“Not now, Powell,” said Bill. “I thought whichever way the case turned out, you might need fortifying. So I ordered you something from room service.” He went to the bathroom, and brought back a plastic ice bucket and a fifth of Jim Beam.
A. P. Hill picked up two glasses from the dresser and held them out. “I’ll take it straight,” she said.
“Same here.” Bill poured two ounces of whiskey into each tumbler, “To a truce,” he said, raising his glass, “in the battle of the sexes.”
MACPHERSON & HILL
ATTORNEYS-AT-LAW
DANVILLE, VIRGINIA
(I bought them some new stationery. Engraved. Elizabeth.)
Dear Cameron,
This will be the last letter, the last time I put pain onto paper so that I can look at it, instead of packing it away, so that I can go on.
I think it’s time I gave up, because pretending that you are coming back isn’t going to help either of us. You have gone on to wherever it is you’re going. So must I. This is my decision, finally, and not a course of action that Dr. Freya has urged upon me. She said once that I would know when it was time to really begin to grieve, and she was right.
I am grieving, but I also realize that at least it is a clean wound. There are other fates that might have been harder to endure.
Some things are worse than losing someone you love. Consider the Roydens, whose youthful romance soured to domestic skirmishing and finally to remorseless murder. Or even my own parents who called it quits out of mutual boredom. At least we were spared those fates.
They don’t even seem to realize what they’ve lost. Eleanor Royden, whose case is being appealed, is giving cheery interviews from prison to the likes of Geraldo. She seems to have forgotten that her husband Jeb was ever a person; to her he has become a legal problem. And Mother is still trying to find herself. She has gone from white-water rafting to being an intellectual sophisticate, and I see signs of restlessness that indicate she may be moving on soon to something else—God knows what. I don’t even like to speculate.
At least I escaped their fates. They both seem to be searching for something they wouldn’t recognize even if they found it. At least I know what I’ve lost.
There’s a line from A. E. Housman that keeps running through my mind: “Smart lad to slip betimes away…” Were we fortunate after all? Perhaps in a way we were spared not a greater pain but a more protracted one. I wouldn’t have wanted our love to die by inches over the long trickle of years, as so many romances do. At least I can think back over our time together without anger or regret. I don’t have to seal off a part of my life as if it had been a bad investment. Eleanor Royden does that. So does Mother.
So, Cameron, goodbye and thank you for being kind and loving and never dull. Thank you for leaving me with happy memories instead of bitterness.
I don’t know where I’m going from here, but a part of you will go with me. I will always remember you, and so we will always be together. Isn’t it funny? Death doesn’t really part people; it’s life that does that.
Cameron—goodbye—for now.
Love always,
Elizabeth
Don’t miss one
SHARYN MCCRUMB
•New York Times bestselling author
• Edgar Award winner
Published by Ballantine Books.
MACPHERSON’S LAMENT
The chilling legacy of the Civil War shocks Elizabeth MacPherson when she ventures south to Danville, Virginia. Her brother Bill has gotten himself mixed up with some daughters of Confederate veterans—old ladies who’d asked him to sell an antebellum mansion but had something more sinister planned. To help him, Elizabeth has to uncover a Civil War secret that may be the key to the ugly truth.
SICK OF SHADOWS
The very wealthy and eccentric Eileen Chandler is set to be married, but someone is willing to resort to murder to halt the impending nuptials. Eileen’s beloved cousin, Elizabeth MacPherson, is on hand for the ceremony, and Elizabeth is not amused. No one in the wedding party is above suspicion when Elizabeth sets out to unmask the culprit.
LOVELY IN HER BONES
When the leader of her archaeological dig is murdered, forensic anthropologist Elizabeth MacPherson finds herself on the case. It takes a second mysterious death to start a cauldron of ideas bubbling in her head. And when she mixes a little modern know-how with some old-fashioned suspicions, Elizabeth comes up with a batch of answers that surprises even the experts.
HIGHLAND LADDIE GONE
Elizabeth MacPherson is having a rollicking good time at an annual Scottish festival when the loathed Colin Campbell is found murdered. Then a second murder silences everyone’s bagpipes for good. Enter Elizabeth, who will use her insatiable curiosity to find the killer and let justice prevail.
PAYING THE PIPER
Elizabeth MacPherson is on an archaeological dig on a remote Scottish isle when several members of the team die under mysterious circumstances. Is the excavation cursed by the ancient dead, or is something—or someone—more modern responsible? With her own life on the line, Elizabeth is determined to unearth the answer.
THE WINDSOR KNOT
Elizabeth MacPherson has a rather hectic summer in front of her. Between finishing her doctoral thesis and planning her impending wedding, she must solve the case of a man who has died twice. And if she can accomplish all this, she might just get to have tea with Her Majesty the Queen!
MISSING SUSAN
The unsinkable Elizabeth MacPherson is on a tour of England’s most famous murder sites with the cantankerous Rowan Rover, the tour guide who has been paid to murder an unsuspecting woman. No would-be assassin needs Elizabeth on his tail. And she’ll be there until the end of the tour or the completion of Rowan’s mission, whichever comes first.
Also by
SHARYN MCCRUMB
ZOMBIES OF THE GENE POOL
Jay Omega drives an old writer friend to an unusual science-fiction convention and finds himself parked in the middle of a murder case. Jay must separate science fact from fiction and unearth a killer with his own tale to tell.
IF EVER I RETURN, PRETTY PEGGY-O
Long-gone friends and the casualties of war haunt Peggy Muryan, a folksinger hiding from her past. A threatening postcard and a mysterious disappearance force Peggy to turn to Sheriff Spencer Arrowood, who has skeletons in his own closet. Arrowood must come to terms with his own past as he tries to prevent Peggy from being murdered by hers.
A Ballantine Book
Published by The Random House Publishing Group
Copyright © 1992 by Sharyn McCrumb
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
Ballantine and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
www.ballantinebooks.com
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 95-96154
eISBN: 978-0-307-56775-8
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