Mrs. D’Angelo whispered to me.

  “He’s tearing the house apart. Looking for Dorothy Johannesen’s hidden cash.”

  “That makes a strange sort of sense. Everyone said she was well off, but she never spent a cent she didn’t have to. I agree, we’ve seen enough. Let’s go.” Mrs. D’Angelo turned and half ran across the deck. I snapped a quick picture of the broken panes of glass, but before I could turn and also flee, the hammering stopped, replaced by a cry of triumph.

  At that moment, I heard a loud noise from behind me and a startled shout. I whirled around to see that Mrs. D’Angelo had slipped on the snow-covered top step and tumbled the rest of the way to the ground. She lay on her stomach, arms and legs flailing, moaning loudly.

  “Are you okay?” I ran across the deck, taking care to watch my own footing on the steps. I was still carrying my bag of gifts, and I dropped it, ready to help her get up.

  “I … I think so. Nothing seems to be broken. Let me catch my breath.” She rolled over. She blinked up at me, and I was relieved that she didn’t appear to be in any pain and her limbs were all at the correct angle. I bent over her and was holding out my hand, ready to help her up, when she caught her breath and braced herself. Her eyes widened in fear as she saw something behind me, but before I could react, I felt a strong hand grab the collar of my coat and I was jerked backward.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” a man yelled as he shook my coat.

  “Let go of her,” Mrs. D’Angelo shouted.

  “You keep quiet, you nosy old woman. And don’t move.”

  I struggled to turn around. “Graham, let’s talk this out.”

  “Talk. I have nothing to talk to you about.” He released me, but before I could run, he grabbed my right arm and pulled me around to face him. I stared into his face. His eyes gleamed with rage and perhaps a touch of madness. Spittle flew from his mouth. A layer of dust was sprinkled across his cheeks and in his hair; wood chips were trapped in his goatee.

  He lifted his left hand and showed me what was gripped in his fist. A hammer. A big, heavy one. “You, into the house, or the old lady gets it.”

  “What are you going to do, Graham?” I struggled to keep my voice calm and level, my expression neutral. “You can’t kill us both. I called the police. I told them someone was in the house.”

  “No, you didn’t. If you had, you would have waited for them before being stupid enough to poke around where you don’t belong. Get up,” he ordered Mrs. D’Angelo.

  Keeping her eyes fixed on him, she slowly and painfully rolled onto her stomach, pushed herself to her knees, and then stood. “You’re a nasty man.”

  “You don’t know the half of it.”

  “I suspect we do,” I said. “You killed Raquel, didn’t you? Why? To get her out of the way, at a guess, so you can have access to the house alone?”

  “Keep guessing.” He let go of me and gave me a shove toward the deck. I stumbled forward but managed to remain on my feet. He grabbed Mrs. D’Angelo’s arm and held up the hammer. “If I killed Raquel, I have no reason not to kill you two, do I?”

  “No reason, except you can claim you killed her in a rage during an argument. But the two of us? No way anyone would buy that.”

  “I’ll kill you if I have to, Merry, but I don’t need to. I’ve found what I’m after, and all I need now is time to grab it and get away.”

  I climbed the steps. Mrs. D’Angelo followed while Graham walked behind her, ready to bring the hammer down on her shoulder. Or even her head.

  The sliding door stood open, and I stepped into the kitchen. The air was thick with dust.

  “You spent a few days in there, I hear.” Graham spoke to Mrs. D’Angelo and nodded toward the pantry.

  The last bit of color in her face drained away. “I … I can’t …”

  “Good place to hide someone. Raquel was clever like that. Clever like a fox. Too clever, in the end.”

  I didn’t know whether or not to believe Graham when he said he wouldn’t kill us. He likely didn’t know himself. The easiest thing would be to go into the pantry and wait for help to arrive. The twenty-minutes notice I’d given Vicky should be up by now.

  But in case he did decide to get it over with and kill us, I had to keep him talking until help could arrive. “Your aunt didn’t like banks, did she? She thought everyone was out to cheat her. But she had a substantial income, and she had to put her money somewhere. I’m guessing in the walls?”

  “Under the floorboards, actually. She confided in me once that she kept her money in a safe place. Not only would the banks cheat her, she didn’t trust computers or the internet. She only trusted what she could hold in her hands. Like cold hard cash. She said when the world financial system collapsed, she’d be okay because she had cash on hand.” He shrugged. “Why she thought that would be worth anything without the government and central banks holding up the value of otherwise useless scraps of paper, I didn’t bother to argue with her. One day, she said to me, it would all be mine.” His face twisted and his eyes hardened. “It was all a lie. Instead, she gave the house to Raquel’s family without telling them about the money. She was addled by the end. Might have even forgotten about it. But I never forgot what should have been mine. Enough talking. Time for me to be on my way. Put your phone on the table and then get in there.”

  “I really, truly cannot,” Mrs. D’Angelo said. She was not pretending. Her voice shook, her hands trembled, and she had to lean against the kitchen island to keep her knees from giving way.

  Graham’s eyes flicked from me to her.

  “She was locked up in there for two days,” I said. “No food, no water. No one checking on her. It was a terrifying experience.”

  “I do not care. Phone. Now.”

  I took it out of my pocket. The screen told me I had a notification from Vicky.

  “Put it on the table and don’t try to use it, or I will use this.” Graham brandished the hammer.