Her Mother’s Grave

Prologue

She started the fire in the nursery. Her lips curved into a smile as amber flames licked the walls and spread throughout the room, consuming the perfectly matching furniture and the carpet from which she’d spent so many hours scrubbing invisible marks. The gossamer crib canopy she painstakingly arranged every day went up in a satisfying whoosh. Don’t wake the babies. Don’t go in there till the children are up. Don’t, don’t, don’t. This’ll teach her.

As the air thickened and began burning her nose and throat, she backed out of the room. Tendrils of thick, black smoke slipped around the edges of the door, coating the ceiling and chasing her out into the hallway. She used her forearm to cover her mouth as she ran. Soon the flames would rage through the house, burning up every fancy thing that spiteful, snobby bitch owned. It was going to be wonderful.

She fled downstairs, stopping to hold a match to the heavy drapes and valances that adorned each window in the living and dining rooms until the taste of fire in her throat became unbearable. She made her way to the kitchen, intending to leave through the back door before she was caught. She was never supposed to set foot in the house again after they’d accused her of stealing.

She was halfway there when a glimpse of something in the family room stopped her dead in her tracks. A frisson of excitement spiraled inside her. Here was something even more destructive than fire, a way to bring down that bitch for good. The grin spread further across her face as she darted into the room, hands outstretched.