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  He had to be from one of those big firms, their reputations based on name rather than quality. Those firms were everything I hated about the legal profession — style over substance, misdirection over truth. I knew exactly what to expect — someone smooth talking, bossy and arrogant.

  And it figured Jayce would pick the sexiest lawyer in the Sierra foothills. His face was chiseled, his dark hair sleek. Too good looking by half, he was probably used to women dropping their panties at a smile.

  Probably vain, too. His suit alone had to cost at least two weeks of my pay. How on earth would Jayce afford the man?

  He stopped in front of us and a corner of his full lips curled. “The Bonheim sisters, I presume?” His eyes, the color of a storm-tossed ocean, glittered.

  Crapola. She’d hired him.

  I locked gazes with the man, and my stomach fell off a cliff. The world froze, tilted, changed.

  “Um, yes,” I choked out. “I’m Karin. And you are?”

  Jolting forward, he took my hand, his grip firm but not crushing. But my skin burned at his touch, and I jerked away.

  I became aware of how rumpled I looked. My thin white blouse with its keyhole top had seemed fun and elegant when I’d put it on yesterday. Now, not so much.

  “Nick Heathcoat,” he said, his gaze lingering at the hollow of my neck. “Your sister hired me to clear things up with the police. She asked me to tell you not to wait. And this must be Lenore.” He grasped my sister’s hand, but his gaze darted to me. “I understand you were with your sister when she discovered the body?”

  “Yes.” Was I actually attracted to him? In a police station? What was wrong with me? Because in spite of his buttoned-up suit, there was a whiff of bad boy about him, a certain Eau de Trouble, that made for a great romance novel but was a disaster in reality.

  “We’ll need to speak later,” he said. “But now I should get back to your sister.”

  I swallowed, mouth dry. “Sure.”

  Turning, he strode away, glancing over his shoulder one final time before disappearing around a corner.

  “That was unexpected,” Lenore murmured.

  “No kidding. This whole day has been…” What the hell was wrong with me? From what I’d seen, he was not my type. I mean: lawyer! And yeah, I’m a lawyer. But that gives me some insight into the breed. I was just tired and worried and… maybe delirious.

  I checked my watch. It was hard to read, because my hand trembled. “It’s after ten o’clock. We should get to the hospital, be there for Ellen’s appointment with the doctor.” Our aunt tended to forget what was said in these meetings.

  A distant expression darkened my sister’s face.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “Nothing.” Lenore’s smile was taut. “Let’s hope we can bring Ellen home today.”

  But I dreaded what that look had meant.

  Lenore drove us to the hospital. Like the sheriff’s station, the hospital was new, serving the county, and they’d gone for an uber-modern style. The place looked like a spa, with patio gardens and natural lighting and pull-out couches in the rooms for visitors, so they could spend the night.

  Lenore’s shoulders hunched as we passed inside. She hated hospitals. Even though this one was new, according to Lenore it already had a collection of ghosts and misery. My heart twisted in sympathy — for my sister, for those who’d stayed behind.

  The elevator slid open, and Lenore scuttled inside. She leaned against the wall, her eyes half closed. “What’s the room number?”

  “Three-five-one.” I pushed the three button. The elevator moved smoothly upward. “Or at least it was last night.” Patients would be shifted to the intensive care floor, above, if their condition worsened. I prayed that hadn’t happened.

  The elevator doors opened, and we stepped into a carpeted hallway. Our family doctor, Dr. Toeller, stood in her lab coat, talking to someone hidden around the corner. The other person’s hands flashed expressively, a flamenco, the dancer out of sight.

  Dr. Toeller glanced at us and nodded, her silver-gold cap of hair glinting beneath the fluorescent lights.

  The other woman stepped into view, the real estate agent, Sunny Peel. She waved, and I signaled back, unenthusiastic.

  The realtor was friendly but relentless. Sunny had been pestering our aunt to sell her house for years. But that was why Sunny was successful. She worked hard.

  She also had the knack. Everything the realtor touched turned to gold. That vacant lot she’d bought on a steep stunted hillside? They’d discovered silver veins in the ground beneath. The ramshackle properties outside Doyle? Purchased right before the county government decided that was the perfect spot for development.

  Sunny smiled brightly, her red designer suit straining against her sensual curves. Her skin had the flawless look of someone who worked at a makeup counter. She moved forward as if to speak with us.

  Pretending I hadn’t noticed, I scuttled through the swinging doors to the nurses’ station. I hoped Lenore would take the hint and follow. She did.

  Passing a nurse’s station, we found room 351. The door stood ajar, a curtain on a curving, metal track blocking the view from the hallway.

  I edged inside. Ellen lay on the hospital bed, angled to a half-seating position. Her eyes were closed, her short, gray hair a wispy halo against the pillow.

  “Where’s Jayce?” Ellen’s blue eyes parted to drowsy slits.

  “She’ll be here soon.” Lenore drew up a chair beside the bed. “How are you feeling?”

  “Fine.” Ellen coughed. Our aunt was always fine, even when she wasn’t. Her lips moved silently, working to speak. She coughed again. “Dr. Toeller said she’d stop by at eleven.”

  “We saw her in the hall,” Lenore said, “talking to Sunny.”

  I drew closer, taking in Ellen’s drooping eyelids, her relaxed jaw. An IV snaked into her thin arm. Had the drugs made Ellen groggy, or was her weariness due to a sleepless night?

  The pink, crescent-shaped scar on my palm heated, and I rubbed it with my thumb.

  Our aunt’s thin brows lowered. “Sunny Peel? The realtor? I hope her husband’s not ill again, poor man.” Her gaze wandered to the windows overlooking the treetops. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen him. I wonder if he’s cursed.”

  I glanced at Lenore, unsure if Ellen was speaking literally or metaphorically. You didn’t need magic to cast a curse. People do it every day, unconsciously, when they swear at other drivers. But one way or another, the curses always rebound on the sender. Magic has its rules. I find that comforting. “Do you really think so?” I asked, wondering if something like that could have influenced Ellen’s illness. But Ellen was careful with her protective wards.

  “Who knows,” Ellen asked. “Things look so different now. Have you two had breakfast?”

  Lenore smiled. “I’ve eaten.”

  “What about you, Karin? You were here so late with me last night. You really shouldn’t have stayed that long. You look tired.”

  My stomach growled, and I realized I was starving. I checked my watch. We had thirty minutes before the doctor arrived. And I’m about as likely to skip breakfast as meet the sunrise. “I am hungry. I’ll grab something in the cafeteria downstairs and be right back.”

  Ellen motioned with her arm. It fell, limp, onto the beige hospital blanket. “Take your time. I’m not going anywhere.”

  I hurried downstairs, guilt speeding my footsteps. My aunt had been stuck, bored and alone, in that hospital for too long. And while we hadn’t quite lied to her about Jayce, we hadn’t told her the truth either.

  Loyal to my sister’s coffee shop, I bypassed the hospital’s coffee chain outpost. I bought an orange juice and danish from a vending machine.

  Outside the cafeteria’s tall windows, the rain had stopped. I walked onto the patio. Inhaling deeply, I stood by the rail and gazed into the woods. The lawyer had seemed confident he’d get Jayce out today. Would he? And how on earth had Jayce found him? He seem
ed her opposite — sharp and controlled to Jayce’s careless sensuality. I couldn’t imagine they might be friends. But he was sexy as hell. And that was Jayce all over.

  The danish was stale, each bite scattering crumbs across the damp, slate tiles. A stellar jay hopped onto a nearby tree branch and cocked its head, hopeful.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll be leaving soon, and the crumbs will be all yours.”

  Polishing off the juice and danish, I dropped the trash in a nearby bin and returned inside the cafeteria. Someone had left a deck of cards on a table, and I went to it, thinking to turn the cards in to the lost and found.

  I halted beside the table, my fingers poised over the deck. Not playing cards, Tarot cards.

  Tarot was more Jayce’s thing. But on impulse, I slid the deck into a rainbow shape and picked a card, turned it over. A man stood on the banks of an ocean, watching an approaching ship, sails billowing.

  Ellen is dying.

  I sucked in a breath and stilled. I knew enough about Tarot to know the Three of Wands isn’t a death card. Yet the knowledge was there, marrow deep. The figure on that shore was my aunt, awaiting her final journey.

  Sweeping the cards into a pile, I left them and hurried to the elevator. I was being paranoid. There was no reason to believe this visit to the hospital was any different than the last dozen. But fear burned my stomach.

  The elevator opened and a young woman in a hospital gown, her dark hair lank and wild, burst out. “Where is he? Someone took him!” She clutched my arms, her fingers digging through the thin fabric of her blouse. “They’ve switched my baby! You need to help me find him.”

  Shocked, I stuttered, “Your baby?”

  The woman clung, her fingers digging into my flesh. “Someone took him. You have to help me.” She groaned, swinging me around. “Please.”

  I gaped, horrified. “Your baby’s been taken? Of course we’ll find him.” I needed to call the police. The guards. Did the hospital have security?

  The stair door burst open, and a young man pelted out. “Angie! It’s all right.”

  Shaking her head, the woman backed up, dragging me with her. “It’s not ours. It’s not ours. The rabbit warned me.”

  “Charles is fine,” the man said. “He’s upstairs in your room, waiting for you.”

  “That’s not Charles!” The woman’s voice quavered. “It’s not ours. Something’s wrong with it.”

  “Angie, he’s our son. He’s a little underweight, that’s all. The doctors say he’ll be fine.”

  “Not ours.” The woman sobbed.

  The man pried his wife’s hands from my arms. “I’m sorry about this,” he said to me. “It’s the post-partum depression.”

  “It’s fine.” Shaken, I rubbed my arms and watched while he led his wife away. I stepped inside the elevator. Good God, was that post-partum? I rubbed my arm, sore where she’d grasped me, and pity slowed my pulse. Childbirth had killed my mother. This woman had survived, but now the experience was tainted by madness. The doors opened, and I said a silent prayer for her recovery.

  On the third floor, I walked to my aunt’s room.

  Lenore stood in the hall and spoke in a low voice with Dr. Toeller.

  My pace quickened.

  They stopped their conversation as I approached.

  “Good morning, Karin,” the doctor said, her expression grave.

  We’d known Dr. Toeller our entire lives, and the woman never seemed to change. If I had to guess how old the doctor was, I’d have to admit at least fifty. After all, she’d been our family doctor when we were kids. But she sure didn’t look fifty, her alabaster skin lit from within.

  “Dr. Toeller, hi.” I checked my watch. No, I wasn’t late.

  “I have bad news.” The doctor brushed her pixie-cut hair from her eyes. It shimmered, pale gold threaded with silver. “Your aunt’s cancer has returned. It’s everywhere now.”

  My heart stopped. “Everywhere?”

  “Sometimes it happens this way,” the doctor said in a low voice, her blue eyes piercing. “We scanned for it when your aunt was in the hospital last month and found nothing. I’m so sorry. At this stage, there’s nothing anyone can do but try to make her comfortable.”

  “How long?” I croaked.

  “It could be days,” the doctor said. “It could be weeks. The good news is your aunt won’t feel much pain, if any. The cancer’s in her bones, and the calcium is leeching into her bloodstream and acting as a natural sedative. I was about to tell her the news, unless you would prefer to? Sometimes this is better coming from a loved one.”

  I nodded, my hands clenching and releasing. I should be the person to tell her, but how? How do you tell someone they’re dying? I swayed, dizzy. Ellen was my lode star, my mother in every sense that counted. I couldn’t lose her.

  But I would.

  “Why don’t we tell her together?” I whispered.

  We walked into the room, the doctor shutting the door behind us.

  Our aunt looked up from the bed. “So, Doctor. When can I get out of here?”

  We told her then. Afterward, I could remember little of what had been said. Had Ellen been calm or tearful? No, not tearful, my aunt was never tearful. But she was silent for a long time.

  Finally, Ellen whispered, “I don’t want to die confused, in a drugged haze.”

  “Do you feel confused now?” the doctor asked, unhooking the chart from the end of the bed.

  Ellen’s chin lowered. “No. I’m only saying, later…”

  Anguish coiled in my chest, snarling my muscles, setting my teeth on edge.

  “I don’t see any drugs that would cause confusion,” Dr. Toeller said. “The excess calcium may be causing fatigue.”

  “Yes,” Ellen said.

  “You’ll have to stay here another night, and then we’ll see,” the doctor said. She turned to Lenore and me. “If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to call. Day or night.”

  I nodded, numb, and the doctor left.

  Lenore slipped into the chair by our aunt’s bedside and took her hand. “Ellen.”

  The two gazed at each other, a silent communication seeming to pass between them.

  “I’ve made so many terrible mistakes,” Ellen said. “Karin…” She trailed off, her lips pressing together, and looked toward the window.

  “Never.” A lump choked my throat, and I took my aunt’s other hand. Ellen’s grip was feather-light.

  “You don’t need to stay here with me,” Ellen said. “You have things to do.”

  “The only thing we have to do is be here.” A vein pulsed in my jaw.

  “Liar.” Ellen’s eyes closed, her hands slipping to the blanket. “Go. Do what you must.”

  Lenore and I tiptoed from the room.

  “We can’t leave her,” I said, my voice thick. “Not now. But there’s so much going on. Jayce. The lawyer. What if Jayce doesn’t get out today? The police can keep her for up to forty-eight hours without charging her. What do we tell Ellen then?”

  “The truth,” Lenore said. “Maybe we should have told her about Alicia’s murder from the start, but we didn’t. Let’s wait and see. If Jayce isn’t out by tonight—”

  “We tell Ellen.”

  “I’ll stay here today,” Lenore said. “You were here all last night. Take a break. Get some sleep.”

  I nodded. I should sleep, but grief and fear set my blood humming, waking me up, driving me forward. Jayce had to be here for Ellen. I had to get my sister back.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I met road assistance at the hospital parking lot. The driver restarted my battery, and I drove to my shingled, Craftsman-style bungalow. Inside, I headed to the kitchen, with its sky-blue cabinets and wood-plank floors.

  Movements quick, manic, I turned on the oven and drew a casserole wrapped in aluminum foil from the refrigerator. I’d baked it for my aunt earlier this week and had forgotten to bring it to her house yesterday. A casserole-condolences call made an excuse to
talk to Brayden Duarte, the murder victim’s husband. In Doyle, people still brought food for the grieving. And if anyone knew the truth, it would be Alicia’s husband.

  Leaving the oven to heat, I took the world’s fastest shower and changed into fresh khakis and a loose, linen blouse.

  The oven beeped, and I hurried to the tiny kitchen. I slipped the chilled casserole inside the oven and returned to my bedroom to fix my hair and makeup. The bedroom’s muted green tones soothed me. For a moment, I fantasized about throwing myself on the wide bed and retreating to dreamland. But it was after twelve o’clock, and I had things to do.

  I called Jayce and got her voice mail.

  “It’s Karin. I’m at home.” I swallowed, my throat aching. “Lenore is at the hospital with Ellen. Please call me as soon as you can.” I hung up. Too terse? Maybe, but I didn’t want Jayce learning about our aunt’s condition over voice mail.

  I checked my e-mail — a few notes from clients, a message from a college friend in Boston, and lots and lots of spam. I wrote quick replies to my clients — setting appointments, asking questions — and I shut down the computer.

  The oven timer beeped, and I returned to the kitchen, drawing the casserole from the oven. The scent of its rich cheeses and bacon made my mouth water. Setting the casserole to cool, I realized I shouldn’t have heated it — Brayden would no doubt put it in the refrigerator anyway. Ooops.

  Grabbing the casserole and an umbrella, I hopped into my car and reversed out of the driveway.

  There’s nowhere in Doyle that isn’t cute as a button. Brayden’s neighborhood was no exception. He lived in a green-painted ranch house with sloping rooflines and nestled among oaks, sunbeams threading their branches.

  I parked on the street, beneath a tree. The rain had started again, dimming the sky to a strange twilight. I put a foot out of the car, trying to shield myself with the umbrella, grip the casserole, and extract myself from the vehicle, all at the same time. Rain splattered me, and the umbrella dipped. Giving up on staying dry, I trotted up the porch, the umbrella banging against my knees. I pressed the doorbell with my elbow.