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THREE

In spite of her terror, Rissa realized that someone might be lying injured or dead in the library. Some member of her family may be bleeding, needing help, because who else would have been in the library at this time of night? The gate and the house were always locked at dusk and no one could enter by the driveway without the security code or by being admitted by someone in the house.

Perhaps she should summon help, but to prove she had overcome her fear, Rissa was determined to straighten out the situation alone. Squaring her shoulders, she headed toward the library door. On the library threshold her determination faltered. Fear gnawed away at her confidence.

She listened intently, but she heard nothing inside the room. No movement. No breathing. Nothing, except the ticking of the mantel clock.

He answered me and delivered me from all my fears.

No matter how many Scripture verses she repeated, Rissa knew she would never generate enough courage to go in the library alone. Who should she wake to go with her?

Miranda was the most likely one to ask for help, because her oldest sister could always handle any crisis inside the house. Her mind fluttering with anxiety, and clutching the banister for support, Rissa ran upstairs as fast as she could, her bare feet slapping on the cold stair treads. Pausing before Miranda’s door, she lifted her right hand and knocked.

“Who is it?” Miranda’s voice came from the other side, proving that she wasn’t lying on the library floor.

Turning the knob on the door, Rissa said, “It’s me—Rissa.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Something has happened in the library.”

“What?”

“I think somebody has been shot.”

Miranda tossed the covers to one side and grabbed a robe from the foot of the bed. “I thought I heard a shot,” she said anxiously, “but the storm was so violent about that time, I decided I’d been mistaken.” She rushed toward the door. “Who’s been shot?”

“I don’t know. Somebody was pointing a gun at me, and I was afraid to go in alone.” As they hurried downstairs, in a half whisper Rissa explained why she had gone to the library and what she had heard.

Miranda paused. “The shooter may be still in the library. We’d better call Father.”

“I don’t think anyone is there now. I heard someone leaving by the back door, and it was quiet in the library after that.”

With Miranda beside her, Rissa felt her courage returning, and she stepped to the door of the library and felt along the right wall for the light switch. Her hand hovered over the switch briefly. Her fears surfaced again. Did she want to know what had happened in the library? If there had been a murder, the shooter had gotten a clear view of her face. Because she was a witness, would she be the next victim? Reaching into the depth of her spiritual reservoir, Rissa took a deep breath for courage and flipped the switch.

Rissa and Miranda entered the library together. They stared wordlessly at the body of a woman—a stranger—lying on her back beside the fireplace with blood oozing from a hole in her chest and spreading over the black jacket she wore. Clinging to one another, the two sisters moved into the room. Miranda knelt on the floor and checked the woman’s wrist and throat for a pulse.

“She’s dead.”

Rissa had never been this close to anyone who had recently died, and to her, the woman seemed to be asleep, although an agonized expression was on her face.

“How could a stranger have gotten into this house tonight?”

Miranda spoke in a tortured whisper. “I’m not sure she’s a stranger.” Her golden-brown eyes held a faraway look in them as she stared upward at Rissa.

Stunned by Miranda’s words, Rissa took a sharp breath and stared wordlessly. Miranda laid her hand on the woman’s cheek and sifted a few strands of the soft hair through her fingers.

“She looks like Mama,” Miranda said.

Rissa took a closer look at this woman who might be her mother. A few weeks ago their sister Bianca had been given a picture by her now-boyfriend, Leo Santiago, of Trudy Blanchard and Leo’s mom, a friend of hers. Rissa had been amazed at how much her youngest sister, Juliet, resembled the woman in the picture. And this woman on the floor did look remarkably like Juliet.

“Shouldn’t we call the police?”

“I’ll do that while you go upstairs and get Father, Aunt Winnie and Portia. They should be told before the cops get here.”

Rissa took the steps two at a time. She woke Winnie and Portia first. She walked rapidly down a short hallway to the left at the top of the staircase and knocked on her father’s door. No response. She knocked several times and then dared to open the door. What if he was also dead? She turned on a light. But Ronald wasn’t in his bed.

Had her father been the masked man behind the gun? She dismissed the thought as silly—why be masked in his own house?—as she hurried downstairs and entered the library right behind Winnie and Portia.

Winnie stared at the corpse and she murmured, “It could be Trudy. Even allowing for the changes the years would have made, I think it’s her.”

Rissa put her arm around Portia and held her tight. Portia’s dark eyes were lackluster with disbelief.

“Ronald will know,” Winnie said. She looked toward the hall and the staircase. “Did you wake him?”

Rissa lifted her hand to her lips and she began to shake as dreadful pictures built in her mind. “He wasn’t in his room—his bed hadn’t been slept in.”

“Oh, no!” Winnie said. “Don’t even think it. Ronald wouldn’t do this!”

“Ronald wouldn’t do what?”

The four women pivoted almost as one toward Ronald, who stood in the doorway. Standing close together they completely hid the body.

“Where have you been?” Winnie asked. “Rissa said you weren’t in your room.”

“I was reading in my office. I came out when I heard steps running down the hall and Winnie speaking.”

The sound of sirens approaching the house caused rivulets of fear to cascade along Rissa’s spine.

“What’s wrong?” Ronald demanded. “What are you hiding? Step aside.”

Winnie looked at the three sisters and nodded. The shock of discovery hit Ronald full force when his family obeyed his command. His mouth dropped open, and he stared, complete surprise on his face. Any suspicion that her father had killed this woman fled Rissa’s mind immediately. Her father wasn’t a good enough actor to have feigned this shock. But would the police believe it?

Ronald dropped on his knees and in a voice barely above a whisper, he cried, “Oh, Trudy, Trudy, have I lost you again?” He took an emerald-green silk scarf from the woman’s neck and lifted it to his lips.

“We were in Milan on our honeymoon when I bought you this scarf because the color matched your eyes,” he said in a reverent tone that Rissa had never heard him use. “Have you kept it all of these years remembering, too?”

He cradled his wife’s lifeless body in his arms, heedless of the fact that her blood was spreading over the front of his custom-made suit.

“I’ve never seen Father like this before,” Rissa whispered to her sisters.

“Neither have I,” Miranda agreed. “I remember when Mother died—well, left—so long ago. I thought he was glad to be rid of her, but he must have loved her.”

The rise and fall of the siren came louder, then ceased suddenly as the police cruiser pulled to a halt in front of the manor. Portia rushed to the front door and struggled to open it. Mick Campbell entered first and Portia threw herself into his arms. Drew Lancaster stepped around them and quickly surveyed the scene.

“What’s happened? Who is this woman?” he asked.

Sensing Drew’s strength and compassion, Rissa hurried toward him, hands outstretched. “Oh, Drew, please help us. We think this is our mother.”

Drew turned his eyes from the crime scene and grasped Rissa’s hands. Portia was sobbing wildly in Mick’s tight clasp as he whispered comfortingly to her. Drew wished he had the right to comfort Rissa in the same way, but he could do nothing except squeeze her fingers gently and release her.

“I am here to help you,” he said softly. Even in the midst of this tragedy Drew experienced a sudden desire to always be at Rissa’s side when she needed him—a lofty aspiration for a penniless cop.

FOUR

Detective Mick Campbell, a ruggedly handsome, brown-haired man, released Portia and stepped farther into the room.

“Ladies, you’ll have to leave the room until we make our investigation,” he said. No one moved and he stepped closer to the grieving Ronald.

“Mr. Blanchard, you and your family need to leave the room. We’ll take care of things here.”

“No! No!” Ronald shouted. “I want to be alone with my wife! Leave me.”

Peg and the housekeeper, Sonya, crowded into the doorway, both dressed in their nightclothes, and Mick threw up his hands in exasperation.

“Don’t anyone touch anything—this is a crime scene! Will someone tell me what happened?”

Rissa expected Miranda to speak up as she usually did, but a glance at her older sister convinced her that Miranda was totally devastated by the “second” death of their mother. Miranda had been ten when their mother had “died” and she would probably mourn this death more than any of the other Blanchard daughters.

Clearing her throat, Rissa said, “Miranda and I found the body—I’ll tell you what I know.”

“Very well,” Mick said. “Wait for me in the hall, and I want the rest of you out of here so we can process the crime scene.”

Her face pale with terror, Winnie said, “Let’s go upstairs to my sitting room.”

Reluctantly the women left the room, and Rissa, noting the determined expression on Mick’s face, felt as the Christians must have felt when they’d been thrown to the lions. She didn’t want to implicate anyone in the household, but she would have to tell the truth.

Mick took Ronald’s arms and tried to help him up. “We’ll take care of things here, Mr. Blanchard.”

But Ronald clung to Trudy. Ronald, in his late fifties, was a tall, powerfully built man and Mick must have thought he needed help to evict him from the room. He took an iron grip on Ronald’s left arm and motioned to Drew, who stepped to Ronald’s side and grabbed his other arm. Ronald lashed out at them with his feet, without results, and the two detectives pulled him off of the body of his wife.

“I’ll let you see her again before we take her away,” Mick said as they steered Ronald toward the door, “but you must leave now.”

Cursing violently, in a fit of anger Ronald jerked free of their restraint and bolted down the hallway to his office.

Drew walked with Rissa to the living room.

“Sit over here, Rissa,” Drew said kindly, pointing to a leather couch. She sat down gratefully, because she wasn’t sure how much longer her legs would hold her.

She felt momentary panic as Mick walked into the room. Perhaps understanding her fear, Drew sat on the couch beside her and took her hand.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said. “Just tell us what you saw and heard, then you can go to your family. As soon as the forensic team gets here, we’ll dust the room for fingerprints and any other evidence. We may have to cordon the room off for a day or two depending on what we find.”

In a composed voice, she explained that she couldn’t sleep and had come downstairs to get something to read.

“I’ve always been afraid of storms,” she said. “It’s always scarier upstairs, so I decided to come down to get a book to read. I heard a sound in the library when I got to the foot of the stairs. I turned my flashlight that way and I saw that the door was ajar. I thought it was one of my sisters until I realized that whoever was in the room didn’t have a light on. I went to investigate and when I pushed the door wider, somebody shot at me.”

Tears blinded her eyes and choked her voice as she dropped her head into her hands. Rissa felt Drew’s comforting hand on her shoulders.

“Do we have to continue this now, Mick? She’s not able to talk any longer.”

“I’m sorry, but we need to get your account while it’s still fresh in your mind. For over three months now, we’ve had serious problems involving people at Blanchard Manor. We have to get to the bottom of this. The whole family may be in danger.”

Rissa lifted her head and sniffed. “I’m sorry. I’ll try to tell you what else I know, which isn’t much.”

Drew handed her several tissues from the box on a nearby table. She patted the tears from her eyes and blew her nose.

Rissa straightened her back and continued, “I still couldn’t see anybody, until a bright flash of lightning lit up the room. The man was heading for the door, pointing the gun at me.”

“Did you recognize who it was?” Mick said.

She shook her head. “He had on a mask.”

“But did he see you?” Drew asked anxiously.

“Yes, I’m sure of it. My face was in full view. He…”

“Are you sure it was a man?” Mick interrupted.

Surprised at his question, Rissa answered, “Why, no, I don’t know that. Whoever it was had on dark clothes and the mask hid the features, so it could have been a woman.”

Her slender fingers tensed in her lap.

“Then what happened?” Mick asked.

“I ran across the hall and into the living room and locked myself in. When I heard footsteps running down the hall toward the back door, I went to get Miranda and we entered the library together.”

Rissa was regaining her composure, and she considered how much more she should say. She didn’t want to reveal anything that might throw suspicion on any member of her family. They’d had enough trouble.

“Was the gate locked tonight?” Drew asked.

“As far as I know. Miranda disarmed the security system and opened the gate when she called you so you could get in.”

A car swung into the circular driveway, and Mick said, “That’s the forensic team. That will be all for now. Go ahead and join your family. But you can’t go back to New York until we get some answers to what happened here.”

Eager to know how her two sisters and Aunt Winnie were handling the death of her mother, Rissa started upstairs to the sitting room on the second floor. But she felt momentary panic when she heard Mick say, “Drew, see if the back door is open or if there’s been any forcible entry. If there’s no sign of a break-in, we can confine our investigation to the residents of the house.”

Was some member of her family responsible for her mother’s death? She entered the sitting room where her sisters and Aunt Winnie talked in muted tones. Aunt Winnie and Portia sat on the love seat across from the fireplace, while Miranda paced the floor.

“I still say it was just an act,” Miranda declared. “He’s hated her for years for cheating on him and getting pregnant with Juliet by another man. Why would he be so sad over her death now? Knowing that Mama wasn’t dead would throw a wrench in his plans to marry Alannah.”

Rissa was totally surprised at this revelation, but she wasn’t as shocked as she might have expected. The things she’d learned about her heritage the past few months had prepared her for anything. Speaking calmly, she reminded them, “She wasn’t his wife. He divorced her years ago.”

“Ronald never hated Trudy,” Winnie said. “He may have hated what she did to him, because no one likes to be betrayed. But I agree that I’m skeptical about his overt grief. That just isn’t like my brother.”

Rissa looked around the small room and its two floral chairs facing a small fireplace where gas logs threw out a ray of heat. She remembered her childhood days when natural logs burned in the fireplace and she and Portia had played in the room while Aunt Winnie had done needlework. Suddenly she wished they could go back to those days when they’d felt safe, even if their family relationships hadn’t been harmonious.

“What do you think, Rissa? Was he surprised?” Portia asked, startling her out of her reverie.

“I’ve never seen him carry on like that before, either, but I do think he was surprised to find her. I watched him closely when he came into the room, and he was caught off guard.”

“Enough about Ronald,” Winnie said. “What did they ask you?”

“Just to tell them what I saw and heard. The forensics people are here now—that’s why they let me leave. Isn’t it terrible to get our mother back and lose her at the same time? Are you sure it was her?”

“I didn’t get a very close look before Ronald came in, but as far as I could tell, it was Trudy,” Winnie responded, a faraway look in her eyes. “It’s been years since I’ve seen her, and twenty years in a mental institution would change anyone. She was a beautiful woman, and I could still see traces of that beauty on her face.”

Rissa suddenly realized that her legs were trembling and she dropped into a chair near her aunt. The silence in the room was broken only by the noise of the abating storm. She had always wished that she could remember her mother, and it was shattering to have finally seen her after she was dead.

She scanned the faces of her aunt and sisters, wondering what emotions they had experienced at the sudden return of their mother. The only positive point in tonight’s tragedy was to know that their father hadn’t killed his wife the night before in the gazebo. But since he had threatened to kill the woman he had met, it seemed to Rissa that the web of suspicion and intrigue had drawn more closely around her family.

The door at the end of the hallway was open when Drew investigated it, but he found no sign of forced entry. He called one of the forensics crew to dust the door for prints. With a high-beamed flashlight, he checked the hallway for anything the intruder might have dropped. He found nothing.

While the forensics team worked, Drew helped them by taking numerous pictures of the room and hallway. Mick made a pencil sketch of the area, focusing on arrangement of the furniture. It seemed as if nothing was out of place, so there must not have been much of a scuffle. Was it possible the woman had been killed elsewhere and later brought to the mansion to intimidate the Blanchards? But the coroner estimated that the body hadn’t been dead more than two hours, which would have been about the time that Rissa had heard the shot.

Mick removed the deceased’s scarf, which was spattered with blood, and put it in a plastic bag. They collected some strands of hair and the bullet from the splintered door, but when six women had entered the room after the woman had been killed, any one of them could have caught their hair on those splinters.

When the crime scene investigators and the coroner left, Drew went to Ronald’s office and tapped on the door. “Mr. Blanchard, you can come to the library now.”

Ronald swung open the door and brushed past Drew without a word. He paused on the threshold of the library, but he seemed to have his emotions under control. He stood beside his wife, and his expression grew hard and resentful as he looked down at her.

“We have to remove the body now,” Mick said. “Which funeral home do you want us to call?”

“I’ll take care of that,” Ronald said.

“You can call whoever you want, but the body has to be taken for an autopsy before the mortician touches it. We’re staying here until the body is taken away, and this room will have to be locked until we’re sure the investigation is complete.”

“There’s no key for this door.”

“We’ll see that it’s locked,” Drew said. “We don’t want anyone in here. That means family as well as outsiders. The door will have to be repaired anyway, so we’ll put a lock on it tomorrow. Which mortuary do you want?”

Ronald swung toward Drew with his right hand uplifted, his nostrils flaring with rage, his eyes blazing. Drew stiffened and he steeled himself to resist the man’s attack, but Ronald turned away and slowly lowered his hand.

He let out a long, audible breath. “Carson Brothers Mortuary,” he muttered in a harsh, raw voice. Turning on his heel, he left the library, and Drew heard the office door close.

“Whew!” he said, with a tense look at Mick. “That was close! Now what?”

“One of us should stay here tonight to be sure no one comes into this room until we put a lock on the door. We may have missed some vital piece of evidence.” Mick walked to the door and looked at the place where the forensics team had dug out a bullet. “We have to find the gun that matches the bullet we found. I hate to call anybody out at this time of night to guard the place.”

“I’ll stay,” Drew said. “I’m uneasy about the family anyway. Something’s wrong in this house, and I don’t think any of them are safe. I’ve got a Thermos of coffee in my car, and I’ll hole up here to protect the crime scene.”

When they walked out into the hall, Rissa and Portia stood at the head of the stairs. Mick motioned to Portia and she hurried down the steps to him. Giving them a private moment, Drew walked upstairs and Rissa invited him into the sitting room where Winnie and Miranda waited.

“Mick and I don’t want you to be alone,” he said to the women. “We need to watch the library until we can put a lock on the door. I’m going to stay in the house tonight, so you can go to bed now and get some rest.”

“We’ll prepare a room for you, Mr. Lancaster,” Winnie said. “We have an empty guest room on this floor.”

“Not tonight. I’ll stay in the library, but if we decide that you need some continued protection, I may take you up on the offer.”

Rissa walked down the stairs beside Drew. Portia kissed Mick goodbye and the twins went into the living room. Drew went to Mick, who waited beside the front door. In a low voice, he said, “I don’t like to involve the family in this, but who else would have had a motive or opportunity to commit this murder?”

“We have to remember that the murdered woman has been gone for twenty-some years. She may have collected several enemies during that time and one of them might have followed her to the Blanchard property.”

Realizing that Mick didn’t want to implicate his fiancée’s family, Drew said, “I’ll spare you as much of this investigation as I can. I don’t intend to do much sleeping tonight, so I’ll try to get Mr. Blanchard’s story.” He patted the small recorder he carried in his pocket. “We don’t have to make public anything that doesn’t have any bearing on the case.”

With a worried sigh, Mick said, “We’re cops first and foremost, so I’ll have to forget my emotional ties to this family. We’ve sworn to uphold the law no matter who’s involved.”

“At times like this, I sometimes wish I hadn’t taken that vow. The women of this family are too kind and gentle to have to deal with such a nightmare.”

“I know what you mean, buddy! Watch your back,” Mick warned as he let himself out of the house. Drew turned the lock and walked down the hallway to Ronald’s office.

He knocked quietly several times, pausing for a short interval between each knock. Fearful images flashed through his mind. Had Ronald killed his wife and then taken his own life? Would Rissa be deprived of both father and mother in such a short time?

Feeling desperate, he knocked vigorously.

“Who is it?” Ronald shouted.

“Detective Drew Lancaster, Mr. Blanchard.”

“Can’t you leave a man to his grief? The door’s not locked.”

With a sense of relief and some apprehension, Drew turned the knob. Slouched in a leather chair, Ronald stared at him with belligerent eyes. “What do you want?”

Drew almost apologized for intruding, because the man did look wretched, but from what he’d heard of Ronald Blanchard, he had no respect for anyone he could intimidate. He paused when he was close enough to look Ronald squarely in the eyes.

“I want some answers about this murder. If you give the right answers, I won’t intrude on your grief very long.” His sarcastic tone hinted that he doubted if Ronald was truly grief-stricken.

“Anything to get rid of you and your kind! What do you want to know?”

“For starters, I’d like to know where you were when the murder was committed.”

“I was in this room, sitting in this chair. It happens to be my favorite spot in the whole house.”

“Why did it take you so long to get to the library? From what Rissa reported, it must have been at least ten minutes from the time someone shot at her before she and Miranda went into the library.”

“I didn’t hear a shot.”

“Why not? Were you asleep?”

Ronald vaulted out of his chair but Drew held his ground.

“If you’d ever experienced a thunderstorm in this house, you’d understand why I didn’t hear a shot. Blanchard Manor receives the full blast of a storm sweeping in from the Atlantic. For almost two hours we were barraged with this storm. The wind howled around the turrets, tree limbs smacked against the side of the house and thunder rolled like cannons across the roof. Sleep? Impossible! And as for hearing a gunshot, I couldn’t have heard a full-fledged artillery battle taking place in the front yard.”

For the next half hour, Drew threw question after question at Ronald without getting much information. After his first rage at having Drew disturb him, he settled down and his answers were terse, his face like a stone mask. He maintained that he had spent the evening reading, rather than going to bed, because he knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep. He wasn’t aware of what was going on in the library until during a lull in the storm he had heard someone running and his sister’s voice in the hallway. He had entered the library and found the body of his wife, whom he hadn’t seen for twenty-three years.

“Then let me ask you a few questions about the previous night,” Drew said. “I understand that you and a woman had quite an argument in the gazebo. Are you sure you didn’t see your wife then?”

“Don’t you think I’d know if I met my wife? It wasn’t my wife—I told you, I haven’t seen her for years.”

“Then who did you meet?”

“None of your business.”

“But it may be some of my business, Mr. Blanchard. If you refuse to answer questions and don’t cooperate with the authorities to solve this murder, you can be arrested and jailed for impeding a police investigation.”

Ronald laughed, but there was no humor in the sound. “And just how long do you think you could keep me in jail in Stoneley? You still have a lot to learn about the influence of the Blanchards, Detective.”

Determined not to be intimidated by the man, Drew asked, “Do you own a gun?”

“Again, that isn’t any of your business. If you want to question me, you’re going to do it when one of my lawyers is present. Get out of here and leave me alone.”

Turning to leave the office, feeling defeated but hoping his feelings weren’t apparent, Drew said, “Mick and I have decided that your family needs police protection. For tonight, I’ll be staying here, protecting the house and preserving the crime scene.”

“You’re not welcome in my home.”

“That’s obvious, but you don’t have any choice, Mr. Blanchard. A crime has been committed here. It’s our duty to find out who committed that murder. If you didn’t kill your wife, I’d think you would be eager to see the murderer caught and brought to justice instead of opposing our efforts. We also intend to place your family under police protection to insure their safety.”

Drew turned on his heel and walked out of the room. Ronald slammed the door behind him.

Deciding he needed to become familiar with the layout of Blanchard Manor, Drew walked upstairs and surveyed the two hallways that branched off into a large number of rooms. He had heard that the mansion had fifteen rooms.

Winnie Blanchard met him at the top of the stairs. “Mr. Lancaster, let me show you to the room we’ve prepared for you.” She turned toward the hallway to the left and he followed her. Pointing to the first door, she said, “That is Ronald’s room, and yours will be across the hallway from his.”

She opened the door into a spacious bedroom that was almost as big as his house. A massive four-poster bed with a quilted floral bedspread and matching pillows was placed along one wall opposite a white marble-faced fireplace with gas logs burning. An easy chair was placed beside a table with a reading lamp on it. Framed prints of Maine’s seacoast hung around the walls.

“I turned on the gas logs to take the chill out of the room. You can adjust it to suit your needs.”

“Thank you, ma’am, but I won’t spend much time in the room. I’m here only to watch out for your family. Tonight I’ll be guarding the library. Starting tomorrow, I’ll be patrolling the hallways at night.”

“I sleep down this hallway, the next door on the left, and you can call me at any time. The girls’ bedrooms are in the opposite hall.”

They returned to the central hallway and Drew pointed to another stairway.

“The third floor is occupied also. My invalid father and his caregiver have rooms there. I’d appreciate it if you would avoid disturbing my father if at all possible. He has Alzheimer’s and he’s easily upset.”

“I’ll be as respectful of your situation as much as possible,” he said, “but a crime has been committed and we’ll have to investigate. That means checking out the entire house.”

“I understand,” she said, with unmistakable sorrow in her warm hazel eyes. Although Rissa’s aunt must have been in her sixties, she was still slender and rosy-cheeked with a beautiful luster to her faded red hair.

“Do your servants live in?” he asked.

“We have a housekeeper, a chef, a chauffeur and two maids. They have rooms in the wing beyond the kitchen. One maid lives in Stoneley and commutes. Our gardener and other outside workers are only here during the daytime.”

Drew didn’t want to cause any further stress for the family tonight, so he called a patrolman to keep guard on the servants’ quarters so none of them could escape if they had killed the woman. Determining to question them in the morning, he returned to the library and pulled a chair close to the door, so he could see the stairway and much of the central hall. It seemed logical that Ronald had met his estranged wife in the gazebo the night before and had gotten her to come back to the house tonight so that he could kill her. The murder might have gone off without a hitch if Rissa hadn’t come downstairs and discovered what was going on. But if Ronald was telling the truth, and it hadn’t been his wife in the gazebo, then whom had he met? Drew was convinced that Ronald had deliberately destroyed the tire marks left by the woman’s car.