When Charlotte had returned home six months ago after her very public and humiliating divorce, she’d been too stunned and embarrassed to care what the room looked like. She’d only wanted to hide away in this small town in her old bedroom and lick her wounded ego. But time was doing its work. Her self-confidence was returning. So was her habitual boredom and restlessness. She’d like to do something about this room. After all, she would be staying here until she could marry Warren Hunt, which wouldn’t be for a few months.
Warren. A couple of years ago she wouldn’t have considered him husband material. Then she had been married to Paul Fiori, a television star. When they had wed five years earlier, her father was furious. She was the only daughter of Max Bishop, owner of Bishop Corporation, one of the country’s largest manufacturers of marine electronics such as sonar and radar. Max had raged at the thought of his daughter the heiress marrying a pretty-boy actor who’d had only bit parts and would never amount to anything. The marriage was unacceptable! Unthinkable! But Charlotte had married Paul anyway. Charlotte always did what she wanted. Charlotte always got what she wanted. And she’d wanted Paul.
She had been happy at first, although she was their sole support. The parts just weren’t coming in and Paul was frustrated. Charlotte didn’t care. This way Paul needed her and she liked being in control. Then he had won the lead in the police drama Street Life. The show debuted at number five, and in three months shot to number one in the ratings. Paul was a star and landed a feature movie for his summer hiatus from the show. Charlotte had reveled in the publicity of being Paul Fiori’s wife. She hadn’t even minded the paparazzi. Not until the second year of the show when they began covering Paul’s affair with his costar Larissa Lyle. In public Charlotte acted calm and charmingly amused by the “ridiculous” rumor of an affair. At home she screamed, cried, threatened, and reminded Paul of every wonderful thing she’d done for him before Street Life. Then Larissa became pregnant and Paul walked away from Charlotte without a backward glance.
Charlotte tried to stay in Los Angeles, hoping to milk sympathy while watching the public turn against its newest star. To her surprise, at first, instead of outraged support, all she’d received was embarrassed pity. Then, thanks to Paul’s publicity people, the tabloids falsely reported on her bizarre behavior and drug addiction, and the public began to wonder if Paul Fiori had not had good reason to leave his crazy wife. Charlotte was dropped from all Hollywood social functions, while Paul and Larissa became increasingly popular. On the day Larissa delivered their little boy, Charlotte fled for the safety and anonymity of Port Ariel.
To their credit, neither of her parents had said, “I told you so.” This was an expected lack of response from her timid, gentle mother but downright miraculous from her bombastic, cocksure father. She attributed it to his recent stroke that had left him partially paralyzed and emotionally stunned. Her parents had left her alone to read, watch television (anything except Street Life), and to wander around the six acres of manicured grounds surrounding the white-columned house Max had modeled on Tara in Gone With the Wind. After a couple of months, when her depression didn’t lift, she’d decided to seek professional help in the form of Dr. Warren Hunt.
Four weeks later their affair had begun and she’d wanted him as badly as she’d once wanted Paul Fiori. True, he wasn’t as handsome and charismatic as Paul, but he was much brighter, far more educated, and absolutely adored her. And, oh, how her battered ego wanted his adoration after Paul’s devastating rejection. Wanted, needed, hungered. The only thing standing between them was Warren’s vapid little wife Tamara.
Charlotte wandered over to her vanity table and sat down, gazing into the large mirror. Charlotte knew she wasn’t a classic beauty, but she was striking. Sunlight poured through the west window picking up the copper highlights in her short, sleek chestnut hair. When she blinked, long lashes swept over her gold-flecked green eyes and her skin shone like fine porcelain in the strong natural light. She didn’t look thirty. She didn’t look a day older than Paul’s twenty-one-year-old silicone-and-bleach creation Larissa. Well, not much older. And she certainly looked better than Tamara, who didn’t even try to be stylish like her twin sister Lily. Of course Lily was no threat. Warren didn’t like her. She didn’t think he really liked Tamara, either. It was only guilt that held him to her—guilt and fear of the fallout from a divorce.
Warren worried about what scandal would do to his reputation in a town of twenty thousand people. But as soon as he got his divorce, Charlotte knew she could convince him to move somewhere more cosmopolitan where they both could shine. New York City would be nice. Expensive, yes, but her father was dying and she knew he intended to leave his fortune in her hands, not his wife’s. Muriel didn’t even like to write checks. She could never handle Bishop Corporation. Charlotte, on the other hand, had a brilliant business mind and could run the company from far away. Yes, New York City would be very nice. An apartment in Manhattan, a second home in the Hamptons . . .
Someone tapped at her door. “Come in,” she called absently.
In a moment her mother’s small, white face appeared. Muriel Bishop always looked slightly anxious, vaguely worried, but at the moment she appeared positively terrified. “Honey, that nice deputy Ted Hysell from the sheriff’s office called,” she said tremulously. “He thought your daddy would want to know . . .”
After years of living with the impatient Max, who interrupted constantly, Muriel finished only half of her sentences. The others trailed off into fluttering uncertainty.
“Daddy would want to know what, Mother?” Charlotte asked, picking up a silver-backed brush and fluffing her glossy hair.
“You won’t believe this. I can hardly take it in myself. I mean, such a terrible thing . . . It really makes you wonder . . . I want to believe in God, but when something like this happens . . .”
“Mother, what is it?”
Muriel’s hand touched her throat, then her trembling lips. She looked like she was going to cry. “It’s that pretty Tamara Hunt, your doctor’s wife . . . She’s dead.”
Charlotte’s brush stopped in mid-stroke. She met her own gaze in the mirror and hoped her mother didn’t see the satisfaction in the green depths of her eyes.
II
Deputy Ted Hysell waited for a relatively private moment, then called his girlfriend, Dee Fisher. She picked up on the fifth ring.
“What were you doing?” he asked.
“Taking care of Ma, what else? I wish I could afford to put her in a nursing home.”
“You’re a nurse.”
“Was. Thanks to Andrew St. John, my illustrious career ended two years ago. Besides, I didn’t plan on spending my life taking care of my mother. So much for my troubles. Why are you calling?”
“Got some news I thought you’d like to hear.”
Dee shifted from one tired foot to the other, running a hand through her short, curly brown hair. “Well? Do I have to guess?”
“Tamara Hunt was murdered.”
“Murdered,” Dee said without emotion. “When?”
“It must have happened last evening because she was out on Hyacinth Lane underneath a limb brought down by the storm. Her sister Lily and Natalie St. John found her.”
“Natalie St. John?”
“Yeah. I guess she’s here on a visit.”
“Visiting Daddy Dearest. She hardly ever comes home. Wonder what she’s doing here now?”
“She didn’t discuss it with me,” Ted said.
Dee either ignored or didn’t catch his sarcasm. “So how’s old Natalie looking these days?”
“Looking?” He’d just told her a woman had been murdered and she was concerned about another woman’s appearance. Ted shook his head in amazement. “She looks good. Hair’s long. Slim as ever.” Silence. Ted realized his mistake and added quickly, “Of course she’s not my type.”
“I could tell,” Dee said coldly. She touched her face. The skin was dry and she’d gained twelve pounds over
the past year. She suddenly felt unattractive and depressed. “I guess the animal doctor was freaked out. She liked Tamara, God knows why.”
“I liked Tamara, too. She was a good woman, Dee.”
“Well, I couldn’t stand her,” Dee snapped, suddenly angry at the offended tone in Ted’s voice. He didn’t like her criticizing Tamara and she didn’t like his protectiveness. “I worked at her stupid suicide hotline for a year. Volunteered hours of my time. And after my trouble at the hospital, she made me quit.”
“You told me it was Warren who called you and ordered you not to come back.”
“So? He’s her husband.”
“He’s also a jerk and what he did wasn’t her fault.”
“Pardon me. She was a saint. The whole country will be in mourning over her death.” Dee took a breath. “So what about the animal doctor? Did she immediately call for Daddy?”
“No, Natalie didn’t.”
“I know her name is Natalie. I remember her all too well from high school. Part of that stuck-up group that wouldn’t wipe their shoes on me.”
Ted sighed. “I don’t think you really knew any of these people. Natalie’s not bad.”
“She’s a bitch,” Dee said acidly. “Not that she had any right to be so snobby. Her mother took off and joined the Manson family.”
“Dee, the Manson family was long gone when Natalie’s mother left.”
“And then there’s her father,” Dee went on, seething. “He killed poor Eugene Farley on the operating table two years ago.”
Ted’s face flushed. Dee had once been in love with Eugene Farley. He’d been head accountant at Bishop Corporation, where Viveca Cosgrove was an executive, and he’d dumped Dee for Viveca. Dee remained obsessed with him, though, and she was certain he’d return to her when his affair with Viveca ended. Instead he’d been arrested for embezzlement. During his trial, Dee had taken the night shift at the hospital and come to the courtroom every day.
The jury returned a guilty verdict. As a seemingly limp Farley was led out of the courtroom, he’d suddenly snapped to life. With amazing speed he grabbed a deputy’s gun and shot himself in the head. Everyone screamed and hit the floor, dodging the hail of bullets they thought would follow. But no other shots were fired and when the screaming stopped, someone checked Farley to find him still alive. They’d rushed him to the hospital and St. John operated. Dee was a surgical nurse. She’d hurried back to the hospital, slipped into the operating room and watched Eugene Farley die on the table. For two years she’d never stopped talking about Farley, claiming his death resulted from Andrew St. John botching the operation.
Ted sighed. “Dee, are you going to start this crap about Farley again?”
“It’s not crap!” Dee snarled. “And just because I told the truth about Eugene dying because of St. John, I was fired.”
No, you were fired because Andrew St. John accused you of stealing drugs and an investigation proved him right, Ted thought, although the hospital had not filed charges, fearing bad publicity. But he’d been seeing Dee for six months. She might be short-tempered, she might be loud and bawdy, she was even guilty of stealing a few drugs on the side, but she was still wild and sometimes fun and made him feel important.
Ted needed to feel important now because Nick Meredith obviously thought he was a not-so-smart hick. Big city know-it-all. Important people in county government didn’t like him. They’d get rid of him someday. Ted took some satisfaction in this, but he would prefer that Meredith recognize he was a better cop than he seemed. Winning Meredith’s respect would mean a hell of a lot.
“Are you still there?” Dee demanded.
“Yeah, sure.”
“Well, I wish you wouldn’t call if you’re just going to daydream and not say anything.”
“Sorry. You free tonight?”
“Uh, no, not tonight,” she said abruptly. “Ma’s not so well. I can’t leave her.”
“I could come to your house.”
“No. She needs to sleep and she can hear a pin drop. We couldn’t watch TV or talk above whispers.”
“When do I get to see you?”
“I don’t know.” Petulant silence spun out on the other end. She lowered her voice, making it soft and husky. “Just be patient, baby, okay? I’ll make it worth the wait.”
“Okay,” Ted said sulkily. “But it’d better be soon.”
Well, hell, Ted thought after he’d hung up. A dull evening alone in front of the television lay ahead. Angrily he filled out another endless, boring report. Then a thought suddenly crossed his mind and he looked up, frowning.
Dee hadn’t asked how Tamara Hunt had been murdered.
III
Natalie and her father sat in near silence for the next hour. A second mug of coffee warmed her chilled body, and she was tempted to have a third, but Andrew St. John made strong coffee. Three jolts of caffeine would be too much, Natalie realized as she looked at her hands that already showed signs of chemically induced tremor. “Can’t I get you something to eat?” Andrew asked.
Food. Andrew’s panacea for all problems. “I don’t think I could eat a bite if my life depended on it.”
“If your life depended on it, you’d eat that dog standing over there,” he answered absently, although the dog’s head shot up as if in alarm. They both smiled. “I guess she understands more than I think.”
“I believe she’s quite intelligent, Dad. Sometimes mixed breeds are smarter than the pure breeds where there’s been too much interbreeding among the blue bloods.” She sighed. “I think she stayed with Tamara all night.”
Her father looked out the window again. “I remember when you were six. Shortly after your mother left, you ran off one December night. It was so cold. Harvey and Mary Coombs helped me search for you. We finally found you in an old boathouse half a mile from here. The dog Clytemnestra led us to you. If she hadn’t, you might have frozen to death.”
“I remember that night,” Natalie said softly. “I’d overheard Harvey talking about Kira. He said the responsibility of a child was too much for her. I decided she left because of me. I thought if I took off, she’d come back to you. Running away on a freezing winter night wasn’t so easy, though. I made it to the boathouse. I thought I’d spend the night and be on my way the next morning, but I fell asleep.”
“And if it weren’t for the dog, you would have died.” Andrew shook his head. “Harvey thought you were asleep in bed or he wouldn’t have said that about your mother. He felt terrible. But Kira didn’t leave because of you. She was bored with me and with this town. She wanted to remain a kid having fun.”
“I know that now, but I’m still mad at her.”
“Then why do you always wear the ring she left for you?”
Natalie looked down at the lovely pearl surrounded by small diamonds. “It belonged to Great-grandmother Uehara. I wear it for her.”
“You never knew her.”
“Kira’s mother told me about her. I think I would have liked her.” Natalie paused. “Dad, do you wish Kira would come back?”
“I did for a long time but not anymore.”
“I wonder if she would come back if I were murdered like Tamara.”
“Don’t even think about such a thing! My God, if I lost you, Natalie, I’d . . .” Her father stood up abruptly. “More coffee?”
“No thanks, Dad. I think I’ll take a shower. I need to feel hot water and soap on my skin.”
“Good idea. I’ll look after Fido for you.”
“Fido?”
“Is there a name on her tag?”
“She has no tags.”
“Okay, for now she’s Fido. Go take your shower.”
Natalie took one last sip of her lukewarm coffee and headed out of the kitchen toward her bedroom. As she passed through the living room, the phone rang. “I’ll get it,” she called.
She picked up the handset of the cordless phone and pressed TALK. “Hello.”
Nothing.
“Hello.”
Finally Natalie heard a long sigh. “Na-ta-lie.”
Female voice, soprano, sweet, breathy.
A prank, obviously, but her heart beat a little harder. “This is Natalie. What do you want?”
“Na-ta-lie.”
That sweet voice caressing her name. Uneasiness tingled through her. “If you don’t tell me what you want, I’m hanging up.”
Another sigh. Then the gentle voice. “Their throat is an open tomb.”
Natalie drew a sharp breath. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“You’ll find out soon.”
Click. Silence.
Natalie stared at the handset as if it were a snake. A chill passed through her as she realized the voice had sounded exactly like Tamara’s.
5
I
SUNDAY AFTERNOON
Warren Hunt wiped perspiration from his upper lip and turned the car air conditioner to an even lower temperature. Usually he listened to classical music when he drove, but not today.
He’d returned to his hotel room to pack when he saw the phone light blinking. Voice mail told him to call Oliver Peyton’s house. When he did, Oliver’s sobbing housekeeper Mrs. Ebert told him Tamara was dead. No, she didn’t know any details. No, she didn’t know where Mr. Peyton was right now. But Dr. Hunt had to come home. He had to come home immediately!
What did the sobbing fool think I was going to do? Warren had thought irritably. Hang around here for another night? Why couldn’t people maintain a modicum of sense during an emergency? Nevertheless, when he’d hung up on the hysterical woman he’d noticed to his disgust that his hands were shaking.
And why not? he asked himself. He had to go home and face this damned mess—Lily and Oliver, the funeral, keeping his relationship with Charlotte a secret until a suitable period of time passed. And what was a suitable period of time? A year? Impossible. Charlotte would never stand for that. He’d lose her. Six months? He couldn’t possibly see anyone publicly for six months, but even that amount of time seemed impossible. Charlotte was demanding. She wasn’t the kind of woman you could stall. He didn’t want to stall her.
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