“Gray!” I wasn’t even embarrassed about the panic in my voice.

“Yeah?” He said as he emerged from the basement.

“Bring your light over here. Shine it on my arm.”

He did so. “You scratched yourself.”

I shook my head. “That’s the drip.”

“But it’s—”

I nodded.

He swung his penlight, and the beam picked out a red puddle on the floor, drops plummeting from above to splash in the viscous pool. A footprint repeated across the floor, getting fainter and fainter with each step until it was almost nonexistent when it stopped at my left shoe.

He trained the beam overhead, and a woman’s pale hand appeared, flung out over the opening. Gray and I looked at each other in dismay, knowing that where there was a hand, there was a body attached.

GAYLE ROPER

has always loved stories, and as a result she’s authored forty books. Gayle has won the Romance Writers of America’s RITA® Award for Best Inspirational Romance, repeatedly been a finalist for both the RITA® Award and the Christy Award, won three Holt Medallions, the Reviewers’ Choice Award, the Inspirational Readers Choice Contest and a Lifetime Achievement Award as well as the Award of Excellence. Several writers’ conferences have cited her for her contributions to the training of writers. Her articles have appeared in numerous periodicals, including Discipleship Journal and Moody Magazine, and she has contributed chapters and short stories to several anthologies. She enjoys speaking at writers’ conferences and women’s events, reading and eating out. She adores her kids and grandkids, and loves her own personal patron of the arts, her husband, Chuck.

Gayle Roper
See no Evil

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”

—Jeremiah 29:11–12

To Chuck,

my own personal patron of the arts,

for all the years of your stalwart love and support

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

EPILOGUE

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

ONE

“Anna Volente, keep your mind on your work.”

How many times in the past had I heard those words from my dad or mom or one of my teachers? Even from Glenn, now that I thought about it, though I tried to think of him as little as possible. Of course I knew I should be concentrating on the project at hand, the hanging of the window treatment I held.

But how could I ignore the strange man skulking in the backyard of the unfinished house kitty-corner from the backyard of the completed model home I was working in?

He wasn’t one of the construction workers. I was certain of that. They had all gone home a couple of hours ago, lunchboxes and thermoses in hand, leaving me alone to finish my work in the warm, sultry August evening. The prowling man wasn’t dressed right for building anything either. He wore khakis and a red short-sleeved polo shirt hanging outside his slacks. I couldn’t tell from this distance if the dark mark he had over his heart was an alligator or a pony or a spot of dried gravy from his dinner.

I studied him. His clothes might be ordinary, but there was something not quite right about him, though I couldn’t decide what it was with the lowering sun shining so brightly in my eyes. I raised my hand to shield my eyes.

Was he just moving awkwardly, like someone who had a sprained ankle, or was he really skulking? Either way, as far as I knew, at this time of day no one should be anywhere near any of the houses in this very new, very upscale development. I excluded myself, of course.

From high on my ladder at the tall back window of the living room which ran the depth of the model house, I eyed the interloper. If I’d been hanging one of the front or side windows, I wouldn’t have seen him. If I’d been standing on the floor, I wouldn’t have seen him. The fence across the backyard and the plantings artistically fronting it, especially the weeping cherry, would have blocked him from view.

I frowned. Should I tell someone about him? Call someone?

Oh, Mr. or Ms. 911 Person, there’s a man walking around in the backyard of one of the houses in Freedom’s Chase.

And what is this man doing?

Walking around in the backyard of one of the houses in Freedom’s Chase.

That’s it? Call me back when he does something illegal, okay?

But isn’t trespassing illegal?

Then again, what if he was just looking around with the idea of buying a house here?

“How much longer will you be?”

The question, asked from behind me in a very male, rather abrupt voice, startled me, and I almost lost my precarious footing. I put a hand out and caught the upper sash to steady myself. With my sudden movement and less firm grip on the material, the heavy window treatment I held began to slip from my grasp. The slick silk flowed south with determination, a fabric Mississippi heading for the wooden Gulf of Mexico.

“No!” I couldn’t let that wonderful fabric get all wrinkled, maybe even damaged, not after all the hours I’d put in working on it. I lunged for it, the man outside forgotten, the man inside ignored.

Then the curtain was forgotten too as I belatedly realized that you can’t lunge when high on a stepladder. Maybe, I thought desperately as I flailed my arms, I could sort of step backwards and find the floor without falling flat on my back or stepping on the precious material. Of course that would be quite a step; the floor was several feet down.

“Watch it! You’re going to fall!” the man behind me yelled helpfully.

Tell me something I don’t know!

I scrunched my eyes shut as I felt myself plummet in a graceful sort of slow motion, at least until gravity got hold of me. Then it became full speed ahead.

Lord, don’t let it hurt too much!

How would I ever finish my decorating job if I broke my leg—or broke anything, for that matter? And then there was school, which started Monday. How could an art teacher ever manage one hundred and fifty-plus intermediate school kids and all the supplies for their various projects while on crutches? I could barely hold my own on two feet.

Suddenly strong hands grabbed me none too gently about the middle. The man they belonged to staggered under my weight, not the most complimentary thing that ever happened to me, but he didn’t go down. Thanks to him, neither did I. No broken legs after all. Just wounded vanity.

He set me unceremoniously on my feet. Yards of glorious Scalamandré fabric billowed about us. I watched as it settled on the floor, burying my sneakers and his dirty workboots.

“Be careful,” I cried. “Don’t move. Don’t get that fabric dirty! It costs a fortune.”

He snorted. “Tell me about it. I got the bill yesterday.”

I carefully lifted the drapery off his boots, laying it over one of the plaid slipper chairs. I examined it minutely and couldn’t see any dirt on the pale-cream background. Relief washed over me.

I turned to my rescuer. Now that I could spare him a glance, I saw he was what Dad always called a man’s man: big, physically fit, ruggedly handsome with dark eyes and wavy dark hair that needed a haircut. He wore jeans and a white T-shirt, and he had a phone clipped to his belt and a pair of sunglasses hanging from the neck of his T-shirt.

All in all, very impressive, but I’d given impressive men a wide berth since Glenn. Once burned was more than enough.

A pad of lined paper filled with notations and a black leather carrying case holding what I assumed was a laptop lay on the floor where he’d dropped them when he grabbed me.

“That would have been a nasty fall,” he said, picking up his tablet and case.

I nodded. Of course I wouldn’t have fallen at all if he hadn’t scared me to death, but I decided not to mention that little fact. “Thanks for the rescue.”

He grunted, frowning at me. “What are you doing standing on something as unstable as that ladder? It looks like it’s going to collapse under you at any moment.”

“What’s the matter with my ladder?” I looked at the paint-splattered contraption. It was my father’s. He’d used it for all his home projects for years, as had Granddad before him. It bordered on family heirloom.

Dad had loaned it to me almost ten years ago when, to help pay college expenses, I began sewing curtains, slipcovers, pillows and anything else a customer wanted for her home. I was now long out of college, but the ladder was still with me, as was my part-time business, Anna’s Windows Plus. When I’d picked that name years ago, I’d never given Bill Gates and his Windows program a thought. I didn’t get too many calls about malfunctioning computer programs.

“What’s the matter with your ladder?” He looked amazed I would ask. “You’re kidding, right? The brace on one side is broken. It has more potential splinters on it than a porcupine has quills.”

Yowzah! The guy spoke in poetic images.

“In short, it’s an accident waiting to happen, and when you break your neck, I’ll get the blame.”

I blinked. “Why would you get the blame?” But I was pretty sure I knew since I’d just figured out why he looked so familiar.

“Because I’m the contractor, and Freedom’s Chase is my project.”

“You’re Edward Grayson.” Just as I’d thought. I’d seen his picture in the News often enough. I’d guess everybody in the Amhearst area knew his name, probably everybody in Chester County, if not Philadelphia and the whole Delaware Valley. He built wonderful homes like the one we were standing in and sold them at outrageous prices, though rumor had it he didn’t need the money. His family was supposedly drowning in Texas oil or something.

Maybe that’s where he got the financial backing for the massive renovation of downtown Amhearst he had planned and which City Council had just approved after much dispute. All the deteriorating buildings in the four-block area that had once been a thriving shopping and business district were to be torn down, and condominiums and apartments built, with all the facilities such a community would need.

I had followed the newspaper reports about the huge project every step of the way. I loved Amhearst, and anything that would make it a more healthy community had my support.

“You’re younger than I thought, Mr. Grayson.” Not too much older than I was. Mid-thirties to my late twenties, I thought. Young for such responsibility.

“That’s Mr. Edwards, not Mr. Grayson,” my rescuer said. “My name’s Grayson Edwards. Gray Edwards.”

“You’re named after a color.” As an artist I liked that idea, though gray wasn’t the color I would have chosen for him. Nothing so soft, so muted. Black maybe. Strong and powerful. Or Green, a deep, forest shade. Too bad I’d never been asked my opinion. I looked at Gray Edwards. Like he’d ever want my opinion.

What if I were named after a color? I could be Rose Volente or Violet Volente. The thought made me grin.

“I am not named after a color.” There was enough pique in his voice to indicate he’d dealt with this comment before. “Grayson is my mother’s maiden name.”

Mom’s maiden name was Rasmussen. Thank goodness she had realized there wasn’t any possibility of a first name for her only daughter to be found there. Suddenly Anna looked very good indeed.

“As I was saying before you interrupted—” he said.

I frowned at him. I’d hardly classify my comment about his name as an interruption. He frowned back.

“—this is my project.” He waved his hand, tablet and all. I understood he meant not the living room in which we were standing but Freedom’s Chase with its mini-mansions under construction, each house all but overflowing its mere quarter-acre lot. There’d never be much call for a lawn service around here. There weren’t any lawns.

“If you fall and kill yourself,” he said, “your survivors will doubtless sue me for all I’m worth.” He looked as put upon as if the suit were already in progress.

Thinking he needed to lighten up a bit, I asked oh-so-sweetly, “And you’re worth how much, Edward? Just so I can tell the family an amount to ask for if the unthinkable comes to pass.”

He stared at me, dark eyes narrowed. “Cute.”

I grinned. “Thank you.”

He shook his head and reluctantly grinned back. My heart went pitter-pat as if I were sixteen, and the star quarterback had deigned to smile at me.

“Will you be much longer?” He glanced at his watch. “It’s eight o’clock. Past time to go home.” He practically vibrated with impatience.

I turned to the fabric, carefully lifting the beautiful, pricey Tuscan Vine. The large clusters of aubergine grapes, the green leaves and the brown vines were embroidered on cream silk. I loved the pattern. I glanced at him over my shoulder. “I’m not sure how long I’ll be. It depends on whether I have the peace and quiet I need to do my job.”

“Ha-ha,” he said.

I searched for and found the top edge of the drapery. “You don’t have to wait for me, you know.” I pointed to the other long windows. “I managed to hang those all by myself. I’m sure I can manage this one, too.”

He flicked a glance at the windows I indicated. As he did, the sofa caught his eye. “The couch is purple!” He sounded offended.

“Aubergine,” I corrected, glad I wasn’t the one who had picked the color. The interior designer who had subbed out the windows to me had made that selection. I decided not to mention that I thought it went well with the grapes in Tuscan Vine and the purple in the Sinclair plaid on the slipper chairs.

“It’s purple. Bright purple.”

“It’s not bright purple,” I said patiently. “It’s aubergine.”

He sniffed, walked to it, and ran his hand over the seat. “It’s slippery!”

“It’s taffeta.”

“Taffeta? Taffeta is for dresses, not sofas.” He suddenly looked uncertain. “Like evening gowns, right?” At my surprised expression, he said, “I have four sisters.”

“Huh,” I said eloquently. “I have four brothers. I’m youngest.”

“Oldest. And you can call purple aubergine until you’re blue in the face, but it’s still purple.”

“Deep purple. Eggplant. In fact aubergine is the French word for eggplant.”

“Semantics. And you need to pack up. I’m not leaving until everything is locked up tight. We’ve had some nighttime thieves recently, and I’m not taking a chance with this model home.”

I stopped fussing with Tuscan Vine and its clusters of grapes. “You’ve had thieves?”

“Storage shed broken into, tools taken, nails, lumber. Nothing has been vandalized, nor has anything of great value or quantity been taken. Still, I’ve hired a night guard to patrol the development.”

I frowned. “I saw a man walking around one of the houses on the next street.” If he was the thief, that would explain his skulking air, and if he was the guard, I guess he was sneaking around trying to catch people.

Gray stiffened. “The guard doesn’t come on until midnight. When did you see this man and at what house?”

“I was watching him when you startled me. And that house.” I pointed out the back window.

He walked over and looked. He immediately relaxed. “It’s all right. The Ryders bought that house, and Dorothy Ryder comes out practically every day to see how the work is progressing. Drives my men crazy. Ken must have decided to come with her today, so they came later, after work and dinner.”

Relieved, I nodded. Thank goodness I hadn’t called anyone.

Gray turned from the window and sat in one of the plump armchairs covered in Scalamandré’s plum Bali pattern, and began ticking mysterious things off the lists on his tablet. His cell rang, and he silenced it, checking the readout. He made another note on his pad.

He looked good in the chair.

Of course, that was solely because the chair looked good. The whole house was being done in fabulous fabrics from Scalamandré, the high-end company that did one-of-a-kind orders for clients like the White House and limited quantities of hand-loomed fabrics for the wealthy. I’d never cut and sewn such expensive material in my life and probably never would again. I calculated over and over to be certain of my measurements, and every time I cut, I hyperventilated. The thought of ruining material worth three to four hundred dollars a yard tended to do that to a person.

While Gray checked things off on his list, I repositioned my ladder.

He looked up suddenly. “Our first official Open House is Saturday.” He nodded toward the partially draped window. “You will be finished by Saturday?”

“I will be finished by Saturday,” I agreed. “Absolutely.”

“Today’s Tuesday. You only have three working days left.”

“How convenient. I only have less than three days worth of work left,” I said, the very soul of reason. I didn’t mention that several pillows and the round table skirt, aubergine taffeta like the sofa, weren’t yet cut out, let alone sewn. Neither was the square table topper of Sinclair tartan in soft green, mauve and aubergine on cream.

I put a foot on the first rung of my ladder.

Gray jumped to his feet. “What are you doing? Don’t use that ladder!”

I mentally rolled my eyes. “I have to use the ladder.” I climbed the first two steps. It swayed drunkenly. “How else can I hang the treatments?”

“Look—” He halted. “By the way, what’s your name?” He actually appeared interested.

“Anna Volente.”

He nodded. “Look, Anna, get a decent ladder.”

“I am not going to go buy myself another ladder. My father gave me this.”

“Your father—” He stopped abruptly, wisely thinking better of saying whatever he was thinking. “This is a building site. We have plenty of ladders.”

“And they would be where? Oops, not here.”

He muttered under his breath. “I’ll get you a decent ladder. Just get off that thing before it collapses under you.” He stalked to me, grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me gently but decisively off. He indicated a point at my feet. “Stand there. Don’t move. I’ll be right back.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Do I look like a cocker spaniel or something?”

“No, though the hair’s about right for an Irish setter. Stay.” With a grin and a hand held up to emphasize the command, he left the room.

I stared at the doorway through which he’d disappeared. I looked at the spot at my feet. With calm deliberation I took my first step. Then my second, and soon I was at the front windows where I had already hung Tuscan Vine. I worked with the folds of the heavy silk fabric, adjusting them to drape just so. I stepped back and eyed the overall effect. I nodded. They looked good, if I did say so myself. Apparently he wasn’t going to say so.

Gray returned, lugging a stepladder that was taller than mine and obviously much sturdier.

“Now you won’t have to stand on the top step, so you can lean into it to keep your balance. No more falls.” He folded my old standby and set up his ladder in its place. It looked strong enough to hold both of us, an unexpectedly cozy thought.

“Now get up there and let me hand you this heavy thing.” He indicated the Tuscan Vine lying on the chair. “Or better yet, let me hang it.”

“That’s all right,” I said as I climbed quickly. I recognized potential disaster when I saw it. “I know what I’m doing.”

He didn’t say a word, merely gathered the fabric in his arms and stood there radiating energy and cooperative spirit. He handed me the top of the panel, and I began attaching it beneath the swag I’d hung earlier. I had to admit that the task was going to be easier now that I didn’t have to both hold the material and attach it.

Movement outside caught my eye. I glanced again at the house kitty-corner from the one I was decorating. The man I’d seen earlier stood at the opening for what I guessed was one day to be the kitchen door. He jumped to the ground. I squinted. What was it about him that was so strange? As I watched, he unscrewed something and stuffed part of it in his pants pocket. The rest he stuck in his waistband at the small of his back, pulling his red shirt over it. After wiping the back of his wrist across his forehead, he peeled flesh-colored gloves from his hands, balled them, and stuffed them in his other pocket. I frowned.

“Gray.” I motioned for him to come look. “The man’s back. He just took off some gloves like the ones doctors wear.”

“Gloves? Why is he wearing gloves in August? And why that kind?”

Like I knew. Shrugging, I moved as far to one side of the ladder as I could so he had room to climb. It vibrated under me as he took the first two steps, then stopped.

“Move to the center,” he said. “I think it will be better if I put one foot on either side of you. Otherwise we’ll be unbalanced.”

I nodded absently and slid to the center, concentrating on the man outside. I blinked in disbelief as he suddenly pulled what could only be a stocking from his head. His features leaped into focus.

“No wonder he looked so funny. He was wearing a stocking over his head.”

“What?” Gray stood on the step below me and tried to peer around me. “Can’t quite see yet.” He slid one foot beside mine, looking down to be sure of its placement. He began to raise himself to slide the other foot in place.

I froze as the man in the yard swiveled his head and looked directly at me. I knew I was highly visible with the westering sun streaming over me, just as he was clearly visible to me, blond hair, hook nose, mustache and all. I’m not very fanciful, but I could feel the malevolence of his stare across the distance and felt goose bumps spring up on my arms.

“What’s wrong?” Gray asked, straightening to peer over my shoulder.

“He’s—” I’d been about to say that he was looking at me, but the sentence changed when he pulled something from the waistband at the small of his back “—got a gun!”

TWO

“He’s got a gun!”

At least that’s what I meant to say. What came out sounded more like I was gargling with a particularly offensive mouthwash. I hurled myself backwards, away from the window, away from the danger.

I slammed hard against Gray who made his own gargling sound. Together we tumbled to the floor, a wild pinwheel of arms and legs. I thought I also heard a particularly heartfelt grunt from Gray when we struck the unforgiving floor. Over the crash of the falling ladder and the terrified beating of my heart, it was hard to discern one sound from another.

There was a brief moment of silence as I lay on my back, breath squished from my lungs by the bone-jarring impact. I stared at the ceiling and the little circles of red dancing across it. I gave a mighty gasp, and oxygen rushed into my depleted system. The red circles disappeared.

A gun! The man had a gun! I had never seen a handgun like that in real life before, and the hairs at the base of my neck twitched as I remembered how one looked pointed directly at me. I rolled off Gray, who had unintentionally buffered my fall, and scuttled on my knees to safety in the front hall.

“Out here should be safe, don’t you think?” I crouched, curled into a ball, and hugged the wall. “He can’t see us here.”

Of course he could decide to walk over to the house and in the unlocked front door that I was staring at. I groaned at the thought, crawled to the door, and turned the lock.

“There!” I pulled myself into a tighter ball. “My phone’s in my purse across the room. You’ll have to call 911.”

Gray didn’t answer, and he didn’t punch numbers. All I heard was a peculiar gasping sound.

“Gray?” I turned, surprised to find he wasn’t in the hall with me. I’d thought he was right behind me. “Gray?” I crawled back to the doorway into the living room and peered in. I clapped my hand to my mouth to stifle a scream. It leaked out anyway.

Gray lay on his back where he’d fallen, his mouth open, his eyes closed, his face covered with blood.

“He shot you!” I crawled toward him. Why, oh why hadn’t I decided to be a nurse rather than an art teacher? “You’re bleeding!”

Gray made that gasping sound again. At least he wasn’t dead.

“Don’t move!” I tried to remember the first aid class I’d taken as part of my health requirement in college. What did you do first? Staunch the blood! That was it. All I had to do was find where the blood was coming from. I put a tentative hand to his head, burying my fingers in his thick hair.

Gray pushed my hand away none too gently, rolled to his side, and pushed to his hands and knees.

“You shouldn’t move.” Gently I tried to push him back to the floor. “Everyone knows you don’t move when you’re shot.”

He resisted my push with a growling sound that reminded me of our neighbor’s ill-tempered schnauzer, Daisy. He gasped again, his back arching like he was doing the cat stretch exercise. Blood poured onto the hardwood floor.

Thank goodness the soft green rug wasn’t being laid until tomorrow.

Gray snaked out a hand to grab the Tuscan Vine, its unattached end sagging from the rod so that a large puddle of silk lay on the floor. His intent was obvious.

“No!” I leaped to my feet, gunman or no gunman, and snatched up the fabric. “Don’t get that material bloody!” I pulled it as far from him as I could without ripping the already attached end, flinging it over the plum chair, for once mindless of wrinkles. “It costs two hundred and twenty-five dollars a yard.”

“Bake dat three hundred and fifty,” he muttered in an odd voice. He began pulling his T-shirt from his waistband.

“Don’t use your shirt either,” I told him. “You’ll never get the blood out. There are some towels in the kitchen. I’ll get them.”

I ran to the back of the house and grabbed the designer towels laid artistically beside the sink and raced back to Gray. I found him sitting cross-legged on the floor, his head tilted back, his T-shirt bunched under his arms and wadded against his face.

I dropped to my knees beside him and handed him the towels. “Where did he shoot you?” My heart hammered. What if Gray’s handsome face was scarred for life? What if he’d taken a bullet in the eye? Of course, reason told me, if he’d taken a bullet in the eye, he wouldn’t be sitting up holding his nose.

His nose.

“Are you having a nose bleed?” I demanded as my fear and relief transmuted to irritation.

He lowered his head enough to glare at me. “Yes, I’mb having a dose bleed, doe thanks to you.”

“Me? It’s not my fault heights give you nosebleeds.”

“Heights, by foot. Id was your hard head.”

“My head?” I lifted a hand to the back of my head and hit a sore spot. I realized suddenly that I had a miserable headache, one I’d been too frightened to notice before.

“Firs’ you gib me a header, den you dock me flad on by back—and id’s a wonder I didn’t break id—and den you fall on me and dock my breaf out of me so I thought I’d neber breafe again.”

“Well, you don’t have to get so testy about it.” Tears filled my eyes. “I thought you were shot!” Thank You, God, that he wasn’t!

“Shod? Me?”

“By the man with the gun. The man in the yard over there.” I pointed toward the Ryders’ house as goosebumps once again raced up and down my arms.

Gray blinked. “He had a gund?”

“You didn’t see?”

“I din’t ged a chance. I god attacked first.”

“Attacked?” I was torn between guilt for hurting him and indignation that he’d think I did it on purpose. Then I noticed the little upward quirk of his lips where they were visible below the towels. “Beast,” I muttered.

He grinned as he pulled himself to his feet and walked cautiously to the window, towels in place, head still tilted back to stem the flow.

I caught at his arm, trying to pull him back. “Don’t, Gray. He might still be there.”

“I doubt it. He’d either be here—”

I shuddered.

“—or be gond.”

The squeal of tires taking a corner too fast and the snarl of a pedal pressed to the metal made me jump. I rushed to a front window and saw a flash of black disappear down the road bordering Freedom’s Chase.

“See? There he goes,” Gray said. “Id’s safe.”

“How do you know it’s him?”

“When I drove through the develobment for my last check of the evening, I din’t see anyone.”

“No black car anywhere? What’d he do? Hide it in a garage?”

“He was driving a black car? What kind?”

I threw up my hands. “How should I know? They all look alike.”

He gave me that guy look. “They don’t, but that’s beside the point.”

“It was just black, and what is your point?”

“My point is that there couldn’t have been anyone other than him hanging around. I’m not that blind.”

I decided that his flawed logic wasn’t worth a comment. Still, I did agree with his thought that the man would either be here ready to do us further damage or be gone. Since he wasn’t here, and since I’d heard that car take off like a proverbial bat trying to escape a very hot place, I relaxed.

“We deed to report this to the police,” Gray said.

I nodded. “He pulled it from his waistband.” I whipped my hand up to illustrate.

Gray nodded as he looked out the back window toward the Ryders’.

“You can’t see much of anything but the roof unless you climb the ladder. Remember?”

“Id’s my nose that got creamed, nod my brain. I bemember.”

“Well, you don’t have to be all snippy about it.”

He looked down at me from his awkward head tilt. “I think I’mb entitled to be a liddle snippy.”

I sighed. Maybe he was. All he’d wanted to do was to lock up and go home, probably to take some beautiful woman—his wife?—to dinner. Well, it wasn’t my fault that man had a gun and that I was scared of men with guns. Everybody was scared of men with guns.

Holding on to the ladder with one hand as he held the towels to his nose with the other, Gray climbed one rung at a time.

“He’s not dere now,” he said as he searched the area, head swinging from left to right. “We’re right. He’s gond.” He started back down the ladder, froze momentarily, then leaped back just as I had. Somehow he managed to make that giant step to the ground look easy, landing neatly on his feet.

“What?” I looked from him to the window. “What’d you see?” Then I saw it, a small hole in the glass near the top on the right. “G-gray.” I pointed.

“Yeah,” he said, his voice no longer peeved or teasing but thoughtful. He looked at me. “I think he’d have missed you even if you hadn’t ducked, bud id’s probably a good thing you did.”

“And that’s supposed to make me feel better?” The man in the red shirt had shot at me! Me, Anna Volente, intermediate school art teacher and registered coward.

I stepped closer to Gray. My hands started to shake, and my stomach felt dangerously unsettled. I swallowed several times to make sure things stayed where they were supposed to. Blood on the floor was enough of a mess. I took another step closer.

Gray pulled his cell phone from his belt and held it out to me. “Call 911. I’mb afraid to take the pressure off my dose.”

I hit the digits and spoke to the voice at the other end, ending with, “No, neither of us was shot. No, we can’t see him any more. We think we heard him drive away. Yes, we’ll wait.”

When I disconnected, I rubbed my cold arms. “But he saw me, Gray. And he knows I saw him. What if he’s now out to get me?”

“I wouldn’t worry.” Gray started walking toward the kitchen. “He’s long gone. He had to know we’d call the cops, and doe one hangs around waiting for the cops to show.”

“But what if he comes back?”

“You won’t be here. You’ll be home, tucked safely in bed.”

I followed him to the kitchen, glancing uneasily over my shoulder at the hole in the window. “Where are we going?”

“Here.” Gray leaned his body over the sink, then slowly withdrew the towels from his nose. He stood unmoving, head still slightly tilted upwards. “I’mb not bleeding any more, amb I?”

I looked at him carefully. “No, but you look like you’ve been in the war.” I grabbed one of the towels and wet a corner not covered with red. “Look here.”

Gray stood impatiently as I began the delicate job of swabbing his face and neck without hurting him further. After a minute of my tentative swipes, he reached for the cold water, turned it on full and threw handful after handful over himself, scrubbing his cheeks and neck after each wave. Then very gently he scrubbed beneath his nose.

He turned to me, dripping onto his bloody shirt. “How’s that?”

“Pretty good.” I reached up and wiped at a patch of red beside his nose. He grimaced, whether from pain because I hit a tender area or from reluctance to have me touch him, I couldn’t tell. He lifted an arm and dried one side of his face on a shirtsleeve. He repeated the operation with the other sleeve.

I eyed his shirt. The blood was turning rusty around the edges of the stains.

He looked down and shrugged. “Can’t do too much about that. I’ll just toss it.” He started toward the back door. “I won’t be long. I need to check the Ryders’ to make certain there was no damage done by our armed visitor. Don’t leave before I come back. I want to walk you to your car.” He looked back at me and grinned. “And don’t stand in front of any windows.”

I stared at him. Was that last line supposed to be funny? Because it wasn’t. “I thought you thought he left.”

“I do. You don’t need to worry. You’ll be fine.”

“You can’t know that.”

He nodded agreeably. “You’re right. I can’t. Let’s say you’ll probably be fine.”

That settled it. “I’m coming with you.”

He raised his eyebrows at me.

“It isn’t safe for you to be alone either.” I tried to sound as if I was selfless, full of concern about him. I didn’t want to admit out loud that I was reluctant—admit it, kid, you’re downright scared—to be in the house by myself.

“Don’t want to stay here alone, eh?” His smile was only slightly teasing, very understanding.

I felt my cheeks flush. Sometimes intelligent men were a burden.

We struck off across the newly sodded backyard, around the back fence and into the Ryders’ backyard, me practically skipping to keep up with Gray’s long stride.

I stared at the unfinished house wrapped in Tyvec. The holes where the windows would go stared back at me like black, empty eyes in the gathering dusk and gave me the creeps. I looked instead at the scale of the house.

“Why do people buy places this big?” I thought of the small, two-bedroom apartment I’d lived in before I moved in with Lucy and Meaghan. The whole thing would fit into the great room of the model, and this house didn’t look any smaller.

Gray shrugged. “Americans like big.”

“Even if they can’t afford to furnish half the rooms? Even if they can’t go on a vacation for years because they’re house-poor, or put money aside for their kids’ braces and educations because they have to pay that astronomical mortgage every month? Even if they both have to work to stay afloat financially, leaving the kids to raise themselves?”

I blinked. Where had all that come from?

“Easy there, Anna,” Gray said mildly. “I just build ’em. The Realtors and the buyers handle the money issues.” He started around the side of the house.

I hurried after him, unwilling to get too far from his comforting presence. It was a good thing I had no aspirations of being Nancy Drew or even Stephanie Plum, let alone Kinsey Milhone or Sidney on Alias. I obviously didn’t have the constitution for dealing with bad guys with guns. Dealing with rebellious schoolkids was more than tough enough for me. “Where are you going?”

“I want to walk around the house to make certain everything outside is okay before I check inside.”

“Shouldn’t we just wait for the police?” I glanced over my shoulder as I followed him into the front yard. “What if we mess up footprints or something?”

He stopped and looked down at the parched dingy orange subsoil studded helter-skelter with stones and pebbles of all sizes. Then he looked at me.

“Yeah, yeah,” I acknowledged. “Too hard for prints.” I glanced over my shoulder again.

“He’s gone, Anna. He was just a penny-ante thief looking for whatever he could get his hands on, maybe even the guy who’s been robbing the site.”

“Wearing gloves and a stocking mask? Shooting at innocent people? I don’t think so.” I studied him. “And neither do you.”

He smiled slightly as we rounded the last corner and found ourselves in the backyard once again. Gray went to the backdoor opening. Ignoring the lack of steps, he pulled himself up and into the house.

“Don’t you dare leave me out here alone.” I reached to pull myself up, but he turned and grasped my hand. He lifted me effortlessly.

“It’s dark in here.” I’m very good at stating the obvious.

“Darker,” he corrected. “Let your eyes adjust.”

Dusk sent its silver light through the many window openings, and I had to admit Gray was right. It wasn’t as dark as I’d first thought. Soon I could make out the rooms, the studs dividing them awaiting the electricians and plumbers before the insulation and drywall went up.

We looked carefully around the kitchen, the great room, the den, the bath, the pantry, the dining room and the living room. Aside from a couple of sawhorses, an aluminum extension ladder lying on the kitchen floor, several plastic-protected windows stacked in each room, a litter of nails and sawdust, and a ladder leading to the basement, the place was empty. The eerie silence pulled at me, making me shiver in spite of the fact that the temperature was still well above eighty.

I cocked my head as I heard a soft plop, plop, like the dripping of a faucet with a bad gasket. “Is the plumbing finished upstairs?” I pointed to the black opening to the second floor.

Gray tilted his head and listened. “That’s strange. It’s not even begun. I’m going to check the basement, and make sure nothing’s dripping down there.”

I watched him step onto the ladder propped against the hole where the cellar steps would go. Talk about dark and eerie. I shuddered. No way was I going down there. Bad as alone was, it was better than black and scary. “I’ll just wait here.” I motioned to the front hall where I stood.

He nodded and, pulling a penlight from his pocket, stuck it between his teeth. “Be right back.” Slowly he disappeared.

I walked to the front door and looked out. The police were nowhere in sight. I looked at the rapidly darkening sky, the only light the faintest of rosy glows in the west. I felt the gloom behind me deepen and press.

I turned and looked back at the front hall. It was spooky without Gray’s company, especially since the mysterious drip, drip, dripping echoed gently in the silence.

Frowning, I walked slowly around the hall, trying to find the source. I was convinced it wasn’t in the basement. Sure, sounds echoed in an empty house, but this was too loud to be coming up from downstairs. I jumped when a drop struck me on the outside of my left upper arm. I felt liquid run down and drip off my elbow. Another drop hit me.

I stepped to the side and looked up. I was beneath the place where the hall stairs, when they were built, would end at the second-floor landing, but it was too shadowy up there to see anything.

“Gray,” I called down the cellar steps. “I found where the drip is coming from.”

“Be right there.”

I went to the front door where the last remaining light showed the dark trail running down my arm. I dabbed at the wet stuff, then sniffed. My stomach pitched. There was no mistaking that sweet metallic odor.

“Gray!” I wasn’t even embarrassed about the panic in my voice

“Yeah?” His head appeared, followed by his shoulders and torso as he emerged from the basement.

“B-bring your little light over here. Shine it on my arm.”

He did so. “You scratched yourself.”

I shook my head. “That’s the drip.”

But it’s—”

I nodded.

“Where did it come from?” He used the tail of his ruined shirt to wipe my arm clean.

I pointed. “I was standing there.”

His swung his penlight, and the beam picked out a red puddle on the floor, drops plummeting from above to splash in the viscous pool. A footprint repeated across the floor, getting fainter and fainter with each step until it was almost non-existent when it stopped at my left shoe.

“Oh, no! I stepped in the blood!”

“Yeah, but the question is whose blood?”

He trained the beam overhead, and a woman’s pale hand appeared, flung out over the opening. Gray and I looked at each other in dismay, knowing that where there was a hand, there was a body attached.

And the drip, drip, drip of the blood continued.

THREE

“We’ve got to get up there!” I cried. “Maybe she’s still alive.” Though remembering the man with the gun, gloves and mask, I doubted it.

Already, Gray had grabbed the ladder lying on the kitchen floor and after extending it, leaned it against the opening at the end nearest the front door, away from the hand. He climbed quickly, and when he stepped off onto the second floor, I started up. I swallowed frequently, terrified of what I was about see.

Help us, Lord, if we can help her. And help me to hold myself together.

I found Gray on his knees beside the body of a woman wearing shorts and a yellow knit top. She lay on her stomach with her head slightly turned, one arm flung over her head, the other curled at her side. If it weren’t for the pool of blood that spread from her head across the plywood subfloor to the opening where it dripped, she might have been sleeping.

Gray had his fingers on her carotid artery, seeking a pulse. He looked at me and shook his head.

“Did you try her wrist?” I swallowed several more times against the sights and smells. And to think, I’d always prided myself on my cast-iron stomach.

He nodded. “Nothing there either.”

“Maybe we should turn her over to check some more?”

Gray stood. “No. We’d be tampering with a murder scene if we did.”

I shuddered. Murder scene! Shades of CSI. Lord, I teach intermediate school. I don’t do murder.

Gray and I climbed down the ladder in silence. In the front hall Gray placed our second call to 911. The mention of blood and a body brought help much more quickly than a report of a departed masked man. Officers descended, lights flashing, radios squawking, climbing from several cars. Even though Gray stated clearly that the woman was dead, an ambulance was part of the full response team as was a fire engine, even though there was no fire.

“She’s on the second floor,” Gray said. “Right by the stairwell opening. We left the ladder we used in place for you.”

The EMTs headed to the house immediately, equipment in hand. Two policemen followed. Other officers checked the grounds of not only the Ryders’ house but nearby sites. Two others, one an older officer clearly in charge, the other a young woman, stopped to talk to Gray and me.

“I’m Sergeant William Poole, and this is Officer Natalie Schumann.” He peered at Gray with interest. “What’s that all over your shirt?”

“Nosebleed.”

I felt the officers’ skepticism. Somewhere I had read the axiom that the police always assumed everyone lied to them. So many people did, even over foolish things, that the blanket reaction was to paint everyone with the same brush.

It made me nervous to think they might not believe Gray or me. “Really,” I said. “I saw it. The nosebleed, that is, not the crime. In fact I caused it.” I put my hand to the still tender back of my head. “The nosebleed, I mean.”

Sergeant Poole acknowledged my comment with a nod. “Did either of you touch anything near the victim?”

“Nothing except her wrist and neck to check for a pulse,” Gray said.

“Nothing except the toe of my shoe.” I held out my foot. “It got in the puddle of blood in the downstairs hall before I knew it was there. I—I didn’t see it in the dark.”

The sergeant nodded. “Schumann, get their personal information.” He didn’t say, “Keep an eye on them,” but I thought he might as well have, given his demeanor. He started for the house, then turned back. “Please don’t leave. I’ll need to talk with you more later.”

I looked at Gray as Officer Schumann pulled out her notebook. “Do you think we’re suspects?” I whispered.

“Of course you’re not suspects,” Officer Schumann said with the sly lift of an eyebrow. “You don’t have to worry about that until you’re Mirandized.”

“What?” I stared at her. Was Schumann going to whip out a little card and start reading, “You have the right to remain silent….”

Officer Schumann put up a hand. “Just a little police humor. You are not suspects.”

I clearly heard yet hanging in the air.

With professional efficiency, Officer Schumann took our names and addresses, work information and reasons for being at the murder site. “Now let’s move over here and stay out of the way,” she said, not impolitely. “And don’t talk about the crime.”

“Where’s Sipowitz?” I muttered to Gray as we watched another female officer in uniform begin to string yellow crime scene tape by winding a strip around the large oak that sat near the edge of the Ryders’ corner property. Unrolling tape as she went, she had just disappeared around back when a truck arrived with high-intensity lights that were lifted by ropes and pulled through window openings to illuminate the second-floor interior. Frequent flashes of light indicated pictures being taken of the victim and the crime scene. “I want Sipowitz.”

“Two problems,” Gray said, deciding to sit while he waited. He dropped down, resting his arms on his raised knees. “This isn’t NYPD Blue, and this is real life.”

The real life part was underscored as the coroner arrived in his black van.

I sat beside Gray, legs bent, knees tucked under my chin, arms wrapped around my shins, watching the procession of people going in and out of the house. The female officer with the crime scene tape appeared on the far side of the yard, looking vainly for something to attach her tape to. Finally she set the tape down, walked to a pile of building refuse two houses away and rooted, her flashlight beam leading the way. She returned with two boards, one of which she began trying to force into the dry, pebbly dirt, using the second as a hammer.

Sergeant Poole jumped out of the house and walked over to us. He stood with his back to the house and pulled out a notebook. Automatically Gray and I stood, facing him. Officer Schumann left to help the yellow tape officer with her hammering.

How clever, I thought as I told myself I wasn’t nervous. Our faces are lit by the spill from the house. He can see our expressions, watch for any lies that way. Not that we have anything to lie about. At least I don’t. And I wouldn’t lie anyway, being a Christian and all.

“Let’s begin with you telling me why you’re here tonight,” Poole said, his voice mildly curious. He looked at Gray.

“I’m the contractor on Freedom’s Chase,” Gray said. “Grayson Edwards.”

“The downtown guy?”

“The downtown guy. I was getting ready to go home around seven-thirty, eight, when I realized that Anna was still here, working in the model house. Since we’ve had some thefts recently—”

Poole went on alert. “What kind of thefts? Have you reported them?”

“Just lumber, nails, stuff like that. And no, I haven’t reported them. They weren’t significant enough to involve you, just bothersome, not even enough for an insurance claim. Anyway, I wanted to be certain everyone was gone before I left. I went to the model house to see how much longer she’d be.”

“And what were you doing there so late?” Poole looked at me.

“I was hanging window treatments,” I said. “The model opens on Saturday, and I’ve got to get everything finished before then.”

The sergeant nodded. “Did either of you see the victim arrive?”

I shook my head, as did Gray.

“What happened to bring you from the model to this house?” The sergeant’s pen was poised to take down our answer. “By the way, I’ll want you to come in tomorrow to give a more complete statement.”

“Okay,” I said, and told Sergeant Poole about standing on the ladder and watching the man with the gun.

“You saw him clearly?” Poole asked, his craggy face intent.

I nodded. “And he saw me. He shot at me. That’s when I hit Gray in the nose and made him bleed.”

Poole stared. “He shot at you.”

“But that was after he took off the stocking mask and the gloves.”

“We called it in,” Gray said. “911.”

“So even though a man with a gun shot at you, a man who had been wearing a mask and gloves, you came over here where you’d seen him and just happened to find the victim.”

It was hard to see Sergeant Poole’s face because of the way he stood, but I was pretty sure that if I could, I’d see disbelief. And put the way he put it, our actions did sound the height of folly. Well, we weren’t cops. We were just regular people who didn’t have much experience with gunmen. At least I didn’t, and I doubted Gray did. So we’d taken what probably looked like a foolish risk, like someone who came home to find his house robbed and went from room to room before the police arrived, just to be certain the burglar was gone.

“We heard him drive away,” Gray explained. “We figured it was safe.”

“And it took us a few minutes to mop Gray up,” I added.

Gray slid his hands into his jeans pockets. “There was no way I could leave Freedom’s Chase until I was certain everything was all right over here.”

“I came along because I wasn’t going to stay in the house alone, not with that bullet hole in the window.” I shivered at the memory.

Sergeant Poole grunted. “Point out the window.”

I looked toward the model house. “You can’t see it from here. You have to be out back.”

The sergeant started for the backyard, and we followed. When we rounded the corner of the house, I pointed.

“See? Right up there.”

Poole studied the window, the top third of it visible. “So you were standing on a ladder, hanging curtains—”

“Window treatments,” I corrected.

“—when you saw this man twice. Then you decided to come over here to be certain he hadn’t done anything to damage the property.”

Gray nodded. “That’s when we found Dorothy.”

“So you recognized the victim?”

Gray rubbed a hand over his face, wincing when he hit his nose. I winced with him. “Dorothy Ryder,” he said softly.

“And you knew her because?” Poole asked.

“Two reasons. Dorothy was a partner in Windle, Boyes, Kepiro and Ryder, the accounting firm. She handled my business. Also, she and her husband Ken bought this house.” He nodded toward it. “In fact, it was the first sale in the development. Dorothy liked this lot because it’s on the corner and has three big trees that we left when we cleared the land.” He indicated the trees that had enabled the woman officer to put her tape up at least partway around the house. “Dorothy would stop by almost every day to see how much more work had been done.”

Sergeant Poole was quiet for a moment. Then he looked at me. I gave him a nervous smile. “Can you describe this gunman?” he asked.

My smile became real. “I can do better than that, Sergeant. I can draw him.” At the surprised looks from both him and Gray, I reached for Poole’s notebook. “I teach art.” Look, Dad, it does come in handy!

I quickly sketched the man in the red shirt while Gray held his penlight for me so I could see what I was doing. I drew the man as I first saw him behind the house, burly body moving stealthily. Then I did two head sketches, one profile, one full on. The man’s dark blond hair hung over his forehead as it had done when he pulled the stocking off. I closed my eyes for a minute, letting him come to life in my mind’s eye. I studied my drawing and quickly added a couple of strokes to the bushy mustache that sat on his upper lip like a light brown wooly caterpillar. His rather beaky nose jutted out in the profile, and strong dark eyebrows arched over his eyes. I studied the sketch, strengthened his cheekbones, then studied the sketch again.

“That’s him.” I looked at Gray, then Sergeant Poole. “I don’t know what color his eyes were. Too far away, though I got the impression of dark. As to the hair, the stocking mask may be responsible for it falling across his forehead. He had to have been sweating in it.” She handed the tablet back. “But that’s him.”

“Wonderful.” Though Poole appeared pleased to have the drawings, I guessed from his lack of reaction that he didn’t recognize the man. “This will be a great help. Now I want you both to come in tomorrow morning to give a detailed statement and make another sketch.”

I blinked. “It’ll look just the same.”

“And that will be just fine.” He turned and started back to the house.

“Does that mean we can go?” Gray called after him.

“No, you can’t go yet,” Poole’s voice floated back to us. “But it shouldn’t be much longer.”

Sighing, I turned to Gray. He was eyeing the yellow crime scene tape with distaste.

“Bad PR. And it’ll still be here on the weekend, I bet. Who wants to buy into a development where there’s been a murder?”

“Maybe it’ll bring more people because they’re curious,” I said, wanting to help. He looked so discouraged.

“Yeah, curious to look but unwilling to buy.”

“Well, this house may be hard to sell, but if the others are anything like the model, they’ll go fast, Gray. Americans like big, remember?”

On that happy note, we fell silent. I wondered how much longer we’d have to stay here, and if I was allowed to call Lucy and Meaghan. I looked at my watch. Ten-thirty. It would probably be another half hour before they began to worry seriously about me. Besides, I realized, my cell was at the model house with my purse.

Finally the sergeant returned, Officer Schumann trailing him. “Thank you for mentioning that you stepped in the blood, Miss—” He checked his notes. “—Volente. It saves us spending a lot of time trying to trace the footprints.”

I beamed, happy I’d helped, certain he’d now perceive my innocence.

“I’m afraid I’ll have to take your shoe, though, just as I’ll have to take your shirt, Mr., uh, Grayson.”

“Edwards,” Gray said.

The sergeant looked at him blankly.

“It’s Grayson Edwards,” Gray said patiently. “Edwards is my last name.”

“Gotcha. I still need your shirt.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Surely you don’t think Gray—”

“Do you often suffer from nosebleeds, Mr. Edwards?” Poole was eyeing the bloody shirt again.

Gray shook his head. “Never.”

“Tell me again how this one occurred.”

“When Anna saw the man had a gun, she jumped back and her head—” With one hand he made as if to squish his nose.

The sergeant flinched. “Painful.”

Gray nodded. “Very.”

I felt bad all over again. Guilt, a woman’s most faithful companion.

Sergeant Poole held out a large plastic bag. Gray pulled his shirt off and dropped it in.

The officer turned to me. I pulled off my sandal and put it in another bag, trying not to think of the painful hike over all the little stones and rocks on the way back to the model house.

The sergeant handed the bags to Officer Schumann. “Seal these, Natalie, and tag them.” He turned to me. “Were you working alone?” He jerked a thumb toward the model home.

“Until Gray showed up.”

“When?”

“About eight o’clock or so.”

“And why were you still there at that hour?”

“I stayed at the shore an extra week with Lucy and Meaghan.”

Both men looked at me strangely.

What? Was I suddenly speaking Farsi or something? “I got behind on my sewing when I stayed that extra week, so I had to work late.”

Both men’s faces cleared, and Poole asked, “Who are Lucy and Meaghan?”

“Lucy Stoner and Meaghan Malloy. I share a house with them, and we all teach at Amhearst North. I teach art.”

“I can vouch for Miss Volente, Sergeant,” Officer Schumann said. “I believe she has taught my younger brother, Skip.”

Schumann. As in Skip Schumann? “Sure, I know Skip.” Can you say thorn in the side? “I don’t think art is his favorite subject.” I hoped I didn’t sound too sarcastic.

Officer Schumann just smiled.

“And where were you,” the sergeant asked, turning to Gray, “when she hit you in the nose?”

“I was climbing the ladder behind her.”

“The same ladder?”

Gray nodded. “It seemed a good idea at the time. Then he pulled his gun, she jumped back, and I—” He shrugged.

Sergeant Poole made more notations in his notebook. I noticed a bright blue Honda CRV pull to the curb. A woman with spiky brown hair and a determined attitude climbed out.

“The press has arrived,” Schumann muttered to Poole.

He glanced at the reporter who was bearing down on us as she pulled a small digital camera and a tape recorder from a large bag hanging over her shoulder.

“Merry Kramer.” The sergeant looked resigned but not distressed as the woman stopped in front of us. “Give me a minute, Merry, and I’ll be with you.”

“Sure, Sergeant.” The reporter gestured to the house. “Can I go in?”

“Can I stop you?” he countered.

“Well, sure you can, but I’m hoping you won’t.”

“Just stay out of everyone’s way, and don’t—”

“And don’t touch anything,” she finished for him. “I know.” With a little wave, she headed for the scene of the crime. Halfway there she paused and took several quick shots of the house and the people milling around.

Poole watched her with a little shake of his head. Then he turned back to Gray and me. “Schumann, give these people receipts for the shoe and the shirt.”

“Right, sir.” She handed us already written slips of paper.

“And you two, don’t forget to come in tomorrow.”

“Right,” I said as a black BMW screeched to a stop at the edge of the road.

A slim man climbed out. His face was creased with concern as he eyed the yellow crime scene tape, the emergency vehicles, and all the people, many in uniform.

“What’s going on here?” he demanded of anyone who would listen. He caught sight of Gray and homed in on him. “Gray, what’s happening?” He strode across the barren yard toward us, though he was obviously searching for someone else. “Have you seen Dorothy? Is she all right”

My mouth fell open. Was he who I thought he was?

Sergeant Poole stepped forward. “And you are?”

The man blinked. “I’m Ken Ryder.”

My breath caught. I looked helplessly at Gray, and saw a reflection of the same discomfort and uncertainty I felt. What could he possibly say?

Ken Ryder turned back to Gray. “I was supposed to meet Dorothy here about seven to seven-thirty, but I got held up at work.” He started for the house. “Is she inside?”

Sergeant Poole put a hand on Ken Ryder’s arm. “Stay here, please, Mr. Ryder.”

Ken frowned vaguely at the sergeant but kept talking to Gray. “I called her on both her cell and the home phone, leaving a message that we’d have to come here another night.” He shrugged. “I knew I was disappointing her, but I couldn’t help it. When I got home about a half hour ago, she wasn’t there, and she’d left no note like she usually does. This is the only place she planned to go this evening, so I’m here even though I can’t imagine she’d still be here.”

He took a breath, then kept talking. Nerves? Why? Did cops make him feel guilty too?

“You know how she loves to come check on the progress of things, but it’s so dark. How can she see? There’s no electricity in the house yet.” He looked confused as he glanced at the well-lit house. “Is there?”

“Where do you work, Mr. Ryder?” Sergeant Poole asked.

“Chester County BMW. I’m sales manager.” He reached in his pants pocket and pulled out an empty key chain with a green plastic tag which had white printing on it.

“Ride with Ryder?” Poole read.

Ken Ryder nodded. “My slogan. I guess she didn’t get my message, though why she’d still be waiting for me here, I don’t know.”

His voice trailed off as he seemed to see the coroner’s van for the first time. “What’s that for?”

No one said anything though the reporter held her tape recorder out in anticipation.

“Where’s Dorothy?” This time there was a note of panic in his voice. “I want to see Dorothy.”

Just then a gurney with a body bag lying on it was lowered out the front door opening.

I watched Ken Ryder’s face as he added two and two. “That’s not—”

Gray put out a hand and clamped it on Ken’s shoulder. “Easy, Ken.”

Ken ignored him and started toward the gurney, his movements jerky. “It can’t be!”

Sergeant Poole grabbed him by the arm. “Not now, Mr. Ryder. You just stay here with me. We need to talk.” He kept a firm hold as Ken Ryder tried to pull free. He stepped between the man and the gurney. “Mr. Ryder, I’m sorry for your loss.”

Ken Ryder turned horror-stricken eyes to the sergeant. “My loss!” He swung back toward the body bag. “No. You’re mistaken. You have to be. Not Dorothy!” His face crumpled as the gurney was lifted into the coroner’s van. “Not Dorothy!”

FOUR

Gray and I walked back to the model house in silence, Sergeant Poole, Officer Schumann and the police photographer following. They wanted to see the evidence of the shot. The reporter trailed along, too. I had been right. It did hurt to walk barefooted on this stony dirt.

As I limped along, I couldn’t get the picture out of my mind of the distraught Mr. Ryder all but collapsing as they wheeled away his wife’s body. I rubbed my arms to get rid of the emotional goose bumps, but they weren’t the kind I could rub away.

Gray saw the motion, and he looked from me to my old Caravan.

“Why don’t you just go on home, Anna?” he said. “It’s been a hard night. I’m sure the sergeant wouldn’t mind if I showed him what he needs to see.”

I sighed again. “I wish I could just leave, but I’ve got to go inside. My purse. And I’ve got to finish hanging that treatment before it gets too wrinkled.”

“Okay, get your purse, but then go. It’s after eleven. You’ve got to be beat. Finish the window tomorrow.”

“I can’t. I’ve also got to pin the drapes up off the floor so the rug can be installed tomorrow.”

Gray frowned. “I’m not much of a decorator, but wouldn’t it have been easier to wait until the rug was in to hang the things?”

“The rug was originally laid yesterday, but the interior designer—”

“That would be you.”

“No, not me. The woman I work for. She took one look at the rug and screamed, ‘It’s the wrong color green! Too yellow. Too yellow. Get it out of here!’ I was hanging the treatments in the master bedroom at the time and heard the whole thing.”

“So a new rug in a different shade of green arrives tomorrow.”

“Yep, and since I don’t know what time, I have to leave everything ready tonight.”

Gray nodded. “Let me get another shirt from my gym bag, and I’ll help.” He reached behind the seat of his silver pickup, parked behind my Caravan, pulled a black nylon bag out, and rooted around until he found a gray T-shirt. He pulled it over his head.

He wrinkled his nose. “A bit ripe. I wore it to play basketball today at lunch, but at least I feel decent. I’d advise you not to get too close though.” He smiled, and in spite of the emotional intensity of the evening, my toes curled.

Oh, for goodness sakes, Anna, get a grip!

We walked to the house and went inside. We found Sergeant Poole in the living room, staring at the ceiling. I looked up, and there was a hole where the bullet had struck. I hadn’t noticed it before.

“See it, Schumann?” Poole bellowed.

Schumann’s voice floated down the stairwell. “It’s lodged in the side of a night table.”

Rather the night table than me. I walked to the Tuscan Vine draped over the slipper chair.

“Let me hold the material for you.” Gray reached out a hand. “I promise not to bleed on anything.”

“What are you doing?” Poole asked, his gaze suddenly fixed on me.

I stopped, startled, one foot on the ladder. “I need to finish hanging this treatment.”

The sergeant shook his head. “Not tonight. The crime scene guys need to go over the room first.”

Gray made a noise of distress, then held up a hand as Poole glared at him. “I understand, Sergeant, but it does make things difficult for me and for Anna.”

“They shouldn’t be too long in here. Just pictures and the removal of the slug. Oh, and scrapings of the blood for analysis. I’ll let you know when the coast is clear.”

“There’s a rug being laid tomorrow,” I said.

“Not until we’re finished here there isn’t.”

“And the model house opens to the public Saturday.”

“Probably.”

Recognizing an immovable object when I saw one, I nodded at the sergeant and carefully laid the lovely silk fabric over the slipper chair again. This time I took care to smooth it.

“Go on home, you two,” Sergeant Poole said. “We’ll make certain the place is locked when we’re finished.”

I grabbed my purse. As Gray and I walked out of the room, the sergeant called, “By the way, the place looks very nice.”

“Thanks.” Nice. We had been going for a lot more than nice.

Gray walked to my Caravan with me. I smiled at him, uncertain how to end the evening. On one hand, I’d just met him. On the other, we’d shared a pretty intense experience. Before the situation became too awkward and for want of a better idea, I stuck out my hand to shake good night. “I’m glad you were here. I’d have hated to go through all this alone.”

He waved my thanks away. “I’m going to follow you home to make sure you get there, okay?”

I was impressed and felt warmed right to the cockles of my heart, wherever those were. “You don’t have to do that.”

“I know. I’d just like to.” He paused. “You don’t live, like, miles and miles away, do you?”

“No, about ten minutes.” Which, out in western Chester County, was nothing. “Really, I’ll be fine.”

“I’m sure you will be. Still, I won’t sleep unless I know you’re safe. It’s a guy thing.”

“Protect the ladies?”

He shrugged. “What can I say?”

My stomach growled, and I flinched. So feminine and becoming.

He laughed as I pressed a hand against my middle. “Me, too. I never did get any dinner.” He checked his watch, something he’d been doing off and on all evening. “I think the only place that’s probably still open besides Wawa or Turkey Hill mini-marts is the Wendy’s window. Is that okay with you?”

I nodded, unreasonably glad I’d get to spend a bit more time with him. “We can pick something up and take it to my house.”

Gray climbed into his truck and followed me to Wendy’s and then to the three bedroom brick ranch I shared with Lucy and Meaghan in a modest neighborhood set on a hilltop. On the way we passed my favorite house, a beautiful and unique place that was part restoration of a great historic barn and part new construction with lots of windows and gables. Somehow it all worked, and as I stared up the long maple-tree-lined drive, I grinned. My window treatments hung in that house.

I pulled into the drive of our ranch, a far cry from the mansion I admired from afar, but a whole lot more user-friendly. I parked in the turnaround, the place designated for my Caravan since it was by far the worst of our three vehicles, and the weather couldn’t possibly do it any harm. Gray pulled up in front of the garage door.

I climbed down from the van, glad he was with me. The strips of woods between the houses might be a welcome privacy screen most of the time, but tonight they looked like menacing hiding places for assassins looking to take out witnesses. I walked quickly to the front door of the dark house, Gray right behind me.

“Looks like everyone’s in bed,” I said as I unlocked the door.

We had just stepped into the entry hall when the bedroom hall light flicked on. A very tousled Lucy appeared in her Girls Rule, Boys Drool sleep shirt, talking as she came. Her red curls corkscrewed wildly about her head, and her big black cat Tipsy lolled in her arms.

“And just what took you so long, Miss Anna?” she asked. “I was getting worried about you over there in that unpopulated place all alone.” Then she saw Gray. An appalled expression on her face, she darted back out of sight.

“That’s Lucy,” I said around a laugh. “And the furry monster in her arms is Tipsy. Luce, this is Grayson Edwards.”

“Hi, Ed,” Lucy called, and Gray rolled his eyes. “What a shame Anna can’t keep you, ’cause you look nice enough, the little I saw of you, tall, handsome, but you’ve seen me looking yucky, so you’ve got to go.”

Now it was my turn to roll my eyes. Lucy was an original, and she said anything that popped into her mind, often in one long run-on sentence. Gray looked a bit thunderstruck, though he was smiling.

“Go to bed, Lucy.” I gestured for Gray to follow me to the kitchen. “I’ll tell you and Tipsy all about it tomorrow.”

“Yeah, I guess I’d better before I embarrass you more.”

“What makes you think I’m embarrassed?”

“Hah! I know you, kiddo. Good night, Ed.” Her bedroom door clicked shut.

“Is she a teacher too?” Gray asked, his eyes dancing.

I nodded. “We all teach at Amhearst North Intermediate School. Lucy teaches English.”

“I bet her classes are a riot.”

“This is sixth to eighth grades we’re talking. All classes are a riot if you don’t watch out.”

“Didn’t you say there was a third one of you?” he asked.

Just then a snore echoed down the hall.

“That’s Meaghan. She has sinus issues. And when she falls asleep, nothing wakens her, except maybe her own snoring.”

“And what does she teach?”

“She’s the guidance counselor,” I explained as we unwrapped our fries and square hamburgers at the kitchen table. “Want a soda?”

He nodded and waited while I got two cans from the refrigerator and two glasses from the cupboard.

“Don’t dirty a glass. I’m fine with the can,” he said.

“This is an all-girl household.” I poured the sodas and handed Gray his drink. “We use glasses for company.”

“Waste of a clean glass.”

“I bet you usually drink your milk right out of the carton.”

“Unless my mother’s visiting. Then I put my manners back on so she thinks she did a good job raising me.” He took a swallow. “And I usually also say grace whether Mom’s around or not. Do you mind if I say it now for both of us?”

“Please do.” As I bowed my head, I glowed inside. Handsome, successful and Christian?

“So,” I said after his amen, “did your mom teach you to pray too?”

He nodded. “Janet Grayson Edwards is the queen of prayers. ‘There’s nothing too big or nothing too small to talk to the Lord about,’” he said in an obvious quote.

“Sounds about right to me,” I said.

Gray unwrapped his second burger. “Well, I can tell you, I don’t remember ever praying as hard as I prayed tonight when the shots started flying—”

“Shot,” I said automatically and wanted to shoot myself. I could hear my frustrated father saying, “Anna, you don’t have to correct every little thing.” I breathed more easily when Gray didn’t seem to notice.

“—at least not since I took my tests to be licensed as an architect.”

“The worst part was the look on Ken Ryder’s face.” I was suddenly no longer hungry.

Gray fiddled with a fry, swirling it around and around in a blob of catsup. “Not finding a pulse was pretty bad too.”

I made a sympathetic noise. “Was she a good friend of yours?”

“Not really. Business acquaintances, both of them, though I knew Dorothy better than Ken.” He set the fry down. “And I liked her. She was pleasant. Nice. Very good at what she did. Knew just what she wanted in the house. Only changed her mind every other day.”

A thought hit me, filling me with horror. “Do they have kids?”

Gray shook his head. “Thankfully, no. She’s all businesswoman. You got another soda?” He held up his empty glass.

When I walked him to the door a half hour later, he took my hand in his, sort of a shake but not quite. “You did great tonight, Anna,” he said. “It’s been a pleasure meeting you.”

Warmed by his compliment, I watched his truck back down the drive and disappear into the darkness.

Lord, they don’t come much hotter. What do You think? Better than Glenn? I rolled my eyes. Of course he is; almost everyone is. We both know that, right?

When I heard no celestial He’s yours, girl, I sighed, flicked out the lights, and headed for my bedroom. I wasn’t sure I wanted him or any man anyway. I still had too many bruises from before. I wasn’t even halfway down the hall before Lucy was right behind me, Tipsy prowling at her feet.

“Okay, Anna, give,” she demanded. “Where did you find him?”

“You’re supposed to be asleep,” I told her. I glanced at the cat weaving through her legs. “You, too, furball.”

“With a handsome, unknown dude like Ed in the house? No way. I want details.”

So I recounted my evening yet again, finishing, “I thought my heart would break for him. I can’t imagine what it would be like to have someone you loved murdered.”

For once Lucy was dumbstruck. She stared at me, emotions flitting across her face. Finally she said, “I can’t decide whether I’m more appalled at what you went through or more excited that Ed was there so you didn’t go through it alone.”

“Gray.” I pitched my one remaining sandal into the closet. I pulled my T-shirt over my head and tossed it at the hamper.

“Whatever. You know who I mean.” Lucy looked thoughtful. “I wonder what it’s like to be named after a color.”

I pulled on my sleep boxers and top and headed for the bathroom to brush my teeth. Lucy followed and said, “At least his mother’s maiden name wasn’t magenta or chartreuse. It’d be hard on a guy being named Chartreuse.”

I paused in the middle of brushing and just looked at my housemate.

“Well, it would.”

I mumbled through the foam, “I’m sure you’re right.”

Lucy’s face crumpled suddenly. “Oh, Anna, you could have been killed. Right this very moment Meg and I could be having broken hearts over losing you.” She threw her arms around me, foam and all.

“Easy, Luce. I’m fine.”

“I’m not.” She gave me a hard squeeze. “Lord, thank You for keeping her safe!”

I rinsed, turned, and gave Lucy a hug in return. One of the best things that happened to me four years ago when I began teaching at Amhearst North was that Lucy, a veteran of one year, took me under her wing.

“Don’t stand too near Mrs. Meanix, the English teacher, when she’s excited,” she’d told me the first day in the teachers’ lounge. “She spits, sort of like a llama. And watch out for old Mr. Simmons.” We both looked at the skinny old man who taught math and should have retired ten years ago. “He’s got roving hands.” When all I could do was sputter, Lucy nodded vehemently, her eyes dancing. “I kid you not. And whatever you do, don’t smile until after Thanksgiving.”

“What?”

“My father’s advice,” Lucy said. “He’s a teacher, too, though in New Jersey. ‘Remember you are not their friend, Lucy,’” she mimicked in a deep voice. “‘You are their teacher. Don’t smile till after Thanksgiving. Don’t send your discipline problems to the office. Take care of them yourself. And whatever you do, don’t take off one day every month like so many women.’”

Lucy turned big brown eyes to me. “I’m afraid to get sick except on weekends, but I don’t want to get sick then because I’ll miss all the singles’ stuff at church. So I have a policy never to get sick.” She grinned. “You have to come to church with Meg and me. You’ll love it.”

Lucy introduced me to Meg. The three of us clicked, and soon I found myself living with them, enjoying the third bedroom and as unwilling to get sick on weekends as Lucy and Meg. There wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t thank the Lord for these special friendships.

But tonight I was more than ready for solitude and a good sleep. I knew Lucy would be happy to stay and talk until all hours, so I shooed her with a flick of my hand and a smile on my face. “I’ve got a lot to do tomorrow, girl, so good night.”

Lucy paused in my bedroom doorway. “Be sure you dream of Ed.”

Right. Last time I dreamed of a man, he left me. Boom. Gone. Pain. Still, there was something about Ed. Gray.

I eyed my bed and the black furry boneless creature filling half of it. “Luce, you forgot Tipsy.”

I put a hand under the cat and pushed. “Off, buddy.” Moving not an inch, he turned his great head and showed me his fangs. I pushed harder.

The cat smiled, I’m positive, as Lucy gathered all twenty pounds of him close.

Moments later, snuggled under the floral print Martha Stewart sheets and summer blanket from Kmart, I found I couldn’t sleep. Every creak of the house, every chug of the refrigerator’s motor, every snore that came from Meaghan’s room, every hum of the air-conditioning system going on or off made me go rigid.

He’s not here, my practical self assured me.

How do you know that? my irrational self countered.

He doesn’t know who you are or where to find you.

But he saw me. How spooky is that?

Very. Now go to sleep!

I wish.

The whole situation was preposterous. I was an art teacher, for goodness sakes, the original good girl. I painted on the side, and not even all that well if the truth be told, though I’d never admit it to my father. I sewed curtains and drapes for people for extra cash. I made fabric pictures—“fabric mosaics” Lucy called them—for the fun of it. I spent more time at church than I did at the mall. Any previous dealings with bad guys were absolutely nonexistent, any run-ins with law-enforcement authorities almost nonexistent. Almost.

Once I’d called in a child abuse report about one of my students. Once I’d gotten a ticket I couldn’t afford because of my penchant for being heavy-footed. Once when I’d glanced at my watch and seen I was going to be late for a date, I’d accidentally walked out of a store with a pair of gloves in my hand. I’d rushed right back in to pay for them, probably passing the store detective coming after me to arrest me.

I’d committed one of my two serious offenses when I was six years old. I lifted a chocolate bar at a Wawa mini-mart. When I climbed into the car eating it, Dad marched me right back to the store and made me apologize. He paid for the candy, then made me work off the price by helping him with his annual garage cleaning. He made certain the task took all day.

You’d think that between the mortification and the sore muscles over the chocolate-bar incident I’d have learned my lesson, but I guess I’m just slow. Once, as a teen, I kept too much change at Kmart, using the undeserved five dollars to buy a colorful scarf. I still had the scarf, but I had yet to wear it. I kept it to remind myself of the fine line between evil and good, guilt and grace. I’d returned the five dollars as soon as I’d gotten my next babysitting job.

That was about as close as I ever came to lawbreaking and lawbreakers, Skip Schumann excepted, if mouthiness and disrespect were breaking the law. Evil people, really bad guys, couldn’t usually be bothered with ordinary goody-goody people like me. They thought we weren’t any fun, and we sort of thought the same about them. We went our separate ways.

Until tonight.

I squeezed my eyes shut again and tried to get comfortable in my very comfortable bed. Lucy sneezed, Meaghan snored and I sat bolt upright, trying to see through the darkness. I told myself over and over that it was only Luce and Meg, but my nerves, busy jitterbugging up and down my spine, didn’t seem to grasp that truth.

Light. I needed light. If he came after me, I wanted to see him, rather than be taken unawares. I reached for my bedside lamp. As soon as I snapped it on, all the shadows dissipated, and all my fears quieted. Just seeing that everything was normal made all the difference. With a sigh that was a combination of relief and fatigue, I slid down and pulled up the covers. I was asleep in seconds.

I was up at eight the next morning, down at the police station by nine, and down in my basement workshop by ten. Lucy and Meg left to run errands, and I sewed. If I was lucky, I’d have almost everything done today. The rug should be down by then, assuming the cops were finished, and I could run to the model and work before the development became deserted. I was not staying there alone ever again.

Praise music rang from my boom box, and I sang along, almost drowning out the muted roar of the sewing machine. In a momentary pause of both the machine and the CD, a muffled, “Anna, open this door,” sounded.

What in the world?

“Anna!” A fist beat rhythmically on the front door.

The music started again and I lunged for the off switch.

“Anna, come on!” The doorbell rang and rang, and knocking continued unabated.

I hurried upstairs. It sounded like Gray, but why was he banging on my door in the middle of the day?

I caught sight of myself in the mirror in the front hall. Yikes! I quickly combed my hair with my fingers and stuffed it back in the red rubber band I found in my shorts’ pocket.

“Anna!”

“I’m coming! I’m coming!”

I threw the door open to find Gray, today wearing a black T-shirt and jeans, looking like an August thundercloud about to hurl lightning bolts at anyone within range. He had the day’s Amhearst News in his hands.

He stalked into the house. “Look at this!” He shoved the paper at her.

Staring at me from the front page above the fold was a picture of Ken Ryder, looking stricken. Standing beside him, hand on his shoulder, was Gray, and standing beside Gray, looking heartbroken, was me.

“Ken Ryder, husband of victim Dorothy Ryder, being comforted by friends Grayson Edwards and Anna Volente,” read the caption beneath.

“I didn’t even know the picture had been taken,” I said. “That reporter must have done it.”

Next to the picture were my head sketches of the red-shirted man. Beneath his picture were the words: “Do you know this man? Wanted for questioning in the murder of Dorothy Ryder.”

I put my forefinger on the face of the red-shirted man. “The drawings reproduced well.”

“That’s not the only likeness that reproduced well,” Gray muttered. He dragged a hand through his hair.

I stared at him. “What?”

He pointed to my face, then to the caption beneath.

I went cold all over. “He knows who we are.”

FIVE

Dar Jones was not a happy man, but he also wasn’t a particularly worried one. He just hated that the job hadn’t gone perfectly. He prided himself in being the best hands-on for-hire killer in New Jersey, maybe the whole Northeast. Maybe the entire country.

He wasn’t one of those prima donnas the movies were fixated on, the guys who used rifles and scopes and elaborate scenarios. He was a good, basic craftsman. Hire him, and your intended target went down quickly and cleanly. No prints. No clues. No DNA. No nothing but a dead body, done up close and personal so there was never any doubt.

So this time a woman saw him. Granted it irked him. After two weeks of casing the development, he knew that everyone was gone way before seven. Last night was the very first night someone other than the Ryder woman was there at that hour. Who could have guessed?

But so what? It wasn’t like the woman in the window was a threat or anything. He hadn’t looked like himself. So what if she saw the man with the light brown hair and the bushy mustache? She’d never finger him, not in a million years.

He ran his hand back over his naturally black, poker-straight hair and smiled to himself as he looked out his oversized window at the Atlantic Ocean rolling relentlessly onto the Seaside, New Jersey, beach. Even that red shirt with the little pony over the heart was a disguise. He’d never wear one of those preppy rags. He’d go naked first. And khaki slacks? He shuddered.

Basic black was his color. Black jeans, black T, black athletic shoes and socks. If he had to get dressed up, like for a funeral or to eat at some fancy-schmancy restaurant, he had his black cashmere sports coat. When winter came, he had his black leather bomber. If it was unbearably cold, there was the black down jacket.

The Man in Black. Just like Johnny Cash. Too bad he couldn’t sing like Cash, but then Cash, if he was still alive, couldn’t kill like him. Dar grinned. To each his own.

He could still see her horrified expression when she saw his gun. His grin broadened. She probably thought she was very fortunate to have escaped with her life. She probably spent the night thanking her lucky stars.

He laughed out loud. Like he’d ever miss. If he’d wanted, she’d be as dead as the other one. But all he’d needed to do was scare her so he’d have plenty of time to drive away.

Even if she’d seen him leaving, he’d been driving the black Taurus with the Pennsylvania plate with the scene of the old square-rigged warships fighting on it. The numbers and letters on the plate were impossible to read because they blended so well with the picture. Everything was beige. The plate was registered to Jon Paul Jones, just like the false registration and insurance papers, all with a phony Pennsy address. If anybody ever tried to trace the address, they’d end up at the credit union in South Coatesville.

Dead end.

The Taurus was tucked away in New Jersey, in Tuckahoe in a garage behind the house of a little old lady who was as daffy as they came. Every month an automatic bill payer sent her a check under his phony name, Jon Paul Jones. He kept just enough cash in the account in a Tuckahoe bank to pay her.

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