Praise for Nancy Bartholomew’s

Stella, Get Your Gun

“Fans of Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum should enjoy Nancy Bartholomew’s sassy Stella Valocchi…a fun, fast-paced mystery with a distinctive heroine, an intriguing hero and humor.”

—Romantic Times Magazine

“A clever, outrageously funny caper.”

—New York Times bestselling author Stella Cameron

“A kick-ass heroine and an engaging story, Stella, Get Your Gun is unquestionably a winner.”

—Romance Reviews Today

“I’d like to come by later and check on you,” Detective Gray Evans said. He tried to grin and I tried harder to resist him.

“How about I call you?” I lied.

He nodded. He knew I was lying.

I walked him through the house to the front door, opened it and stood just inside the hallway while he said goodbye. The farther away from me he was, the less chance there was of me giving in. I forced a smile, thanked him again and closed the door.

However, deep down inside, I was thinking a fish might not need a bicycle, but it sure would enjoy a ride every now and then.

Dear Reader,

You’re about to read a Silhouette Bombshell novel, one of the most engaging, exciting and riveting books on the shelves today. We’re pleased to bring you fast-paced, compelling reads featuring strong, admirable women who will speak to the Bombshell in you!

In Sophie’s Last Stand by Nancy Bartholomew, Sophie Mazaratti’s trying to start over after her marriage ends very badly—but it seems her slimy ex has left her in a sticky situation involving the mob, the Feds and one darned attractive detective….

Get ready for a thrilling twenty-four hours as military author Cindy Dees continues the powerful Athena Force continuity series with Target, featuring an army intelligence agent on a mission to save the President-elect from being assassinated. To gain his trust, she’ll give the villain someone new to chase—herself….

It’s a jungle out there when a determined virologist races into the Amazon to stop a deadly outbreak—a danger that authorities seem determined to cover up, even at the cost of Dr. Jane Miller’s life. Don’t miss The Amazon Strain by Katherine Garbera!

And a protected witness must come out of hiding after her sister mysteriously disappears, in Kate Donovan’s adventure Parallel Lies. It’s up to Sabrina Sullivan to determine which of two charismatic men is lying—or if they both are—to save her sister’s life.

The stakes are high and the pressure is on! Please send me your comments c/o Silhouette Books, 233 Broadway, Suite 1001, New York, NY 10279

Sincerely,

Natashya Wilson

Associate Senior Editor, Silhouette Bombshell

Sophie’s Last Stand
Nancy Bartholomew

www.millsandboon.co.uk

NANCY BARTHOLOMEW

didn’t seem like the Bombshell type at first. Sure, she grew up in Philadelphia, but she was a gentle minister’s daughter. Sometimes, though, true wildness simmers just below the surface. Nancy started singing country music in biker bars before she graduated from high school. And, yes, Dad was there, sitting in the front row, watching over his little girl!

Nancy graduated from college with a degree in psychology and promptly moved into the inner city where she found work dragging addicted inner-city teenagers into drug and alcohol rehabilitation. She then moved south to Atlanta, and worked as the director of a substance-abuse treatment program for court-ordered offenders. Her patients were bikers and strippers and they taught her well…lock picking, exotic dancing, gunplay for beginners and hot-wiring cars.

When the criminal life became less of a challenge, Nancy turned to the final frontier…parenthood. This drove Nancy to writing. While her boys were toddlers, Nancy spent their nap-times creating alternate realities. Nancy lives in North Carolina, rides with the police on a regular basis, raises two hooligan teenage boys and tries to keep up with her writing, her psychotherapy practice and her garden. She thanks you from the bottom of her heart for reading this book!

For Becky, the wonderful sister who provided the inspiration and the motivation, and didn’t disown me for writing it all down!

Thank you!

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 1

T he first time I spotted him, I figured I was just a little bit paranoid.

Being followed by strangers was my daily ritual in Philadelphia, but I was in North Carolina now. I couldn’t imagine that anybody from up there would take the time and energy to follow me all the way to New Bern just to ruin my vacation.

Besides, my sister was already doing a fine job of that. In fact, just moments before I saw him, obviously out of place in his dark suit and wraparound glasses, I was plotting Darlene’s impending demise. My sister just has that effect on me. She pushes me to the brink of homicidal frustration, all the while acting like she’s just a well-intentioned love child with the best interest of her sister at heart. It drives me crazy. Now as I stood on the sidewalk, with Darlene not three feet away from me, I was thinking about how I could give her a little shove into oncoming traffic and have it be all over with. But the minute I saw the guy I stopped thinking about Darlene.

He was trying to be noticed. At least, he had gotten my attention in that getup.

Darlene was oblivious. She stood with her back to him, her long brown hair flying out and tangling with the ribbons from her fake flower wreath. In her singsong little girl voice, she said, “I know just what you need.” Without waiting for me to ask what, she rushed on. “You need to marry an architect.”

I felt my eyebrows shoot up as I looked away from my pursuer and gave Darlene the briefest once-over.

“Why in the world would I need to marry an architect?”

Darlene smiled, triumphant in the knowledge that she’d hooked me. She spun in a little circle of ecstasy, her hands outstretched to encompass the historic homes that surrounded us, and said, “Because this is your true world. You love these old houses. You want to fix one up into a cozy little nest and live happily ever after. You can’t afford to do that, so you should marry a guy who likes old houses and can take care of you. An architect would be perfect!” She spun around again. “I so know you!”

I scowled at Darlene. “Have you lost your mind? My divorce has been final for less than a year. Do you think I want to ever, ever go through that living hell again? I’m taking care of myself just fine, Darlene. So, if I want an architect, I’ll hire one!”

I glanced over Darlene’s shoulder and realized the guy who’d been following us for three blocks was gone. I scoured the street and saw no sign of him. It was paranoia, pure and simple, that kept me on guard and expecting trouble. If this had been South Philly, I really would have a guy tailing me. Lately it seemed I was always being followed, hounded and harassed by someone looking for Nick, or worse, someone wronged by Nick. I figured a change of scenery would erase the Nick factor from my day-to-day life, and maybe it had. I mean, why would someone follow me all the way to North Carolina just to harass me about my ex-husband?

Darlene was hugging her arms to her ample chest, rubbing them, as if she were cold. “I just had an insight! Maybe you were here before. You know, like in a past life? That’s why you love the old houses. It’s your destiny to walk among your ancestors. Sophie, you should not mess with your destiny.”

“Then I should marry a sea captain, not an architect. New Bern’s a port, Darlene. My dead ancestors would be sailors. Besides, why would I want to get married again? Like Gloria Steinem said, a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle, Darlene.”

“Yeah, well Gloria probably said it when she broke up with some jerk, but now even she’s happily married! Sophie, it’s been two years since Nick got arrested and you broke up. Aren’t you lonely?”

Lonely maybe, but not foolish enough to think that a relationship was the magical cure for whatever ailed me.

“Actually I’m relieved, Darlene. Now I can have a life without sitting around and waiting for some Prince Charming wanna-be to ride up on a white mule and make an ass out of both of us. I think you’ve been down South too long, honey. It’s starting to warp you.”

But it wasn’t just the South that affected Darlene’s mind. Darlene had been playing Snow White and Cinderella for years, long before her three marriages, subsequent divorces and move to New Bern. Darlene was just like that, a dreamer on a quest for the ultimate, idyllic, Happily Ever After. Not that I had much room to talk. Ten years I was married to a man who turned out to be a mirage—a meek, stereotypical accountant with an underbelly of pure slime.

“Nick the Dick” they called him. You couldn’t pick up the Philadelphia Inquirer last fall and not see that name plastered all over the articles about his trial. Nick the Dick, the King of Voyeur Porn; Nick, the quiet accountant, who snuck up to all our neighbors’ windows with night vision goggles and a video camera. Nick, selling pictures of naked housewives on his Web site, hiring prostitutes, making illicit movies, and then posting it all on the Internet. Oh yeah, I needed a man, all right…just not in this lifetime.

Darlene stood in front of me wearing that smug, patronizing look she gets. She reached out and patted my shoulder, which further pissed me off.

“One day you’ll want someone,” she said, her voice soft and mushy with idealism. “You feel bitter now, betrayed, but this will pass. You’re a Leo. You need a water sign to provide balance in your life. I know these things, Sophie.” She straightened her shoulders and tossed her head defiantly. “After all,” she said, “I am a trained, professional therapist.”

“Darlene, you’re a physical therapist, not a psychiatrist.”

“Whatever!” She was insulted now. “I know people—that’s all I’m saying. And you need a soothing water sign. There’s too much fire in your personality.”

Once again I began contemplating putting Darlene out of her unenlightened misery.

“I don’t need a husband, Darlene.”

She ignored me, waited for the light to turn and began crossing the street toward the Tryon Palace Visitors Center. She reminded me of a cruise ship leaving port. She charged off ahead of me, streamers gaily flying out behind her, blending their cheerful colors with those of her brightly patterned broomstick skirt. Life was just a pleasure cruise for Darlene and the rest of us were left to wallow in her wake.

“Where are you going?” I called after her.

Darlene consulted her tour handbook. “Number 23. The Beale House.”

“Go on ahead. I’ll meet you at 24. I need to make a pit stop.”

Darlene looked back over her shoulder, smiled that self-satisfied, I’m-right-and-you know-it smirk and took off, because she knew if she so much as slowed up, I might’ve wiped that look right off her face, thereby recreating every childhood encounter we’d ever had.

When she turned right, I made a beeline for the darkened interior of the air-conditioned welcome center. Marry an architect indeed! I stayed inside the building a full five minutes, cooling off, before allowing myself to head back out after my errant sister.

Number 24, the tiny Episcopal chapel, was one short block away. I could see the blue-and-white sign shimmering in the midafternoon heat as I made my way toward it. I walked slowly, taking my time and looking at everything—the Tryon Palace grounds, the other tourists, the flowers and gardens. I was soaking it all in but I was also looking for the suit. He was nearby. I could feel him. Damn.

New Bern was old, but not in the dirty, dingy way Philly sometimes seemed. New Bern had a fresh-scrubbed, healthy glow to its old buildings. It felt as if someone, many someones in fact, cared about this old town, cared for every brick and windowpane, cared enough not to let it decay with grime and misuse. It breathed in color, while Philadelphia stayed sepia-toned and dull.

I stepped inside the darkened chapel, inhaled the scent of lemon cleaner, stepped forward and ran smack into the proverbial bicycle—the most incredibly handsome man I’d ever seen in my life.

“Oh, God,” I said, and then realized I was in church, and crossed myself hastily. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t see you.”

He was making the same apologies and backing up a step, his gray-blue eyes the first thing I could see clearly because they were so intense and bright in the gloomy church.

“Don’t apologize,” he said, and then flashed me a smile that seemed to light up the dark interior of the ancient building. “I should know better than to stand right in front of the door. This is the third time today I’ve done this.”

As my eyes adjusted, I could see what he meant. He stood in front of a card table that was covered with tiny paper cups and plastic pitchers of lemonade. Behind the table stood two prepubescent Boy Scouts, both grinning and looking at Mr. Wonderful like he was the funniest thing going.

“Here,” he said, holding a cup out toward me, “at least have some lemonade.”

“He spilled it on the last lady,” one of the Scouts volunteered.

“Yeah, I’d take it quick,” the other added.

The guy laughed and shot them a look that said they were all pals, anyway, despite the boys’ comments. And for a moment I was completely and totally charmed. I stood there watching him, frozen to the spot like a deer staring into a set of oncoming headlights.

“Is it all right? It’s a new batch but it shouldn’t be too…” He paused.

“Oh no,” I said, breaking out of my stupor. I took a huge gulp, choked and sputtered. “It’s great, really!”

And then I ran, darting across the room, where I stood examining the baked goods like my life depended on it, and wondering where in the hell Darlene was. I shot a glance over at him and found he was watching me, the same hundred-watt smile stuck on his face.

He was handsome, all right. Tall, maybe six foot two inches. I put him a few years older than me, perhaps in his early forties, with a salt-and-pepper, supershort haircut and faint lines that crinkled around his eyes when he smiled. I realized with a start he was still smiling at me and that I was still, and most obviously, staring at him.

I flipped back around, pretending to study a display that covered the history of the tiny chapel. This was too ridiculous. What was I doing? I was no better than Darlene, getting myself all hot and bothered over the very gender I’d just sworn to avoid like the black plague. Men were a disease. They crawled under your skin and poisoned you into believing that this time it would be different.

“Fool me once, shame on you,” I muttered. “Fool me twice, shame on me.”

I took a deep breath, ignored the pull of infatuation at first sight and forced myself to walk right past him, outside into the brilliant sunlight. Darlene was probably lost in the ozone of her past lives and had wandered into another house, forgetting all about her sister in the process. She’d turn up, but when or where was anybody’s guess.

I walked slowly, turning down the side street where I’d seen Darlene last, looked for her and imagined what my life would be like if I lived here and not in crowded South Philly. I tried to see myself in every perfect garden, watering flowers with an ancient metal watering can, or sitting on a white wooden swing and rocking slowly in the moonlight. I tried not to worry about my sister. After all, this was New Bern and not Philadelphia. If someone was looking for me, he wouldn’t bother my airhead sister. Still, I felt the shiver of apprehension and suddenly wished like hell I could catch a glimpse of colorful ribbons up ahead in the crowd of tourists.

When I didn’t see her on the street in front of me, I turned again, wandering down a block shaded by ancient oaks. The sidewalk was bumpy brick, rippled with tree roots and narrowed by the paving of what had to have once been a cobble-stone street. Darlene stood outside a house at the far end, talking to an elderly woman and gesturing wildly with her hands. I heaved a deep sigh of relief. Now that I knew she was all right, I really was going to kill her.

I started toward her, walked maybe fifty feet and stopped. Behind a battered picket fence, behind a gigantic magnolia tree, behind overgrown bushes and weeds, sat my dream house, a battered brown-and-white cottage with a sagging porch and a rusted tin roof. In bad shape now, but, oh, what potential!

A For Sale sign, faded but firmly planted just inside the front yard, and brochures in a box beside the sign called to me. I grabbed a paper and stood looking up at the little house. I could see it all as it would be with a little attention, with a little hard work and, of course, a little money. I looked at Darlene, caught her eye and pointed toward the house. She waved, but made no move to join me.

I examined the house as I walked up the tiny driveway. It would take a chainsaw working overtime to actually make it possible to enter the house, but if it was structurally sound…Well, the possibilities were all there, waiting for the right person. I made my way down the length of the house, trying to look in through the grime-covered windows. The faint scent of the nearby waterfront mingled with the smells of honeysuckle and wild roses, and I found myself falling deeper and deeper into the trance of possibility.

The man I’d seen earlier suddenly reappeared, trying to take me as I pushed open the back gate. He lunged for me, springing out of the shadows that framed the back porch and rushing me. In his hand, he held an ugly black knife. I whirled, dropping my purse as I turned, and stepping into his move, hitting him low and inside with my body as I turned to grip his knife arm with both hands.

I yelled, guttural and hoarse, and brought his arm down across my thigh, heard the welcome snap of the bone breaking, and saw the knife skitter away into the bushes. His scream got caught short by the brick wall as I slammed him into it, bringing the useless arm up behind his back and working the weight and momentum of his big frame against him.

“Tell whoever sent you that Nick worked alone. I don’t have his money. I don’t have any of his nasty pictures and I sure don’t have whatever else it is you want. Tell him to leave me alone. You got that?”

When the man didn’t answer, I jerked his arm higher. His answering cry cut through the blood pounding in my ears as adrenaline sent my overworked emergency alert system into overdrive. How much longer was this shit going to go on? When was everybody going to finally figure out that I’d been even more hoodwinked by Nick’s betrayal than the rest of them?

In my world, Nick had been just a bad husband. Until the police had come through my front door with a search warrant and a squadron of uniformed officers, I’d only known about Nick’s day job as an accountant. So how could I possibly know anything about missing money?

I pushed the big man tight against the wall and stretched up on tiptoe to say my piece. He moaned, the fight gone out of his huge frame, and I thanked God for Vinny and Krav Maga. A year ago, I would’ve been this moron’s prey, but now I could take care of myself. In the two years since Nick’s arrest and our separation I’d grown up. In the past year I’d gotten divorced, watched as my ex-husband got convicted and sent to prison, and learned to kill a man ten different ways. Not bad for a kindergarten teacher.

I sighed and watched as my attacker ran away. I now understood the concept of, “use it or lose it.” I just didn’t like it. There was something wrong with having to defend myself against hairy ogres, irate husbands and loudmouthed police officers. I hadn’t done anything wrong. Well, I’d married Nick ten years ago, but aside from that, nothing. So why did everyone think I knew more than I did? Why did people keep coming up to me on the street, yelling about how their lives had been ruined by my husband? Hadn’t my life been ruined? How would I ever pick up the pieces?

My heart was pounding and my hands shook as the shock and reality of my recent attack set in and overwhelmed my body. It wasn’t the first time a confrontation had turned physical, but it was the first surprise attack and by far the worst. I closed my eyes for a second, seeing it all over again in my mind’s eye. The guy had meant business. He wasn’t another irate husband, or one of Nick’s former business associates accusing Nick of embezzling money, and he was most certainly not a cop. No, this guy had been hired help. Why had he gone to the trouble of following me on vacation? Did they think I had a suitcase full of stolen money and was coming to tiny New Bern to spend it?

People just kept turning up, out of nowhere, all saying Nick owed them money, or wanting revenge. Who were all of these people and when would it all end?

“Sophie! I’ve been looking everywhere for you!” Darlene had snuck up on me and now stood on the sidewalk swatting at imaginary mosquitoes and looking annoyed.

I stared at my sister for a moment, wondering if she noticed that I looked a little the worse for wear, and realizing that she of course didn’t. It was actually better that Darlene not know about my encounter. She’d only run straight back to our parents and tell all, and then I’d have that to deal with.

“You were looking for me?” I sputtered. “Where were you?”

I saw her catch her breath and get ready to start in on the defense, and short-circuited her.

“Never mind. Would you look at this place?” I said, hoping she wouldn’t notice I was sweating bullets and slightly out of breath. I stared down at the brochure I held in my hands and started spouting off information, hoping to distract Darlene with facts. “It was built in 1886. It’s perfect.”

Darlene’s expression changed to one of wary concern. “Perfect for what? It’s falling apart.”

“Darlene, look. It’s got good bones. It might need updating, some paint and a new roof, but the brochure says that most of the structural renovations have been completed. It’s mainly cosmetic work now. Best of all, it’s only sixty-eight thousand.

“Dollars?”

I gave her a look that said her sarcasm wasn’t wasted on me. I knew what she was saying. “Darlene, it’s a steal. Do you realize what one of these would cost in Philly? In Society Hill? This is unbelievable.”

“Unbelievable is right,” she said. “It’s probably just a shell. And you see those brick apartments back there? Those are the Projects. Sophie, this is not a good neighborhood.”

I looked where she was pointing, almost exactly behind the house, maybe a block away. Then I turned and looked across the street in the other direction, at the little cottages that had already been renovated, sweet with flower boxes and periwinkle shutters, rich with fresh paint and gingerbread trim. Suddenly the decision was an easy one.

“It’s a steal, Darlene.”

“They’ll rob you blind, Sophie.”

“I could make money on resale.”

“You could be killed in your bed one night.”

“I love it,” I said, but I was thinking, I’ll be killed for sure if I stay in Philly. It’s only a matter of time. Besides, what school administrator in Philadelphia would renew the contract of a kindergarten teacher who’d been married to Nick the Dick?

“You live in Grandma’s old house,” she attempted to remind me. “You complain about it constantly.”

“I rent the place,” I said. “Uncle Butch owns it and I bitch because he won’t fix a damn thing. And if you want to talk about crime, look at my neighborhood. How many homicides do you think South Philly has a year? Probably more in a week than New Bern has in a year. Since Nick’s been in jail I’ve been mugged twice and had the house broken into three times!”

“Yeah, but there’s cops up there, lots of them.”

“Darlene, there are cops everywhere.”

“Sophie, think about it. This is a small town. You’re single. You really want to leave Philly for this?”

I stared at her. She was in the same boat as I was and suddenly she didn’t think New Bern was such a great town? What was this all about?

Like a mind reader, Darlene honed in on me. “Look,” she said, “I moved down here because Ma and Pa retired here. They put on the pressure, the guilt. ‘We’re old,’ they said. ‘Who will take care of us?’ So I came. Why not? I was single. But finding a man here is like winning the lottery. It just doesn’t happen.”

Mr. Wonderful flashed across my mind but I shoved him out. “Good, I’m not looking for a man. Ma and Pa have been after me to move down here, too. Why not? What do I have to lose?”

Maybe I could start over.

Darlene was looking even more anxious. “You don’t have a job,” she said.

“I teach school, Darlene. I can work anywhere. I’ve got all summer to find something, and besides, I’ve got the money Aunt Viv left me when she died. With what this place costs I could buy it and fix it up and still have a little money in the bank.”

Darlene didn’t look convinced.

“Look, Joey moved down with Angela and the kids. That didn’t turn out so bad, did it?”

“That’s different,” she said, pouting.

I got to the heart of the matter then. “Darlene, Nick’s not gonna be in prison much longer. You think I don’t know he’s carrying a grudge? You think he won’t haunt me, trying to make my life a living hell? You think I want to walk down the street every day waiting for the time I round a corner and there he is? Do you think I don’t see the looks on the faces of the people we know? They’re thinking, There’s Sophie, the pervert’s ex-wife. You think I don’t know this and feel it every time I walk out my front door? Darlene, the man took pictures of me naked in the shower. He videotaped us making love and sold copies on the internet for $14.95. It’s not the sort of thing you live down easily.”

I couldn’t bring myself to tell her how they didn’t just look, they yelled, hurling insults and obscenities at me. I didn’t want her to pity me, or worse, to be afraid for me. I was Darlene’s big sister, not a victim to feel sorry for and take care of. Not me.

But Darlene looked sad anyway, like she saw through me, like she was feeling my life and it hurt. Something inside me snapped then, and before I could stop myself, the words tumbled out.

“Even if I wanted to meet somebody, even if I actually met a man up in Philly,” I said, “what are the chances he’s seen those pictures of me? Even if he hasn’t, what chance is there he won’t know who I am? Everybody knows what Nick did, Darlene. I see it in their eyes. I feel dirty even when I’ve just bathed. Can’t you see what I’m telling you, honey?”

Darlene’s eyes filled with unshed tears and she nodded slowly.

“I want something new. Something fresh, where I don’t have to feel ashamed just walking around in my own neighborhood. I don’t want to live in the subdivision with you guys. I don’t want to bust up what you’ve got going with Ma and Pa. I just want to be somewhere where people love me.”

Darlene was crying now. She looked up at the broken-down house and back to me. “Okay,” she said, her voice soft with tears. “I get it. If this is what you want, at least have it inspected. Bring Joey and Pa over—let them check it out, too. And no matter what,” she said, straightening up and becoming her know-it-all self, “don’t pay the asking price. This dump has probably been on the market forever. Lowball ’em.”

I threw my arms around her chunky shoulders and hugged her. “Thanks, honey. Don’t worry. It’ll work out fine, you’ll see.”

We turned away then, walking back toward the car and jabbering away about shutters and paint colors. I was so lost in my new house trance that I almost missed it, the little prickle of awareness that made me look up and stare out ahead of us.

Mr. Wonderful from the chapel stood in the middle of the sidewalk, the folded up card table in one strong hand and two Scouts by his other side. His smile seemed to reach out and cover me. His presence felt like an electrical current that arced from his body into mine. I had the foolish urge to run to him and say, “Hey, guess what? I’m going to buy that old house around the corner.” But of course, that would be crazy. So instead I looked away, kept on babbling to Darlene and walked right past him.

“Okay,” she said, when we were a half a block away, “what in the hell was that?”

“What?”

“Don’t do that,” she said. “You know what. That guy. What was with you and that guy? How do you know him?”

“I don’t.”

“Sophie, that look, that energy between you two. You know him.”

“No, really, I don’t. I just bumped into him, that’s all.”

Darlene sighed. “That was fate,” she said. “He is your destiny and you walked right past him.”

“Like a fish needs a bicycle, Darlene,” I said.

“Start peddling,” Darlene said. “’Cause, honey, that was some powerful karma, if you ask me.”

“I didn’t. It wasn’t. And I don’t want any complications in my life.”

Darlene was muttering to herself. It sounded like she was saying, “We’ll see. We’ll just see about that.”

I looked down at the brochure from the dream house and forced my attention onto the things I could control in my life. I could make this dream happen. I could turn a pile of wood and weeds into a home. But turning a smile into a relationship, now that was just plain foolish. At least the house was a sure deal. A house doesn’t vanish like a puff of smoke. A house is real. You can reach out and stroke the wood, feel the walls solid and sure. A house is what it is; it doesn’t lie. A house doesn’t write letters from prison saying you’ve ruined its life. A house doesn’t threaten to hunt you down and kill you.

Chapter 2

M y brother, Joey, is a poet. I don’t know if Pa will ever recover from this. If Joey didn’t look and act so normal on the outside, I think Pa might’ve disowned him. As it is, Pa, the retired ironworker, just ignores the poetry part and tries to believe that Joey’s simply an English teacher, a college professor. Each year, when Joey’s newest book comes out, Ma carefully lines it up with the others on the top row of the bookshelf, and there it stays, never read by Pa and misunderstood by Ma.

Joey, for his part, doesn’t spout off rhymes or stare into space all misty-eyed like Darlene. Joey plays rugby on Saturday afternoons. He roughhouses with his kids, is openly affectionate with his wife and can fix anything. Pa holds this out as incontrovertible evidence that Joey is somehow just passing through a phase with his writing.

“Poetry, schmoetry,” Pa says. “He don’t mean nothing by it.”

Ma’s kind of flattered. It appeals to the well-hidden, romantic side of her personality. “He’s writing about growing up,” she says, like this is a tribute.

I’ve read Joey’s stuff, the stuff he doesn’t show our parents. Believe me, it is not a tribute. He talks about all the things we good Italians don’t mention, like the brutality of growing up Catholic, or the pain of living poor when the layoffs happen and the jobs don’t come.

Joey feels everything. He cried when Angela stood holding her father’s arm in the back of the church, right before she walked down the aisle and became his wife. He sobbed when his first baby, Emily, was born and he held her in his arms. He cried when the second baby, Joseph Jr., arrived two years later and cried yet again when the third baby, Alfonse, completed the trio. He laughs hard, he plays hard and he loves his family, all of us, more than we can ever truly know. I watch Joey so I see all of this, but my parents, they miss out sometimes when they don’t allow themselves to see the real Joe.

It was Joey who saw the dream in my old house. Joey who convinced Pa that this would be okay, that we would all pitch in and it would actually be fun, a family thing. He showed up for the inspection with Pa in the car, the two of them ready to find fault with my future acquisition. Instead, Joey wound up rubbing his hand lovingly along the old banister, kneeling down to show Pa the strength in the ancient heart pine floors, and crawling up under the rafters in the attic to feel the “bones” of my new home. It was Joey who won Pa over, and Joey who cheered me on when I had doubts.

“Soph, look,” he said, his fingers tracing the pattern in an etched glass window, “you can’t find detail like this anymore. It’s art. Oh, kid, you have scored here. What a deal!”

Joey didn’t let me back down on my dream, not for one minute. “You’re a Mazaratti, Soph,” he said. “Look at you—you divorced that piece of crap husband, you took your name back, you remembered where you come from and now you’ll be where you belong—with family, starting over.”

He drove the rental truck up to Philly with me that very week, loaded my belongings and waved goodbye to the old neighborhood as we pulled up onto I-95 heading south.

“Don’t look back,” he said. “I never have. I don’t miss it and I didn’t leave half the baggage you’re dumping. I say good riddance to bad rubbish, Soph. Step out there, make yourself a life and don’t worry about Philly ’cause Philly ain’t gonna worry about you.”

It was also Joe who convinced Ma that the reason I didn’t move into the planned community with them and Darlene was because I had a mission to teach inner city kids and needed to be close to my future students. Now this was all bullshit, but Ma bought it on account of it was Joey doing the sales pitch.

So it made sense then that it was Joey I called when I got into trouble—big trouble. I called him at his community college office, before I called Pa and before I could control my emotions. I called him not because I didn’t know what to do and he did, I called him because he would know what to say. He would know how to put the picture back in focus without shattering the lens.

“Joey,” I said, when he came to the phone, “you gotta get over here, quick.”

“What’s wrong?” Joey’s voice was strong and deep and, most of all, calm.

“I was…I was working in the backyard….” I clutched the cell phone, pressing it to my ear. I kept gulping, swallowing, standing there in the weeds, staring at the ground and trying not to lose control. “You know, hacking at those vines so I could get to the trash pile and haul it out to the bin.”

“Yeah?” Joey didn’t get impatient like Pa would’ve done; he let me tell the story in my own time and manner.

“I hit something, Joe, with the machete, and when I did…” I swallowed very hard, looked at the long, thin blade stuck where it had landed, and tried to continue. “It, like, sank into something—you know, something soft?”

“Sophie,” Joe said, “tell me about it.”

“Joey, there’s someone dead in my backyard. I was just chopping weeds and I hit her. Joey, I think I might’ve killed somebody.”

I heard him exhale. “I’m coming,” he said, and hung up.

I stood there as if the gravity of the universe was pinning me to the planet, and stared at the body in front of me. If I’d really thought about it, I would’ve realized that she was probably dead before I hit her. How else could she have come to my backyard, rolled up in dark green plastic and positioned herself beneath bushes and weeds, waiting for my impending discovery? Who alive or conscious would wait for death like that?

Besides, there was no blood when I hit her. I mean, I knew, instantly, that I’d hit something that was flesh and blood. I shuddered because I could still feel the initial hit and then the sinking in of the blade. I’d knelt down, tugged at the plastic and fell backward as it gave in my hand, revealing the slim arm of a woman, the side of her body exposed to the bright morning sunlight.

That’s when I’d called Joe. Now I looked back at her and realized how I’d known she was dead. It was the paleness of her skin, an ashy-gray tone that live bodies just don’t have. The machete blade stuck upright from the middle of her chest, but there was no blood. I reached down nonetheless and touched her forearm. It was cool, even on a hot summer’s morning. She was definitely dead.

I lifted the cell phone once again and punched in 9-1-1. I drew in my breath and forced myself to say the words slowly and clearly. “My name is Sophie Mazaratti, I live at 618 West Lyndon Street and I have just found a dead woman in my backyard.”

It didn’t take much beyond that to get the ball rolling. The police station is only two blocks away. I live in the highest crime area in town. Three cruisers were in my driveway before I could hang up. The officers found me still rooted to the spot, the cell phone clutched in my hand and the body sprawled out in front of me.

“Jesus,” the first one said.

I crossed myself and turned around to face him. He looked like a kid, like he wasn’t old enough to shave. His eyes were huge when he saw the body, and he stopped just as I had, frozen, his ruddy complexion paling as the reality of what he was seeing hit him.

I could see his fingers twitch and he seemed to want to unsnap his gun even though a gun would be no protection against a dead body. He looked at me. I didn’t look like a threat—at least, I hoped not. I could see my reflection mirrored in the window of his squad car. I looked like the Blessed Virgin only with dark, curly hair and blue eyes. I can’t help that I look like a kindergarten teacher, and at this moment I was actually thankful. With a dead body in the backyard and my fingerprints on the machete, innocent and harmless were just the qualities I needed to portray to this trigger-happy first responder.

The young cop’s partner arrived, paired up with two other cops from the two other cars. Everybody was young and anxious and clearly experiencing something out of the ordinary. Hell, a machete sticking out of a body, that’s not ordinary in almost anyone’s experience. The three other cops stopped short in a clump of dark uniforms and aviator sunglasses. Two were women. One of the women was tall and big-boned, but the other one, a blonde, was about my size. I found myself ridiculously thinking, I could take her. What is it about cops that make people start feeling claustrophobic?

“Did you call us?” the blonde asked.

I looked back at the body. I sort of figured that part would be obvious. Who else was gonna call, the victim? “Yeah. I’m Sophie Mazaratti and that, there, is a dead body.”

One of the men snickered softly, then spoke into the microphone clipped to the front of his uniform. In the distance a siren wail started, then stopped. Dead. No need to rush—time was no longer a concern.

“Ma’am,” the big woman said, “why don’t you come with me and I’ll take your statement.” She looked at the first officer, the young redheaded boy. “LaSalle, secure the scene.” She looked past him, over the fence, into the neighboring backyard and on toward the projects. She was formulating an opinion.

Joey arrived right after she asked, “Was the machete already in her chest or did you do that?” I didn’t like her tone.

Joey reached my side just as I was answering her. “Yeah, well, I figured since she was already dead I might as well chop her up so’s she’d fit in the trash can better.”

“Soph,” Joe cautioned. “Let it rest.”

I turned around and went to him, right into the strong arms of my brother. “Joe, she’s a fucking idiot who’s trying to get wise,” I muttered in his ear. “I was just letting her know I don’t play.”

“Enough,” he whispered. “Let me talk to her.”

He turned away from me, loosening his grip and taking a step to offer his hand to the cop. “I’m Joe Mazaratti, Sophie’s brother. Listen, she’s a little upset. I mean, it’s a dead body. I guess I don’t have to tell you we’re not used to this sort of situation.”

The officer shook Joe’s hand. She wasn’t charmed yet, but she was on the slippery slope headed downhill to him. Women couldn’t resist Joe. I don’t know what it is. He’s good-looking enough, but he’s going bald. Personally, I think it’s his eyes. He’s got the Mazaratti eyes—intense, warm—and when he finally smiles at you, it’s like winning a prize. Of course, it could just be that Joe’s a nice guy and it’s genuine with him. If he likes you, you know it.

Joe was reading her nameplate. “Officer Melton?” He sounded the name out slowly and smiled. “How can we be of further assistance? You want Sophie here to come down to the station? You want something to drink, water? Move our cars? What?”

Melton, given too many options, hesitated briefly. “No, Mr. Mazaratti, if y’all could just wait on the front porch, or inside the house, that’s all we need right now. They’ll send out a couple of detectives and they’ll probably want to talk to Ms. Mazaratti, ask her a few questions.”

She didn’t even look at me now. It was all Joe. But that was fine by me. I was watching the cops string yellow crime scene tape across my backyard and feeling like everything was happening at the other end of a tunnel.

Joe took me by the arm and walked around the side of the house, up to the front porch steps. We climbed them and slowly sank down onto the top riser. Joey waited until Officer Melton joined the others in the backyard before he asked for the full story. He made me tell him twice, asking questions until at last I could see he was satisfied and had an accurate picture in his head of the events leading up to my finding the body.

“You don’t know who it is or anything, do you?”

I frowned at him. “Joey, I don’t know hardly anybody in this town but you guys. Besides, all I saw was an arm. It’s kind of hard to identify somebody by their arm, although she did have a kind of unusual arm.”

Joey was on it. “What do you mean unusual?”

“Well, she had this kind of tattoo on her knuckles,” I said. “Letters, you know, spelling out a word.”

“What word?”

“Hate. And then there was a, like, dragon symbol above that, on the back of her hand, but kind of small, toward her thumb.”

“You’re right,” Joe said. “That’s weird for here, but up North, you know that would be considered normal.” He laughed then and I had to laugh with him. It was eerie, laughing in the presence of a dead body, but it was like laughing in church—you know you shouldn’t, and that just makes it all the funnier.

The detectives pulling up in their unmarked, but totally obvious, sedan must’ve thought we were crazy. I saw the driver look up with a puzzled expression, check something on a piece of paper and then look back at the house. He was probably thinking he had the wrong address, what with us laughing like that, but the cop cars in the driveway confirmed it. They were on the scene with lunatics.

The crime scene van pulled right up in front of them and two technicians piled out and scurried up the driveway. If Joey’s stifled laughter and my giggles seemed odd, they weren’t stopping to mull it over. They had business in the backyard and time was wasting.

The detectives, though, were cooler. Detectives don’t rush. Rushing means you’re not in control, and I knew from Philly that detectives were always in control. The doors to the sedan slowly swung open and the two men got out of the car, the driver for a moment obscuring my view of the second detective.

The driver, a reed-thin older man, moved and started walking up the walkway. The second detective followed, head down and face partially obscured as he spoke into his cell phone. But even from a distance, even with his head down, I felt the shock of recognition. Mr. Wonderful was about to walk back into my life and this time I couldn’t run away.

He saw Joe first. I stayed on the porch, half-hidden by the overgrown magnolia tree, half hiding behind the porch pillar, watching. It had been almost six weeks since that first meeting in the tiny chapel, since the day I’d passed him on the sidewalk like there wasn’t a thing to it but two strangers smiling politely. Now here he was, poised on the edge of my life, about to change everything. But it was Joe he recognized.

I watched the detective snap the cell phone shut and follow his partner toward Joe, who stood in the driveway. Mr. Wonderful wore dark, well-tailored trousers, a white starched shirt and a subdued red tie. It picked up the intense gray color of his eyes, deepening them. His skin was darker, more tanned, as if he’d spent even more time outdoors since I’d first seen him. He moved like an athlete, graceful but with a coiled energy that seemed ready to spring forth at any opportunity.

I saw the detective’s eyes light on my brother, and the broad smile that had first drawn me to him appeared, un-checked, as if he had forgotten that this was a homicide scene and not just a chance meeting between two friends on the street.

Joe had the same sort of smile on his face, easy and warm. As I watched, he clasped Mr. Wonderful’s hand, then drew him in and hugged him, the way we do family or close friends up North.

Italians don’t love casually. We take hostages. You are either all the way in with us or a stranger. There is no phony Southern “Y’all come back now, hear?” If we don’t want to see you again, we don’t invite you back. I could tell just by watching that Joe knew this guy, knew him well and liked him. My heart flipped over and I rubbed my palms across my thighs, smoothing the fabric of my faded overalls.

“It’s a mess,” I heard Joe say. “My sister Sophie just moved down from Philly…gonna live in her dream house…now this. Marone.”

Mr. Wonderful was looking at the scene, over Joe’s shoulder, not seeing me there on the porch. He shook his head, agreeing with my brother.

“You know the district,” Mr. Wonderful said. “It’s transitional. These things happen sometimes…probably a hooker who got dumped after a bad deal.” He shook his head again, but his eyes darkened and his expression was grim. His good humor was gone and he was all business.

Mr. Wonderful looked at my brother and the smile flashed back for a second. “Joe, you got a sister? Why didn’t you tell me? She doesn’t take after you, does she?” Now he was grinning, trying to lighten up the situation for my brother.

Joe touched the top of his scalp and grinned. “No, Gray, she’s got hair.”

His name was Gray. It was perfect for him. It matched his eyes. Oh God, I was drooling like an idiot.

But Joe didn’t waste time. “Sophie,” he called, turning and revealing my hiding place on the steps. “Come here. I want to introduce you to someone.”

I stood, my hand touching the porch rail so I wouldn’t trip walking down the steps because the way I felt, I couldn’t trust my body not to betray me. I saw him do a double take, as if he couldn’t believe this was happening, either. I saw the easy smile flash, then grow tentative as I suppose he remembered me passing him on the street like a stranger.

I smiled back because I couldn’t stop myself. I was suddenly so very glad to see him. My brain wasn’t working right. My inhibitions, the stuff that would normally put on the brakes and stop me from looking foolish and desperate, were gone. Instead it was just me, smiling up like he was someone I already knew well, someone I wanted to keep close to me.

“She don’t always look this good,” Joe said, picking up on something, but uncertain of what it was. “She’s down here, what, two weeks? Already she’s with the overalls and the work boots.”

That stopped me. I suddenly saw myself as Gray must be seeing me. I was covered in dirt and yard grime, sweaty, probably smelly, too. I was wearing one of Pa’s old V-necked undershirts, worn overalls from the thrift shop and a red bandanna around my hair. I lifted my hand to touch the bandanna and the unruly curls my grandma Mazaratti once said would trap birds. This was wonderful. Dirty, no makeup and standing right in front of what Darlene called my destiny. Marone a mia.

“Like a fish needs a bicycle,” I muttered under my breath.

“What’s that, Sophie?” Joe asked.

“I said hello.” I started to extend my hand toward Gray, then realized it was probably filthy and that I had touched a dead body with it. When I moved to withdraw it, Joey’s friend was too quick. He read my hesitation, reached for my hand and took it, anyway, and then held it, like he was trying to reassure me, his grip warm and firm.

“Sophie,” Joe said, “this guy here is a friend of mine, Gray Evans. We play rugby together—only he’s good at it. Just so happens he’s a police detective and got himself assigned to this case. Our lucky day, right?”

I smiled, opened my mouth, and for the first time in my life, words failed me. “Uh.”

“She’s eloquent, my sister is,” Joe said.

Gray’s eyes held mine. “Hell of a morning, huh?” he asked softly.

I could only nod. The big cop came walking toward us and Gray dropped my hand and turned to her, then looked back at Joe.

“Excuse me a minute. I gotta go do this,” he said. Then he looked at me. “I’ll probably have a few questions I’ll need to ask you in a little while. Can you stick around?”

I think the last question was directed at both of us; at least Joe seemed to take it that way. “We’re not going anywhere,” he said. “Come inside when you’re ready.”

With that, Mr. Wonderful vanished and Detective Gray Evans went to work.

“He’s a friend of yours?” I asked Joey, trying to keep my tone casual.

Joey looked away from the crime scene, glancing sharply at my face, then back to the crowd of police officers. “Yeah, I like the guy, but we travel in different circles. He’s single, I’m married and got kids, so we mainly see each other at practice or a game. Nice guy, though. Even read my books. Go figure that, huh? A cop reading poetry?”

I shrugged, watching Gray talk to the uniformed officers. I liked the way the sunlight glinted off his hair, tinting the gray into a brilliant silvery white and somehow managing to make him look even younger.

“What? You’re saying a cop can’t be sensitive?”

Joey barely seemed to hear me and I was surprised when he answered. “You know any like that? Sensitive?”

Well, no, I didn’t. In Philadelphia the streets hardened them, and even if they had felt an emotion, I never saw it. But then, I only knew the South Philly boys, the ones from the neighborhood. I can assure you, sentimentality was not their forte.

“He works with Boy Scouts. That’s sensitive.”

This grabbed Joey’s attention. “I thought you didn’t know the guy?”

I could feel the heat rising up into my cheeks, spreading like a rosy wildfire across my face. I looked away, focusing on the activities of a slow crime scene technician who seemed to be gathering blades of grass from the ground around the victim’s body.

“Oh, I ran into him at the Tour of Homes. He was helping them sell lemonade.”

Joey’s attention sharpened. “So you run into him at the tour and still remember him?” he asked.

“Well, I guess he sort of stuck out in my mind, that’s all. You know, Joe, women are observant.”

Joey snorted. “Tell me about it.”

“So have you met his girlfriend?” I asked, fishing.

Joey had switched his attention back to the scene. “Met who?” he asked without turning.

“His girlfriend, Joey. He has one, doesn’t he?”

This earned me another sharp glance. “What? No, I haven’t met her. I don’t know who guys bring to the game with them. I’m just there to play. I didn’t notice anybody in particular. Lots of women come to the games, but so do guys.”

Men were so unobservant. “So he brought a lot of different women to the games, huh? What is he, a player?”

Joey’s attention was only marginally on my interrogation. He shrugged. “Whatever. Yeah, I’d say he’s a good player.”

I looked back at the detective. He radiated charisma; of course he was a player. Why not? He was a man, wasn’t he?

Like a homing pigeon, my sister Darlene arrived. How she knew something was going on at my house is a mystery, but then, that’s Darlene, ruled by the cosmos, victim of supernatural wavelengths. Our grandmother always said Darlene had the gift—the Eye, as the family calls it. She said Darlene “saw” things and “knew” things, things that other people don’t know…yet.

Darlene drives a beat-up Chevy Colt. It resembles an empty soda can on wheels, half crushed up and dented by what would be normal wear and tear in a regular vehicle. Of course, Darlene drives the way she thinks, in a nonlinear fashion, weaving from one location to another, which probably accounts for the car’s condition more than anything.

She parked, if you want to call it that, halfway down the block and then strolled back toward the house. She was wearing another one of her hippy outfits, a flowing chiffon dress and pink sandals. She didn’t wear a floral wreath today, probably because she’d come from work, but two slender braids pulled her straight brown hair back into a post-sixties look. She appeared to be oblivious to the police cruisers parked in the driveway. As she drew closer, I realized she was humming.

Joey rolled his eyes. He has no patience with her because he says she’s a disaster waiting to happen. I think actually she stresses him out because he feels he needs to protect her because she’s divorced two husbands and buried one. He’s worried because she doesn’t seem in a hurry to find number four.

“Good morning,” she said, her voice a singsong lilt. Then she stopped, seemed to take stock of her surroundings and said, “Oh, I guess it’s afternoon, huh?” Still no acknowledgment of the police cars.

She wandered up to where we stood before the change came over her. “Oh, man, something feels weird here. There is, like, a total disturbance in the energy level.” She actually shivered, wrapped her arms around herself and looked toward the backyard.

“Oh…it’s cold here, even colder back there.” She looked from me to Joe. “All right,” she said, “who’s dead?”

“Sweet Mother of God!” Joe gasped in mock astonishment. “What was it gave it away, the crime scene van or the three cop cars and the entire New Bern police force in the backyard?”

Darlene gave him her patronizing smile. “You should give up meat, Joe. It makes you mean.” Then she looked back at the scene and saw Mr. Wonderful.

How the woman recognized him again, after only seeing him one time in passing, is beyond me, but she did. She broke out in a triumphant grin. “Aha!” she cried. “What did I tell you? It’s your destiny! Fate cannot be denied!”

“Have you lost your fucking mind?” Joe cried.

“It’s the meat, isn’t it, Joe? You’re probably constipated,” she said, and dismissed him.

“He’s a detective,” I said. “Who knew?”

Darlene smiled. She knew. You could see she was thinking it. I knew.

At that moment, Gray Evans looked back at us and smiled. He knew, too, I thought. He knew all along.

“Let’s go inside,” I said. I couldn’t take it, couldn’t take everybody seeing my future, even me. I knew that it was all an unrealistic fantasy we were creating, not real life. In real life people simply do not fall in love at first sight or cement their relationship over a dead body. It just didn’t happen and the sooner we all got that, the sooner I could get on with my life.

We stood in the kitchen, or what would be the kitchen, and stared out the back window into the yard where Gray Evans and his squad of officers toiled. It was a close-up view of things we probably shouldn’t have seen.

A technician nodded to a question asked by Gray’s partner, the tall older man with a permanent look of sorrow on his well-worn face. With a quick nod to Gray, the senior detective leaned forward, pinched the edge of the plastic between two latex covered fingers and slowly tugged the wrapping away from her body.

Joe and I crossed ourselves, with him saying the Rosary softly and Darlene on my other side murmuring an incantation that sounded like “Now I lay me down to sleep.” As the police officers moved and the technicians snapped pictures, we had a pretty good view of the victim. She was young and had worked hard to disguise any natural beauty that might have been evident. Her hair was black, cut into a scalp-hugging cap of short, shaggy layers.

Joe whistled softly, cutting off his prayer at the sight of this poor dead thing. She was wearing a black leather halter top, complete with bright chrome studs, cutoff jeans and heavy black boots. Her skin, pasty in death, was covered with a number of intricate tattoos.

I watched the police officers exchange glances, a couple of them seeming to snicker. I looked back at the dead girl. She looked more like she was sleeping than dead. Her eyes were closed and her body wasn’t contorted into any of the anguished positions I’d expected of a violent death.

Darlene studied her. “Would you look at her boobs?” she said finally. “You think those are real?”

“Darlene!” Joe and I both yelled at her. “Have a little respect for the dead,” Joe added.

“I am respectful,” Darlene said. “I don’t have tits like that. I mean look at them. They have to be a triple D cup. Do you think they’re real?”

Joe was rolling his eyes, but I looked at the dead woman again. Darlene did have a point. Whatever she’d packed into that halter top, real or otherwise, was a pretty full load.

Darlene was entranced for another minute, and then she sighed and turned to look at me. “Bet she had back problems.”

“You think?”

Darlene, not sensing the sarcasm, nodded wisely. “I am a trained therapist, you know. I should be in a position here to judge.” Then, as if having another thought, she stopped, looked back at the victim and said, “You think she got shot there? I don’t see any blood, but then if the bullet hit a saline bag and it ruptured—”

“Darlene!” The image was too gruesome to imagine.

Darlene held up her hands and backed up a step. “Professional curiosity, that’s all. I mean, do they deflate if you hit one? You know, if they’re implants? It would answer a lot of questions if we knew that.”

“Darlene.” Joe’s tone was ominous. “Enough.”

I had no idea what kinds of questions would be answered for Darlene if she knew that, and I didn’t want to know, either. Somehow, though, I was sure we hadn’t heard the end of it from her. As soon as Gray Evans hit the doorstep, Darlene would be on him, relentless with her need to know. Let her tell Gray she was a professional therapist and see what that got her. I was betting he’d brush her off like a speck of dust.

Joe didn’t want to see any more. He started wandering around the kitchen, inspecting the wiring, looking at the pipes that were poking out of the subflooring, waiting for their sink.

“What’s the plan here?” he asked, indicating the entire room and all the details.

I sighed and pulled myself away from the window, turning my back on Gray Evans and the dead girl.

My dream house was a shamble of renovations and un-checked deterioration. What had been advertised as “partially renovated” was actually the equivalent of saying “We’ve stopped the bleeding, now you can try and put the pieces back together.” The major systems, the heat and air, the electrical wiring, had been replaced, but the lathe in some rooms lay naked and exposed, while a few others had new Sheetrock, unprimed and unpainted, waiting like empty canvases.

I’d moved in anyway. I’d made the offer, closed quickly and hauled my belongings from Philly to New Bern before I could have regrets, before I could change my mind. Did it matter that the kitchen was basically a gutted shell? No. That’s why God made microwaves.

Did I care that my bedroom was the intended dining room, while the master bedroom was yet to be reclaimed from years of neglect and trash? Absolutely not—it beat living with Ma and Pa and knowing that no matter what I did, it wouldn’t be right by their standards. Parenting to Ma is like redoing an old house; you don’t ever declare it done because there is always room for improvement.

“The plan is to finish the walls first,” I told Joe. I was attempting to go along with his distraction, but the scene in the backyard tugged at me and I found myself looking over my shoulder. “I can’t afford plaster. Besides, the owners who started the work were using Sheetrock anyway, so that’ll come next, then the floors. I’m going to refinish what I can and try to match up the rest with new wood.”

Joe nodded. “Wood everywhere then?” he asked, but his eyes followed my gaze into the backyard.

“Yeah. I want to keep the house as close to original as possible. Maybe not the fixtures so much, maybe reproductions there, but you know, an old-timey feel.”

“Here he comes,” said Darlene, and no one had to ask who.

Joe walked to the back door and pulled it open. Darlene looked over at me and smirked, as if this was a social call and not a death scene investigation. I was once again frozen, standing rooted to the middle of my kitchen floor like a big dummy.

Gray was peeling off his gloves as he stepped onto the enclosed porch, stuffing them in his pockets and talking to Joe in a low voice. When they entered the kitchen, Joe looked at Darlene and said, “Come on.”

“But I want to—”

“Come on, Darlene.” Joe wasn’t giving her an option. As she approached the two men, he reached out, grabbed her arm and pulled her out the door. Darlene let out a high-pitched squawk and was gone without further ado. That left me alone with Detective Evans.

“Wish I had that lemonade now,” he said, his voice soft and easy.

“I’ve got bottled water,” I said, flying into a fluster of activity, opening cabinet doors, overlooking the cooler on the counter and finally realizing it was right in front of me.

Gray Evans moved across the room, took the cooler lid from my hand and set it down on the counter. Then he took the dripping water bottle that I handed him and put that down, too. He was inches away from me, so close I could feel the heat that radiated from his body, and smell the scent of musk.

“You know, it’s all right,” he said. The words brushed against me like a quiet breeze. “It’s all right to be scared and upset. Just try to relax a little bit, okay?”

I nodded and swallowed hard.

“Nothing like this has ever happened to me before,” I said.

That brought a smile. “Me, either.”

“You never found a dead body?”

He shook his head. “Nope. I get called in after the body’s been found. I know what to expect. It’s not a shock when I show up—not like it was for you.”

I looked away and turned my attention to fitting the lid onto the cooler.

“I…it was so…she was… When that blade hit her and I looked down and saw her arm, I thought, my God, she was sleeping here and I killed her.”

Gray was watching me, the water bottle unopened in his hand. “She was probably dead maybe six hours before you found her,” he said. He twisted the cap off the bottle and took a long drink.

“How did she die?”

Gray shook his head. “We won’t be certain until the medical examiner finishes, and it might take the autopsy to tell for sure. I’m pretty certain she’s got a head trauma, though.”

“Was it accidental or do you think she was murdered?”

“Almost certainly foul play,” he answered.

Right outside my window, just behind my house, a woman had been killed and then dumped. I hadn’t heard a thing. I’d slept through someone’s violent death and never even imagined it. I’d stood in my kitchen, drinking my morning coffee and looking out at the backyard, without any awareness at all.

“Do you know who she is yet?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Probably a crack whore, at least from the way she’s dressed, but with that hair, I don’t know.”

“Hey, maybe she worked a particular kind of clientele,” I said. “You know, the whips and chains, ‘I’ve been a bad, bad boy’ set.”

That made him smile. “You’re Joe’s sister, all right.”

“What makes you say that?”

“He’s quick, always got a comeback or the last word on a situation. And you look like him.” He hesitated, and then added, “Not the hair part. It’s your eyes. You’ve got eyes like his.”

“So, if Joe had hair, we’d be twins? Because I think what you’re really trying to say is I’ve got a mouth.”

He was looking at me, at first laughing a little, and then studying me. “Not really, not the twins part. But yeah,” he said, his voice thickening, “that’s some mouth you got there.” The way he said it, he could’ve been kissing me and I wouldn’t have felt the connection any stronger.

I backed up and changed the subject. Gray Evans scared me. He didn’t seem to know about women needing men like fish needed bicycles. I had the feeling that if I’d told him, he wouldn’t have cared, either. The guy was a player and spreading chemistry like fertilizer. Oh, this was one to stay away from, all right. But that wouldn’t be my problem for long. Right now he still didn’t know about me, about Nick. Later, his attitude would change and it would be a whole new ball game. He wasn’t going to ever be my problem.

“Okay,” he said, as if reading me. “Here’s what will happen next. The forensics people will finish processing the scene, and we’ll get the body out of here. When it’s all done, the yard will be yours again and you won’t have to worry about having any restrictions on working back there.”

“What if there’s another body?”

“We checked. There’s not. What probably happened is that she was killed nearby and your yard was convenient because of the overgrowth and the low fence. It was easy, that’s all.”

“I’ll finish clearing it out tomorrow,” I said. “I don’t like the idea of this happening again. I don’t like this at all.”

“Hey, the chances of it happening again are incredibly small. We don’t have that many homicides here, maybe four a year. This was a fluke. Relax.” He looked out the window into the backyard, inspecting it carefully. “Are you doing all that by yourself? Nobody’s helping you? What’s with that sorry brother of yours?”

I smiled despite my stomach flipping over and my heart racing, despite the warmth that seemed to be spreading throughout my body in a long-ago remembered way. Oh man, this guy was trouble.

“Joe helps when he can,” I said, “but he’s got a family and work….”

“And you don’t?” Gray asked. His eyes were fastened on my face as if everything hung on my answer.

“No. I’m a teacher,” I said, and ignored the other part of his question. “I don’t have a job yet and besides, it’s summer. Teachers have the summer off.” I looked around the kitchen, away from his face, letting him follow my gaze. “So, I’m doing what I can. I’ve got most of the major work contracted out, but I need to keep the costs down.”

I looked up and caught him watching me.

“I’m not afraid of hard work. That’s why I was out there cutting back the undergrowth….” But as I remembered how the morning ended, I felt myself slow to a stop. We all knew how the morning’s work had ended.

“So you wouldn’t mind a little free labor?” he said, slipped it right in on me without me seeing it coming.

“Free labor?”

“Yeah, I can cut down bushes with the best of them, and I have something else I bet you don’t have.”

Now he had me. “What?”

He smiled mysteriously, his eyes sparkled and one thick eyebrow arched. “A chainsaw.” He gestured toward the backyard and grinned. “You ain’t seen nothing until you see what short work a chainsaw will make of your jungle. Hide and watch.”

For the first time since we’d met, I heard the faint twang of a Southern accent. Gray Evans was a country boy at heart.

“You better with a chainsaw than you are at pouring lemonade?” I asked. “Or should I tell EMS to stand by?”

He laughed and was about to answer me, but of course, Darlene with her Extrasensory Perception picked this moment to escape Joe and reclaim the kitchen. She sailed in through the dining room, a froth of pink chiffon and ladylike smiles, and focused one hundred percent of her attention on Mr. Wonderful.

“So,” she said, apropos of nothing at all, “were they her real breasts or not?”

Chapter 3

T he next morning my car exploded. I use the term “morning” loosely. It was 4:23 a.m., according to the clock on my makeshift nightstand, but the room lit up like a Roman candle as my Honda went up in flames.

I reached for the phone, hit 9-1-1 as my feet touched the smooth wood floor of my makeshift bedroom, and ran toward the kitchen.

“It’s Sophie Mazaratti, 618 West Lyndon Street. My car just exploded and it’s on fire.”

“Hold on,” the female voice said. In the background, I heard her say, “Start trucks one and two to 618 West Lyndon. Unit 2314, go ahead. Unit 2316, why don’t you start as well.” Then she was back with me. “We’ll be there in a few minutes,” she said. “Stay away from the vehicle.”

That’s what I like about police communicators. You could tell them you’d murdered your sister, then hacked off her head so you could fit her in a trunk, and they’d stay just as cool as a cucumber.

I hung up, grabbed my slippers and a sweater, and ran out onto the front porch. The neighborhood was on full alert. All the lights were on in the surrounding cottages, as one by one the residents came out into the street and stood staring at the burning car in my driveway. The wail of sirens woke anyone who might’ve slept through the explosion.

Most of my neighbors had missed the prior morning’s excitement, returning home from work to hear about the discovery of a dead body in my backyard on the local news. Now they clustered in a group, talking and watching my car turn into a blackened shell.

“You okay, Sophie?” one of them called.

I nodded, but there was no safe way to approach them. The burning car blocked my path and the overgrown front yard made walking that way impossible. I stood on the porch instead, watching and shivering. It was a warm night, made warmer by the fire, but I felt cold and very alone. I could dismiss the dead woman in my backyard as a happenstance occurrence, but my car, now that was a different matter.

I looked back at the neighbors. Did someone not want me here? I knew this was a paranoid way to view the situation, but the car had to have been destroyed intentionally. Was it kids? Vandals? Who else would want to torch my car? I thought about Nick and dismissed him. He hated me enough to do this, but he was in prison. The worst he’d been able to do so far was send threatening letters. He wasn’t due out for months. As mad as he was about me turning him in, he wouldn’t know where I was now, and if he did, I doubted he’d spring for a torch job. In the first place, New Bern wasn’t Philly. He’d have to import talent and pay for their trip down here. Nick was way too cheap for that.

I looked up and down the street, saw the fire trucks rolling toward my house, and wondered who else could’ve bombed my car. Someone connected with the body in the backyard? Someone who thought maybe I knew something or needed a warning?

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I told myself. “This is not Hollywood. You’re imagining things. Maybe it was just a freak accident. Things like that happen, don’t they? Gas vapors could ignite on a hot summer night, couldn’t they? It could happen, right?”

The firemen were pulling out hoses, rushing around to keep the fire from spreading, but my car was gone. A policeman edged around the smoldering hunk of metal and made his way up the driveway. He was using his flashlight, looking at the ground, searching for clues, I supposed. When he reached me, he glanced up and said, “Ms. Mazaratti? You all right?”

“Relatively speaking,” I answered.

“Wasn’t there a call here earlier today?”

“Yeah, there was a dead body in my backyard.”

It was another young cop. He kept staring down at his clipboard, like it was going to tell him what to do, and then looking back up at me. “Okay,” he said at last, “tell me what happened.”

“At 4:23 a.m., my car blew up. I was asleep, and when it exploded I woke up. End of story. You think it was an accident?”

“Well, ma’am, I don’t know. The arson investigator’s looking it over. He’s with the fire department, so he’ll tell us when he’s through. You didn’t see or hear anything of a suspicious nature before the car blew?”

I shook my head. “Like I said, I was sleeping.”

A familiar form was making its way up my driveway. Gray Evans, dressed in a T-shirt and shorts, had arrived, a worried look on his face.

“You all right?” he asked me. I nodded and he turned to the young officer. “What you got?” The boy handed him the clipboard, Gray scanned it and then nodded. “All right. Go rope it off. We’ll get forensics over here.”

When we were alone, Gray looked back at me, his lips twitching with a suppressed smile. It took only a moment to figure out why he’d see this as funny. Long enough for me to realize that I was wearing bright green-and-pink pajamas covered in dazzling red cherries and fuzzy pink bunny slippers that Joe’s daughter, Emily, had given me.

“I was sleeping,” I said.

“And the slippers?”

“My niece gave them to me. She would be hurt if she found out I didn’t wear them.”

He looked over his shoulder as if searching for her in the crowd.

“Well, they’re comfortable. You wanna try them?”

He shook his head and smiled. “Your niece might not like that,” he said. “Besides, I’ll bet they’re way too small for me.”

I looked at his feet, remembered the things people said about the correlation between foot size and, well, you know, and started turning red. Gray noticed immediately and smiled even more.

“Y-you probably have your own,” I stammered.

“Bunny slippers? No.” He had no intention of making it easier on me. The young cop helped me out by calling Gray away.

I looked down at my feet and wiggled my toes. The pink bunnies tossed their ears and danced. They were cute. I looked back at Gray and saw that he was now talking on his cell phone, his back to me. My car was a sodden mass of ashes and debris. Men poked at the wreckage, examining it, taking samples of charred material and bagging them in small paper bags. The neighbors were disbanding, returning to their homes in ones and twos. Soon the sun would begin brightening the horizon.

I watched for another minute and then decided to make coffee. I figured that was useful. We could all use coffee. It gave me something to do. It made me feel like I had control over something, if only my coffeepot.

When Gray returned, he found me sitting on the front porch steps holding a thick mug in my hands. I’d pulled on jeans and a sweatshirt, replaced the bunny slippers with sneakers and tried to tame my hair.

“Coffee?”

“Yeah, that would be nice,” he said, but he seemed distracted and distant. The smile was gone.

I led him through the house and into the kitchen, poured his coffee and motioned him to the table, where the milk and sugar sat waiting. He pulled out one of the heavy wooden chairs and gestured me into another.

“We need to talk,” he said.

“Okay.” The air in the kitchen felt heavy. I knew he had something unpleasant to say.

“So, somebody blew up my car and it wasn’t a freak accident.” I thought if I said it first it might make it easier for him, but that didn’t seem to help.

“Sophie,” he said, “earlier today, as part of our investigation, we ran routine checks on all the cars parked in the area. We do this in case one of the cars belongs to the victim. You know, if it gets left behind then we know maybe it was hers, or if it clearly doesn’t belong to someone in the neighborhood we can begin to narrow the field a little.”

I nodded, feeling impatient.

“We identified a white, 1996 Mercedes convertible, registered to Nicolas Komassi, 532 Hartford Street, Philadelphia.” Gray looked at me, his eyes smoky and somber. “Your ex-husband, right?”

I felt my hands begin to tremble, and the sudden urge to cry tightened my throat. I nodded, took a deep breath and said, “Nick’s in prison. He won’t be out for another eight months. And that address you have, it’s not his anymore—it was mine.”

Gray just stared at me. “Sophie, Nick got out of prison a week ago. I talked to his parole officer. He got an early release for good behavior. They tried to notify you, but you didn’t leave them a forwarding address.”

I slapped my hand down on the table. Coffee sloshed out of my cup and stained the napkin beneath it. “I didn’t want him to find me! I thought it would be better if no one knew how to reach me. I didn’t even leave a forwarding address with the post office. I just went in the house with Joey, packed my things and drove away.”

Gray covered my hand with one of his. “Okay, Soph. It’s okay. But somehow I’m thinking he found you.”

“No! He couldn’t. He wouldn’t do that!”

“It’s his car.”

That much was irrefutable. Nick’s car didn’t drive itself down to New Bern. Nick was in town, in my new town, in my safe haven, and now bad things were starting to happen, just like he’d promised.

Gray was watching me and I knew there had to be more. “What else?” I asked.

“His parole officer can’t find him. He’s been missing for three days.”

My stomach clutched into a knot. For a year, since Nick had been sent to prison and the divorce finalized, I’d felt relatively safe, but now this. I looked at Gray briefly and felt my future slip away, contaminated by the past. Even if I were interested, who wants a relationship with the ex-wife of a sicko-pervert convict? He’d look at me and think of Nick. He’d wonder what kind of a woman lets herself get taken in by such a twisted man. And Gray Evans didn’t know the half of it.

Gray hadn’t seen that Web site, hadn’t seen the pictures and videos Nick took of me without my knowledge. Gray didn’t know how I felt, what it was like to feel scummy and dirty every day, no matter how many showers I took or how long Nick spent in prison. Like a fish needs a bicycle, I reminded myself, and squared my shoulders. No one would ever use me that way again. I would never let myself be that vulnerable.

I shivered involuntarily. “Okay, so he followed me down here. I’ll handle it.”

Gray frowned slightly. “What do you mean?”

I tossed my head and ran my fingers through my hair like I do when I’m thinking or upset. “I mean I’ll get a restraining order.”

Gray looked over his shoulder, toward the front of the house, still frowning. “If that’s Nick’s work out front, I don’t think a restraining order will cover it.”

“I said I’ll handle it and I will. I can take care of myself.” I stood up, shoving my chair back so hard it screeched on the plywood subflooring. I knew I sounded harsh and defensive.

Gray ignored it. “I know you can handle yourself, Sophie. All I’m saying is you don’t have to do it all alone. I’ll have the officers in this zone make extra patrols. If you want I can check your doors and windows and help you put more secure locks on. You’re not alone, Soph. Let us help you.”

Don’t you see? I don’t want your help! I screamed silently. I wanted a fresh start, clean, without the film of scum that covered my life in Philadelphia. Now it felt hopeless. I had let myself dare to think everything would be fine, and now this.

“I’m tired,” I said. “I think I just want to go back to sleep.”

He pushed his cup aside and stood up. I looked at him and felt numb, almost. He couldn’t possibly understand, and it showed in his kind, concerned eyes and worried expression. He wanted to help and couldn’t understand why I was pushing him away. Gray Evans was never going to be anything to me because I couldn’t take the pain of coming to love someone and then losing him. Nick would ruin it. Nick ruined everything. Ruining my life had become his passion.

“I’ll come back later and help you clean up out there,” he said.

“No, that’s all right. I have good insurance. I’ll call the company and they’ll send people out to take care of it.” I wasn’t half believing this story, but it sounded good. “Thanks for your help. Please let me know if there’s anything I can do or any information I can give you that will help with the investigation.”

Gray was looking at me like I had two heads, like I’d changed and, of course, I had. What he was seeing now was the survivor, the Sophie that got cornered and came out swinging. I could take care of the car, the ex-husband and my life just fine, without anybody’s pity and without any help. I was going to figure out what was going on and why people thought I had something to do with Nick’s dirty business or else I would never, ever be truly free to have my own life. I couldn’t wait for cops to figure it all out. A fairy godmother wasn’t going to appear and set things straight. No, this was my battle and I could handle it.

“Still,” Gray said, not getting it yet, “I’d like to come by later and check on you. I could bring my chainsaw….” He tried to grin and I tried harder to resist him. If he stayed much longer, I’d cry, and that was unacceptable.

“How about I call you?” I lied. “It may be a day or two before I’m ready to tackle the backyard.”

He nodded. He knew I was lying, but what could he do? He wrote his home phone number on his business card and handed it to me.

I walked him through the house to the front door, opened it and stood just inside the hallway while he said goodbye from the other side. The farther away from me he was, the less chance there was of me giving in.

“Sophie,” he said, “I know you’re upset. Try to go back to sleep and see if things don’t look a little brighter later.”

Right. Brighter. Gray Evans was an anomaly, an optimistic cop, or maybe he thought I was as naive as I looked. I forced a smile, thanked him again and closed the door. Goodbye, Gray Evans. I’ve got work to do and a life to live and I will be just fine without you. However, deep down inside where I keep my secrets, I was thinking fish might not need bicycles, but they sure would enjoy a ride every now and then.

Chapter 4

D arlene couldn’t wait to tell on me. It was payback for not letting her ask Gray twenty questions about the dead body. She rushed right back to Neuse Harbor and proceeded to tell my parents every single gory detail. Then, when she rode past my house on her way to work and saw the charred Honda, she hit the speed dial on her cell phone and told my parents I was most probably dead, but not to worry because she was investigating.

While Ma was becoming hysterical and Pa was asking questions, she hung up. Later, when I pinned her down, and I do mean that literally, she tried to say she’d hit a bad cell and the phone had dropped the call. Upon further interrogation and perhaps even a little physical intimidation, Darlene admitted she had “accidentally” hung up on them.

This is why, at 8:19 a.m., I was roused from a deep and dreamless sleep to find Darlene and my parents standing at the foot of my bed. Ma was crying. She stood there, barely coming up to Darlene’s shoulder, clutching her old black purse, her gray hair a wire-brush double of my own. She wore thick, sensible shoes and a black dress with tiny white flowers all over it, her standard, Italian mother uniform. Darlene, dressed in an outlandish, bright purple silk dress and wearing a fake orchid in her hair, stood patting Ma’s shoulder and beaming. This is just how she likes it, a crisis with her in the middle, coordinating the fireworks. Pa shifted from one foot to the other, looking like an embarrassed, older version of my brother.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. “Is somebody dead? Is it Joey?” I sat up, my heart pounding into overdrive, trying to read the expressions on my parents’ faces.

“I’ll make coffee,” Darlene said, vanishing like the night.

“Darlene,” Ma sputtered. “She said you was probably dead! Why you didn’t call? What happened to your car?” Then Ma lapsed into Italian, saying something about how she just knew the evil eye was on me and that my new house was filled with malice.

Pa was still standing there, looking from her to me and waiting for the initial storm to subside. Instead, Ma turned on him. “What?” With lightning quick speed her hand moved, slapping Pa upside the head. “You gonna do something here? You let this happen! What, you no fix it now?” She slapped him again, a rough head shot that Pa was used to because this is how Ma punctuates all her comments.

“You look all right,” Pa said to me.

“I am,” I said, raising myself higher in bed and trying to look calmer than I felt.

Ma shrieked. “How can you say that at a time like this? A dead woman in the garden?” Here Ma crossed herself. “Your car burned to cinders? What? All right, you say? You’re all right? Stunade!”

Darlene appeared in the doorway behind us. “Ma, coffee’s ready. Come have some.”

I shot Darlene a look that promised retribution. Ma, still slapping at Pa, allowed herself to be led into the kitchen, leaving me to hop out of bed and trail along after them.

Darlene, all sweetness and light, made a big fuss, handing us coffee, spooning three teaspoons of sugar into Ma’s cup and stirring it for her, then clucking like a satisfied hen over her brood of chaotic family members. It was disgusting. I sat there for thirty minutes and answered questions, at least half of them about how a daughter could disrespect her family by not coming to them personally and presenting the information firsthand, preferably as the events were actually occurring.

The phone rang three times while I was under interrogation, and each time when I picked it up and said “Hello?” the person on the other end hung up.

“Probably someone else’s old number,” I explained, but of course, I didn’t believe that for a second. If Nick could find me in New Bern, he could get my unlisted, private number, too.

Darlene had to throw gasoline on the fire. “Tell them about the cute cop,” she said. Of course, Darlene had already given them her version, probably leaving it that we were “fated” to become man and wife.

I looked at Ma. “The detective in charge is very efficient,” I said.

“Stunade!” Ma barked. “Darlene says you know him.”

Darlene was going to die. I was going to enjoy killing her. It would be a long, slow death, accompanied by many pleas for mercy on her part.

“No, Darlene imagines that I know him,” I said. “I have only seen him one other time, from a distance, and that was a thirty-second encounter.” I was shooting daggers at Darlene with my eyes, daring her to dispute this.

“What? You would lie to your mother?” Whap! The hand was upside my head.

“Ma, don’t do that! I’m telling you the God’s honest truth.”

The sound of the back porch door opening saved me from further mayhem. Joe stepped into the kitchen, looked at us all sitting there, and said, “I brought coffee cake.”

“What?” Ma said, “Did you buy that? How much did you pay for it? I got that at home. I make that better. Why you buy that?”

Joe was unflappable. “Ma, Angela made it.”

Ma’s expression said it all. Despite her name, Angela was not Italian. Ma shrugged, resigned to eating inferior food, and gestured to the center of the table. Then she slapped my hand when I reached for it. “What is wrong with you? Get the plates!”

My entire morning continued this way. I excused myself, took a shower and returned, but they were still at it. The conversation now turned to what they should do to protect me, and this without me even mentioning Nick. I drank another cup of strong coffee, rolled my eyes at Joe and went to check the mailbox.

The note was folded up and stuffed into a plain white envelope, typed on computer paper, and generic in all respects except for what was written on it. “She didn’t cooperate, but you will, won’t you? You have what we want. We’ll be in touch.”

Joe came up behind me, took the note from my hand and read. “It’s probably just some local crackpot looking to scare you,” he said. “I’ll call Gray.”

“No. I’ll call him later, when they’re gone. That’s all I need, Ma whacking Gray upside the head because he didn’t prevent this, or Darlene batting her eyes at him and asking stupid questions.”

“I’ll handle it,” Joe said.

“No, Joe, let me do this.”

Joey looked into my face, into my eyes, and then pulled me to him, holding me tight against his shoulder. “You know, Soph, I’ve known you all your life. You won’t call him.” He reached up and stroked my hair. “You won’t call on account of you’re embarrassed. You don’t want to be any trouble. Worst of all, you don’t want to make this real.”

I pushed back and looked up at him. “Joe, Nick’s out. He got early release.”

Joe sucked his breath in through his teeth. In the background I could hear Darlene chattering on about nothing with Ma and Pa. “I thought they were supposed to let you know?” Joe said. “I thought you got a say in that?”

“I didn’t leave a forwarding address when I left,” I said. “I didn’t think.”

Joe tried to smile. “Well, good then. He can’t find you.”

But I was already shaking my head. “He already has, Joe. The police found his Mercedes around the corner yesterday. They were checking plates, thinking they might find out about the girl in the backyard.”

“I’ll kill the son of a bitch,” Joe said, his voice pitched low so Ma and Pa wouldn’t hear him.

“No, Joe. Look, Nick is a twisted little man who thinks he can frighten me. He’s mad because he ruined his life and he wants to make that my fault. He’ll get over it.” I looked at Joe like I believed my own propaganda. “After all, what’s a sawed-off little accountant going to do to me? I’ll cut his balls off and hand them back to him before he knows what hit him.”

Joe was shaking his head again. “Look, I don’t doubt your intentions, but I don’t think we should underestimate Nick, either. He blew up your car. Hell, he probably killed that woman and put her in your backyard to scare you. He’s a nutcase, Sophie, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t dangerous. I’m calling Gray.”

He brushed past me, stepping out onto the front porch and flipping open his cell phone.

“And I moved here to take control of my life,” I muttered.

“You cannot twist fate to suit your needs,” Darlene said. I jumped, wondering how long she’d been listening to Joe and me.

“Put a sock in it, Darlene,” I said, and pushed past her back into the house.

Ma was talking to Pa in Italian, so fast and low that I had trouble following anything she said, but she made it easy on me by switching to English as I entered the room.

“You are coming home with us,” she said. Her arms were folded across her chubby middle and her expression said that the matter was not open for discussion.

“Ma, I am fine. I’m not leaving. The insurance company is sending out someone today and I need to be here. Joe’ll take me to get a rental car later and I’ll be good to go.”

“You are living in the presence of death,” Ma said.

“No, they carted the body off yesterday. Death has departed.” I gave the look right back to her, strong, like I wasn’t moving an inch.

“I’ll check in on her,” Pa said, but only because he hadn’t heard about Nick yet. They’d be on me once that piece of news leaked out.

“Joe’s gonna check on me, too, Ma.” I wasn’t going to lie and tell them the car thing was due to spontaneous combustion, but I wasn’t going to tell the entire story, either. This might be called a sin of omission, but better that than moving in with my parents.

Joe walked in, saying, “That’s true, I’ll be right here. Besides, I’m only five minutes away if I do go home. Don’t worry.” He put his hand on Ma’s shoulder. “Ain’t nothin’ gonna happen to Sophie. Capishe?”

He was looking over the top of Ma’s head at me, then toward the front door, nodding his head imperceptibly in that direction.

“Ma, you guys should go back home and Darlene should go on to work. Sophie’s a big girl. She’s fine. I’m looking out for her. Ma, why don’t you make the braciola, eh? I’m coming for dinner. I’ll bring Angela and the kids. Sophie, you’re coming, too, right?”

I took the hint. “Yeah, yeah. Ma, there’s no decent food here. Look, all I have is a microwave. The stove isn’t even hooked up yet. What kind of life is that?”

Ma sniffed. “That is why a good daughter stays in her parents’ home.”

“Ma, I did that already. Then I got married. I moved out on my own ten years ago. It’s too late for moving home again.”

The hand, quicker than the eye, whacked me hard. “Stunade! It is never too late to respect your mother,” she said.

“Dinner, Ma. I’ll be there for dinner.”

“Good morning!”

We all turned. Gray Evans stood in the doorway. He was giving Ma the smile, the one that had melted my heart just yesterday, the smile I was trying to avoid thinking about.

“Hey, y’all,” he said, his voice like molten chocolate. “I knocked, but I figured you didn’t hear me and wouldn’t mind….”

“What? Get the man a cup of coffee and some cake! Where are your manners?” Ma cried. She was struggling to stand and do it herself, but Joe’s hand was still clamped firmly on her shoulder. Gray moved into the room and over to the table to meet my mother and father.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “I didn’t introduce myself. I’m Gray Evans.” He didn’t add that he was the investigator working on the murder case.

“The detective,” Darlene said with a sigh. “You know,” she added, looking at Ma, “the detective.”

Gray didn’t seem to hear her. He was shaking Pa’s hand and pulling up a chair, flirting with my mother and making it seem totally genuine, like he didn’t have a care in the world and this was a social call.

I watched him, taking in every detail about his appearance. This was the first time I’d noticed the gold shield clipped to his waist, or seen the holster and the thick, black gun protruding from his side. He wore another white shirt, but the pants were a charcoal-gray and the tie today was navy. When I handed him his coffee, his fingers touched mine. A current of electricity seemed to jump from his hand and I willed myself not to feel it. He radiated heat and musk, and it was all I could do not to reach out and lay my palm on his shoulder.

“So,” Ma was saying, “you know who burned my daughter’s car?”

Gray shook his head. “Not yet.”

“Vandals, eh?” Pa was asking.

Gray looked him in the eye, a look Ma couldn’t see because Gray was turned to face Pa, but I saw it. It was the look between men when they wish to keep their secrets for later.

“Maybe,” Gray stated, and that was enough for Pa.

“You think she should move home?” Pa asked.

“Hey, what did I say?” I interrupted before Gray could answer and possibly ruin my life by accident. “I’m fine. I’m staying here. There’s no danger.”

But Pa was watching Gray. The detective’s eyes never wavered. “I’ll make sure she’s safe,” he said. “If I think she isn’t, I’ll bring her to you.”

Marone a mia, you’d think I didn’t exist. You’d think this was the old country. Here they were, two men, discussing my whereabouts and living arrangements like I wasn’t even in the room, like I didn’t count.

Gray took it a step further and saved himself from certain death at my hands. “Sophie’s a smart woman,” he said. “She took care of herself up North and didn’t seem to fare too poorly. I’m thinking a little town like New Bern won’t be too much of a challenge. She’ll be all right. And, like I said, I’ll be around.”

He looked at me then, as if it was a statement of fact, as if I hadn’t ever said, “Don’t call me, I’ll call you.”

Gray stood, smiled and said, “I do need to ask Sophie a few more questions, just nitpicky details and the like for our records.”

“Sure,” I said. “Let’s go sit out on the front porch.”

“No need for that, honey,” Pa said, standing up and assuming control of the family. “Your mother and me have to go.” He gave Darlene The Look. “You’d better get to work.”

Ma, utterly charmed by Gray, didn’t whisper a murmur of protest. “Mr. Detective,” she said, “you eat real Italian ever?”

Gray gave her everything he had—the smile, the eyes, the works. “Home-cooked Italian? No, ma’am, I can’t say as I ever have.”

Ma looked scandalized, turned to me and said, “Tonight you bring your detective home for supper, eh?” She didn’t wait for an answer. In Ma’s world, she commanded and we obeyed.

“Well, Ma, maybe he’s got plans.”

“No, I don’t have any plans,” Gray answered. “I mean, I wouldn’t want to impose….”

“Good. It’s settled then,” Ma said, smug in her superiority over my paltry attempt to head off what had to be certain disaster.

Tonight I would be taking Gray Evans to my parents’ house for dinner, alone with him in a car, forced to sit next to him, to feel the energy between us, doomed, as Darlene would say, by destiny and my mother.

I shook off the thought of sitting inches away from Gray Evans. “Like a fish needs a bicycle,” I muttered under my breath. Hearing him chuckle, I realized I’d spoken too loudly.

Pa got everybody moving. Joe personally escorted Darlene to her car, while Gray hung back, carrying mugs and plates to the sink.

“Don’t,” I said. “I’ll get them later.”

Gray kept on working. “I don’t mind.”

But I do, I thought. I mind.

Order was restored in the kitchen in only a few minutes. Gray poured himself another cup of coffee, easy and relaxed in my home, and then sat down across from me.

“Joe gave me the note. There probably won’t be any prints on it. It’s been handled, anyway, so that’s not going to give us too much.”

“I guess I touched it before I realized what it was,” I said.

“Who looks in their mailbox expecting threats?” he answered. But he peered at me like this was more of a question, as if he were wondering if there’d been others before this one.

“Nick blames going to prison on me. I know,” I said. I spread my hands, as if warding off Gray’s protest. “It was his own fault, he broke the law, but because I testified, he blames me.”

“That’s crazy,” Gray said.

“No, that’s just Nick. He has his own little reality where he never accepts the blame for his actions. In Nick’s world, he was right and I was wrong.” I looked at Gray and thought, what the hell, give him the whole picture. What did I have left to lose? Any chance of a relationship was long gone in my mind. Besides, I reminded myself, this man was taken, even if he didn’t act like it.

“Nick had a secret life. I thought he was an accountant. He left for work every morning and didn’t come home again until dinnertime. He ate supper and he went back to the office—at least, that’s what he always told me, and I had no reason to doubt him. He had no other life, no friends, no hobbies, no other interests really, other than work. The only socializing we did was with my friends or my family. So it was a total shock to me when the federal agents came to our home with a search warrant.”

I glanced down into my coffee cup and tried to pretend I was someone else, the woman telling the story and not the story itself.

“I’m sure the local FBI office already told you this yesterday.”

Gray nodded, his expression so kind I had to look away. “I’ve heard what they have to say—now I want to hear how you saw it.”

“The agents in Philly showed me what he was doing. They showed me the Web site and the pictures. They showed me the things they found in our home, the cameras, the microphones hidden in the walls.” I could hear my voice starting to crack, to shake with the same uncontrollable tremors that happened every time I tried to talk about it.

Gray’s warm hand covered mine, but I pulled back. I didn’t want to look up and see pity on his face or hear the words that everyone always said but couldn’t ever really mean.

“I’m all right,” I said, and made myself go on. “There were pictures of me on the site—video clips, too. I was asleep, naked, and he snuck in and took pictures of me. He had hidden cameras in our bedroom, in our bathroom—” I broke off, choking on the words because I knew Gray could see in his mind’s eye what those pictures had shown, my most intimate, private moments, my life detailed for the world to watch, my ignorance earning Nick money and ultimately destroying my false sense of security.

“That bastard,” Gray swore.

“Whatever,” I said, shrugging. “It doesn’t change the fact that he blames me. I lose my world and he blames me.” I gestured to the note. “And now this.” I tried to laugh, but it rang hollow. “Guess it just goes to show, ‘No matter where you go, there you are.’”

Gray reached out, touching the tip of my chin with his fingers, forcing me to look up at him.

“Sophie, I’m not going to let him hurt you anymore,” he said. “You are strong and kind and good. You’re a survivor, not a victim. This is your new life, whatever you choose to make of it. No one has a right to take that away from you. I won’t stand by and let a scumbag like Nick Komassi destroy that.”

I looked at him and felt my eyes welling up with tears. Deep inside I felt a flicker of hope ignite and catch, but the rest of me was thinking, It’s too late already.

“Nick’s already ruined my life,” I said. “He started using drugs. He embezzled money from his clients at his accounting firm. It wasn’t enough that people kept coming up to me on the street and yelling at me, thinking I was in on it with him. It wasn’t enough that his partners in the firm think Nick stashed money away somewhere and that I know where it is. No, he’s somehow followed me down here and will make my life a living hell before it’s all over.”

Gray had said this was my new life, whatever I chose to make of it, but he never put himself in the picture with me, and I couldn’t see how he would, even if we knew each other better. He would always know my life was other people’s pornography. What if we became a couple and one day ran into a friend of his who suddenly realized I looked just like the woman in the dirty movie he had stashed away at home?

“Now,” Gray said, getting to his feet, “I’m going to take this note to the lab, file the report and start looking for Nick. In the meantime, lock the doors. If you go outside, make sure it’s where you can be seen. I’ll have the patrols increased around here, but keep your cell phone in your pocket, program my numbers into it and call me if you even feel funny. Don’t wait for trouble, don’t wait to be certain, call me if the breeze in your backyard so much as shifts direction. Okay?”

I nodded and sighed. It all felt so hopeless.

“Sophie, this is going to go away. I’m going to take care of it,” he said.

“What makes you think you’ll have any success when the feds and the Philadelphia police haven’t been able to keep Nick contained?”

Gray smiled. “Ah, but I have a motivation they didn’t have.”

“And what would that be?”

“I’m a gonna eat a real Italian food, made by a little Italian mama. I can’t let her little girl be troubled by goombahs, eh?”

The Italian accent was terrible but it made me smile, and that’s what he seemed to want. “That’s better. You light up the room when you smile, Sophie Mazaratti.”

“Yeah, and I light up the driveway when my ex blows up my car, and where does that get me?” I smiled, trying to deliver the wisecrack like I didn’t care, but hearing it fall flat as I spoke.

“Hey,” he said, the Italian accent even worse, “count your blessings. That fire burned off half of the bushes along the driveway. That’s bushes you don’t have to pull now, right?”

“Go!” I said, and felt my heart lift like a hot air balloon.

Chapter 5

I will be the first to admit that I know basically nothing about renovating a house. It didn’t look that hard, not when the real estate agent showed me the “before” pictures, and then contrasted those with the house as it appeared today. It looked like a walk in the park, like all I had to do was pick out paint and wallpaper. Well, almost…

This honeymoon lasted exactly one week, and then I sought professional help. I opened the phone book and let my blistered fingers do the walking. I knew enough to get several bids for each project. I knew to ask for references and proof of insurance. My downfall was that while I knew to ask for these things, I sometimes hired people just because I thought they were interesting. Not necessarily “nice” interesting, sometimes it was just that I felt sorry for them. However, “nice” did enter into it now and again.

I hired my carpenter because he looked like Santa Claus. He twinkled and laughed. He even drove a red truck. But I hired him without so much as asking if he could drive a nail. I was lucky with him.

I was not so lucky with my house painter. I hired him because he looked like James Dean, only shrunken, wizened with age and cigarettes. He could paint, all right, but not without complaining and whining every step of the way. Every morning I found myself meeting him at the door with a hot cup of coffee and a smile, just so I could entice him into working a full day. It never helped. He started after 10:00 a.m. and knocked off at 2:00 p.m., every single day.

I found my newest employee while I was standing in the driveway inspecting the burned-out frame of my former car. A tall blonde with stringy hair and a tight sleeveless T-shirt was making her way slowly down the street, stopping at every house to stuff a flyer into each mailbox. I tried not to watch her, but it was impossible. She couldn’t walk in a straight line, and not because she was impaired, but because of her side-kick, a gray-black-and-white furball of a dog.

The little dog pranced, leaping from the sidewalk into the street, darting past the blonde, crossing back across the bricks and into someone’s yard. The leash would become tangled around the blonde’s legs, drawing the entire procession to a halt as the girl slowly disengaged herself and tried to continue.

“Durrell,” I heard her say, her voice impatient, “walk right, will ya? This ain’t no parade.”

On they came, closer and closer, until finally they were even with the burned out car.

“Dang,” the blonde said. “I thought I had it rough, but this sure beats my luck all to hell.”

“Guess that’s why there’s insurance,” I said.

The girl’s gaze shifted from the car to me and then up to the house and yard. “Here,” she said, “you might need this.”

I took the flyer she offered and began reading. “Durrell’s Handy Work,” it read, hand done in barely legible block printing. “No job too big. Housework, repairs, yard work. Try us, you’ll like us.”

I looked from the flyer to where she stood waiting. “Who’s ‘us’?” I asked.

The girl smiled. “Me and Durrell, here. Honest. We’ve got lots and lots of experience. I can even get you references. Durrell’s my helper. He goes wherever I go. He’s no trouble and he’s right good at fetching stuff for me.”

She looked down at the little dog. He turned his head and stared up at me. He had huge brown eyes, but that wasn’t what I noticed most about him. The odd thing about Durrell was he appeared to be grinning. His pink tongue lolled out of the side of his mouth, and his lips stretched back from his teeth into what can only be described as a huge doggy smile.

“Durrell, fetch!” The girl balled up one of the fliers and threw it across the driveway.

The dog watched the paper arc in the air and land with a soft bounce on the other side of the car. He looked back at his mistress, yawned and lay down at my feet, his furry head resting on my sneaker.

“Durrell!” She looked up at me. “I don’t know what’s eatin’ him,” she said, clearly disgusted.

“Performance anxiety, maybe,” I said. “It happens.” Durrell looked anything but anxious. Bored maybe, but not anxious.

She threw her hands up in exasperation and turned instead to inspect my property again. “Looks like you got somebody doin’ the paintin’,” she said, nodding to the ladder that stood against the side of the house. Her tone was wistful, as if work had been hard to come by and my house was yet another missed opportunity.

Durrell sighed, as if echoing her sentiments, and that was all it took.

“Can you pull vines and clear out brush?” I asked.

Her face lit with a slow smile, as if she couldn’t quite trust that her luck was turning. “Why, it is one of my specialties. Like we say, ‘No Job Too Large.’”

“Can you start today?” I asked.

She looked a little surprised, but said, “Now is good.” She looked down at the dog. “Is now good for you, varmint?”

Durrell moaned.

“That means yes,” she said. “Now is very good. My name is Della. We charge ten dollars an hour, cash only. So, what you need done?”

I looked at the backyard, trying to choose between it and the front. “I guess we could start out back and work our way forward,” I said.

Della’s eyes narrowed. “I’d start there, too, if I was you,” she said. “Way it’s overgrown, you could hide an army of outlaws back there and no one’d be the wiser.”

“Exactly.”

“All right,” she said. “Are the tools in your garage?” I nodded. “Then me and Durrell will get started. Don’t worry about showing us what to do, we know. ’Sides, you got company.” I followed her gaze and found Darlene sailing up the sidewalk, pink chiffon billowing behind her.

“Looks like it’s the Happy Neighbor lady or the Avon girl, one,” Della said.

Durrell jumped to his feet, his stumpy tail wagging hard enough to knock him sideways, and ran to greet Darlene like a long lost relative.

“Get off me, you mangy hound!” Darlene cried.

“Darlene, don’t talk to Durrell like that! He has issues,” I said. Darlene hates dogs, always has, ever since we were kids and Mr. Frangini’s cocker spaniel used to chase her home from school. I was going to enjoy this.

I looked down at Durrell, who hid behind my legs, grinning out at Darlene. “Good boy!” I murmured. “Terrorize the nice lady.”

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