All he has to do is prove it

Paul Bouvet had discovered on his first trip to Rossiter that the café next door to the Delaney mansion functioned as a sort of town club. He’d have to find some way to be—if not accepted—at least tolerated by the locals who ate there regularly. If his mother had come as far as Rossiter before she disappeared, someone might remember seeing her. After all, thirty years ago there couldn’t have been too many strangers showing up in Rossiter.

He didn’t have a clue how to find out. He didn’t dare come straight out and ask. Nobody could know who he was or why he was there. The P.I. his uncle had hired had never been able to trace Michelle Bouvet’s movements beyond the bus station in downtown Memphis. The trail had gone cold at that point and had stayed cold until six months ago.

Now—all these years later—Paul finally believed he knew what had happened to his mother. He just had to find the proof.

Dear Reader,

What kind of man abandons his young wife, then kills her when she finds him six years later? What kind of son would that man father?

Those questions have tortured Paul Bouvet his entire life. Now at last he has the means to answer them.

Paul buys the derelict Delaney mansion in the tiny town of Rossiter, Tennessee, and begins to restore it purely to give himself a cover. He wants revenge against his father’s family, the wealthy, arrogant Delaney clan.

But he begins to lose his taste for revenge after he meets Ann Corrigan, the art restorer who’s bringing his mansion back to life. And teaching Paul what it’s like to have love in his life.

But can he abandon the vow he made to his late mother’s family? If not, can he endure losing Ann?

To find the answers to these questions, read on. I hope you enjoy the journey.

Carolyn McSparren

House of Strangers
Carolyn MCSparren

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Betty Salmon, who gave me permission

to use the name of the Wolf River Café—

it really exists, although the people came out of my head.

To Eve Gaddy, a wonderful writer,

who suggested the idea and graciously let me use it.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

Early March

“I’M SORRY TREY sold the house to a stranger,” Ann Corrigan said as she hooked her foot under a rung of her bar stool at the counter of the Wolf River Café. “Not that I really blame him. What else could he do?”

“Two years on the market without a nibble. I guess he could have burned it down and collected the insurance,” Bernice Jones answered. She ran a clean rag over the counter. “You want breakfast?”

“Just some iced tea, please. I would have bought the place myself if I had the money and could afford to fix it up.”

“What would you do with a big place like that?” Bernice shook her head, picked up a mason jar, filled it with ice and tea, then set it down in front of Ann. “It’s about ready to fall down. Trey jumped at that fool’s offer, don’t you think he didn’t.”

Ann peered across the counter. “Bernice, don’t you have any lemon?”

“If you’ll hold your horses, I’ll cut you some. The tea’s barely had time to steep.” Bernice reached for a wicked-looking paring knife, picked up a lemon and began slicing it with speed and accuracy. “Bet you couldn’t get iced tea this time of the morning up in Buffalo, could you?”

“Half the time I couldn’t get iced tea in the middle of the day up there. They have this weird idea that iced tea is for hot weather and never for breakfast. And they never even heard of sweet tea.”

“Ought to be glad you finished that job and got yourself back down south. You must be sick of blizzards.”

“I spent so much time restoring the proscenium arch in that old theater I didn’t much care about the weather outside. I do not want to see any more gold leaf for a while.”

“Not much of that next door at the old Delaney house.” Bernice set a dish of sliced lemons on the counter. “Be better if it collapsed on its own, except it would probably fall on the café and kill us all.”

Ann speared two pieces of lemon, squeezed them into her tea, then added a couple of packets of artificial sweetener. “Why are you so down on the place?”

“Everybody who ever lived in that mansion was miserable. Some houses are just unhappy from the get-go. You mark my words. That Frenchman has bought himself a heap of trouble.” Bernice looked past Ann’s shoulder. “Hold your horses, boys. I’ll be there with the coffee in a second.” She picked up the big pot and wended her way through the tables occupied nearly every morning by the same group of local farmers indulging in a second breakfast.

When Bernice set the coffeepot back on the warmer, Ann said, “I was happy there. Sometimes after my piano lesson Aunt Addy and I would have lemonade and homemade macaroons in the conservatory. That house is probably the reason I got into the restoration business. Every time I see an old building fallen on hard times, I just ache to make it glow again.”

“Huh. That house hasn’t done much glowing in my lifetime.”

“I hoped if it stayed on the market long enough, maybe Trey would donate it to the town for a museum. Endow it, restore it—something.”

“What does an itty-bitty town like Rossiter, Tennessee, need with a museum?” Bernice waved a hand at the walls of the café, which were hung with yellowed newspaper clippings going back nearly a hundred years. “This is as close as Rossiter gets to a museum. It’s not like that old house was built before the war.”

Ann knew the war in question was the Late Unpleasantness between North and South. Other wars were spoken of as World or Korean or Desert Storm. “I hate to admit this, but I used to swan down that staircase and pretend I was Cinderella. I dreamed about the way it must have looked all lit up for the cotillions and parties.”

“At least Trey sold the house to somebody who’s got the money to fix it up. And you got you a job close to home into the bargain. You met the new owner yet? That Frenchman?”

“Nope. Daddy’s supposed to be meeting him this morning to set up the schedule for the renovations. I might not see him for weeks if he commutes from New Jersey. And Daddy says he’s not French.”

Bernice leaned her elbow on the counter and rested her cheek on her hand. “What I want to know,” she whispered, “is why some bachelor would buy that old house in a little town like this and spend a bunch of money on it.”

Ann shrugged. “Daddy says he used to be an airline pilot. He got hurt and can’t fly big planes any longer. Maybe he’s buddies with some of the pilots who’ve redone the antebellum houses in LaGrange. He could have heard about the house from them.”

“Those pilots fly out of Memphis, so they have to live close by, and they’ve got families and more money than sense. He’s just some guy who showed up out of the blue, bought the place in five minutes and hired your daddy to fix it.” She shook her head. “I’m surprised he didn’t try to turn it into apartments or maybe tear it down and build something else—not that the town would let anybody do that to a historic property.” She nodded her head sagely. “They say he’s retired.” It sounded like an accusation.

“So?” Ann asked. “Lots of men retire early.”

“Not that early. According to Lorene Hoddle, he’s no more than thirty-five or -six. I tell you, Ann, there’s something strange about it.”

“Oh, come on, Bernice. You think he’s going to set up a crack house or a high-class bordello?”

“Hush. Anyway, Miss Ann, you and your daddy take care not to do all that work and let him skedaddle without paying you.”

“Daddy’s checked out his credit references. He’s got the money to pay us, and most people don’t run out owing the chief of police money.” She considered. “Gangsters wouldn’t set up drug operations or prostitution in a town of 350 souls, most of whom are kin and all of whom know one another’s business. Why drive way out here from Memphis to sin? And with legal gambling just south of the border in Mississippi, he’d hardly be likely to open an illegal casino in west Tennessee.”

“Well, just you wait. There’s something not right about it.” Bernice refilled Ann’s glass. “I thought he might be one of those professional decorators—you know, like Patsy’s boy Calvin that went away to New Orleans—him not being married and all, but Lorene says he seems real macho. And real handsome. Now, Ann, if you play your cards right…”

Ann laughed into her tea so hard she sputtered. “Bernice, one minute you’re convinced he’s a drug dealer, the next you’re telling me to go after the poor man. No, no and no.”

“Why not? You been divorced almost two years. You’re too young not to get married again, have some babies.”

“Bernice, I love you, but I’m not looking for another handsome man—certainly not one who’s retired, as you say, at thirty-five, and definitely not one who bought my family’s old homeplace. He’ll be my client for as long as it takes to finish the Delaney mansion, then I’m off to restore something else. I’ve got good reason to know that good-looking men tend to think the rules don’t apply to them.”

“Then find a man who looks like a boot. But find somebody before you get too old for the market. So far you’ve turned down every man who’s even asked you out since you came home.”

“I’m not in town often enough these days to date anybody. How can I have a decent relationship when I’m off on a job in Buffalo for three months, and then maybe it’ll be Chicago or some railroad town in Iowa that’s got an old movie theater they want to restore to its former glory?”

“You’re home now.”

“This will be the first time I’ve done a restoration job in Rossiter since I came back with my tail between my legs and started working for Daddy. There aren’t that many people around who can afford me or who live in houses old enough to need restoration.”

“Well, that one is going to take some time.” Bernice hooked a thumb over her shoulder toward the Delaney house. “Miss Addy didn’t do a lick of upkeep on the place in the twenty years she lived there after Miss Maribelle died and left it to her.” She leaned closer and whispered, “I swear every field mouse in Rossiter had been living over there, and once Miss Addy died, they all came over here. I had to fumigate twice to get rid of them.”

“Not all of them moved. Daddy said they had to have the fumigators twice in January.”

From outside the front door came a long, low moan. It grew in intensity and pitch until it sounded as though the town had cranked up its tornado siren.

A grizzled farmer sitting with half-a-dozen friends over the dregs of his coffee sighed and peered over half glasses at Ann. “Fix that. A man’s got a right to a quiet breakfast.”

“Yes, sir.” Ann tossed two one-dollar bills onto the counter and started out.

A second low moan began to escalate. Behind her, Ann heard the assembled farmers snicker. “It’s okay, Dante,” she called to the giant mournful-looking black hound tied to a rail in front of the café. He shook the heavy folds of skin that hung from his cheeks, but he stopped howling. “Okay, boy, time to go to work.”

PAUL BOUVET had discovered on his first visit to Rossiter that the café next door to the Delaney mansion functioned as a sort of town clubhouse. He’d have to find some way to be, if not accepted, at least tolerated by the locals who ate there regularly. If his mother had come as far as Rossiter before she disappeared, someone might remember her. After all, thirty years ago there couldn’t have been too many strangers showing up in Rossiter.

He didn’t have a clue how to find out. He didn’t dare come out and ask. Nobody could know who he was or why he was here until he’d found out everything he needed to know. The private detective Uncle Charlie had hired never was able to trace his mother’s movements beyond the bus station in downtown Memphis. The trail went cold at that point and had stayed cold until six months ago.

All these years later Paul still believed he knew what had happened to her. All he had to do was prove it.

She would have called his father from the bus station. No doubt he jumped at the chance to pick her up there or meet her somewhere he couldn’t be identified. Mr. Hotshot Delaney didn’t want an inconvenient French peasant girl interfering with his life in Rossiter. She had to disappear.

So he met her, killed her and hid her body so well it had never been found.

What kind of man would do such a thing to a woman who’d loved him so deeply she’d left her own country for him, searched for him for six years and never stopped believing he loved her?

Paul had lived with the specter of his dead mother and her murderer—his father—for most of his life. It wasn’t any easier now that the murderer had a name.

The whole sordid story had to come out. His mother’s body had to be found and properly buried. Paul wanted the present generation of Delaneys to acknowledge the monstrous thing their father had done.

He wanted them to suffer as he had suffered.

He wanted them to be ashamed.

He slipped into a booth at the café, opened the Memphis newspaper and folded it in fourths as he had learned to do when riding on buses and subways in New York and New Jersey. He was surprised when the owner, a tall, handsome blond woman, set down a steaming mug of coffee in front of him. “Coffee?” she said.

Apparently one didn’t ask at this hour of the morning. One simply accepted that coffee was the drink of choice.

“Uh, thank you.”

“Cream’s on the table. What can I get you?”

“Plain wheat toast and a large orange juice, please.”

For a moment she stared down at him. Then she sniffed, went behind the counter at the end of the room and disappeared into the kitchen. He glanced at the group of farmers two tables away.

In a bar in France at this hour of the morning, the farmers would be on their third coffee and brandy. These men, who looked every bit as craggy as French peasants, were mopping up the last bits of egg with their biscuits.

Tante Helaine and Giselle would no doubt have turned up their noses at the food. But after years of grabbing godawful airline meals in flight and even worse in airports, Paul was happy with the menu at the café. These people served actual green vegetables, not simply fried potatoes.

“Wheat toast.” His waitress had returned.

“I think we’re going to be neighbors,” he said.

Instantly her face broke into a smile that lit her hazel eyes. “Wondered if you was him. Hey.”

As he was about to get to his feet, she flipped her hand at him. “We don’t stand on ceremony. I’m Bernice. Nice to meet you. Thought you was getting together with the chief this morning.”

“The chief? Not that I’m aware of.”

She laughed. “Buddy Jenkins, chief of police. He’s Jenkins Renovation and Restoration.”

“Oh, then yes, I am meeting him.” He checked his watch. “In about ten minutes.”

“You eat up. Buddy’s always on time unless there’s a law problem he has to handle. We mostly only get speeders out on the highway and drunk drivers.” She looked at him hard. “We have some drug problems in the county, but we sure as shootin’ don’t want any more.”

He smiled. “I’m sure you don’t. Thank you.”

As he bent to read his newspaper, he realized that all conversation had ceased. The farmers at the other table had swiveled in their chairs so that they could watch him. The moment he smiled at them, however, they turned away, hunched over and began to speak softly.

As a stranger moving to a small town, he’d expected to be checked out, but this was ridiculous.

He ate his breakfast, paid his bill, tipped the waitress generously, nodded to the farmers and left.

In Manhattan, piles of dirty snow still lined the streets. Here fifty miles east of the Mississippi River, the March wind was chill, but it smelled of fresh grass and newly turned earth. He’d been warned that west Tennessee summers were brutal, but he was ready to endure almost anything for this gentle early spring. Besides, he planned to install central air-conditioning in his new house.

At some point between the end of the Civil War and prohibition, Rossiter must have been prosperous. The small plaque that leaned against his front steps said that the Delaney house had been built in 1890. A dozen similar mansions along Main Street looked as though they dated from the early 1900s.

The railroad still ran along the far side of the open square that separated the town from the Wolf River bottoms on the north side, but the trains no longer even slowed to acknowledge the existence of the town.

Once there must have been a station. Probably it had stood where the small park with the shiny, ornate Victorian bandstand now perched across the parking lot from the café.

The café stood on one corner of what remained of the town square. About the time the Delaneys decided to build a fine house and move into town from their plantations, the area must have been a crush of mule-drawn wagons piled high with bales of cotton. Probably the café hadn’t existed then. He doubted the high-and-mighty Delaneys would have chosen to build their mansion next door to a café.

The pickup trucks and stock trailers parked haphazardly in the area now were not nearly as romantic.

Bank, mom-and-pop grocery, and dingy pool hall sat on the south side across the street from the café. Three handsomely restored row houses formed the west side. The lower floor of the first held his real-estate agent’s office and the second a florist shop. On the front porch of the third building, a twelve-foot black wooden grizzly bear advertised something, but Paul couldn’t begin to guess what.

Those few small stores constituted the entire business district of Rossiter. The nearest shopping mall was more than twenty miles away, on the road to Memphis.

Paul checked his watch and sauntered along the sidewalk toward his house. His house. He still couldn’t believe he’d done such an insane thing. He didn’t generally operate on impulse.

The sidewalk was dangerously buckled and broken by the roots of several giant oaks and magnolias in his front yard. Didn’t the city council, or whatever passed for government in this village, pay attention to things like dangerous walkways? Perhaps nobody in Rossiter actually walked.

When he reached the snaggle-toothed brick path that led up to his front porch, he simply stood and gloated. His house was younger, smaller and less splendid than Tara, but it must have been imposing in its day.

Unfortunately, at the moment it looked like an aging whore trying to cadge money for her next drink.

“I own your house, Daddy, you bastard,” Paul said louder than he’d planned.

Behind him he heard tires squeal. A squad car with the Rossiter seal slid to a stop by the curb. A man climbed out of the driver’s seat.

Paul had met Buddy Jenkins only once before, just after his bid to buy the house had been accepted. At the meeting in his real-estate agent’s office, Buddy had worn jeans and a University of Tennessee sweatshirt. They’d spoken on the telephone a number of times while Paul was winding up his affairs in New Jersey and storing his few possessions, but Buddy had never mentioned he was the chief of police.

In a town like this, being chief of police probably wasn’t a demanding job. No wonder he’d started his renovation company.

At first Paul had been reluctant to give the restoration contract to a local construction firm. How could anybody working out of a town the size of Rossiter be any good?

But when he’d inquired about renovation and restoration experts in the Memphis and west-Tennessee area, Buddy Jenkins’s name had come up repeatedly at the top of the list. After Paul checked out the mansions, theaters, government state houses and private homes that Jenkins had restored, he’d decided to hire the man.

“Don’t know if you can get him,” Mrs. Hoddle, his real-estate agent, had said. “He’s usually booked up pretty far in advance. But because the house is in Rossiter, you may be able to convince him to do the job for you.”

Buddy’s preliminary estimates on doing the job had taken Paul’s breath away until he found out what his New York friends were paying to renovate their brownstones.

Paul wanted the job done right. Now that he had committed to this crazy charade, this crazy crusade, being able to resell the house for a profit would make his victory even sweeter.

“Hey, Mr. Bouvet,” Buddy Jenkins said as he came forward and stuck out his hand. In uniform the man looked even larger. His starched shirt was perfectly pressed and tailored to his barrel chest and broad shoulders. His boots were spit-shined. What little hair he had left was cut in a gray fringe that barely showed against his tanned skin.

Jenkins probably carried 250 pounds or more on his six-three frame. God help the drunk driver who gave this man any lip. At six feet even and 175 pounds, Paul felt almost small by comparison.

“Ready for the bad news?” Jenkins said happily.

“Not really, but there’s no sense in putting it off.”

“First the good news. In three months or so this old place can look better than it’s looked since the day the Delaneys first moved in.”

“Three months?”

“Maybe five.”

“And the bad news?”

“Come on, I’ll walk you through.” Buddy reached into his pocket and drew out a key.

“If you don’t mind, Buddy, I’d like to use my key.”

“Sure.” Buddy grinned. “First time you’ve used it?”

“Since I had the new locks installed.” The front door was original, complete with an etched-glass oval in the center. Although the original brass lock remained, the shiny new Yale lock was the one that worked. Paul thought he’d feel a surge of triumph when he stepped into the house again. He felt nothing.

“Let’s start in the basement,” Buddy said. “We’ve got a temporary permit for the electricity, so we can see while we replace the wiring.”

“All of it?”

“Every whipstitch,” Buddy said. “Phone lines, too.” The old oak floors echoed their footsteps. “Watch your head.”

Over the next hour Paul listened to Buddy’s litany of disaster. Maybe the house hadn’t been such a bargain, after all.

“Need to jack up at least one corner of the house to replace sills,” Buddy said. “Termites.”

“The house has stood this long with termite damage. Why disturb it?”

“Because it may decide some night in a storm that it has stood plenty long enough and fall down around your ears. Besides, you won’t get any inspector to sign off on the renovations unless we do.”

Paul nodded.

“I’ll show you when we get to the attic. Needs a new roof and decking, of course.”

Another hour of crawling through attics, poking into bathrooms, peering up fireplaces, left Paul even more dispirited.

When at last they moved into the kitchen, Buddy said, “You need new appliances and stuff. I got a kitchen designer working on a plan for a whole new kitchen.” Buddy looked at him. “How you holding up?”

“I’ll survive. At least I think I will.”

“Now we get to the restoration part. Come with me.”

Buddy shoved the pocket doors aside and ushered Paul into the back parlor. Buddy pointed at the Steinway grand piano in the bay window.

“It’s not quite a concert grand,” Buddy said, “although Miss Addy used to tell her students it was.”

“It’s a beauty.”

“It’s yours.”

“I know, but I don’t understand why it was built into the house that way.”

“The Delaney who built the house in 1890 thought any daughter of his ought to be able to play the piano. He bought this one and literally had the music room—that’s what this is officially—built around it.”

“But I was under the impression that the man who built this house had only one son.” Paul could have bitten off his tongue. At this stage, he wasn’t supposed to know anything about the Delaneys except their name.

“Had a daughter died of the yellow fever when she was no more than four or five, so I’ve heard.” Buddy looked at Paul curiously. “How come you know about the son?”

“I, uh…after I bought the house I did a bit of checking with the historical society about it. Just curiosity, you know.”

“Uh-huh.” The chief seemed satisfied, but Paul knew he’d have to be more careful in the future.

Buddy walked over to the piano and plinked middle C with his index finger. “Needs tuning. Ann thinks she can restore the strings and pads and the ivory on the keys.”

“Ann?”

“Ann’s the restoration part of Renovation and Restoration. She’s the one who’s going to strip all that paint off your fireplaces and re-create the old crown molding that’s missing. And a bunch of other stuff.”

“I see.”

“Mostly she redoes the cosmetic stuff. Like that mural in the dining room. It’s a fine Chinese rice paper old Mr. Delaney imported. You weren’t thinking of stripping it and throwing it away, were you?”

“Not if it can be restored.”

“If it’s possible, Ann’ll do it. It’s amazing what she can do. She worked as an art restorer in Washington and New York for a while.”

“Then Ann it is.” Paul turned to look out the dirty bay window. “What’s that old building down there behind the house?”

“Summer kitchen. It may be too far gone to save, but we might be able to salvage enough old wood to rebuild the gazebo so you could use it for a pool house, maybe, if you ever put one in.”

“No pool, thank you. Maybe eventually a fountain.”

“When you going back to New Jersey?”

“I’m not. I’ve sublet my apartment.”

“You’re not expecting to live in the house, are you?” Buddy looked horrified. “Not until it’s finished, I mean.”

“Actually, I am. I’m used to camping out. If the plumbing works, I can make do with a cot in the back bedroom.”

“Son, it still gets very cold at night. The old water heater may hold up until we replace it or it may not. Plus the dust and the noise. You sure you want to stay here?”

“I’ll give it a try. If I get uncomfortable, I can always spend a night in a motel.”

Buddy scratched his balding head. “Your choice, but I wouldn’t advise it. You surely don’t plan on cooking, do you?”

Paul laughed. “Not with the café next door.”

“Good, ’cause that old stove might blow up the first time you try to light the pilot.”

Paul followed Buddy to the front door and opened it for him. He was, after all, the host. Odd feeling. He’d never owned a house or even a condo in his life.

“My crew will be here first thing tomorrow morning,” Buddy said. “I got to get back to police work.”

“Fine.” Paul closed and locked the front door of the house behind the man. He planned to absorb the atmosphere of the place. Maybe meet a ghost. Weren’t ghosts supposed to be troubled spirits doomed to walk the earth to pay for their crimes in life?

If that was true, then he knew of at least one ghost who ought to be walking the halls of the Delaney mansion in torment. His father.

CHAPTER TWO

PAUL’S SHOULDER ached. He drove back to his motel using only his left hand. His right arm would never be really strong again. Even with all the physical therapy and the operations he’d endured, he’d been warned the pain might never completely leave him.

The damp chill in the Delaney house wasn’t helping. He probably shouldn’t have explored the place again after Buddy left. He hadn’t uncovered anything worth noting, anyway. The dirt floor in the basement, which hadn’t been disturbed since the house was built, was as hard as concrete, and the attic seemed to hold no hidden spaces. He decided he’d explore further when he was rested.

Another night in a good bed was more necessity than indulgence.

Time enough to organize his camping equipment tomorrow. And if he hated staying at the house, he could always check back into the motel.

He shut the door of his room behind him, tossed the key on the dresser and collapsed onto the king-size bed. In his years of flying he’d spent too many nights in anonymous rooms like this. Sometimes when his wake-up call came, he’d have to check the notepad beside the telephone to remember where he was. He never thought he’d miss those days, but now if he had his right arm and shoulder back the way they’d been before the attack, he’d never complain about his crazy flight schedule again.

Not going to happen. But at least he’d managed to pass the physical for a Class III commercial pilot’s license. He could still fly his own small plane and would be flying a cropduster for the local fixed-base operation in a few weeks. So in some sense, he still had the sky. Doug Slatterly and Bill McClure would never be able to fly again. Doug still had memory lapses and tremors. Bill had lost the sight in his right eye and along with it, his depth perception.

And all because one of their colleagues had decided to crash the L-10 transport they were flying so that his family could collect double indemnity on his life insurance.

They’d all had military experience, but even so, the attack was so sudden, so unexpected, that they’d all been badly hurt before they’d fought back. It was a miracle Doug had stayed conscious, keeping the man at bay to give Paul a chance to turn the plane and keep it level.

In the end, they’d managed to disarm the man and land the plane safely with no loss of life on the ground, but at a horrific cost to their bodies. Paul smiled ruefully. The lunatic was the only one who got what he wanted. After he’d tried to escape from the plane, a police sniper had shot him, and the insurance company had been forced to pony up the double indemnity.

The three survivors—Bill, the navigator, Doug, the co-pilot, and Paul himself, pilot-in-charge—had been paid off handsomely. The company hadn’t wanted any lawsuits with the attendant publicity. They’d settled generously.

But he’d be willing to bet that both Doug and Bill would give back the six million bucks they’d each been awarded if they could still qualify for their old jobs. Paul certainly would.

The last he’d heard, Doug was planning to open a seafood restaurant in Coral Gables. He didn’t know what Bill was doing. Both their marriages had survived, although Bill and Janey had separated for a while.

Maybe Bill and Janey wouldn’t have come through if they hadn’t actually been legally married with children. Certainly Paul and Tracy hadn’t. Tracy had stuck with him in the hospital and for the first month of physical therapy after he came home, but in the end she’d broken their engagement.

He didn’t blame her. Tracy had been a flight attendant long enough to have her pick of the prime runs. She’d expected to marry a transport pilot, not a bad-tempered man with a bum arm and no idea what he wanted to do for the rest of his life. She wasn’t the one who changed. He had.

They’d taken no marriage vows, no “for better or worse.” The breakup had been nasty. They’d both said terrible things that could never be unsaid.

Tracy had mailed him an invitation to her wedding a month ago to a pilot for one of the big commercial airlines. He had sent her a very expensive silver tray and toasted her alone in his apartment with too much brandy.

He soaked for an hour in the bath, slept for another and then drove back to the house. He wanted to poke and pry further. Maybe he’d be able to thrash his way through the damp weeds and vines in the garden to the summer kitchen or the garden shack.

Mrs. Hoddle had told him that nothing remained in the house from the Delaney years. The heir had commissioned an estate agent to sell everything he and his wife didn’t want. A junk dealer had carted off what remained.

Paul parked in the broken concrete area at the back of the house. No garage, of course. That would have to be built from scratch. He climbed out and stepped into the tall grass that had once been the back lawn. He was surprised to find a herringbone pattern of bricks just visible under the weeds. Must’ve been some sort of patio. He forced his way through tangled vegetation until he found himself snared by overgrown rosebushes.

Years without pruning should have killed them, but despite the long bracts that snagged his clothing, he could see the beginning of a few green shoots. Maybe they could still be saved.

The door to the summer kitchen had a heavy, rusted padlock on it. Looking around, Paul decided he wouldn’t be able to get to the fence at the back of the property without a machete, so he gave up and went back to the house.

Imposing from the front, the house looked much more informal from the rear. He could barely make out the outline of the piano through the filthy bay windows. On his left beyond the music room, the window wall of the conservatory stretched down the entire side of the house. Judging from the layers of grime and the festoons of spiderwebs, no one had washed the outside of those windows in twenty years.

He walked up the two steps to the back door and fitted his new key into its new lock. The door silently opened on oiled hinges. Buddy’s doing, no doubt. The broad center hall ran straight through the house. Paul could see shadows of the trees in the front yard through the glass of the front door.

He turned into the kitchen.

An old butcher-block table marred by the nicks of countless knives stood in the center of the room.

He heard the slightly off-key tinkle of the piano.

The hair on his arms stood up. His first ghost?

After a moment he got himself under control and listened. Debussy, maybe, or Ravel. Familiar, although he couldn’t identify it. Something soft and sad and French.

When he’d looked through the bay window earlier, he’d seen no silhouette at the piano. There had been no other cars parked either in the driveway or out front on the street, and he’d heard none drive in.

Buddy had the only other key, but Buddy hardly seemed the type to favor Debussy or Ravel.

Paul started to call out, then stopped. He definitely did not believe in ghosts, so there must be ten human fingers on those keys. If the pianist thought he, too, was alone in the house, then hearing Paul’s voice might give him or her a heart attack. The sudden sound had definitely accelerated Paul’s pulse.

The music stopped suddenly.

Paul waited a moment, then crossed the central hall. The music room was partially open. Paul peered in.

No one was at the piano. The room was empty. So was the front parlor, which he could see through the open doors between the two rooms.

He stepped into the music room. Absolutely empty. Had he been hearing things? The piano was open. He remembered Buddy’s closing it after showing him how discolored the old ivory keys were.

He touched the bench. Still warm. To the best of his knowledge, ghosts did not have warm bottoms.

Someone was in the house. Heart attack or not, it was time to call out.

He started to open his mouth when a huge black object hurtled through the hall door and hit him full in the chest.

Paul’s feet slid out from under him, and he landed flat on his back, barely managing to keep his head from cracking against the bare floor.

He managed a couple of gasps before the black object reached out a long, maroon tongue and licked him straight across the face.

“Get off me!” Paul didn’t think attack dogs were trained to lick their quarry, so he felt relatively safe shoving this one off his chest.

“Dante!”

Footsteps pelted down the back stairs. A moment later he saw a figure silhouetted in the shadowy doorway. “What are you doing here?”

“I might ask you the same thing,” he said. “Call off your moose.”

“Dante, get off him. Down.”

Dante gave Paul one last quick swipe with his tongue, then sank to the floor beside him and stared with beseeching eyes.

“What kind of dog is this, anyway? I’ve never seen one like it.”

“He’s a Neopolitan mastiff.”

Paul rolled to a sitting position and found himself nose to nose with the mastiff. “He makes bloodhounds look cheerful.”

“He’s really a happy dog. It’s just his woebegone expression and all those wrinkles that make him look miserable. Listen, I’m awfully sorry. He didn’t hurt you, did he?”

“Just my dignity, Miss…uh?”

“Ann Corrigan.” She offered a hand, and when he took it with his left, she helped him back to his feet.

“Ah—you’re the Ann Buddy was talking about.”

“You have to be Mr. Bouvet. Do you need to sit down or anything?”

“Not quite that decrepit, thank you.”

“I didn’t mean…I guess you heard the piano. Buddy swore you wouldn’t be back this afternoon, so I borrowed his key to start taking pictures of the inside of the house. When I saw the piano, I couldn’t resist.”

“You play well.”

“No, I don’t.” Ann laughed. “I play one tempo—slow. And one style—easy with lots of mistakes—although I spent every Tuesday afternoon for years on that piano bench. I took lessons from Miss Addy.”

“The lady who owned the house.”

“Only for the last few years. It belonged to the Delaneys. When Mrs. Delaney died, she left it to her sister for her lifetime. Miss Addy must have taught most of the kids in the county to play the piano.”

“You sounded good.”

“I was not one of her star pupils. When I wasn’t in school I was either out with the hunt or pitching for the softball team. I hated to practice. Scales, yuck. Now I wish I’d worked harder.”

“I attempted to play the tuba in my high-school band. It was a grave error. I lasted less than six weeks. Football was easier, except that I wasn’t big enough for a college scholarship.”

Dante had not moved from his position but followed the conversation like a tennis spectator, turning his head from one to the other.

Ann lifted her hand, palm up, and Dante hauled himself to his feet and went to stand beside her. He had no tail, so his entire rear end wagged.

“Look, we don’t have to stand here in the middle of an empty room,” Ann said. “Let’s sit on the window seat in the conservatory—if you don’t mind getting dirty.”

Paul followed her through the archway at the left and into the conservatory. She perched on one of the cushions. “It’s pretty dusty.”

“I’m already dirty.” He sat far enough along the curve of the windows so that he had a good view of her. “Does Dante always greet people so enthusiastically?” he asked.

“I’m sorry about that. I spend a lot of time in empty, isolated old buildings by myself. When I’m really doing good work, I sometimes keep going all night. There are never any curtains at the windows, so it’s like I’m standing on stage under a spotlight while the rest of the world outside is in darkness. I’d feel like a sitting duck without Dante as my early-warning system and my guardian.”

On hearing his name, the dog laid his head on Ann’s lap. She scratched his small, pointed ears.

“Not much of a guardian, although he looks scary enough,” Paul said.

“He’d never bite a living soul, but just having all 180 pounds of him land on you and lick your face would scare most bad guys into cardiac arrest.”

“Almost worked with me.”

“He doesn’t usually go looking for trouble. I guess he decided that since this was an empty house, I must be working. Sometimes he’s a bear of very little brain.”

“Has he ever had to launch into action before?”

“A couple of times in D.C. he barked and may have scared off the bad guys, but not since I’ve moved back down here. I didn’t even hear you from upstairs. He decided to investigate on his own.”

“Buddy says you know this house well.”

“I ought to. Miss Addy was not only my piano teacher, she was my great-aunt.”

Paul froze. Ann Corrigan was a Delaney? “I thought her sister owned the house and that the other lady only had life tenancy.”

“Her older sister, Aunt Maribelle, was the one who married into the Delaneys and inherited the house when her husband died. But Aunt Addy lived with her forever, and Aunt Maribelle didn’t want her to have to move.”

“So Mrs. Maribelle Delaney was also your great-aunt?”

Ann nodded. “My grandmother was the youngest of the three girls.”

“Is she still—”

“Alive?” Ann grinned. “Is she ever.”

“So your father…”

“Gram is my mother’s mother.”

“So you really are a Delaney?”

“More of a kissing cousin by marriage. Practically everybody in this area is kin to everybody else.”

Paul looked at her closely for the first time, trying to discern something in her face that might show her relationship to the Delaneys.

A moment later he decided she was worth exploring for herself. She was of average height, average weight and average coloring. Her medium-brown hair was fairly long and tied back tightly by a red scarf. She had a nicely rounded body with long legs and a generous bosom.

She looked as though she laughed a lot—the sort of girl an earlier generation would have called “a good egg.”

Her face was too strong-boned for classic beauty and her mouth a bit too wide. Might be interesting to taste it.

Her eyes were her best feature. They were large, slightly tilted at the corners and the sort of gray-blue that changes color with mood or the color of the background. Although she’d long since chewed off her lipstick—if indeed she wore any—her lips were still the color of a not-quite-ripe pomegranate. Paul could see no resemblance to the Delaney in the only photo he possessed.

She was a far cry from the pencil-thin flight attendants he was used to, but judging from the muscles in her arms, she was in good shape. Probably her job required a certain amount of strength. He felt an immediate attraction.

He had certainly never expected to meet a woman like this in Rossiter.

“If you want to know the history of the house and the family,” she said, “check out the library in Somerville and the courthouse records. There’s also been a newspaper in Fayette County since before the Civil War. I’m sure they have copies at the morgue.”

He stiffened. “Why would I be that interested?”

“I just thought that since you bought—”

“Of course. Now that it’s mine, I should find out all I can about its history. I’ve never owned an old house before.”

“I can give you a list of movies to rent that will scare you even more than Buddy did,” she said. “The Money Pit comes to mind.”

“So you think I made a bad bargain?”

She put up her hands. “Oh, no! I think you made a wonderful bargain. It’s just that you’re going to have to live through three or four months of hell to get to paradise.”

“A few months seems a short time to wait for paradise.”

“You won’t think so a month from now.” She stood and Dante walked around to her left side and sat at her heel. “I’m glad to have met you. But I really do have to take some pictures before the rest of the light goes.”

“Of course.” He stood, as well. “What are you taking pictures of?”

“Details of any architectural detail that may have to be re-created, as well as the pediments and pilasters outside that we may have to rebuild or duplicate. Pictures of the scamoglio on the staircase—”

“Scamoglio?”

“It’s a fancy kind of plaster technique that looks like polished marble. You didn’t think that staircase wall was real marble, did you?”

“I assumed it was some kind of painted finish.”

Ann laughed. “Perish the thought. I’ve already taken some shots of the overmantel and the fireplaces, but I wanted to take at least a couple more rolls before the crews start cleaning up.”

“Buddy says you can salvage the mural in the dining room.”

“I’m going to give it my best shot, although it may be too fragile to leave where it is. You can always make a screen out of it.”

“You can get it off the wall?”

“We’ll see.” She stuck out her hand. “Sorry we met under these circumstances, but I’m glad at least we did meet. Next time Dante will know you’re a friend. He won’t knock you down again.”

“Great.” He stopped in the front hall. “I didn’t see a car out front. How did you come? Did Buddy drop you?”

“Oh, no, I walked. I live in the loft upstairs over the flower shop on the square.”

“I assumed the lofts were used for storage. Didn’t realize anyone lived there.”

“Actually, I have both the end lofts—the one over the real-estate office, as well. I use one for living and one for working.”

“What’s in the far building, the one with the bear?”

“That? Trey Delaney uses it as a kind of second office when he wants to get away from the farm.” She raised her eyebrows. “As well as from his wife Sue-sue and the children. Well, I’m off upstairs.”

“And I’m heading back to the motel. See you tomorrow?”

“Maybe.” She waved, picked up the digital camera that hung around her neck and trotted up the back stairs. He could hear the click of Dante’s nails on the naked risers.

He watched her rear end in the tight jeans. Nice to see a woman who actually looked womanly. The sort a man could enjoy holding in his arms.

He’d be willing to bet that even in jeans, she’d draw the eye of every man in a restaurant. There was an aura of sexuality about her, of passion just beneath the surface. He doubted she was aware of it.

He pulled himself up short. He had not come to Rossiter for female companionship, no matter how appealing. And there were excellent reasons not to become involved with any Delaney kin, even a kissing cousin. His kissing cousin actually, although he had no idea how to figure out their relationship. He had a job to do, a promise to fulfill, not only to Tante Helaine, but to his mother.

So Trey Delaney used the office with the bear outside. Paul would have to find out the story behind that bear. Might give him an excuse to start asking questions about Trey at the café. He very much wanted to meet Trey. Always a good thing to know your enemy. And they were, after all, kin.

CHAPTER THREE

BY THE TIME Paul got back to his motel after dinner in a fast-food restaurant, all he wanted was a hot shower and bed. His damn shoulder was no longer just an ache, but a throbbing pain, and he still had his physical-therapy exercises to do. The hit he’d taken from Ann’s dog hadn’t helped any.

He turned on the television, muted the sound, picked up the telephone and dialed Giselle’s number. A moment later a youthful male voice answered.

“Harry, it’s Uncle Paul. May I speak to your mother?”

Without replying, the teenager yelled, “Mom, it’s Uncle Paul.”

He heard the telephone drop with a clunk and his cousin’s voice. “Harry, you have the manners of a tarantula! And turn down that music!” Then a moment later, “Paul, why didn’t you call last night? I’ve been so worried.”

“Sorry, Giselle. Landed too late to disturb you.”

“Was your car waiting for you? No dents?”

Paul laughed. “Yes, Giselle. You can tell Harry that his buddy seems to have driven all the way down from New Jersey without so much as a speeding ticket. He also washed the car, cleaned the inside and left it sitting beside the airstrip with the keys under the fender in the magnetic case.”

Giselle gave a sigh of relief. “Thank heaven. I had visions of Kevin doing a Thelma and Louise somewhere on the Blue Ridge Parkway.”

“He even left me copies of his gas charges on the front seat. Very responsible young man. Tell Harry I’ll send both him and Kevin a bonus.”

“Have you decided to give up this madness and come home where I can look after you?”

“You’re already looking after two teenage sons and a husband. I’m fine on my own.”

“Humph,” Giselle said. The sound came out with a Gallic flavor. Giselle spoke both English and French without accent, but her wordless expressions still sounded more French than English. “You don’t belong down there. What good is it going to do? You won’t find anything. That Paul David Delaney is dead, assuming he is the right Paul David Delaney.”

“Oh, he’s the right Delaney—my honorable father, pillar of society, richest man in the county, the man who married and abandoned my mother and then killed her when she found him.”

“I know you and Maman believed that, but you could be wrong. The detective said a serial killer or someone could’ve picked her up along the way. You don’t even know for certain whether she even met your father after she went down to Memphis.”

“Tante Helaine, your mother, never believed that my mother was murdered by a stranger at the precise moment she was due to confront my father, and neither do I. Too big a coincidence. No, he killed her all right. I’ve always known it in my heart. I had no way to check it out before.”

“No one has ever found her body….”

“That’s another thing. I want to find what he did with her, give her a decent burial if that’s possible.”

“After thirty years? What would be left to identify? Besides, you can’t bring a dead man to justice.”

“Well, I want someone to pay. I want to rub the noses of every living Delaney in the muck of what Paul Delaney did. I want them to admit in public that my father was a murderer.”

“The present generation had nothing to do with it. Anyone who might have known about it is long dead.”

“The present generation benefited from my mother’s death. Why should they live out their lives thinking their father was a paragon? I promised Tante Helaine I would expose him, and I will. Let them deal with the truth for a change.”

“Then go tell the son what you suspect, who you are. He’s your half brother, after all.”

“And have the entire clan circle the wagons? No, until I have incontrovertible proof that my father killed my mother, proof that would convince a jury, nobody down here is going to know I have any connection with the Delaneys. Now that I own the family home I have the perfect cover story—it’s natural to want to find out the history of an old house. These people will fall over themselves regaling me with anecdotes. The Delaneys were the most important family in the county. Trey Delaney is still one of the richest men. Certainly he owns the most land. I’m really looking forward to meeting him.” He tried to keep the sarcasm out of his voice, but Giselle knew him too well.

“You should never have promised Maman you’d avenge Aunt Michelle. You want to destroy the Delaneys for Maman, but in the end, I think you are the one who will suffer. The kind of hate my mother carried around corrodes like acid. It ruined her life, and in the end I think it contributed to her death. I know you’re still angry that you can’t fly big jets any longer, but don’t transfer your anger to the Delaneys. That’s a whole different issue.”

Paul laughed. “Don’t psychoanalyze me, Giselle. I don’t blame the Delaneys for that. Nor for the fact that Tracy walked out on me because she couldn’t take looking after an invalid, nor for the pain in my shoulder. I blame them because I grew up without either a mother or a father.”

“Stop it! Maman and Dad loved you like a son.”

“Of course they did. And I loved them both. But having your aunt and uncle take you in isn’t quite the same thing as growing up with the man and woman whose genes you carry. In my case I didn’t even know who’d donated half of my genes until a few months ago.”

“I have a very bad feeling about this. Not for those Delaneys, but for you.”

“Who said revenge is a dish best eaten cold? After thirty years it’s damned near frozen.”

“What if you like them? The ones who are left, I mean?”

“I’ll try not to let that happen. If it does, I’ll deal with it.”

“Please call me every night or e-mail me. I want to know everything that’s going on.”

“I promise. I love you, Giselle. Regards to Jerry.”

“Good night, mon frère.”

He put the phone back in its cradle and lay back on the bed.

“Scamoglio,” he said, and laughed. “Who knew?”

At least Ann was enthusiastic about something other than Botox injections in her forehead. He turned the sound up on the TV, moved to the floor and began the exercises to stretch and strengthen his right shoulder and arm. He must be getting better. The tears from the pain didn’t begin to run down his cheeks and into his ears for a good five minutes.

“GRAM, WE’RE STARTING the Delaney restoration job tomorrow morning,” Ann said as she reached for another ear of sweet corn. “It’s going to be fabulous.”

“Pass the butter to your daughter, Nancy,” Sarah Pulliam said.

“She does not need any more butter,” Ann’s mother said shortly. But she passed it anyway. “Mother, you are a great cook, but does the word cholesterol mean anything to you?”

“Hush. The girl has no meat on her bones as it is.” Sarah turned a concerned face to her granddaughter. “I wish they’d tear that old Delaney place down and salt the earth it stands on.”

“Whatever for? I love that house.”

“Ann, honey, I firmly believe that old houses take on the character of the folks who lived in them,” her grandmother said, and slid the platter of barbecued pork chops closer to Ann. “Nobody who ever lived there has been happy, starting with the Delaney who built it.”

“I know Mr. Delaney lost his only daughter, Gram, but half the people of west Tennessee lost children to the yellow fever. Whole families died sometimes.”

“He wanted a houseful of children. Adam was the only child who survived. Delaney’s poor wife had half-a-dozen miscarriages trying to get him more. Wore her out and killed her in the end.”

“Mother,” Nancy said, moving the pork chops away from Ann, “unless you’re a whopping lot older than you’ve been saying all these years, there’s no way you could know all that.”

“My mother, your grandmother, told me, Miss Nancy.She wanted to marry Adam’s son Barrett for a while. She was glad in the long run she’d missed out on him. A meaner man never lived. During the depression he foreclosed on half the farmers in Fayette County so he could acquire their farms cheap when they were sold on the courthouse steps. One of them tried to shoot him. Missed, unfortunately.”

“But the next generation was happy. Aunt Maribelle and Uncle Conrad doted on each other.” Ann said. She started to reach for the chops, but one look from her mother stopped her. “I mean, they seemed to have had a wonderful marriage. Everybody got along, even Aunt Addy.”

“You were much too young to see what was really happening. Two cats in a burlap bag. My sisters barely tolerated each other, and living in the same house didn’t help. When Daddy refused to let Addy go to the Conservatory of Music in Philadelphia, I really thought she’d die. She had real talent. She wanted to be a concert pianist. Instead, she wound up an old maid living in her sister’s house and teaching piano lessons to children like you. Daddy should have let her go.”

“Why didn’t he?”

“He always said that it wasn’t seemly for an unmarried woman to live alone in an apartment or a boardinghouse, but the real reason was that Maribelle was engaged to Conrad Delaney and demanded a society wedding. Daddy couldn’t afford both.”

“So Aunt Maribelle won?”

“Maribelle always won. Mostly because it never occurred to her she wouldn’t win. You have no idea how it galled Addy to have to live under her sister’s roof all those years. And Maribelle’s marriage to Conrad wasn’t quite the blissful union she tried to make everybody believe. Anyway, that has never been a happy house, and it will find some way to make the new owner suffer, too, you mark my words.”

On the drive back to town from her grandmother’s farm, Ann absently scratched behind Dante’s ears and thought over her grandmother’s remarks. Bernice had said more or less the same thing at the café that morning, but Ann hadn’t paid much attention. However, she couldn’t dismiss her grandmother’s concerns as easily. Sarah Pulliam was supposed to be fey. People said she had “the gift.”

As far as Ann could tell, that meant her grandmother could penetrate the facades behind which people tried to hide. Ann had suffered many times as a child because her Gram always knew full well who was responsible for knocking down the rose trellis or forgetting to feed the dogs. It wasn’t second sight. It was solid knowledge of the mischief Ann was capable of.

And Gram was the only person who’d warned her she’d be miserable if she married “that Travis Corrigan.” She’d definitely been right on that score.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE FOLLOWING MORNING, Paul slept later than he’d planned, stood under a hot shower to loosen his shoulder, stowed his bags in his car, grabbed a couple of sweet rolls and a paper cup of hot, bad coffee from the lobby of his motel and drove east toward Rossiter.

He’d planned to arrive before the workmen, assuming they showed up. He’d had enough experience with contractors and their crews when Giselle was remodeling her kitchen. Half the time they simply didn’t show—no excuses, not even a telephone call.

Not this morning. Overnight a large blue Dumpster had appeared outside his back door, and half-a-dozen pickup trucks festooned with equipment stood haphazardly on his front lawn. He could hear hammering and shouting before he even got out of his car. He walked up his front steps and through the open door.

A moment later he ducked as a man in overalls carrying a bundle of two-by-fours swung around the corner from the basement steps. He barely glanced at Paul.

“Hey, toss me that hammer, will ya?” a voice called down from the stair landing. “Right there on the tool-box—the claw with the blue handle.”

Paul looked around, found the hammer and made the mistake—one he still frequently made—of tossing it with his right hand. The pain made him suck in his breath. The hammer clattered to the staircase several steps down from the man who needed it.

“Sorry,” Paul said, and moved to retrieve it.

“Okay, I got it.” The man disappeared behind the stair railing. A moment later Paul heard the thud of the hammer against one of his balusters.

“Hey! Should you be taking that thing out? Won’t the banister fall off?”

The man reared. He was thin with graying hair and skin like old cypress left too long in the creek. “Yeah, I should be taking it off and no, the banister won’t fall down. All right with you?”

Chastened and feeling way out of his element, Paul went in search of Buddy.

He found him and a crew in the basement removing rotten joists and replacing them with good wood. Paul backed out without disturbing them.

At the rate they were going, the structural work could be done in a week. He hadn’t even talked to Buddy about any schedule, and he had no idea whether the plumbers came before the electricians or the telephone linemen or the utilities. He had a sudden longing to be sitting in his rented condo in New Jersey. But he’d sublet it.

He could take Giselle up on her offer of a bed.

No way. That house with two teenaged boys was considerably noisier and more confused than this one.

He needed an island of peace and quiet. Simply slipping out and taking up more or less permanent residence at the café next door seemed cowardly. Before the accident he’d have pitched in and at least swung a sledgehammer at the broken concrete of the parking area behind the house. Now he couldn’t even do that.

“You look like somebody’s poleaxed you.”

He heard Ann’s voice from behind him with a mixture of relief and happiness that surprised him.

A moment later Dante thrust his slobbery maw into his hand. “Next time you warn me about chaos I’ll listen to you.” He removed his palm from Dante’s jowls and rubbed it dry on the dog’s broad head.

Her gray-blue eyes danced and she grinned at him.

“You get off on this, don’t you,” he said.

“You caught me.” She turned away from him, her arms spread wide, embracing the entire house. “I adore helping old buildings spring to life again, and since I love this house, this job is pure joy.”

“It’s pure madness, is what it is.” He had to shout over the sound of at least three power saws and three or four hammers.

“Come on upstairs, it’s quieter there.” She slipped past him and then hugged the staircase wall to avoid falling through the space left by the missing posts. Dante sighed and trudged up behind her.

She walked into the back bedroom, held the door until Paul and Dante had cleared it, then shut it firmly against the noise. March had turned cool even during the day, and the caulking between the sleeping-porch windows and this bedroom left much to be desired.

“You’re going to freeze in that shirt,” she said practically, and perched her bottom on the nearest windowsill. “You still planning on staying here at night?”

He ran his hand over his forehead. “At this point, I have no idea. I’ve checked out of my motel, but I’m sure they’d take me back.”

“Work quits about five, so if you can stand the chill and the possibility of a cold shower—and if you don’t mind the occasional ghost—I don’t see why you shouldn’t stay here. Just don’t try cooking on that stove.”

“Buddy warned me about that.” He glanced at her. “What ghosts?”

“All old Southern mansions have ghosts.” She laughed. “Let’s see.” She began to tick off on her fingers. “There’s Deirdre Delaney who died in the last really big yellow-fever epidemic. She’s supposed to sit on the bottom step and cry.” She lifted a second finger. “Then there’s Paul Adam—the son of the man who built the house. It’s very confusing that every generation names the first son Paul. Fortunately each generation has a middle name starting with the next letter of the alphabet. That’s the only way to tell them apart.”

“So Trey’s real name is?”

“Paul Edward. He prefers Trey. Anyway, Paul Barrett is supposed to clank chains like Morley because he was such a nasty old miser in life.”

“People have actually seen these ghosts?”

“To hear them tell it.”

“Are those all the ghosts?”

“Not by a long shot. Let’s see. Great-uncle Conrad’s son David—he was actually Paul David, but nobody ever called him that.” She must have caught his expression because she said, “Hey, are you okay? I don’t really believe in ghosts, you know.”

“I’m not upset. Tell me about your uncle David.”

“My gram could tell you more. He died when I was pretty young, so I’m not certain how much I really remember and how much comes from Gram. I do remember that he was the sweetest, gentlest, saddest man I ever knew, when he was sober, that is. Toward the end of his life he wasn’t sober very often.”

Paul had no desire to hear about what a sweet, gentle man his father had been. He would have preferred the kind of ogre he’d dreamed of for years. He fought to keep his breathing even and his fingers from tightening into fists.

“So why would he haunt this place?” Because he killed somebody here, Paul answered his own question silently.

“He wanted to be a painter and live in Paris, but of course that wasn’t possible.”

“Why not?”

“Because the family needed him,” Ann said as though it was the most obvious reason in the world. “When his daddy had a heart attack, he called Uncle David home. He never went back to Paris. I think that’s why he was sad. And probably why he drank like a fish and rode like a madman.”

“Rode what?”

“Horses, of course. The Delaneys have always been masters of the local hunt. I can remember my first few hunts when I was still riding my pony. I was certain the sweet old uncle David I knew couldn’t possibly be the crazy man in the pink coat flying over the fields screaming like a banshee. Not that I knew what a banshee was at the time, of course.”

This was more like it. “So he liked blood sports, did he?”

Ann laughed at him. “Foxhunting the way we do it down here is not a blood sport. We never ever kill anything—well, not foxes or coyotes, at any rate. We don’t have such a great track record with people.”

Paul struggled to remain calm. “What…what do you mean?”

Ann laughed again. “I’m joking.”

Paul nodded. “But this Uncle David chased innocent foxes?”

“Sure. But the foxes seem to enjoy it. They actually sit out in the fields and wait for hounds. I swear they can tell when it’s Wednesday or Saturday. I’ve hunted since I was five years old and I have never seen a drop of blood drawn from any animal we chased. When the foxes get tired, they go to ground and leave hounds baying and frustrated. And of course the coyotes can outrun hounds any time they feel like it. It’s a big game and an excuse to go yee-hawing over the fields on a horse. Do you ride? You can come along in second field if you’d like.”

“What’s second field?”

“The old fogeys’ field. A nice quiet trail ride with no fences to jump and no pressure. We also have carriages that follow along sometimes. You can ride in one of them if you like. We hunt until the farmers put the crops in.”

“I’ve never been on a horse in my life and don’t plan to start now, thank you.”

“Suit yourself.”

“We’ve gotten rather far afield from your uncle David.”

“I thought we’d finished with him.”

“And why he’s a ghost.”

“He’s not, of course. But if there were ghosts, he’d be a good candidate. So sad in life. As though he searched for something he never found.” She shook her head. “Then if you want a tough ghost, there’s Aunt Maribelle, his mother. If she turned ghost, you’d know about it for sure. In life, there was never anything shy about Aunt Maribelle. So as a ghost I’m sure if she wanted you out of here, she’d find a way to boot your behind down the front steps.”

“Let’s hope she doesn’t want me out.”

“Probably happy to have you.” She checked her watch. “Oops. Buddy’ll kill me if I don’t get back to work.”

“What are you doing?”

“I’ve covered the mural in the dining room so it won’t collect any more dust, and I’ve started stripping the overmantel in the music room. The goo should be just about ready to remove. Want to see what’s under the layers?”

“Certainly.”

“Okay. Come on.”

As he followed her down the stairs, he asked, “Do you know what sort of chandelier hung up there?” He pointed to the elaborate boss surrounding the hanging lightbulb.

“Sure. A big old brass thing that originally used gas—the first house in Rossiter to have it, by the way.”

“You wouldn’t know who bought it, would you?”

“No clue, but if I know Trey Delaney, he’s got meticulous records on every purchase from the estate sale, even piddly little stuff like the things I bought.”

Excellent. The perfect entrée to introduce himself to Trey Delaney.

He watched Ann’s heavily gloved hands meticulously remove layers of black varnish from the relief on the over-mantel. She used what looked like dental instruments to get into the cracks and crevices.

He was definitely in the way.

Even Buddy in his trips from basement to Dumpster hardly did more than nod at him. He finally sat on the fourth step of the staircase and merely watched.

He’d about decided to leave when a tall, slim woman in jeans, cowboy boots and a turtleneck sweater strode in the front door. Her hair was short and snow-white, her face nut-brown with crinkles at the edge of her eyes. One glance at her hands told him she must be in her sixties, but she moved like a teenager.

“Hey,” she said as she came forward and extended her hand. “You must be Mr. Bouvet. I’m Sarah Pulliam. I’m a terrible busybody. Couldn’t stay away any longer. Had to see what was happening to the old place.”

Her handshake was brief but firm.

She glanced around at the organized chaos and then at him. “Welcome to Rossiter, although why in God’s green earth you’d want to move to a little town like this is more than I can see.” Without waiting for his answer, she strode off through the living room. “You tore down those godawful drapes, thank God. I told Maribelle when she hung them that they were heavy enough to suffocate any small child that got caught up in them. Ugly, to boot. For a woman with strong tastes, Maribelle never did take much to color in her decorating.”

He trailed this dynamo without speaking. He had no idea who she was, but she obviously knew the Delaneys well. He had no intention of interrupting the flow of her talk.

“There you are, Ann,” she said. “Goodness, I had no idea that was golden oak.”

“Neither did anybody else until I started stripping it.” Ann smiled at the woman who offered a cheek to be kissed. “I guess you introduced yourself, didn’t you?”

“Sure did.”

“Did you tell him who you were?”

“Huh?”

“Paul, this is my grandmother, Sarah Pulliam. She and Maribelle and Addy were sisters.”

“I was the youngest and the only one who wasn’t half-crazy,” Sara said with a touch of smugness.

“Crazy how?” Paul asked. Maybe his father’s gene pool had been tainted by schizophrenia or manic depression.

“Maribelle had a terrible temper, but she managed to get what she wanted when she wanted it. I suppose that’s not really crazy, except that she had tunnel vision about her own needs. And poor Addy probably didn’t start out crazy, but she sure wound up that way. Toward the end Esther—the woman who looked after her—said she used to wander around in her nightgown wringing her hands like Lady MacBeth and mumbling stuff that made no sense whatsoever.” Sarah shook her head sadly. “She had every reason in this world to hate Maribelle, but they still managed to live in the same house together, God knows how.”

“And did you like them?” In New Jersey, Paul would never have considered asking a bald question like that. But these people seemed to delight in a new audience to tell a good story to.

Ann gave him a sharp glance, but if Sarah noticed the rudeness of the question, it certainly didn’t bother her.

“Actually, I was devoted to Addy. Only men loved Maribelle. Women saw through her. Men never catch on to that sort of selfishness and greed.”

“Sarah, where’d you come from?” Wiping the perspiration from his face with a white towel that said Golf and Country Club on it, Buddy Jenkins walked into the library and came over to kiss Sarah’s cheek.

“Had to pick up some laying mash for the chickens, so I thought I’d stop by, maybe take you all to lunch. How about it, Mr. Bouvet? You eaten at the Wolf River Café yet?”

“Indeed I have. Thank you, Mrs. Pulliam, but I wouldn’t want to intrude.”

“Intrude? Buying this house sort of makes you a member of the Delaney clan—which we sort of are. You look like you could use a good country fried steak.”

He allowed himself to be persuaded. This woman was a fount of information. He prayed he could keep her talking.

AT LUNCH Paul couldn’t steer the conversation back to Paul Delaney, Sr., without seeming too nosy even for these people. He contented himself with listening to Sarah banter with Buddy and her granddaughter.

He had never been around a family whose generations kidded and laughed together. His tante had been a strict disciplinarian who spoke formally always. He’d never seen her smile.

For a man who had done very little since morning, he felt awfully tired. Not physical exhaustion, but the weariness that came from always being on the alert for some tidbit of information about this family of his, about his father.

And from being on guard against revealing that he knew or cared more than he should about the Delaneys. One of his friends from the Air Force Academy, Jack Sabrinski, who had grown up speaking Serbo-Croat and Bulgarian with equal facility in English, had done some spy missions. He told Paul that the two months he spent spying in Bosnia took more out of him than five years of a bad marriage and a nasty divorce.

Paul could believe him. Since meeting Ann last night, another element had been added to the mix. Until yesterday these people had been strangers without faces, without personalities. Faceless entities he felt justified in using.

Now they were real to him. Ann especially. She seemed to be completely vulnerable and open. The perfect mark for a con man, which was what he was.

As he and Buddy stood by the counter waiting to pay their bills—they’d refused to allow Mrs. Pulliam to pick up the check—he heard Sarah’s voice behind him.

“Hey, come meet the new owner.”

Paul turned as Sarah slipped her arm under that of a man close to Paul’s size and weight, but with hazel eyes and a shock of blond hair already bleached nearly white by the sun. He wore immaculate chinos that hadn’t come from a discount store, an equally immaculate and expensive plaid shirt, and work boots that were polished to a high shine. Paul glanced at the man’s hand as he took it.

Manicured fingernails.

“Trey, honey, this is Mr. Paul Bouvet who is redoing your grandmother’s house. Paul, say hello to Trey Delaney.”

“Thought I’d see you when you closed on the house, but I had to be out of town,” Trey said. “Glad to meet you at last.”

Paul expected to feel a shock of electricity between them when he touched the man’s hand. “Nice to meet you.” He smiled, but his eyes searched for features he could recognize from the only picture he had of his father. A second later he wondered whether anyone looking at him and Trey could see any resemblance.

“My real name is Paul Edward Delaney, but nobody ever calls me anything but Trey.”

The picture of Paul’s father had been taken with his mother in Paris when his father was no more than twenty-five. It wasn’t a very good one, either, and had begun to fade. Paul was now thirty-five, which made Trey thirty-three.

Trey had their father’s eyes and light hair and skin, already roughened by days in the sun.

Paul had inherited his mother’s dark eyes and hair, but for anyone who looked closely, the resemblance was noticeable. Paul decided that it would be better if he kept his meetings with Trey as private as possible and away from the knowledgeable eyes of someone like Ann, who must be used to analyzing faces for her restoration work.

Only Paul knew that they were half brothers, one raised as a wealthy planter’s son in west Tennessee, one raised by a plumber uncle and a French aunt who baked bread in Queens, New York. He intended to keep it that way for as long as possible.

To everyone around them, it was a casual introduction in a small-town café. Nothing special.

“Glad you’re bringing the old place to life,” Trey said, “though Lord knows why you’d want to. Sue-sue—she’s my wife—and I thought we’d never unload that monstrosity. Oops. Better keep my mouth shut.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t want to live there yourself.”

Sarah laughed. Trey laughed. Ann snickered.

“Aunt Sarah,” Trey said, “can’t you just see Sue-sue living in a house with itty-bitty closets and no whirlpool? No, Mr. Bouvet. You’re welcome to it. Too much ancestor worship around this town, anyway, and a damn sight too much in my family. Doesn’t matter who you came from, just what you do on your own, am I right, Annie?”

“It helps if you start by inheriting a bunch of land, a few million dollars and a couple of thousand head of cattle.”

“Can’t make a dime farming, isn’t that right, Aunt Sarah?” Trey turned to Paul. “You ever hear the one about the farmer who won the ten-million-dollar lottery? When they asked him what he was going to do with it, he said, ‘I guess I’ll just keep farming till it’s gone.’” He laughed. A little too loud, a little too long.

Paul smiled back.

“Well, y’all, I got to get my nose back to the grindstone.” Trey waved over his shoulder and walked past them out the restaurant toward the square.

Bills paid, the three others went out to where Dante waited patiently with his leash looped around the rail. Paul realized he hadn’t asked about the bear in front of Trey’s office. He’d make it a point to find out when he spoke to Trey about the people who’d bought the antiques at Miss Addy’s house sale.

“Gotta get back to work,” Buddy said. “Ann, you coming?”

“In a minute. Dante needs a walk.”

“Okay.”

She unhooked Dante’s leash and walked off toward the little park beside the railroad track. Dante glanced over his immense shoulder as if to say to Paul, “You coming?”

Paul ambled after the pair.

“I promise I’m not sloughing off,” Ann said. “You’ll get your money’s worth out of me, Mr. Bouvet. I’m planning to work late tonight—unless my being in the house will bother you, assuming you decide to stay there.”

“I’m going to give it my best shot. I’m off to stock up on things like an inflatable mattress and some kind of chest of drawers to stow my stuff in. Never did get used to sleeping on a cot even in flight school.”

“Flight school? You were in the military?”

“Air Force. Went to the academy, then served out my time before I left to fly transports for a private company.”

“So you flew F-15s or whatever number they’re up to now?”

“I usually flew C-150s—low and slow. The perfect training to fly civilian package transport.”

“Why’d you quit? Uh…retire?”

He grimaced. “Couldn’t pass the transport-flight physical any longer. I got hurt in a work-related accident. Left me with a bum shoulder.” Technically, the near-crash had been work-related, which was why the payoff had been so large. He was embarrassed that he hadn’t prevented the whole incident. His wound and scars embarrassed him further. He talked about the details as seldom as possible.

She must have heard something in his voice, because she dropped the subject. “I think Dante’s ready to go back to work. See you tonight, Mr. Bouvet.”

“Isn’t it about time you dropped the Mr. Bouvet stuff? I’ve been calling you Ann all morning.”

“Sure. Paul. Do you have a middle name?”

“I have one, but unlike the Delaneys, no one ever uses it. Actually, my middle name is Antoine. My mother was French.”

“You don’t look like an Antoine. You need a nickname. How about Top Gun?”

“I was never that. How about One Wing? More appropriate.”

They had reached the sidewalk in front of the mansion. She waved goodbye and ran up the walk and the stairs. Her ponytail bounced as the bright red scarf she’d tied around it flew in the breeze. Those jean-clad hips had a great sway to them when she ran.

No way. It wasn’t that he was some kind of saint when it came to romancing women, but even he drew the line at seducing a woman merely to gain information. Besides, she was some sort of cousin.

He’d thought he would do anything to find out what happened to his mother. Since meeting Ann and Sarah and Buddy, he knew he had limits. As far as Trey Delaney was concerned, the jury was still out. He seemed pleasant enough, if a little arrogant. No, actually, a lot arrogant. Even Ann picked up on that self-made man crap. Big frog, small pond.

Wonder how Trey would feel if suddenly he was faced with losing it all?

Wills were a matter of record. All he had to do was go to the local county seat and request a copy of Paul Delaney’s will from probate court files. He knew that his parents had been married at the time of his birth so no matter how the will was written, he, as the oldest legitimate son, would be entitled to a portion of it. He hoped, however, that he’d find that the oldest son was heir to everything. He could cut Trey out of everything he owned. Not that Paul intended to keep it, of course. What the hell did he know about farming or cows or cotton or soybeans?

But to be able to take it all, if even for a moment, then graciously give it back would be sweet.

Of course, the people in Rossiter would not take kindly to him if he did that. He’d have to sell the house and move away whether he wanted to or not.

But wasn’t that what he’d intended from the first? Why should he suddenly feel conflicted?

He looked up at the house from the sidewalk. Not so much an old harridan as a sad, gracious lady fallen on hard times. His gracious lady. She needed him.

The only thing on earth who did. He felt the stab of loneliness that always came when he thought of how isolated he’d allowed himself to become since Tracy had left him. She’d kept the friends they’d made together. He hadn’t bothered to make new ones.

After he made his run to the discount store and shoved his air mattress and pump into the back of his car, he decided to drive the thirty-five miles to the county seat. He arrived at three twenty-five, only to find that the clerk’s office closed at three.

On his way out of Somerville, he passed by a rose-brick building with a small sign that said Library in front of it.

Might be as good a time as any to get started on his research.

The man Paul now felt certain had fathered him had died in 1977. He’d discovered that much on an Internet search. Should be some sort of obituary in the country newspaper.

Actually, there were two weeklies. The librarian told him proudly that both had been in operation since Reconstruction. He asked for the microfiche for the time around when his father died and began to reel through.

Maybe he remembered the date incorrectly. There seemed to be nothing in the obituaries about his father. He scrolled back through to rewind the microfiche when suddenly a banner headline on the front page caught his eye.

His father’s death had been reported not on the obituary page, but on the front page.

Leading Citizen Killed in Tragic Riding Accident.

Killed? Nobody said he’d been killed. Paul had assumed his father’s liver or heart had given out.

Paul Francis Delaney, one of Fayette’s leading citizens, was tragically killed in a freak riding accident Sunday morning. Mr. Delaney served as master of foxhounds for the local Cotton Creek hunt. During a chase last Sunday morning at his farm, Mr. Delaney was thrown when his horse fell while jumping a fence. He died before emergency services could reach him. An autopsy revealed that Mr. Delaney’s neck was broken in the fall.

One of Fayette County’s largest landowners, Mr. Delaney was also known for his charming and sometimes caustic caricatures. Many local citizens frame these quick sketches and display them prominently. The local fairs, bake and Christmas bazaars, and church fetes will sorely miss his talents, as he has over the course of the years raised considerable amounts of money both with his artistic skills and his personal philanthropy.

Mr. Delaney leaves his wife, Karen Bingham Delaney, his young son Paul Delaney III and his mother, Mrs. Maribelle Delaney, widow of the late Paul Delaney, Sr. A scholarship fund to send a talented high-school student to the Art Institute each year for the summer program has been established in Mr. Delaney’s name. The family asks that in lieu of flowers memorials be sent to this fund. Time and place of services are pending.

Paul sat back in the hard wooden chair and ran his hand over his face. A charming caricaturist? Philanthropist? Sorely missed? He didn’t know what he’d expected to find. How could such a man have deserted and then killed a wife who loved him?

Paul stared down at the grainy black-and-white newspaper photograph that someone had dredged up from the files. In what could only be a pink hunting coat, his father stood with his gloved hand on the reins of a big bay horse. A woman sat on the horse and smiled down. Too old to be this Karen Bingham, his wife. Paul’s grandmother Maribelle?

He looked closer. Neither he nor Trey had inherited that aquiline nose, but Paul could certainly see where Trey got his arrogance. This was no knitting, sit-by-the-fire granny. From the casual ease with which she sat on her horse, she was used to command.

“Sorry, sir, we’re closing the library,” the librarian whispered.

“Oh, sure.” He smiled up at her and received a timid smile in return. “I’d like to come back and look some more.”

“Certainly. We open at ten o’clock every morning and close at five.”

He started to rewind the microfiche.

“I’ll be happy to do that, sir.”

Paul nodded and walked out, vowing to return as soon as possible to look up obituaries on everyone he could think of in the direct line of Delaneys.

And then there were social events. Didn’t hunts have balls and things? Sure the county weeklies would report on them. And graduations. Weddings. There would be names of others who had known his father. He had to discover as much as he could.

He climbed into his car and turned on the air conditioner. It might be March with chilly nights, but the afternoon sun had heated the car beyond his comfort zone. He pulled out and started the drive back to Rossiter.

Weddings. Birth announcements. When had his father married Karen Bingham? Or rather, when had his father committed bigamy with Karen Bingham? He had been, whether he acknowledged it or not, legally married to Paul’s mother, Michelle, until she died.

Even longer. He had been legally married to Michelle until seven years after her disappearance when Uncle Charlie had finally convinced Aunt Giselle to declare her sister dead.

He wondered where the Delaneys were buried. Would he feel anything if he stood over his father’s grave? Could he curse him then as he had cursed him many times before?

Maybe there was a historical society that kept personal correspondence and histories that were of no interest to anyone except scholars.

Ann’s mother would probably be younger than his father would have been, but she must have known him. He needed some excuse to see her again.

And what about Karen Bingham, his father’s so-called widow? Was she still alive? How could he wangle an invitation to see her?

By the time he pulled his car into a parking space in the road in front of his house, the workmen had apparently left for the day. There were several lights on both upstairs and down, but no trucks parked on his lawn.

He carried the package containing his air mattress and pump to the front door, then set them down so that he could unlock and open it.

As he stepped in, he called, “Hello! Anybody here?”

He heard the click of Dante’s toenails on the wooden floor before the dog skidded around the doorway to the butler’s pantry, slid to a stop in front of him and sank onto his haunches, waiting to be petted.

“Good boy. This time you didn’t knock me down.” He rubbed the dog’s wide forehead. “Where’s your mistress?”

“In here,” came a muffled female voice. He followed Dante through the butler’s pantry and into the kitchen. For a moment he didn’t see her, then he spotted a pair of jean-clad ankles sticking out of the dumbwaiter. A moment later Ann emerged. Her face was dust-smeared and so was her shirt. She carried a large hand lantern.

“Hi,” she said, and wiped her free hand down the front of her jeans. “I figured if we could get this thing to work I could use it to carry supplies to the bedrooms so that I can strip the fireplaces.”

“You checked it out by climbing into it?”

“It was a tight fit, but there’s plenty of room for paint and stripper and stuff. It’s actually in good working order.”

“Ever hear of rust? What if those cables had broken? You could be in the basement with a broken back and no one to hear you yell for help.”

“I was careful. Besides, for its time, this is a top-of-the-line dumbwaiter. It’s got automatic brakes. If the cable breaks, these little feet keep it from going more than one floor down. I don’t normally do truly stupid things. I do not like risk. I’ve had more than my share for one lifetime.”

“I doubt if we could replace you easily.”

“There are plenty of other people who do what I do. I worked for a really high-class restoration firm in Washington before I came home. I still freelance for them when Buddy doesn’t have any work for me. They’d send someone—for a bunch more money than you’re paying me.”

“I don’t know what I’m paying you, but I’ll bet it’s not chicken feed.”

“I’m worth it. Now, I’ve got to start working that stripper off before it dries too much. Then Dante and I will get out from under your feet until morning.”

He followed her to the front hall and started up the staircase. Halfway up he leaned over the banister. “Have you eaten yet?”

“No.”

“Then join me for dinner.”

“You don’t have to—”

“I’m alone. If you’re alone, why not be alone together?”

She laughed. “The café?”

“I was thinking about maybe driving into town. Don’t you have good barbecue in this area?”

“Oh, for sure. If we do that, I’ll have to stop by my place to shower and change. I’m filthy.”

“Fine. I prefer to eat late, anyway.”

“It’ll be midnight if I don’t get started.”

Upstairs he unloaded his mattress. It took barely ten minutes to turn the lump of plastic into what looked like a comfortable double bed. He’d already hung the few clothes he’d brought with him in the small closet, but he would have to start looking for suitable furniture for this room soon. He had a few decent pieces of furniture from his old apartment, but they were sleek and modern, nothing that would be suitable for this house.

Maybe he could enlist Ann’s help. He planned to sell the place furnished. He didn’t want any souvenirs of this little venture.

Or did he? He wandered out onto the sleeping porch that ran across the back of the second floor. With nightfall the air had grown chilly again after the afternoon warmth, but there was no breeze. He felt as though he were in a tree house. Except for the glow from the parking lot next door, he might as well have been in the wilderness.

Someone had left an old folding chair leaning against the wall. He opened it, turned it to face the backyard, sat down and propped his feet on the railing in front of him.

He let the darkness envelop him. Somewhere close by a bird called, and frogs were already making noises. His father should have loved growing up in this house. Why had he run away to Paris?

CHAPTER FIVE

“SORRY. I DIDN’T MEAN to wake you.” Ann stood in the doorway to the little porch.

Paul sat up quickly. “I wasn’t asleep.” He stretched and smiled at Ann. He felt more relaxed than he had in days.

“Sure you weren’t. If you’d rather skip that dinner, I’ve got plenty of stuff at my place. I could at least come up with a decent omelet.”

“I couldn’t ask you—”

“You’re not asking. I am. Actually, I’m being selfish. I’d much rather cook than have to fix myself up and drive into town and back.”

“You don’t need fixing up.”

“Oh, yes, I do.” Ann laughed. “So are you game?”

“Yes, and thank you.” He pulled himself out of the chair and followed Ann and Dante. His mattress sat in the middle of the bedroom floor. Ann sidestepped it neatly and went ahead down the stairs.

They walked the short distance across the square and around the three row houses to the short alley in back. The alleyway was pitch-dark. The anemic illumination of the wrought-iron streetlights around the square didn’t reach over the tops of the buildings, but Ann took a small flashlight from her back pocket and switched it on. Something moved in the bushes on the far side of the alley.

Dante gave a low woof.

“Hush. It’s just a cat,” she said.

Something, probably the cat, banged against one of the large garbage cans at the far end, then disappeared in a streak of fur. Dante looked up at Ann beseechingly, but she grasped his collar. “No. No chasing cats.”

They came to an old wooden staircase at the back of the second building. It looked as though it was ready to collapse into the small parking lot across the alley.

Paul followed Ann up to the little landing at the top and waited while she unlocked and opened her door. She turned on the lights.

Paul was no stranger to lofts. Several of his friends had invested in and restored lofts in lower Manhattan. They usually wound up modern, austere, cold and expensive.

This loft across two of the buildings was still very much a loft. Their footsteps and the click of Dante’s toenails echoed on the bare hardwood floors. The doorway opened into the half that Ann used as an apartment.

Beyond it, a broad archway led into the workshop half. Since the lights came on in both at the same time, Paul could see a large worktable in the center and cabinets along the back wall.

There was also a table saw, router table, a lathe, industrial shelving with molds, brushes and all sorts of equipment Paul couldn’t identify.

To the left of the door they’d come in was a galley kitchen, separated from the rest of the room by a high breakfast bar with stools. A harvest table and two benches constituted the dining room, and a heavily carved Victorian credenza served as a room divider from the living area, which was delineated with a soft, worn Oriental rug. To the right white duck curtains obviously divided the public space from bedroom and bath. The walls were the original rose brick, and overhead naked trusses held up the roof.

“Take a seat.” Ann pointed to one of the steel stools in front of the counter. She rummaged in a stainless-steel refrigerator and came out with bacon, green onions, sweet bell peppers and a carton of eggs.

“May I help?”

“Nope. I’m used to juggling stuff.” She set everything on the counter. “Would you like something to drink? Beer? Wine?”

“White wine if you have it.”

“Sure.” She reached into the refrigerator, brought out a bottle and poured them each a glass. “Salut.”

He looked up into those wonderful gray-blue eyes of hers. Their glances locked and held for too long. He felt his body tighten and knew that she felt the same pull he did.

He should never have come up here, never have allowed himself to see her in her own habitat. Not if he intended to keep his promise to keep her at arm’s length.

She broke eye contact first with a tiny gasp. The tips of her ears were red, and she sounded brusque. “Okay, now, you can help me chop the bell pepper.” She seemed to skitter away from him. The reluctant female, aware of him but not certain she wanted to go any further.

Nor was he.

His gaze lighted on a pencil drawing in a simple black frame hanging on the wall beside the refrigerator. He was instantly certain it must be one of the caricatures his father was noted for. He wanted to leap over the counter, rip it down and stare at it for any revelation of the hand behind it. Instead, he said casually, “The drawing. Is that Buddy?”

She laughed. “Look closely.” She reached up, took it down and handed it to him.

He’d have known Buddy anywhere. The big bullet head with only a fuzz of hair, the black sunglasses. He wore his police uniform, but instead of a Sam Browne belt, he wore a tool belt, and instead of aiming a revolver, he pointed an electric drill. His fierce expression said he was definitely going to “drill” somebody.

In spite of himself, Paul laughed. “I’d know him anywhere. It’s really good.”

“Kinder than a lot of Uncle David’s sketches. If he didn’t like somebody or thought they needed taking down a peg, he could be really wicked. I like that one. It’s Buddy to a T.”

“I guess he didn’t want it hanging in the police station.”

“Actually, I had to beg him for it. He gave it to me for Christmas a few years ago. He couldn’t very well refuse his own kid, now could he?”

Paul turned slowly toward her. “His kid?”

“Yeah. Buddy’s my father. Didn’t you know?”

“I had no idea. How come you call him Buddy?”

“I started when I was a teenager because I knew it got his goat. Then when we started working together, it seemed an easier way to maintain a professional relationship and reassure the clients. It’s better for me to yell ‘Hey, Buddy,’ than ‘Hey, Daddy.’ Would you trust a contractor who hired his own daughter to restore your woodwork?”

“I would if the contractor were Buddy. But I understand clients might feel uncomfortable, especially if they had a complaint about your work.”

“Never happens. I’m too good.”

“Do you work with your father—Buddy—exclusively?”

“I try to give him first dibs, is all.” She began to break eggs into a glass bowl with one-handed expertise. “He has to bid for me just like everybody else. I’ve just gotten back from three months in Buffalo restoring the proscenium arch of an old movie theater that’s being converted into a community theater. Before that I spent a couple of months in Colorado Springs redoing woodwork for a prairie mansion that’s being restored. This is actually the first job I’ve had this close to home since I moved back to Rossiter.”

All the time she talked, she was constructing the omelet. He was impressed. He knew the way good cooks maneuvered in the kitchen.

“There are some fresh bagels in the bread box. Split us a couple, would you, and stick them in the toaster.”

Paul did as she asked, then returned to his place at the counter.

He enjoyed watching her. She worked efficiently, and before long was ready to pour the omelet mixture into a hot frying pan.

“Okay. While I’m doing this, you can set the table,” she said. “Place mats and silverware are in the top drawer of the Welsh dresser. I’ll bring the rest. Honey all right for your bagel?”

Ten minutes later he sat down to an omelet, green salad and hot buttered bagels. He was growing mellow from his second glass of wine.

His small sojourn on his porch had begun the job of relaxing him. Sitting opposite Ann in this pleasant place completed the job. Even the ache in his shoulder had subsided. He felt Dante’s heavy head against his ankle and looked down to see hungry eyes.

She noticed and said, “Don’t you dare. Dante doesn’t eat at the table. He’d be impossible if he ever started.”

“The omelet is as good as I’ve ever eaten. Thanks for taking me in tonight. I promise you dinner in return.” He wasn’t flattering her. He hadn’t realized how hungry he was until his first bite. After a moment he said, “Tell me about the artist who did that caricature.”

“Uncle David tossed off those little sketches. He sold them at charity functions.”

“And gave the money away?”

“He certainly didn’t need it himself.”

“Did he do other things—portraits, landscapes, still lifes?”

“A few portraits. He never sold anything, never had an art gallery to represent him or did a show that I’m aware of. His studio was in the old summer kitchen behind your house.”

Paul caught his breath. “I haven’t even tried to get into it. I assumed it was derelict. Buddy said it would probably have to come down to make way for the new garage.”

“You didn’t go in when you were looking at the house before you bought it?”

“It was padlocked, and Mrs. Hoddle didn’t have the key. I’ve tried to see in the windows a couple of times, but they’re filthy. The door may be old, but it’s solid, and the padlock is one of those that can’t be broken open even with a pistol shot.”

“Don’t need a pistol. Just need a good strong pair of bolt cutters. I can get you in there tomorrow morning if you like.”

“Do you think there might be other drawings left after all these years?”

“Possibly. More likely the rats and mice have shredded them for nests.”

“Wouldn’t Trey have included any sketches he found in the estate sale?”

“Somebody else handled the details of the sale. Besides, Trey always thought his father’s artist thing was a pose. He hated it. Trey and Sue-sue came by two days after Miss Addy’s funeral and took what they wanted. Then the estate people moved in, set up the sale and ran it. They probably didn’t even attempt to get into that summer kitchen. Must have thought it was empty the way you did. Besides, work by an unknown artist wouldn’t be worth much, and most of the stuff at that sale was going for premium prices. I could barely afford the button box.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Miss Addy’s button box. Come on, I’ll show you. It’s in the workroom.”

He followed her to a shadowy corner of the workroom where a small table stood. Fitted neatly within a rim on top was a tole box less than two feet long, a foot or so wide and perhaps five inches deep. It was formed and painted to look like an old leather-bound book.

“She had the table built specially to hold it. She used to tat and sew while her students played their pieces. I was always dying to look into it, but I never did until after I bought it and brought it home.”

“The title on the cover reads Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare. Interesting choice for a woman who never married.”

“She didn’t have it painted, silly. She bought it that way.”

“So what treasure does it conceal? Or was it empty?”

“No, it was just the way she left it.” Ann raised the lid. Inside lay a jumble of different colors of embroidery thread, a pair of elaborately carved silver sewing scissors, several hand-painted thimbles and forty or fifty small packets, some in yellowing envelopes, others in small plastic bags.

“Buttons,” Ann said. “When women buy a new dress or blouse, usually the manufacturer includes a couple of extra buttons in case one falls off. The average woman takes the dress home, removes the little envelope with the buttons, stuffs it in a drawer, forgets where she put it and can’t ever find it again when she needs it.”

“Miss Addy was organized.”

“She sure was. She must have inherited some of these buttons.” Ann picked up one of the envelopes and opened it so that Paul could look inside. “See—these are real ivory. They’re not made any longer.” She put back that envelope and chose another. “And these are hand-painted cloisonné. Very old and very fine.” She chose a third envelope. “These are hematite—that’s a kind of jet Victorian ladies liked to use on their dresses. Some of them are museum quality. I really lucked out. I wouldn’t sell this for a million dollars.”

“So there actually might be something worth having in the old studio?”

“It’s possible, I suppose, although I doubt it.”

“I would like to get in there.”

“Not a problem. How about another bagel?”

“No, thank you. I’m stuffed. Much better than any restaurant we could have gone to.”

“I like to cook.” She gestured at herself. “Like to eat, too. Honestly, I have no idea how those skinny models do it.”

“They’ve inherited high metabolism and they starve. I know from firsthand experience.”

“With stewardesses?”

“Not stewardesses any longer. Flight attendants. My fiancée was a flight attendant.” He’d barely spoken of Tracy to anyone, not even Giselle, since they’d broken up. Somehow the pain he’d been expecting at the mention of her desertion hadn’t come. He felt relief, instead.

“I didn’t know you were engaged.”

“I’m not. She left me and married another guy.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. Better this way. It was my fault. After I got hurt I turned really nasty while I was recuperating. Tracy stood it as long as she could, then she left. She was right. I was impossible.”

“You seem so even-tempered.”

He laughed. “I was a monster.”

“So you had to retire? No wonder you were a monster.”

“Yeah. Look, can we change the subject?”

“Of course. Sorry.”

“Tell me more about the Delaneys. Every day I’m in that house I get more curious about them.” He ignored the small voice in his head that reminded him of his intention not to use Ann for information.

“Let’s see, you know about the first Paul Delaney, who bought a lot of land, married a rich wife and built your house for a bunch of children he never had.”

“And I know about his son Adam. And his son Barrett, the forecloser.”

“Right. Barrett’s son, my uncle Conrad, married my aunt Maribelle.”

Paul raised his eyebrows. “Am I detecting a pattern here?”

“So tacky!” Ann laughed. “But disgustingly Southern. The Paul Delaney who built the house had some sort of weird biblical middle name like Hezekiah or Elijah. He named his son Paul Adam. Then came Paul Barrett and Paul Conrad.”

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