Sticks & Scones

STICKS AND SCONES

DIANE MOTT DAVIDSON

LABYRINTH DONORS’ APPRECIATION LUNCH

Hyde Chapel, Aspen Meadow, Colorado Monday, February 9, noon

Chicken Croquettes, Dijon and Cranberry Sauces

Winter Salad of Chčvre, Figs, Filberts, and Field Greens, Port Wine Vinaigrette

Shakespeare’s Steak Pie

Steamed Green Beans with Artichoke Hearts

Elizabethan Manchet Bread, Butter

Chocolate Marble Labyrinth Cake

Merlot, Sparkling Water, Teas, and Coffee

-1-

Nighttime noises are torture. When a midnight wind shrieks through our window jambs, or footsteps clomp past the house, I think, It could be anything. Once a snowbank slid from our roof and thundered onto the deck. I awoke, heart pounding, convinced I’d been shot.

It isn’t logical, of course. But living with terror for seven years had not made me the most rational of thinkers, least of all when roused from sleep. A sound could be anything? No.

It was something.

When I awoke at four o’clock on Monday morning, February ninth, those years of dread were long over. Still, I was certain I’d heard a tiny scraping noise, like boots chafing against ice. Think, I warned myself. Don’t panic.

Heart pulsing, throat dry, I waited for my brain to clear, for the sound to come again. My husband Tom was I out of town. Even when he’s at home, noise rarely interrupts his slumber. Tom is a big hulking cop, and isn’t afraid of much.

I shifted in the chilled sheets. The temperature outside was close to zero. Frigid air poured through tiny leaks in our bedroom windows. The noise had come from outdoors, from below, of that I was fairly certain.

Now all was quiet. No sound emanated from Arch’s room down the hall. Two months from turning fifteen, my son slept so soundly even a howling blizzard would not rouse him. On the first floor, our bloodhound, Jake, was not growling or pacing in his enclosed area next to the kitchen. These were good signs.

Maybe I was imagining things. I’d gone to bed too late, after cooking all evening for today’s catered event. And I was stressed out, anyway. In December, our family life had been in an uproar. My in-home commercial kitchen had been shut down, and Tom and I had ended up involved in a homicide case at a nearby ski area. To make things worse, on New Year’s Eve, right after the official reopening of my kitchen, I’d catered my first party in months. It had gone very badly.

Wait. Another unmistakable scrape was followed by a tiny crack. It was like … what? Elk hooves shattering ice? A pine bough creaking under its burden of snow? Like… someone opening a suitcase across the street?

Who unpacks bags at four in the morning?

Henry Kissinger said, Even a paranoid has real enemies. With that in mind, I decided against getting out of bed and peering out a window. My eyes traveled to the bedside table and I reached stealthily for the portable phone. In addition to being paranoid, I sometimes suspected I was an alarmist, or, as the ninth-grade tough guys at Arch’s school would say, a wimp. Now, I bargained with myself. One more sound, and I would speed-dial the sheriff’s department.

I shivered, waited, and longed for the heavy terry-cloth robe hanging in my closet, an early Valentine’s present from Tom. Caterers need to rest after cooking, Miss G., he’d said. Wrap yourself in this when I’m gone, and pretend its me.

Of course, I would have much preferred Tom himself to the robe. For the past week, he’d been in New Jersey working a case. There, he reported, the weather was rainy. In Aspen Meadow, I’d told him in our evening calls, each day had brought more snow. Arch and I had made a morning ritual of shoveling our front walk. But daytime temperatures in the mid-thirties had melted our man-made snowbanks, and the nightly freezes transformed the sidewalk into a sheet of ice.

So. If someone was on our sidewalk, he or she was on a very slippery slope.

I propped myself up on my elbow, yanked up the bedspread, and listened intently. In the neon light cast by the street lamp outside, I could just make out my own reflection in our mirror: blond curly hair, dark eyes, thirty-four- year-old face just a tad round from an excess of chocolate. It was a face that had been happy for almost two years, since I’d married Tom. But now Tom’s absence was an ache.

Back in my old life, my ex-husband had often stumbled in late. I’d become used to the drunken harangues, the flaunted infidelities, the midnight arguments. Sometimes I even thought his girlfriends used to follow him home, to stake out our house.

Of course, I absolutely believed in Tom’s fidelity, even if he had been both secretive and preoccupied lately. Before he left, he’d even seemed low. I hadn’t quite known how to help. Try as I might, I was still getting used to being a cop’s wife.

Five minutes went by with no sound. My mind continued to meander. I wondered again about Tom. Six A.M. on the East Coast; was he up? Was he still planning on flying back this morning, as he’d promised us? Had he made any progress in his investigation?

The case Tom was working on involved the hijacking - on a Furman County road - of a FedEx delivery truck. The driver had been killed. Only one of the suspected three hijackers had been arrested. His name was Ray Wolff, and he was now in the same cell block as my ex-husband, Dr. John Richard Korman. The Jerk, as his other ex-wife and I called him, was currently serving a sentence for assault. During Arch’s weekly visit, John Richard had boasted to his son of his acquaintance with Ray Wolff, the famous killer-hijacker. How low things had sunk, I thought, when a father reveled in his own criminal infamy.

I shivered again and tried not to think of the threats my ex-husband had sent from jail. They’d been both implied and overt. When I get out of here, I’ll set you straight, Goldy. To Arch, he’d said, You can tell your mother your father has a plan. I guess I wasn’t surprised that those tiny signs of remorse John Richard had shown at his trial had all been for the benefit of the judge. I jumped at the sound of a third, louder crack. Downstairs, Jake let out a tentative woof I hit the phone’s power button as an explosion rocked our house.

What was that? My brain reeled. Cold and trembling, I realized I’d fallen off the bed. A gunshot? A bomb? It had sounded like a rocket launcher. A grenade. An earthquake. Downstairs, glass crashed to the floor. What the hell is going on?

I clutched the phone, scuttled across the cold floor, and tried to call for Arch. Unfortunately, my voice no longer seemed to be working. Below, our security system shrieked. I cursed as I made a tripping dash down the unlit hall.

The noise had been a gunshot. It had to have been. Someone had shot at our home. At least one downstairs window had been shattered, of that I was certain. Where is the shooter now? Where is my son?

“Arch!” I squawked in the dark hallway. Dwarfed by the alarm, my voice sounded tinny and far away. “Are you all right? Can you hear me?”

The alarm’s wail melded with Jake’s baying. What good did a security system do, anyway? Alarms are meant to protect you from intruders wanting your stuff - not from shooters wanting your life. Yelling that it was me, it was Mom, I stumbled through my son’s bedroom door.

Arch had turned on his aquarium light and was sitting up in bed. In the eerie light, his pale face glowed. His toast-brown hair had fanned out in an electric halo, and his hastily donned tortoiseshell glasses were askew. He clutched a raised sword - a gleaming foil used for his school fencing practice. I punched the phone buttons for 911, but was trembling so badly I messed it up. Now the phone was braying in my ear.

Panic tensed Arch’s face as he leaned toward the watery light and squinted at me.

“Mom! What was that?”

Shuddering, I fumbled with the phone again and finally pushed the automatic dial for the Furman County Sheriff’s Department.

“I don’t know,” I managed to shout to Arch. Blood gurgled in my ears. I wanted to be in control, to be comforting, to be a good mother. I wanted to assure him this was all some terrible mistake. “Better get on the - ” With the phone, I gestured toward the floor.

Still gripping the sword, Arch obediently scrambled onto a braided rug I’d made during our financial dark days. He was wearing a navy sweat suit - his substitute for pajamas - and thick gray socks, protection from the cold. Protection. I thought belatedly of Tom’s rifle and the handgun he kept hidden behind a false wall in our detached garage. Lot of good they did me now, especially since I didn’t know how to shoot.

“We’ll be right there,” announced a

distant telephone voice after I babbled where we were and what had happened. Jake’s howl and the screaming security system made it almost impossible to make out the operator’s clipped instructions. “Mrs. Schulz?” she repeated. “Lock the bedroom door. If any of your neighbors call, tell them not to do anything. We should have a car there in less than fifteen minutes.”

Please, God, I prayed, disconnecting. With numb fingers, I locked Arch’s door, then eased to the floor beside him. I glanced upward. Could the glow from the aquarium light be seen from outside? Could the shooter get a good purchase on Arch’s window?

“Somebody has to go get Jake,” Arch whispered. “We can’t just leave him barking. You told the operator you heard a shot. Did you really think it was from a gun? I thought it was a cannonball.”

“I don’t know.” If any of your neighbors call … My neighbors’ names had all slid from my head.

The front doorbell rang. My eyes locked with Arch’s. Neither of us moved. The bell rang again. A male voice shouted, “Goldy? Arch? It’s Bill! Three other guys are here with me!” Bill? Ah, Bill Quincy… from next door. “Goldy,” Bill boomed. “We’re armed!”

I took a steadying breath. This was Colorado, not England or Canada or some other place where folks don’t keep guns and wield them freely. In Aspen Meadow, no self-respecting gun-owner who heard a shot at four A.M. was going to wait to be summoned. One man had even glued a decal over the Neighborhood Watch sign: This Street Guarded by Colts. Although the county had sent out a graffiti-removal company to scrape off the sticker, the sentiment remained the same.

“Goldy? Arch?” Bill Quincy hollered again. “You okay? It doesn’t look as if anybody’s broken in! Could you let me check? Goldy!”

Would the cops object? I didn’t know.

“Goldy?” Bill bellowed. “Answer me, or I’m breaking down the door!”

“All right!” I called. “I’m coming!” I

told Arch to stay put and tentatively made my way down the stairs.

Freezing air swirled through the first floor. In the living room, glass shards glittered where they’d landed on the couch, chairs, and carpet. I turned off the deafening alarm, flipped on the outside light, and swung open the door.

Four grizzled, goose-down-jacketed men stood on my front step. I was wearing red plaid flannel pj’s and my feet were bare, but I told them law enforcement was en route and invited them in. Clouds of steam billowed from the men’s mouths as Bill insisted his companions weren’t budging. As if to make his point, Bill’s posse settled creakily onto our frosted porch. The men’s weapons - two rifles and two pistols - glinted in the ghostly light.

Bill Quincy, his wide, chinless face grim, his broad shoulders tense, announced that he intended to go through the house, to see if the shooter had broken in. I should wait until he’d inspected the first floor, he ordered, pushing past me without further ceremony. Bill stomped resolutely through the kitchen and dining room, peered into the tiny half-bath, then returned to the hallway and cocked his head at me. I tiptoed behind him to the kitchen. He shouted a warning into the basement, then banged down the steps. If the intruder was indeed inside, there could be no mistake that my neighbor intended to roust him out.

Jake bounded up to Arch’s room ahead of me. Scout, our adopted stray cat, slunk along behind the bloodhound, his long gray-and-brown hair, like Arch’s, turned electric from being suddenly roused. Following my animal escort, I silently thanked God that none of us had been hurt, and that we had great neighbors. The cat scooted under the bed used by Julian Teller, our former boarder, now a sophomore at the University of Colorado. Arch asked for a third time what had happened. I didn’t want to frighten him. So I lied.

“It just…looks as if some drunk staggered up from the Grizzly Saloon, took aim at our living-room window, and shot it out. I don’t know whether the guy used a shotgun or a rifle. Whatever it was, he wasn’t too plastered to miss.”

My son nodded slowly, not sure whether to believe me. He shouldn’t have, of course. The Grizzly closed early on Sunday night.

I stared at the hands on Arch’s new clock, a gift from his fencing coach. The clock was in the shape of a tiny knight holding a sword, from which a timepiece

dangled. When the hands pointed to four-twenty-five, a wail of sirens broke the tense silence. I pushed aside Arch’s faded orange curtains and peeked out his window. Two sheriff’s department vehicles hurtled down our street and parked at the curb.

I raced back to Tom’s and my bedroom and slid into jeans, a sweatshirt, and clogs. Had someone unintentionally fired a gun? Was the damage to our window just some stupid accident? Surely it couldn’t have been deliberate. And of all the times for this to happen…

I started downstairs. Today was supposed to herald my first big job in five weeks, a luncheon gig at a Gothic chapel on an estate dominated by a genuine English castle. The castle was one of Aspen Meadow’s gorgeous – but - weird landmarks. If things went well, the castle-owner - who was hoping to open a conference center at the site - promised to be a huge client. I didn’t want anything to mess up today’s job.

Then again, I fretted as I gripped the railing, I was a caterer married to a cop, a cop working on a case so difficult he’d been forced to search for a suspect two thousand miles away. Perhaps the gunshot had been a message for Tom.

Outside, the red-and-blue lights flashing on snow-covered pines created monstrous shadows. The sight of cop cars was not unfamiliar to me. Still, my throat tightened as I wrenched open our front door. Bill and the other gun-toters looked at me sympathetically.

Why would someone shoot at the house of a caterer.?

I swallowed hard

Did I really wont to know?

-2-

Two cops trod up the icy path to our door. The first was tall and decidedly corpulent, the second short and slight, with a dark mustache set off by pale skin. “Mrs. Schulz?” asked the tall one. “I’m Deputy Wyatt. This is Deputy Vaughan.”

I nodded and shook their hands. I remembered both of them from the department Christmas party, which was actually held three days before New

Year’s, since Christmas and New Year’s themselves are always high-crime days. While the impromptu posse, three neighbors plus Bill, looked on curiously, I thanked the cops for responding so quickly.

Wyatt, who had dark, intelligent eyes,

addressed me in a low, terse voice. “We’re going to secure your house. Then we’ll need to talk to your neighbors.” He took off his hat, revealing a head thinly covered with dark brown hair. “After that, we’ll want to talk to you.”

I let him in while Vaughan stepped aside and talked quietly to the men on the porch. With most of the front window missing, it seemed silly to shut the door firmly behind Wyatt. But I did anyway. Amazing how old habits diehard.

Once I’d turned on the living-room lights, Wyatt stepped toward the window. He frowned at the glass fangs hanging from the casement. Frigid air poured through the hole. The deputy gave a barely perceptible nod and began to move through the house.

Arch’s music wafted down from upstairs. Unrhythmic thumps - Jake’s tail hitting the floor - indicated the bloodhound had stayed with him. Now there was a recipe for comfort: rock and roll, plus a canine companion.

The icy February air made me shiver. I headed to the kitchen, where I could close the hall door against the chill. There, I could also turn on the oven. My oven was to me what Arch’s music was to him.

But heating the oven wasn’t enough. My mind continued to cough up questions, and I moved nervously from one window to the next. Who shot at us? Why would someone do such a thing? Outside, flashes of the police car lights blinked across the snow-sculpted yard. Should I call Tom now, or should I wait? Would they assign this case to him?

In the basement, I could hear Wyatt’s scraping shuffle as he moved from Tom’s office into the storage room, bathroom, laundry room, closets… . The hole in the window meant I could just hear Vaughan’s low murmur on the front porch, interspersed with responses from one or the other of the neighbors. How much longer would they leave me here? Could the shooter be inside? Impossible. But might he not still be somewhere outside? Unlikely, I reasoned.

I hugged myself as cold air streamed under the door between the kitchen and the hall. How was I supposed to work in my kitchen today if it was so doggone cold? And anyway, a hot oven wasn’t going to make me feel any better unless I actually put something into it. Something hot and flaky, something you could slather with jam and butter, or even whipped cream… .

Again the gunshot echoed in my ears. I couldn’t stop trembling. Where were the cops? Why was it so cold in here?

I needed comfort. I was going to make scones. I felt better immediately.

I heated water to plump the currants, powered up my kitchen computer, and rummaged in our walk-in refrigerator for unsalted butter. I’d done a great deal of research on English food for the catering stint I was starting, and what I’d learned had been fascinating. Scones had first been mentioned as a Scottish food in the sixteenth century. Since that meant the Tudors might have indulged in the darling little pastries, my new client was desperate for a good recipe.

Intriguing as the notion of the perfect scone might be, the ability to concentrate eluded me. Fretting about how long it might take to get our window repaired, I smeared a stick of butter on the marble counter. When the gunshot blast reechoed in my brain, I forgot the stopper for the food processor. A blizzard of flour whirled up to the ceiling, then settled on my face. When I coughed and jumped back, my elbow smacked a carton; a river of heavy whipping cream glug-glug-glugged onto my computer keyboard. I was cursing mightily when Wyatt and Vaughan finally pounded into the kitchen. Surveying the mess, their eyes widened.

“I’m cooking,” I told them, my voice fierce.

“So I see,” said Wyatt. He cleared his throat. “Umm… Why don’t you have a seat for a minute?”

I shut down the computer and unplugged it, turned the keyboard over to drain, turned off the food processor, and wiped the flour from my face. Without missing a beat, Wyatt launched into his report. Thankfully, he’d found nothing amiss - no sign of forced entry, no strangers lurking in closets or under beds. Investigators and techs, he assured me, would be along in no time to process the scene.

I offered them hot drinks. Both declined as they settled at our oak kitchen table. I fixed myself an espresso, picked up the dripping cream carton, and poured the last of the white stuff into my coffee. Fortitude, I reminded myself. The kitchen air was like the inside of a refrigerator. I should have put on two sweatshirts.

“I remember you,” Wyatt said, a mischievous smile playing over his lips. “And not just because you’re married to Tom Schulz. You’re the one who’s gotten kinda involved in some investigations, right?”

I sighed and nodded. Vaughan chuckled. “Seems to me we’ve ribbed Schulz about that a time or two. We asked him, why don’t you just give her a job?”

Didn’t these guys care about our shattered window? Why weren’t they digging bullets out of my living-room wall? Or searching for footprints in the snow? “Thanks, guys,” I replied. “‘I’ve got a job. A business. Which this incident is not going to help. And I also have a son who needs to be protected,” I reminded them grimly.

Getting serious, the deputies fired questions at me. What had I heard? When? Why was I so sure it was a gunshot? Had I actually seen anything out the window? Had Arch?

Warmed by the coffee, I gave short answers while Wyatt took notes. But I faltered when he asked if any member of our family had received threats lately.

“There was something involving the department about a month ago,” Wyatt prompted me, when I didn’t immediately answer. “You’re the caterer who turned in the Lauderdales. New Year’s Eve? Child abuse, right?”

“Yes,” I replied. “I turned in Buddy’s-your-buddy, the

Castle Scones

4 cup currants 2 cups all-purpose flour 2 tablespoons sugar 1 tablespoon baking powder 1 teaspoon salt 4 tablespoons well-chilled unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces 1 large egg 4 cup whipping cream 4 cup milk 2 teaspoons sugar (optional) butter, whipped cream, jams, curds, and marmalades

Place the currants in a medium-sized bowl and pour boiling water over them just to cover. Allow to stand for 10 minutes. Drain the currants, pat them dry with paper towels, and set aside.

Preheat the oven to 400°F.

Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, and, a food processor fitted with a steel blade. With the motor running, add the butter and process until the mixture looks like cornmeal. In a separate bowl, beat the egg slightly with the cream and milk. With the motor still running, pour the egg mixture in a thin stream into the flour mixture just until the dough holds together in a ball. Fold in the currants. On a floured surface, lightly pat the dough into 2 circles, each about 7 inches in diameter. Cut each circle into 6 even pieces. Place the scones on a buttered, baking sheet 2 inches apart. Sprinkle them with the optional sugar, if desired.

Bake about 15 minutes, or until the scones are puffed, golden, and cooked through. Serve with butter, whipped cream, and jams.

Makes 12 scones

Jag’s-in-the-bag Lauderdale. He shook his baby daughter until the poor child passed out.”

Wyatt looked up from his notebook and scowled. “You were doing a party there, isn’t that what I heard?” he asked. “Big party, even though the guy’s facing bankruptcy or something?”

Or something. Buddy Lauderdale’s rumored financial difficulties had been widely reported, along with his arrest. According to the whispers, dutifully conveyed in the newspapers, the new, expanded Lauderdale Luxury Imports, situated near the fancy new Furman East Shopping Center, was about to go belly-up.

Buddy Lauderdale, fiftyish, swarthy, and boasting a full head of newly plugged hair, had scoffed at the rumors. With his ultrachic, fifteen-years-his-junior second wife Chardé, Buddy had thrown an extravagant New Year’s party to show the world just how rich and confident he was. And I’d been booked to do the catering, thanks to the recommendation of Howie Lauderdale, a star sophomore on the Elk Park Prep fencing team. Sixteen-year-old Howie, who’d befriended Arch, was the product of Buddy’s first marriage. Naďvely, I’d thought the father would be as nice as the son.

All had gone well on New Year’s Eve, I recounted at the cops’ prompting, until about eleven-thirty, when Buddy and Howie had put on a fencing demonstration for their guests. Unfortunately, Patty Lauderdale, the cute-as-a-button one-year-old daughter of Buddy and Chardé had started to wail just as the demonstration began. Buddy had ordered me to take the baby away, which I had. In the kitchen, I’d rocked, cooed, and sung to the screaming Patty, all to no avail. The child should have been in bed, of course, but the parents had wanted to show her off to their guests. Impatient with the racket, Buddy had stormed into the kitchen. In the presence of no other adult but me, he’d grabbed little Patty from my arms. Over my protests, he’d shaken that poor child until she choked, her eyes rolled back in her head, and she lost consciousness.

So yes, I’d called the cops. Patty had been removed from the family home for a week. After an investigation, the Lauderdales, who had no priors, had been cleared of child abuse. Little Patty, reportedly still undergoing neurological tests, had been returned to her parents. But I’ve learned to suspect the corrupting power of money, influence, and lawyers. Through friends, I’d heard that the Lauderdales had sworn they were going to get Goldy. They insisted that good old Buddy had just been trying to be a good parent. And they also claimed that their name and their business had been irreparably harmed by my call to law enforcement. A hysterically toned Mountain Journal article, discussing the incident and my own history of spouse abuse, had not helped the situation. Beside the article had been two pictures. The first was of Buddy Lauderdale from his Jag’s-in-the-bag TV commercials, where he wore a hunting outfit, toted a rifle, and had a large bag slung over his shoulder. The second was of him being led away from his home in handcuffs.

“Heard from the Lauderdales lately?” Wyatt asked now.

I shook my head, but my heart sank. Unfortunately, Chardé Lauderdale was designing and implementing the makeover for the interior of Hyde Castle, where I would be catering later in the week. Chardé had also overseen the redecoration of Hyde Chapel, where I would be working later today. Make that, where I was hoping to work later today, if I could find a place to cook that had heat, ovens, and windows without bullet holes.

“Do you know of any recent threats made against Tom?” asked Vaughan.

I sighed and said no. If anyone had threatened him, I reminded them, there ought to be a record of it at the department. The hijacking-homicide case that had taken Tom out of state involved a heist from a Furman County store named The Stamp Fox. One of the envelopes in the hijacked delivery truck - the main target of the thieves - had contained collectible stamps worth over three million dollars. The Stamp Fox had been shipping the stamps in a plain FedEx envelope to a philatelic show in Tucson. So much for transmitting valuables incognito. When the FedEx driver resisted, he’d been shot dead.

“Tom’s supposed to come back today,” I told Wyatt and Vaughan. “He’s been looking for a local fellow who’s been connected to the delivery-truck hijacking. Name’s Andy Balachek.”

“Isn’t Balachek the kid with a gambling problem?” demanded Wyatt. “Stole his dad’s excavation truck and then sold it? Got involved with Ray Wolff?”

I nodded. This, too, had been in the papers. Andy Balachek’s friendship with Ray Wolff, the infamous hijacker now behind bars in the Furman County Jail, had proved costly to the naďve twenty-year-old. As one of Wolffs known associates, Andy had been questioned. The night of the hijacking, Andy’s father had had a heart attack. Then Tom had arrested Ray Wolff, who’d left a fingerprint on the steering wheel of the hijacked FedEx truck, at a storage area on the county

line. Wolff, vowing revenge, had spat in Tom’s face before being led away in handcuffs.

I knew, but I was not sure that Wyatt and Vaughan knew, that Andy Balachek had confirmed the department’s suspicions of his partnership with Ray Wolff. A few days after the theft, Andy had contacted Tom, requesting Tom communicate with him via e-mail. Andy was interested in a plea deal. The county D.A. had told Tom to string Andy along. Fearing his father was not long for this world, and needing to clear his conscience, Andy had been the one who’d tipped Tom off to Wolff’s visit to the storage area. Then Andy had e-mailed Tom saying that he’d gotten a stake and was heading for Atlantic City. And off Tom had gone - to find him.

“Any other problematic cases Tom might have mentioned?” Deputy Vaughan persisted. “Somebody else have an ax to grind with him?”

I frowned and thought back to the e-mail account Tom had been forced to set up on his computer at home, because Andy Balachek had insisted he wouldn’t send any correspondence directly to the sheriff’s department. It had been out of character for Tom to take so much time to work at home. But he had, until he’d packed up for New Jersey. No, I didn’t know whether Tom was working on other problematic cases. What I did know was that he’d been working too hard.

“Did he mention threats from Balachek?” asked Vaughan.

“When Balachek e-mailed Tom that he was leaving the state, Tom immediately got approval from Captain Lambert to go looking for him.”

Vaughan raised his eyebrows, as in, That’s it?

“And you, Mrs. Schulz?” asked Wyatt. “Aside from the Lauderdales. Anyone else you know might want to take a shot at you? Or your son, for that matter?”

Wyatt scribbled as I told him that Arch’s father, my ex-husband, was being considered for parole, actually an early release, because of his so-called “good behavior.” I added that serving less than five months of a three-year sentence didn’t seem like much of a punishment for beating the daylights out of a woman. No, I told them, John Richard wasn’t in jail for assaulting me. Or his other ex-wife, my best friend, Marla Korman. Not this time. I added that the idea of the Jerk being a model prisoner was an oxymoron on the order of fat-free butter. I told both deputies that John Richard could be out of jail anytime. But I was supposed to receive a notice from the Department of Corrections before that happened.

I fell silent. Wyatt and Vaughan studied me. The coffee was no longer hot; my teeth were chattering. Wyatt got up and called to the team who’d arrived and begun working in our living room. A policewoman brought in a quilt. I thanked her and wrapped myself up in the thick handmade comforter, sewn by county volunteers for crime victims.

“Any neighbors who might pose problems?” Wyatt’s partner asked patiently. “Those guys outside look a tad trigger-happy.” Was that a hint of a grin on Wyatt’s face? I gushed that our neighbors were all terrific. The last time a neighbor had shot at anything, it had been a woodpecker. But he’d really hated that bird; his skirmishes with it were the stuff of neighborhood legend. And anyway, after he’d fired, the woodpecker had flown away, unscathed.

“Are there any other folks,” Vaughan pressed, “any other clients, you might have had trouble with?”

“Ordinarily,” I replied, “my clients only get upset if I don’t show up.” My throat closed. What was I supposed to do about the lunch? The bullet-smashed window made it too cold to do the crucial last part of the necessary food-prep here at home, unless I could quickly find a repairman to put plywood over the window. I had to honor my luncheon commitment at Hyde Chapel. If I wasn’t able to get the window fixed, could I do my cooking in the castle kitchen? Would the Hydes want me to arrive at the castle before sunup? Gooseflesh pimpled my arms, and I sighed.

Wyatt closed his notebook. The phone rang. I bolted for it, hoping it was Tom.

“Goldy, it’s Boyd,” said the gravelly voice of Sergeant Boyd, one of Tom’s closest friends in the department.

“Oh,” I said, trying to hide my disappointment. “Did you hear about the -

“

“It’s why I’m calling,” he interrupted. Boyd had a no-nonsense attitude that was complemented by his barrel-shaped body and unfashionable crew cut, all of which I had come to cherish. Tom trusted his life to Boyd, as did I. “Listen,” he said now. “I want you out of there.”

“I’m thinking about it,” I protested. “I’m also thinking our window just needs some plywood - “

“Forget it. Your security system needs to be rewired and the house may not be safe. I’ve already talked to Armstrong.” Sergeant Armstrong, who worked with Boyd, was another friend and ace investigator. “We want you to get out and stay out until Tom gets back. It is not safe there. You and Arch can hole up in my spare bedroom if you want. Armstrong’s family is willing to have you, too.”

I thought of the minuscule kitchen in Boyd’s bachelor apartment, and of the chaos Armstrong’s six children wrought wherever they went. “Thanks. I don’t - “

“We’ll get your window fixed, don’t worry. And your security system, too. But we need to find out who did this to you.”

“Okay,” I agreed reluctantly, knowing Tom would want me to do whatever Boyd recommended. “I’ll … make some arrangement.”

“Good. Talk to you later.” I thanked him, hung up, and told the deputies what Boyd had said. Both seemed relieved. After all, the house would be too cold and too dangerous to stay in, at least for that day. So what other impromptu arrangement was I supposed to come up with? What friend can you call at four-thirty in the morning, to ask for refuge and a large kitchen?

During the current remodeling of her guest bedroom, my best friend Marla Korman - who always claimed that the Jerk had married her for her inherited fortune, which she’d refused to share with him during their brief marriage - had staked out a suite at Denver’s Brown Palace Hotel. I knew Marla would have welcomed me, even at that ungodly morning hour. But the sixty-five-minute trip back from downtown Denver to Aspen Meadow, to cater at Hyde Chapel between ferrying Arch to and from school, was simply not feasible. Plus, the Brown probably wouldn’t look kindly on yours truly invading their restaurant kitchen.

Reluctantly, I realized that whatever I decided, I would soon have to call the Hydes - Eliot and Sukie - proprietors of Hyde Castle. The Elk Park Prep fencing coach, Michaela Kirovsky, doubled as a caretaker at the castle. She had mentioned to Arch that the couple who owned the castle would not mind if both of us stayed there while Tom was gone. Staying there, Michaela had kindly suggested, might even make my upcoming castle catering jobs easier for all concerned. But it was far too early to call the Hydes. And I didn’t know how impromptu Michaela Kirovsky’s invitation had been. Maybe the Hydes didn’t want their caterer underfoot. Their caterer and her son, I reminded myself.

What would Tom want us to do? I had no idea. I had stayed in the home of clients before, when my ex-husband had been making threats, and before our house had a security system. But those clients had been relatives of Marla’s. Working for Eliot and Sukie Hyde was purely a business arrangement.

Without enthusiasm, I made a decision: I’d just have to pack up my son, myself, and all the food, drive to the castle gates, and give the Hydes a ring from my cellular. If they said they wouldn’t have us, then I’d have to come up with another plan.

As Deputy Wyatt sent out a newly arrived pair of deputies to canvass my neighbors, the video team arrived. I went upstairs to pack a few things and asked Arch, to do the same. My son announced that the first thing we had to do was find someone to take care of Jake and Scout. I called Bill’s wife, Trudy - their lights were all on, so I knew she was up - and made arrangements for our pets. It would only be until I could come up with a repair plan, I assured Trudy, trying to sound confident and also apologetic, for calling at this hour. But she was wide-awake and glad to help. In fact, it seemed as if all the folks on our street were up. They were either entertaining neighbors in their kitchens, clomping up and down the icy sidewalk, or sipping coffee on the curbs while exchanging theories on the shooting. The incident at our home had turned into a predawn block party. Welcome to the mountains.

I tossed my pj’s, toothbrush, and a work outfit into a suitcase, then reentered the kitchen just as Wyatt finished interviewing the canvassing team. The deputy’s face pinched in dismay when I asked if any of my neighbors had seen anything. One woman - the wife of one of the gun-toters - had reported hearing something moving on the ice-slickened street. After the gunshot, she’d glanced out her window and made out someone bundled into a bulky coat hustling away from our house. Judging from the person’s muscular build and swaggering stride, she thought the figure was that of a man. The person she’d glimpsed, she insisted, had had a rifle tucked expertly under his arm.

“We’ll keep working on it,” Wyatt reassured me, in a kindly voice. “By the way, I called Captain Lambert. Since the department employs your husband, and this may be connected to an official inquiry, we’ll handle finding a janitorial service to clean up the glass and an electrician to redo your security system. The department will have the window replaced, too,” he added.

I thanked him and, trying to smile, asked if bulletproof glass was available.

Wyatt’s reply was humorless. “We’ll look into that. And Mrs. Schulz? We’ll need to know where you’re heading.”

“I’m going to show up a little early at a client’s house… . I have a booking today at Hyde Chapel, by the estate,” I replied. Wyatt copied the Hydes’ number from my client directory. “If that doesn’t work out, I’ll give you a call - “

“The Hydes?” Wyatt asked suspiciously. “They live in that big castle up on the hill? Poltergeist Palace?”

“I’ve heard it called that,” I said. “But I don’t truck in ghosts.”

He frowned. “The chapel you’re working at is that one down by Cottonwood Creek where people used to have weddings? Looks like a little cathedral?”

“The Hydes gave the chapel to Saint Luke’s,” I told him, “but they’re still involved in running the place. I’m… just starting to work for them,” I added, wondering at Wyatt’s sudden interest. My paranoia engine must have been in overdrive, though, because Wyatt merely grunted.

Just after five-thirty, Jake was ensconced, but not happily, at Bill and Trudy Quincy’s house. Trudy had promised to take in the mail, monitor the cleanup and window repairs, and care for Scout the cat, who’d refused to leave his post under Julian’s bed. Arch and I tucked two suitcases into the back of the van Tom had bought me for Christmas. My chest felt like stone. I hated leaving our house.

I filled a carton with my mixer, blender, favorite wooden spoons, and assorted culinary equipment. In our walk-in refrigerator, I’d already assembled the ingredients for the steak pies and chicken croquettes, plus their accompanying sauces. After transporting those boxes to my van, I packed up frozen containers of homemade chicken stock and frozen loaves of manchet bread - the sort eaten by Tudor royalty, Eliot Hyde had informed me - and fresh beans and field greens, along with almost-ripe dark Damson plums. Last, I packed two fragrant, freshly stewed chickens.

A chicken in every pot, Herbert Hoover had promised, when speaking of the delights of the prosperous household. What would Hoover have said about being forced from one’s home, clutching the cooked birds in a box?

-3-

My new van chugged the short distance to Main Street. There, darkened shop windows and ice-crusted pavement mirrored the gloomy glow from our town’s rustic street lamps. Exhaust-blackened heaps of snow clogged the gutters. A rusty van and what looked like an old BMW were parked across from the bank. Both had a forlorn look about them. I prayed that no homeless people were sleeping in those vehicles on this frigid morning. Not only did our small mountain town have no motels, it also possessed no shelters. The occasional homeless person who attempted to brave the winter at eight thousand feet above sea level usually gave up and hitchhiked to California.

My tires crunched up to the icy curb. On the north side of the street, the Bank of Aspen Meadow’s digital numerals blinked that it was three below zero at thirty-eight minutes after five. Beside me, Arch scrunched down in his jacket. Heat poured from the humming engine while I stared up at the sky and tried to plan what to do next.

Furry, impenetrable clouds obscured the stars. The light of the rising sun would not begin creeping over the mountains for nearly an hour. I tugged my hat down over my ears and struggled to work out the logistics of a predawn appearance at Hyde Castle.

I’d first visited the Hydes during a freezing, mid-January fog. At the time, I’d been grateful for Sukie Hyde’s call. Ever since the unfortunate New Year’s party at the Lauderdales’, I’d been low. When the police had refused to bring an assault case against me - Buddy had claimed I hit him when I tried to wrench little Patty away from him - the Lauderdales’ lawyer had begun calling me, threatening civil suits. Self-proclaimed friends of the Lauderdales had either snubbed me or scolded me for dragging the name of a longtime Saint Luke’s Episcopal Church and Elk Park Prep supporter through the mud. Forget low. Until Sukie called, my mood had been subterranean.

I’d known Sukie casually for the past two years, through Saint Luke’s. A widowed Swiss émigrée, she had married the reclusive Eliot Hyde a little over a year ago. Her call to me in January had been to announce that she and Eliot intended to turn his family castle into a retreat center for high-end corporate customers. They’d been remodeling the castle for months, and now Eliot was eager to move ahead with his plans for historic Elizabethan meals - meals that would eventually be served to conference clients. Was I interested?

I practically choked saying, You bet, yes, please, absolutely, I adore history and the food that goes with it!

I was desperate for the booking; I was also curious to see the lavish work on the castle redo. Rumor had it that Eliot and Sukie had already spent several million dollars. Everyone in town knew that Sukie was a cleaning and organizing whiz. And good old Eliot Hyde must have thanked his lucky stars, rabbit’s feet, and four-leafed clovers when Sukie’s reputation had proved true.

When Sukie first arrived in Aspen Meadow, the story went, she was bored. Her husband, Carl Rourke, had owned a successful roofing company that many local high-school students, including Julian, had worked for. Sadly, Carl had died on the job, in a freak electrical accident. After a year of widowhood, Sukie’s loneliness had made her restless. Figuring her obsessive tidiness ought to be worth something, she’d advertised to work as a personal organizer.

Her first and last client was Eliot Hyde. Never married, virtually penniless, Eliot was a former academic who had retreated to the castle he’d inherited after being denied tenure at an East Coast college. The castle itself, built in Sussex, had been bought by Eliot’s grandfather, silver baron Theodore Hyde, on a trip to England in the twenties. Belonging to a line of earls, the castle had been uninhabited since the time of Cromwell. Like the parvenus making social splashes with their enormous palaces in Newport, Rhode Island, silver-baron Theodore had apparently hoped his castle would give him the social cachet of an actual baron. He had the castle disassembled in England, then he hired a team to reassemble the royal residence in Aspen Meadow. He dammed up Fox Creek that flowed down the hill to the castle, to make a moat. He hired a fleet of servants to keep the place sparkling. Among his employees were a Russian fencing-master to teach him historic martial arts, and a butler to bring him tea and scones each day at four o’clock.

Unfortunately, Theodore and his wife Millicent had disliked tea and found fencing exhausting. The butler quit; the fencing-master, Michaela Kirovsky’s grandfather, became the castle caretaker. The Hydes, meanwhile, decided that what they really liked was collecting old European buildings. Once the castle was in place, they purchased a thirteenth-century French chapel that was a mini-version of Chartres. That Gothic jewel had been painstakingly reconstructed not far from the castle, on the Hydes’ sloping forty acres below Fox Creek and above Cottonwood Creek, the wide body of water that runs through Aspen Meadow. Then, before their dreams of purchasing a ruined abbey could be realized, Theodore and Millicent had both been killed in a railroad accident.

Their only son, Edwin - facing a Depression economy, played-out silver mines, and no financial assets aside from his parents’ estate - had tried to turn the castle into a hotel. This failed, as did mounting Aspen Meadow’s first and last circus on the castle grounds. After hiring ranchers to cart away mountains of elephant manure, Edwin and his wife had been reduced to charging for tours of the castle.

Their son, Eliot, had returned to the castle almost nine years ago, after his parents’ death and his own failure in academia. At thirty-nine, he hadn’t accumulated much in the way of savings, and those had drained swiftly away as he, too, struggled to make a living from giving tours and renting out the French chapel by Cottonwood Creek, now christened Hyde Chapel. By the time Eliot hired Sukie to organize the place, he’d stopped the tours and sunk into a depression. Income from renting the chapel was down, and stories in town had him living like a hermit in one room of his castle.

The family of the fencing-master, meanwhile, had been offered one whole wing of the castle rent-free, as long as they remained the caretakers. It was in their palatial fencing loft that young Michaela Kirovsky’s grandfather and father had taught her to fence, a skill that subsequently provided income for her, when she became the fencing coach at Elk Park Prep. Beside me, Arch was fast asleep. There was more to the tale of Eliot Hyde and Sukie Rourke. In fact, the months-old series of events were now routinely chronicled by townsfolk over coffee and doughnuts. Oddly, You can’t be too clean seemed to be the moral of the story.

When then forty-seven-year-old Eliot hired thirty-five-year-old Sukie, she had crisply informed him that she, would not work in the castle as long as the stench remained from the castle’s medieval toilets. Unfortunately, these thirty-three so-called “garderobes” - actually ancient narrow bathrooms corbeled out over the castle walls - had not been cleaned before leaving England. Also central to the Sukie story was an acknowledgment of one of the flaws of medieval military architecture: Each garderobe had its own shaft into the moat. Those shafts had proved a convenient, if messy, mode of entry to attackers of Richard the Lionheart’s Château Gaillard on the Seine, but Sukie hadn’t cared about old tales of invaders. Back in medieval days, each castle garderobe shaft emptied into a cesspit or the moat itself, both of which had been periodically cleaned out. But the medieval folks had not cleaned the garderobe shafts. Ever. After all these years, they still stank.

Yes, the story went, medieval courtiers had tossed down herbs, straw, and old letters to absorb some of the filth, but the latrine stench invariably sent foul smells throughout the castle. The British construction folks who’d taken the castle apart eighty years earlier to be shipped here to America had pulled down the shafts in sections. And the shafts had also been reassembled that way, much to Sukie’s disgust.

So: For Sukie’s first order of organizing business, she’d had each and every garderobe and shaft disassembled to be cleaned and disinfected.

And then. Think of flushing things down the toilet, I’d said to Arch, when Sukie’s subsequent discovery made national headlines. You might flush down things that made you angry, like a dunning bill for canceled phone service, or a Dear John letter from someone who’d sworn to love you forever. Or… say you received a letter from the government denying you guardianship of your beloved, orphaned nephew. That denial made you so enraged, you threw that bureaucrat’s epistle down the toilet shaft, where it… stuck… .

In 1533, that was just what the Earl of Uckfield had done. His petition to raise his wealthy nine-year-old nephew, the orphan of his ultrarich brother-in- law, a duke, had been turned down by the monarch. In a fury, the earl had flung that letter down one of his garderobe shafts. And that was where the missive had stayed for over four centuries. It had taken a compulsively clean Swiss woman, ordering that the shaft be scrubbed, before the discovery was made.

The letter denying the earl custody of his nephew had been signed by Henry VIII. It bore the king’s initials, H. R., and his royal seal.

The letter sold for twelve million pounds at Spink’s, a leading London auction gallery. Eliot had immediately married Sukie, christening her his twenty-million-dollar woman. After their honeymoon, he announced to the media, Sukie would be embarking on a cleaning expedition of the other thirty-two garderobe shafts in the castle.

She hadn’t found anything else. Eliot hadn’t minded.

The day after Sukie’s call, I’d gone to Hyde Castle. Once seated in the imposing living room, I drank tea and ate stale, mail-ordered scones, made tolerable only by heaping tablespoons of homemade strawberry jam, Eliot’s one and only specialty. With great fanfare, tall, handsome Eliot Hyde brewed our tea. Eliot dressed like an F. Scott Fitzgerald character; for tea, he wore herringbone knickerbockers and a silk scarf. When he brewed the tea, there was no dumping of hot water over a teabag. No: Eliot tossed his silk scarf over his shoulder, removed the lid from a bone china teapot in the shape of a prissy-faced English butler, cleared his throat, and meticulously, s-l-o-w-I-y poured boiling water over Golden Tips leaves. Then he covered the pot with a cozy. Finally, he asked Sukie honeykins, as he called her, to time the steeping.

Good tea, bad food, I’d reflected, as I sipped the dark brew moments later. I’m going to love this place.

I’d told them yes, February was almost completely open for me. My son was in school every day. And I could hire Julian

Teller, our former boarder, to help with the catering, as he was taking only a half-load this semester at the University of Colorado. Plus, I added, Julian had toured the castle during his time at Elk Park Prep, and knew his way around.

I’d listened to their food proposals, nodded, and written up a contract. Eliot’s ideas sounded awfully work-intensive, but focusing on paying work, instead of on the Lauderdales, their bloodthirsty lawyer, and their Jaguar-driving cronies, was a welcome relief. In the end, Eliot and Sukie had booked Goldilocks’ Catering for two events. First would be an Anglophile lunch in appreciation of the big donors who’d paid for the new marble labyrinth set into the floor of Hyde Chapel. The second was an Elizabethan feast that would double as the end-of-season banquet for the Elk Park Prep fencing team. Eliot had been quick to clarify that the Tudor upper crust had only seen a feast as a grand meal. A banquet, on the other hand, had

been an elaborate dessert course served later, often in a charming banquet-house not unlike our modern gazebo. These days, the terms feast and banquet had become synonymous, alas. In any event, Michaela Kirovsky wanted to hold her team’s banquet at the castle.

For the opportunity to test feast-giving in their Great Hall, Eliot and Sukie were picking up half the tab.

Eliot, meanwhile, would continue working, planning, and publicizing, to ready the castle for opening as a conference center.

“That’s my dream,” he’d informed me, although his dark brown eyes looked unexpectedly sad. Above the creamy silk shirt and scarf, he had a beautifully featured, smooth-shaven face, framed by long, wavy, light brown hair. If my catered events went well, he added, we’d work out further bookings featuring historic English food.

I’d set aside any hesitation. My only other February commitment was making cookies and punch for the Elk Park Prep Valentine’s Day Dance. The chapel lunch had been scheduled for today, Monday; the Elizabethan feast, for this Friday. I’d asked Michaela Kirovsky if the fencing team wanted swordfish. Her white hair had jounced around her pale face as she laughed at my suggestion. No swordfish, Eliot had protested. The recipes he wanted me to test on the students and their parents were more of the English court variety. So I’d ordered veal roasts, to be served with a potato dish, a shrimp dish for those Catholics who’d rejected Vatican II, a rice dish, a plum tart… and Eliot and I would come up with the rest of the details this week.

Okay. Back to the present, to five minutes to six, to be exact. The sun would be rising soon on a day which found Arch and me temporarily homeless. Time to get moving.

To get to the castle, the van would have to pass through antique gates that were over half a mile from the castle itself. Those gates, bearing the Hyde coat of arms and several other painted shields Sukie had unearthed in a Denver antique shop, had been open when I’d visited three weeks ago. Were they electronically armed before sunup? I had no idea.

I stared again at the bank’s digital clock. The van was becoming warm. If I waited too long, the cooked chicken would begin to spoil. After the first question of catering: How does the food look.? there is always the second consideration: How does it hold up? Because you were never going to get to the third question: How does it taste? if it had all turned moldy green.

With sudden decisiveness, I made a U-turn on Main Street and followed ice-carved Cottonwood Creek as it flowed eastward. Every now and then, spotlights from a cabin lit up the creek. On the patches of ice, fallen snow lay strewn like spills of popcorn. Steam rose from the trickle of the creek that had not frozen.

Just beyond a Texaco station, I slowed. A lighted sign on the left side of the road indicated the entry to county-owned Cottonwood Park. This meant I was getting close to the castle. On my left, the heavily forested hills of the park rose steeply from the road. On the right, the creek was now invisible. I pressed the accelerator resolutely and the van chugged forward.

A moment later, headlights glared in my rearview mirror. I skidded onto the shoulder. We were just over half a mile from the castle. When someone shoots your window out, everything is suspect. Arch, who’d awakened, checked the side view. The vehicle passed us at a noisy clip and roared on eastward, down the canyon.

“We’re on our way to Hyde Castle,” I said to Arch. His face within his jacket hood became wary. “Poltergeist Palace? That’s where the people want you to fix the historic food?”

“Exactly. Let’s hope they’re awake.” I frowned. First the cop, now my son. Did everyone except me believe in ghosts? “Why exactly is it called Poltergeist Palace?”

“Jeez, Mom, don’t you know? The ghost

of the earl’s nephew, that the famous letter was about? After his uncle told him he couldn’t stay with the uncle’s family, the kid got sick. He died of pneumonia. Anyway, he’s supposed to run around the place at night, carrying a sword.”

“Does he hang out in the kitchen?”

“I don’t know. Michaela’s been telling us about the Great Hall, where the banquet will be on Friday night,” Arch went on. “We’re going to do a fencing demonstration before we eat.”

I powered up the cellular and pressed in the Hydes’ number. Sukie, sounding only slightly groggy, answered on the second ring. I tried to make our plight sound humorous. Not fooled, she asked in a hoarse, concerned voice where we were. Heading east, I told her, along the creek. She consulted with Eliot, then came back. When she was less than fully awake, her accent was more noticeable. Ze gates arh oh-pen, she announced. I should take care on the driveway, she cautioned, as it was long, winding, and not well lit. She gave me the security-pad code for the castle gatehouse - the imposing, twin-towered entrance to the castle itself - and said please to come immediately. I was profusely thankful.

As Arch and I passed through the quiet canyon, a light snow began to fall. To our right, Hyde Chapel appeared, its two spires silhouetted by a street lamp. The chapel had its own bridge across the creek, which looked romantically inviting in the darkness. Maybe that was where the earl’s ghostly nephew was now hanging out.

A few moments later, I turned at the paved castle driveway and drove over another old bridge spanning Cottonwood Creek. More grim coats of arms had been wired to the high iron fence that circled the castle property. With my new concern for security, I would have to ask the Hydes about how they kept undesirables out of their castle. Hearing the details of my shot-out-window story, perhaps Eliot and Sukie would reconsider their kind invitation.

The driveway wound past spotlit boulders, tall, creaking lodgepole pines, stands of white-skinned aspens, thickets of chokecherry bushes, and blue spruces in perfect Christmas-tree shapes. When the van suddenly thudded over a large rock, I reminded myself to drive more carefully, or risk becoming part of a not-so-scenic overlook.

We followed the twisting drive upward until my headlights illuminated snow-crusted boulders marking the first parking area. At the edge of the lot, a one-lane wooden causeway beckoned. Beyond the bridge rose the castle itself.

I gulped. My previous visit had taken place during the day. In the predawn darkness, the stone fortress, built in medieval military style and rooted into a

forested hillside, looked far less inviting. Spotlights carved out the facade’s four crenellated towers, the high, arched gatehouse, and the widely spaced, narrow windows from which, centuries ago, archers had rained arrows down on their enemies. Snow spiraled onto the steaming moat. Above the water, creamy patches of fog drifted across the tower tops and into the trees.

Arch said, “Suppose they’d let me have my birthday party here?”

I grunted a negative as our tires thumped across the planks of the causeway. To keep the moat water from freezing, Sukie had ordered the installation of aerating pumps. That way, fish and wildfowl would make it through the winter. I smiled. Wealthy folks were always telling me how much they cared about the environment.

My cell phone bleated. Rather than risk driving off the causeway, I braked and put the van in parking gear. Arch peered down at the ducks huddled around one of the aerators.

“Good God, Goldy, where the hell are you?” Marla Korman’s voice sounded even more husky than usual. “I called your house and got some cop.”

“I’m at the Hydes’ castle. Or just about there,” I corrected. “It’s a long story.” Long or no, Marla would want to hear it. “A couple of hours ago, somebody shot out the picture window in our living room. There’s glass everywhere, and the cops wanted us out.”

Marla, usually a late sleeper, was silent. No matter the time of day, though, once she started talking, my friend rarely stopped. Below us, the causeway swayed slightly. Steam from the moat clouded our windows.

“Where’s Tom?” she demanded, her voice urgent. “About to leave New Jersey. I’m going to try to reach him as soon as I

get settled. We’re here because Arch and I needed a place to park until we get sorted out. I didn’t want to bother you this early.”

She groaned. “We should be together.” So all of us could be in danger? “Look, Marla,” I said, “thanks. But you don’t need to worry. Tom will be back late this morning. Everything is going to be fine.”

“Listen.” She lowered her voice to a murmur. “Is Arch with you?”

Suddenly I felt my son’s eyes on me. “Of course.” Marla said, “The parole board met Friday, Goldy. The Jerk’s out.”

-4-

I stared at the twin clouds of mist coiling upward from the moat’s aerators. It can’t be true.

“You there, Goldy?”

“I was supposed to get a letter…

.”

“You’re on the victim notification list?” She took a swig of something, probably orange juice. Marla never faced crises without food and drink. “I’m not on the list, but I told my lawyer to stay on top of John Richard’s petition for early release. Your notification is probably in the mail.”

“Lot of good that does me now.”

Marla said, “If you can’t come down here, I’ll drive up to the castle after I get dressed. I can be there in ninety minutes. Wait at the gate for me.”

There was a whirring in my ears that didn’t come from the cell phone. “No, Marla, please. Thanks, but don’t come this early - ” I faltered. I thought again of the noise that had awakened me. I’d heard a footstep on ice, but had it been a familiar one? Crack, gunshot, splintering glass. “Marla, did you tell the cops at our house? About him?” I glanced at Arch, who was pretending not to listen. He had fixed his eyes on one of the spotlit corner towers, tall granite drums where lookouts had once been posted. “Marla, did you tell them?” I tried not to hear the anxiety in my voice.

“Of course not. I didn’t know why the cops were there, and they sure weren’t about to tell me. All they’d say was that you were alive. So I had to talk to you.”

“I’d better call them back,” I said.

Marla started to say something, but the line cracked and blurred. Doggone it. The Department of Corrections had notified us when John Richard had first petitioned for early release. I’d appeared before the parole board in January, giving all the reasons why an early release was a very bad idea. Dr. John Richard Korman should serve at least the minimum - eight months - of his two-year sentence for assault. The Jerk believed he should serve no more than four months, and had cited his behavior as a model prisoner, which included using the Heimlich maneuver on another inmate who’d been choking on a hot dog.

Just in case the board did give him early parole, I’d obtained a temporary restraining order, to go into effect the moment his release took place. Then, if John Richard wanted to keep me in the dark about his plans, we could go before a judge and decide on parameters for visitations with Arch. But for the Jerk to be presented with a temporary order to keep away from me - just as he was about to taste freedom - probably wouldn’t sit very well. Had it sat so badly he’d felt it necessary to aim a gun at our house?

“Goldy - ” Marla’s voice crackled, then vanished. I stared at the moat. Bizarrely striped ducks - off-spring of discarded Easter ducklings breeding with the wild variety - huddled by the aerator. They looked as miserable as I felt.

“Mom!” Arch protested. “I’m cold!”

“Can you hear me?” Marla demanded so loudly that I winced. “Where exactly are you two?”

“I told you, we’re sitting outside Hyde Castle. I have a job here today.”

“Get inside. I‘11 call the cops about the Jerk. Then I’ll phone my lawyer and anyone else I can find. After that, I’ll come up. Isn’t the church having a luncheon at Hyde Chapel today? I think I got an invitation.”

“Yes. It’s a thank-you lunch for the people who paid for the labyrinth stones installed in Hyde Chapel. I’m doing the cooking.”

“I gave that fund five thousand bucks. Save me some cake.”

She signed off. I stared glumly at the three coats of arms hanging over the gatehouse entranceway. Each represented a baron and his soldiers, Sukie had told me, medieval protectors of one section of the fortress. That’s what I need, I thought, as I pressed gently on the gas. A militia for each part of my life. The van resumed its slow rumble across the wooden bridge.

“Mom? Is Dad out?”

“Yeah.” I kept my tone light. “Did you know he was being released?”

“I wasn’t sure. He hasn’t called me yet.” Arch spoke guardedly. “Viv said he might be out soon.”

“Viv knew he was getting out,” I repeated, for clarification.

Viv Martini, a slender, striking, twenty-nine-year-old sexpot, was John Richard’s current girlfriend. He’d met her in jail, where she’d been the girlfriend of another prisoner, until John Richard had exerted his charms on her. Or so Arch had reported. I’d seen Viv a few times. She wore her platinum hair David-Bowie-style, had breasts the size of cantaloupes, and sported a reputation of having slept with every rich, shady guy in the county. When Viv and the Jerk had become an item, I figured they deserved each other.

“Listen, Mom.” Arch’s voice became earnest. “Dad wouldn’t have shot at us. He’s no good with guns. He tried to learn early last summer, but every time he shot at a target, he missed by a zillion yards. Viv offered to teach him again, when he got out, but he said no. You know how Dad is when he can’t do something. He quits and says it’s dumb.”

The tires made a rhythmic whump whump whump over the causeway’s planks. I wondered, of course, why John Richard would even think he needed to learn to use a firearm.

The castle gatehouse loomed before us. Unlike the later gatehouses of manor houses, Eliot had solemnly informed me, the fortified entry of medieval times is the built-in entrance to the castle itself. The Hyde Castle gatehouse featured two portcullises, those massive wooden grilles raised to let in friends, and lowered to keep out foes. One stood at the front entry, the other could be lowered over the gatehouse’s rear entry facing the courtyard. This was in the event that enemies breached the rear, or postern, castle gate. When that happened, Eliot had concluded with pride, the castle inhabitants holed up in the gate house itself.

A hundred feet in front of the gatehouse, two single-story stone garages mirrored the contours of the twin towers of the gatehouse. To anyone looking straight at the immense stone facade from the bridge, the garages were indistinguishable from the castle itself. Inside the garages, six parking spaces had been marked out for vehicles. I accelerated over the last part of the bridge, pulled into a garage slot next to Eliot and Sukie’s matching silver Jaguars – hmm - and cut the van’s engine.

The thought of lugging my boxes all the way to the kitchen on less than three hours’ sleep was more than I could bear. Perhaps there was a hidden pulley system that delivered orders. At least I hadn’t been forced into the humiliation of using the servants’ entrance, as I had at the Lauderdales’ modern monstrosity in Flicker Ridge. The castle did not have a separate entry for servants, Eliot had loftily informed me, because the castle’s status as military outpost meant all the needs of the grand medieval household had to be met within the walls. Think self-sufficiency, he’d concluded, as he’d knotted the silk scarf with a flourish.

Arch and I jumped from the van. Dwarfed by the spotlit portcullis, we walked gingerly over the frost-slickened gravel. One of the Hydes must have registered our presence, for the portcullis rose smoothly even before we arrived. Behind the portcullis stood two formidable wooden doors.

I glanced at my son as our boots cracked across the icy gravel. Did Viv offer to teach you to shoot, too? Unfortunately, Viv was also an accomplished tae kwon do practitioner and fencer. Feeling more inferior than I cared to admit, I had signed up for the free weekly fencing lessons Michaela Kirovsky had offered team parents. I told myself it was to keep up with Arch, but deep down I suspected it was to keep up with Viv. Which I couldn’t do, as it turned out. My first three lessons, I’d suffered claustrophobia from the mask, thighs so sore I’d been unable to walk, and confidence so shattered I’d dropped out of class.

Come to think of it, could Viv have shot out our window? Why would she do that?

A speaker on the security keypad beeped. The massive doors creaked open.

“Gol-dy!” Sukie Hyde’s cheery, familiar voice made a ringing echo on the ancient stones. “You’re here!”

“Yes, we are!” I called back with what I hoped was a self-assured voice. “Thanks for having us!”

Sukie, wearing a full-length, forest green coat, cooed at Arch and me as she bustled toward us. “Look at you two!” she exclaimed. Worry furrowed her rosy-cheeked face as she assessed us for damage. Looking younger than her late thirties, unpretentiously cheery and

always happy to see you, Sukie was plumply appealing, like one of those happily voluptuous women painted by Rubens. Her wavy golden hair drifted out in all directions, giving an incongruously disheveled air to the superbly organized gal beneath. “Welcome to Hyde Castle. Eliot and I were so shocked to hear what had happened! Imagine, your windows shot at!”

“It was only one window,” I assured her. “The food’s in the back of the van, if you’d like me to bring it in.”

Sukie beamed and said Michaela could do that. “It could spoil,” I started to protest.

“Don’t worry about it, Gol-dy.” Sukie’s voice was richly comforting, like vanilla custard. “Please, you have just had a terrible shock. Soon there will be warm coffee cake in the kitchen,” she said. “Come on, both of you, we will get you some hot drinks. I am making the coffee cake myself. From a mix, of course,” she added with a giggle.

I smiled in spite of myself. Sukie could make the castle as tidy as a Swiss hotel, but she could not so much as toast bread. She had what we in the food biz gleefully call a cooking block. According to Marla, Eliot abhorred the kitchen, too, except for the jams and jellies he made in the middle of the night, when he couldn’t sleep. Well, at least he wasn’t canning okra. Before Sukie had changed Eliot’s life, he’d subsisted first on frozen dinners, then SpaghettiOs, and finally, just when Sukie came into the picture, enormous casseroles of beans and rice. These cheap repasts were not, of course, suitable for the suddenly wealthy. Nevertheless, the Hydes soon wearied of eating out. On my first visit, I’d brought Sukie and Eliot a dinner to tuck into their refrigerator and reheat. They’d found my culinary powers awesome, and their praise had warmed my heart.

At the far side of the entryway, new plate-glass doors looked out on the courtyard. Sukie switched on spotlights and drenched the interior space in a blaze of glory. The previous summer, a landscaper had followed Eliot’s directions for planting a Tudor garden. Eliot had used the strawberries and chokecherries for his jams. But it was all I could do to keep from laughing when Eliot had gone on to tell me they’d given the cabbages, cucumbers, radishes, parsnips, and even the freshly grown herbs to Aspen Meadow Christian Outreach, since neither he nor Sukie knew what to do with their cornucopia of ripe goodies. In the spotlights, the geometric layout of ice-burnished twigs sparkled.

To surround the courtyard, Theodore Hyde had replaced the crumbling interior walls with an Italianate arcade made of new Colorado granite. The lights illuminated dazzling silver rapiers set beneath the support for each arch. Above the arcade, more spotlights, their lenses tinted hues of orange and pink, bathed new stone walls and courtyard-facing windows with a welcoming glow.

“Wow!” Arch exclaimed. “They’ve done a lot since the sixth grade came here for a tour.” He craned his neck to gaze up at the arched ceiling of the gatehouse. “Check it out, Mom, those things haven’t changed.” He pointed upward. “Meurtriers. Otherwise known as murder holes.”

“What?” Overhead, at the intersection of each arch, holes pierced the ceiling.

“You see,” my son went on, “even if the enemy could get across the moat and through whatever barbican or outer defense was set up, they’d still have to get through the gatehouse.” He pointed back at the entry portcullis. “So if the attackers rammed the portcullis to get into this space, the castle’s warriors poured boiling oil down on the bad guys through those holes.” He announced this with a fourteen-year-old’s relish for

violence.

“Let’s go,” I said hastily, as Sukie disappeared through another pair of glass doors. I preferred to associate boiling oil with doughnuts and French fries, thank you very much.

Now twenty steps ahead of us, Sukie was either turning off another security system or rejiggering a thermostat. I shuddered to think of the electric bills generated by heating and lighting these vast spaces. I hated even more thinking how to tell Sukie and Eliot that their security system might have to withstand a visit from the Jerk.

Arch tugged on my elbow. “How many times have you been here?” he demanded, his voice just above a murmur. “Did she talk to you about the… earl’s nephew?” Ever wary of being dubbed a wimp, Arch was reluctant to use the word ghost.

“I’ve been here once, and nobody talked to me about spirits,” I whispered back. “At some point, you can ask the Hydes about it. Just not today, okay?”

He frowned, but joined me in following Sukie as she bustled down a dazzling rose-and-gray marble hallway. The marble, too, was from Colorado, Sukie had told me, and had been picked out by Chardé Lauderdale as the basis for the interior color scheme. Flickering electrified candles atop gleaming brass wall sconces lit our way as we walked down a plush carpet runway patterned with gold medallions on a royal-blue background. Arch stopped to touch one of the reproduction leaded-glass windows. Then he eyed a threadbare tapestry depicting a maiden patting her unicorn.

“Do you think the Hydes will let Dad visit?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Probably you’ll go to his place, once we get things worked out.”

Arch was silent. I looked around. On our right, a twentieth-century spiral staircase led up to a doorway into the gatehouse, put there, Eliot had told me, by his thoughtful grandfather. Old Theodore did not want his caretakers traversing the cold stone entryway to get to their apartment, once they finished nighttime kitchen duty. Personally, I would have preferred an escalator.

Ahead of us, Sukie swept through more glass doors beneath another archway. The doors opened into the living room. But on my tea-visit, “living” in this room had seemed unimaginable. The room looked more like the lobby of a grand hotel than a place where people would actually snuggle down for conversation or reading. The vast space featured a polished dark wood floor covered by Oriental rugs in rich hues of scarlet, royal blue, and gold. Couches and wingback chairs upholstered in floral and paisley chintz, the shades chosen to match the rugs, sat beside massive antique tables of mahogany and cherry. The effect was impressive. No matter what else you said about Chardé Lauderdale, the woman knew what she was doing in the decorating department.

Our boots made a shh-shh noise as we shuffled over the sumptuous carpets. I touched the cellular in my pocket. The moment we were situated, I promised myself, I would call Tom’s hotel.

“You’re a member of the fencing team, right, Arch?” Sukie trilled over her shoulder. “When your teammates come to our banquet this week, you’ll be able to show them around. We have an indoor pool, now, on the ground floor west of the postern gate, if you want to go for a swim.”

Arch mumbled, “Okay.” He hated to swim. He said, “Miss Kirovsky has been telling us about her collection of royal memorabilia. I’d really like to see that.”

I exhaled. At least he hadn’t requested an interview with the phantom of the young duke-apparent.

“Then ask her, my dear,” Sukie replied graciously as she paused by one of the glass doors. “And perhaps Michaela could take you to school today, after she unloads your mother’s equipment.”

I felt a tad confused, as I hadn’t realized that Michaela was regarded as a general servant in addition to caretaker and local fencing coach. But it was too early in the day to delve into the particulars of the Hydes’ household arrangements.

While Sukie held open the door, Arch turned to me and asked softly, “How will Dad even know I’m here?”

“I’ll call the county lawyer, all right?” I was not about to call John Richard’s attorney, that pompous nerd responsible for mailing child support payments from John Richard’s fat hoard of cash, the result of the sale of his ob-gyn practice. Dealing with the Jerk’s attorney was like being forced to eat … well, that historic but unappetizing food: pottage. It was not something I chose to do.

A hint of desperation threaded through Arch’s voice. “Look, Mom, I know you don’t want to see Dad. But I promised him we could get together as soon as he got out. It’s what he said he wanted more than anything. So could you please find him? Please?”

“I told you I would, hon. Just not this sec, okay?” Sukie waited politely until my son and I had finished our whispered conference. In tense silence, we went through yet another set of glass doors, which Sukie said they had installed as insulation against the cold. The need for insulation quickly became evident when we entered the tower. An arctic blast made us all pull our coats tightly around us.

Unlike the hallway, the corner drum tower was not newly lined with marble. Frigid air poured through slits in the gray stone - more narrow openings used by archers.

Sukie pointed to a smaller, covered stone cylinder on the tower floor. “This was the castle’s original well, Arch. Do you know why they placed the well inside the castle, instead of outside?”

I knew she was trying to be nice, to make Arch feel welcome. I was not sure it was working. Arch frowned, as if deciding whether to indulge Sukie with an answer.

“Actually,” he said finally, his voice raised over another sudden cold wind. “I do know about castle wells. People living in the castle had to have their water supply inside the fortress walls, in the event of siege. They didn’t want the enemy poisoning their drinking supply. Do you use it for the castle’s water?”

“Oh, no,” Sukie answered, apparently delighted with his interest. “Eliot’s grandfather had a new water system put in, and Eliot’s father used insurance money to get the whole plumbing system upgraded, after Fox Creek flooded in

‘82.”

She gestured for us to go through the door she’d opened to the next large space, the dining room. Here, the walls had been painted a creamy yellow, which was the perfect complement for the lime, pink, and cream Persian rug, walnut dining-room table and chairs, and large matching buffet and glass-fronted wine cabinet, one of the two places Eliot kept his jam supply. No doubt, this furniture was also gen-yoo-ine antique, the kind Tom, but not I, could have dated and placed.

“And this is the buttery, Arch,” Sukie explained. “Or at least it used to be. Bottles of ale were kept here. The wine cellar was underneath. Next door to the buttery was the stillroom, where they made preserves, and next to that was a bedroom. We combined all three rooms for the dining room and kitchen. Eliot makes his jams in the kitchen, since the stillroom is kaput. Wait until you taste his goodies. Your mother loved them.”

“I did indeed,” I murmured, as we entered the kitchen. I had been in this grand cooking-and-serving space on my earlier visit. Four electrified chandeliers provided the lighting. Glass-fronted maple cupboards with painted porcelain handles rose above a shiny backsplash of blue-and-white Delft tiles. A maple corner cupboard was also crammed with jars of preserves. Overhead, an immense, hook-studded iron rack hung from the ceiling. From each hook dangled a darkened pot or roasting pan, some of them massive enough to roast a flock of geese. One wall boasted framed photos and reproduction signs from English taverns. Along the other wall, cozy embers glowed in one of the two stone hearths. In spite of the flickering electrified candles, shadows filled the kitchen’s corners like smoke.

Arch’s insistent voice cracked next to my ear. “I have to get ready for school. Now, Mom.”

“I’m sure we’ll be going to a place where you can change in a minute,” I said quickly, feeling my irritation flare. But he was right. Sukie’s leisurely early-morning guided tour of her castle was getting on my nerves, too.

Arch glared at me. “When?”

I squared my shoulders, shot him a reproving look, and asked Sukie, who was donning heavy pot-holder mitts, “Is Michaela - Miss Kirovsky, that is - coming over here? I mean, to the kitchen?”

“Any minute, just … agh!” Sukie had pulled open her oven door, and a cloud of black smoke billowed out. Somewhere nearby a smoke alarm started shrieking. “Oh, dam-mit!” she hollered. Dropping the pot holders, she pulled out the charred coffee cake with her bare

hands. She immediately let go of the pan and screamed bloody murder.

“Eeoyow! Hilft! Mutti!”

“Cold water!” I cried. “Now! Now!”

She didn’t move. I tugged her to the sink, where I ran cold water over her hands while murmuring comforting words. Tears streamed down Sukie’s perfectly made-up cheeks. When I was sure she was going to stay put, I grabbed two folded kitchen towels and picked up the offending coffee cake pan from the floor. One of the first things I’d learned working in a professional kitchen was not to dump smoking food into the trash. I tossed the coffee cake under a second faucet, then dashed to the ovens and turned on every ventilation fan I could find. Within minutes, the smoke had abated and the alarm had mercifully quieted.

Sukie stopped crying, inspected her fingers, and wrapped a wet towel around her left hand. Arch continued to give me his I-really-need-to-talk-to-you look. I didn’t know what to say. Excuse me, Sukie, but may my son and I leave you, your burned hands, and your smoke-stinking kitchen so we can confer in your nondairy buttery?

Arch tugged my sleeve. “Ah, I need to drop my stuff somewhere before I go to school. I need to do my hair, too, and finish getting ready. Okay? Please? And I do want Miss Kirovsky to take me to school, so you, Mom, can track down that lawyer and find out where Dad is.”

“Okay,” I promised in a low voice. I pressed the power button on my cell phone. The tiny screen told me the phone was Looking for service, which is the telecommunications euphemism for You’re out of luck! “Sukie, I’m desperate for a telephone. Is there one nearby?”

She said patiently, “It is just half past six.”

“It’s okay,” I replied. It’s half past eight in New Jersey, and that’s the only time that counts right now. I said, “I really need to talk to my husband before he leaves for the airport.” After that, I would fulfill my promise to Arch and leave a message for Pat Gerber, the assistant district attorney for Furman County. Clearly, the Department of Corrections was taking its sweet time getting around to informing us of its plans for the Jerk. Pat Gerber would give me the straight scoop - if I could find her.

“There is a phone on that wall - ” Sukie began, but we were interrupted at that moment by the entrance of Eliot Hyde. He banged open the heavy wooden door, glided into the kitchen, and surveyed his wife, his caterer, and his caterer’s son. Then he sniffed the air suspiciously. The flickering chandelier turned errant strands of his hair to gold. This morning, Eliot’s movie-star features and sad brown eyes seemed even more striking than before. He wore the ubiquitous silk scarf above a long, flowing bathrobe of royal blue velvet. Tender Is the Nightgown. Arch stared at Eliot Hyde with his mouth open.

“Cheerio!” Eliot called to us, as if we numbered in the hundreds, instead of just three. “Welcome to our castle!”

“Mom!” Arch was tugging on my sleeve again. “When can we - “

“Honey,” I pleaded. “Stop! You’re driving me nuts!”

Ignoring this, Eliot Hyde sniffed the air again and looked around. “Aw, honeykins, did you burn another one?”

To my dismay, before Sukie could reply, my son turned and bolted from the kitchen. After a stunned second, I scooted after him, paddling hard through an ocean of guilt.

Eliot called plaintively after us, “What did I say?”

-5-

I caught up with Arch by the well. “Look, hon - “

“I want to leave. I want to see Dad. I want to know why our window was shot at. What if someone tried to shoot at Dad, too? Maybe that’s why he hasn’t gotten in touch with me. Did you ever think of that, Mom? Maybe somebody’s trying to get us all.”

Most of the time, Arch kept his feelings well in control. Now he was worried about his father, worried about the house, worried about me. Added up, this was too big a burden for a teenager.

“Arch, please,” I told him, “the cops are working on the bullet through the window. Once, when I was little? Somebody threw a snowball packed with gravel through our picture window. Who ever heard of such a thing happening in a nice neighborhood of a small New Jersey town? The kid who threw it said it was a prank. So that’s what I think. Whoever shot out our window was either drunk or playing a joke. Trust me, your father can take care of himself. Please, let’s go back.”

He mumbled, “If that’s true, then it’s a stupid joke,” but grudgingly returned to the kitchen. Sukie had her hands in a bowl of ice water. Eliot had moved to the counter to make tea, and Arch squinted at the back of the royal blue robe, which we could now see was embroidered with the words “His Highness.” His water-heating mission complete, Eliot flowed back to the island and cocked an aristocratic eyebrow at Arch and me. The robe swirled around his ankles.

“I understand you two had a spot of trouble.”

“We did,” I replied. I did not want to discuss the window anymore. “Thank you so much for taking us in. Now if we could just - “

Eliot treated me to a dazzling grin. “You are ready to do the lunch today, aren’t you? We should probably chat.”

My mind swam. The lunch would start in five hours. I was earlier than I’d be for a wedding reception, which required much more labor-intensive preparation. But he was my employer. And my host, I reminded myself. “I am ready,” I replied dutifully. “I brought the ingredients with me. You won’t mind if I use your kitchen?”

“Certainly not,” Eliot replied. “But … I never heard from the table people. Was the rental company supposed to call me when the tables arrived?”

My heart sank. The food might be ready, but if the notoriously unreliable folks at Party Rental had screwed up… “You don’t know if they showed up? At the chapel, I mean?”

Eliot frowned. “I don’t know. Oh, God! A glitch in our first event!”

“It’s not a glitch - “I said weakly.

“I will call the table people,” Sukie offered, soon as we get Goldy and her son up to their suites and I can bandage my hands.”

Eliot crossed his arms and stared at the ceiling, always the first sign that a client was going neurotic on me. He pleaded, “I beg you, Goldy, tell me you remembered to bring all your recipes and notes with you.”

Crap and double crap. My recipes and notes. I’d brought my laptop, but not, I suddenly realized, the disk with all my Hyde Castle recipes and the research I’d done over the past two weeks on the history of English cuisine. “No. I’m sorry. I’ll go home for them the minute we get settled.” I added apologetically, “I mean, if that’s all right, and the cops allow me in. And,” I promised with a nod to Sukie, “I’ll check on the tables at the same time.”

Eliot circumnavigated the kitchen island, tapping his left hand pensively on the wood. I could almost see the wheels in his head turning. At the Hyde Chapel luncheon, Eliot intended to pitch the audience on his plans to transform the castle into a conference center. If that didn’t go well, then the guests might think that he was just an academic who couldn’t make the move to real business… that he was a failure in this, too… .

“Let’s move you two up to your suites,” Sukie interjected, as she wiped her hands. “I have a very special room

for you, Arch. Right next to your mom.”

“We’re not sure how long we’ll be here,” I murmured.

“We are practicing on you!” Sukie said cheerfully.

“Our first guests in the refurbished rooms!”

Relieved to be out of Eliot’s tranquilizer-needing I presence, we followed Sukie down another marble hallway to carpeted steps leading to the castle’s second floor.

The second story featured floors of darkly polished cherry wood. Matching English-club cherry paneling on the walls gave the place an elegantly homey look. Floor-to-ceiling leaded-glass windows lined the side of the hallway overlooking the courtyard. I peeked out at the garden. In the early-morning light, the iced pattern of plants had taken on a pearly cast.

We skirted a sawhorse and a splotch of dried beige paint on the floor. Sukie murmured something about Eliot and one of his new messes. Next we passed a closed door and rounded a corner, where Sukie opened another door. This, she announced as she switched on more electrified brass wall sconces, would be Arch’s room. Awed, Arch walked into the palatial space, where a black-and-gray Aubusson rug set the decor for a mahogany four-poster bed and silver-tasseled spread, black wingback chairs, a long gray couch, and an ornately carved desk beside a fireplace. Pen-and-ink drawings of ships hung on walls that looked as if they’d been papered with silver silk. A subdued set of black-and-gray nautical-theme fabrics had been used for the floor-to- ceiling draperies.

Sukie led me through a set of wooden doors in the corner of the room, through another corner drum tower and another set of doors, then into the bedroom whose door we’d passed earlier. This place, equally spacious, was a homage to lime and coral.

“This will be your suite,” she announced with a smile. The lofty space reminded me of those magazine photos featuring Europe’s most elegant hotels. The walls were covered with glowing pale green silk. A pink-tinted marble fireplace graced the wall facing the massive four-poster bed. Between the bed and the fireplace, Chardé had thoughtfully grouped a pair of rose-and- lime chintz-covered wingback chairs. Against a wall with new windows looking out on the moat stood a long cherry-wood desk.

“Gorgeous, Sukie, really,” I gushed, overwhelmed. “You haven’t seen your bathroom!” she exclaimed, eyes gleaming.

I demurred, recalling Eliot’s anxiety over the day’s event. I needed to get organized. And I really wanted to call Tom. “I’ll check the bathroom out later, if that’s okay.”

Sukie motioned me back to Arch’s room, through “the same pair of wooden doors set at a diagonal in the southeast corner of the room. We again moved into the drum tower, which I had now figured out was at the southeast corner of the castle. As in the well tower, the air was icy, although here, glass had been put up on the inside of each of the two small windows that flanked a fireplace built into the far wall. Sukie led me to an opening in the tower wall, then pointed straight along a short, narrow passageway that ended abruptly in a wall with a seat. Wait: There had been one of these in the well tower; Arch had backed up beside it after his mini-meltdown.

“This is the garderobe where we found the letter,” Sukie declared with a triumphant grin. She threw a rusty bolt on top of the toilet, lifted the lid, and pointed downward. I swallowed a sigh. Our hostess was determined to give me the tour, no matter what. I peered down the hole, way down, and listened, until I heard the slap of moat water against the shaft. I smiled, even though I was desperate to call Tom. “After six centuries,” Sukie said, “even after the shaft was broken into pieces to be moved from England, even after they reassembled the shaft here, the place stank.”

“I don’t understand why they didn’t clean up the shaft before they sent it over,” I commented. I realized the little hallway smelled powerfully of disinfectant.

“They weren’t Swiss,” she replied matter-of-factly. In his assigned room, Arch was running the bathroom fan full blast, a sure sign he was finishing his elaborate hairdressing routine, a regimen that started with mousse and ended with hairspray that acted like plaster of Paris. When he reappeared with his hair cemented into spikes, he was wearing khaki pants, a plaid shirt, and his white Elk Park Prep Fencing Team jacket.

“Those shafts aren’t dangerous?” I murmured to Sukie as we made our way back to the kitchen.

She shook her head. “We’re having them all covered with Plexiglas before we open the conference center. The bottom of each shaft has a grille, to keep out rodents and such. The only dangerous place in the castle is the moat pump room. But don’t worry, it’s all locked up.”

I nodded as we came into the kitchen, where three of my boxes had appeared. Eliot was putting out a dish of crackers and a jar, the dark contents of which looked like homemade jelly.

“I’m not eating that,” Arch whispered to me.

“Wow,” I exclaimed over his announcement. “Mr. Hyde, is this another one of your famous preserves? Like the strawberry jam we had with the scones?”

“This is chokecherry jelly,” he said shyly, with a regal wave. “I also make fig preserves, blueberry jam, mint jelly, lemon curd - “

At that moment, Michaela Kirovsky clomped into the kitchen toting the last of my boxes. Abruptly, Eliot fell silent and bustled out the door.

Once again feeling responsible for someone else’s rudeness, I thanked Michaela profusely for her help. She waggled her head and told me not to mention it. I looked closely at her. When I’d first met her at Elk Park Prep and I talked about the banquet, I’d judged her to be about sixty. Now I saw that the prematurely white hair made her look older than she was, probably forty-five. She had that slightly pudgy, built-like- a-brick body often seen in high-school athletic coaches. Her wrinkled baby-face was exceptionally pale. Like Arch, she wore the school fencing jacket and khakis. When she heaved her load up on the trestle table next to my three other boxes, Eliot flowed back into the kitchen, clutching another jar.

“I’m sure today’s luncheon will go beautifully. And we’re very excited about the fencing banquet. Please remember, though, Goldy,” he said as he placed the new offering - plum jam - on the table, “I want the Friday night feast to conclude with a plum tart baked with jewels inside.” He swept his hair back with his hand. I sighed: The fencing banquet was four days away, for crying out loud. “The jewels will be zirconia, of course, but the children don’t need to know that. That’s a typical Elizabethan treat,” he informed us with a smile, “to bake treasures into something sweet. Only they used real jewels, of course. And sometimes they put in other surprises, such as, shall we say, four-and-twenty blackbirds? Goldy, how soon will you be able to get your recipes?”

“As soon as I pick up my disk,” I replied. I fumbled inside the box containing my laptop to make sure I had my power cord, too. “I promise I won’t take long getting it,” I added firmly, before he could start fretting again.

“So you’ll return when?” Eliot asked anxiously.]

“I’ll follow Michaela out,” I replied. “Worst-case scenario puts me back here by eight.”

“Eliot, darling,” Sukie murmured as her husband opened his mouth to protest. “The recipes can wait. You are too enthusiastic, sometimes. And - “

“That’s all your boxes,” Michaela interrupted. “Thanks again,” I said, and meant it.

She nodded, warmed her hands at the hearth, and grinned at Arch. “Ready to go, mister? Blastoff is in seven minutes.”

Arch shouldered his pack, nodded a mature farewell to me, and told Michaela he’d meet her by the portcullis. He even managed to thank Sukie and Eliot before making his way out of the kitchen.

To me, Michaela said softly, “Eliot mentioned that someone took a shot at your house last night?”

“Yes,” I said. “The police don’t have any leads yet. But I took a call on my cell phone on the way over here. There’s something I need to warn you about.” All three faces became immediately curious. “My ex-husband, Dr. John Richard Korman, has just been granted an early release

from serving a sentence for assault. If he shows up here, please do not let him in. I’m checking on the status of a restraining order,” I added. “He’ll have to see Arch at some point, but we haven’t figured that out yet.”

Their questions tumbled out as I put the chicken and other perishables into the refrigerator: Was John Richard the one who’d shot at our window? Did he know I was here at the castle? Did he know how to get here?

“We have no idea what the man looks like,” Eliot mused, his voice concerned. “If we could have a photograph …”

“Yes, definitely, no problem,” I replied. “I’ll get one when I pick up the disk.”

The snow had stopped as Michaela, Arch, and I drove off. My van followed Michaela’s Elk Park Prep minibus down the slick, winding driveway. Her tires cut twin black tracks in the pristine trail of snowy pavement. Soon the minibus was out of sight.

When I came through the front gate and crossed the bridge onto the state highway, I remembered the rental tables that were supposed to be at Hyde Chapel. I pressed the accelerator, determined to see what was going on. Or not going on, as the case might be.

As I drove up the road, I punched the cell phone buttons for Tom’s Atlantic City motel, on the remote chance he was still there. The man who answered said Tom had left several hours ago. I then tried the main number for Furman County government and entered the buttons for Pat Gerber’s extension at the district attorney’s office. Of course, since it was not quite seven, all I reached was her voice mail. I left a message: My ex-husband got an early release from prison, and a bullet shattered one of our windows at four this morning. With a temporary restraining order in place, what was our next step for visits with our son?

I disconnected as the chapel bridge across Cottonwood Creek came into sight. Beyond the bridge, the chapel’s delicate gray spires and arched stained-glass windows looked ethereal in the soft morning light. After auctioning off the Henry VIII letter, Eliot had given the Gothic chapel to the church, to offset his tax burden. In order to make Hyde Chapel a tourist attraction clients would associate with the castle conference center, Sukie had directed an extensive cleanup, and paid Chardé Lauderdale handsomely to decorate the place. The labyrinth had been the crowning centerpiece of the renovation. Saint Luke’s had been thrilled.

This day’s lunch event had been covered in a fluff piece in the Mountain Journal and in the Saint Luke’s newsletter. Although the church had received lunch confirmations for twenty, the Episcopal Church Women had begged me to make enough food for up to ten more folks, for those donors untroubled by RSVP’s. The ECW was handling the loan of church plates, silverware, and crystal for the lunch. I’d merely replied to the ECW that lunch for thirty or even thirty-five would be no problem.

I swung the van across the chapel bridge, intent on finding the tables. With the bad publicity generated by the Lauderdale incident impacting my business, it was imperative that the lunch event go without a hitch. If the tables had not been delivered, I would call Party Rental at nine and deliver a blistering harangue. In the catering biz, sometimes you had to get rough.

No spotlights illuminated the chapel. I pulled into the gravel parking lot and swung around to park facing the creek, as close to the building’s carved front doors as I could get. Across the highway in Cottonwood Park, the sun lit the top of the thick cluster of pine trees.

As I sat with the van running, I tried to recollect the combination on the lockbox that held the chapel key. The chapel had been designed as a miniature of Chartres, and boasted some features of that enormous cathedral, including a rose window and, now, a labyrinth. I tapped the steering wheel and finally recalled that the letters on the lockbox combination were C, H, A, R, T, R, E, S. There was a Gothic-lettered sign to my right, at the top of the creek bank. Set your brake! it warned. Management cannot pull your car out of the creek!

I smiled at the vision of Eliot and Sukie towing a vehicle out of the water. I pulled up on the brake, then leaned forward in my seat to check how far I was from the creek. Fifteen feet below, the narrow chute of black, gurgling water raced between the icy banks.

I squeezed my eyes shut, heart pounding. I hadn’t just seen what I’d just seen. Or had I? Surely it had been an illusion, my sleep-deprived mind playing tricks with ice, water, stone, sunlight. You think you see something flesh-colored, something bobbing eerily in the water, and it turns out to be a rock.

I took a deep breath, jumped out of the van, and walked carefully to the edge of the creek bank. No, it wasn’t quartz, granite, or even mountain marble. In the creek was a blackened hand. A hand attached to an arm clothed in plaid flannel. A blackened hand? I stared into the water below. The rigid body of a young man lay half in the creek, as if he’d been tossed there.

I looked away, chilled. He needs help, my brain screamed. Help him. Get him out of that water!

I took a few tentative steps down the steep, boulder-strewn creek bank. Then I slid on a patch of ice.

Help him, get him out. But how could I get to him? I regained my balance and stared at the water. There were rocks in the creek itself, and a sheet of ice that might or might not hold my weight. Even if I got down there, was I strong enough to pull him out?

Now ten feet from the water, I caught sight of the young man’s scalp. What I had thought was thick hair was a dark splotch of blood. I blinked and tried to make out his facial features.

Hold on.

His photo had appeared at least a dozen times in the Mountain Journal. I’d heard his voice once, on the phone.

But he wasn’t supposed to be here. He was supposed to be hiding. In New Jersey. Where Tom was looking for him to question him about the FedEx hijacking. Not in Colorado. Not lying in Cottonwood Creek. Yet there was no doubt that Andy Balachek wasn’t gambling at a casino table.

Andy Balachek was dead.

-6-

It was hard to look at Andy Balachek. He was so young. Had been.

Where was my phone? Wait: It was still plugged into the van outlet. Heedless of the ice, I scrambled back to my vehicle, and flung myself inside. With numb fingers, I punched in the numbers for the Furman County Sheriff’s Department. My second call to them this morning, I thought morosely, as I glanced back at

the creek and tried to find my voice. When the operator answered, I gave her the details of what I was looking at: a young man in lumberjack shirt and jeans, with no hat covering his frozen, blood-slickened hair. His skin was pale in some places, blue-black in others. It was Andy Balachek, I told her. At least, I was pretty sure…

The cell phone’s call-waiting beeped. I told the operator that I’d had an emergency situation myself that morning and I had to take this other call. She snarled at me that I was not to hang up, and that I should quickly dump the other call while she waited. That’s the thing about emergency operators: You’re anxious to get off the phone and deal with your emergency, right? But the operators want you to keep talking and not do a thing. They get especially testy if what you’re dealing with is not a natural gas emergency or a car wreck, but a crime.

“Goldy?”

“Tom! Where are you? I have so much -

“

“On Interstate Seventy, just past Golden. Took an early flight out. I called the house - “

“Oh, Tom,” I wailed. He listened in silence as I told him about the gunshot that had shattered our window, about John Richard’s early release, about us having to take refuge at the castle. I told him my current location by Hyde Chapel, and about the young man in the icy water, a young man who was never going to move again.

“Oh, Tom - it’s Andy Balachek.”

“Miss G. - where are you exactly?” His voice was calm. “In the chapel parking lot?”

“Facing the creek and the highway. Across from Cottonwood Park. You know the chapel bridge? Andy’s body is about fifty feet downstream from that. I’m above him, in a parking space, forty feet or so from the chapel doors.”

Before he could confirm that he understood what I was saying, the call-waiting bleeped again. I’d completely forgotten about the emergency operator.

“Get yourself out of there, Miss G.,” Tom ordered me. “Now. Drive back to town, this minute - “

“I… I can’t!” Static invaded the cell phone and I stared at it. For some reason, I suddenly remembered Arch’s Montessori teacher telling us parents that I won’t means I can’t and I can’t means I won’t. So … why was I telling Tom that I couldn’t leave? Did it really mean that I wouldn’t leave?]

I glanced down at poor Andy Balachek and shuddered. If I left him, somebody might see his body and be compelled to

stop and gawk, or maybe mess up the crime scene. They might even steal his body. Not only that, I reasoned blindly, but this could be related to whoever shot at our window. Tom had arrested Ray Wolff. Andy Balachek knew Ray Wolff. Tom was working on the case. Thanks to the newspaper article, virtually everyone in town knew that I, Tom’s wife, would be catering at the chapel today… . I moaned.

More crackling assaulted my ear. Why had I discovered Andy? Most folks know a caterer is the first to show up at an event. Was I meant to find him? No question, I was getting paranoid. The static suddenly cleared and I heard Tom say my name.

“Dammit,” I said fiercely, “Tom, I don’t think I should just drive out of here.”

The call-waiting beeped again. “Tom, I need to go, the emergency operator is holding. I’ve already called the department, I can’t leave. Please understand.”

“Don’t worry about the operator,” Tom said calmly, just as the beeping stopped. Had she given up? Had she decided my call was a prank? “I’ll call the department,” Tom went on. “They’ll have a car up more quickly if I do it. I’ll cut over from seventy, be coming from the direction of Denver. I should be there in less than ten minutes. Do you have a good view of traffic from the east?”

I glanced around. Cottonwood Park slanted steeply to the road all along the other side of the two-lane highway. “Pretty good.”

“Do not go near that body, understand? You could fall into the water.”

Oh-kay, I thought as Tom signed off. A chilly February wind rocked the van and pummeled the spruce trees across the road. A car swooshed past, then another. No one slowed to gawk. Andy Balachek’s body must have been situated in such a way that it couldn’t be seen from the road. No one gave me a second glance.

Do not go near that body… . What was Tom so worried about, besides my tumbling into the creek? The killer still being around? If you dumped a dead guy,

you wouldn’t wait to see who discovered him, would you?

I tried to warm up by snuggling closer to the dashboard heater. According to my watch, it was quarter after seven. Overhead, the charcoal sky was lightening to a velvety blue. Not far away, an engine growled. Less than a minute later, as promised, Tom’s big Chrysler roared into view. It turned left to cross the creek, then roared into the lot and pulled up fifteen feet to the right of my van. Puzzled, I unbuckled and jumped from the van, then trotted toward him.

Tom was walking calmly in my direction. He passed Andy’s body. Without glancing toward the creek, he motioned me back to the van.

A shot rang out. Tom reeled back, clutching his left shoulder. I screamed. Without thinking, I raced toward him. When I reached him, his right hand grabbed my arm. Another shot fired and pinged off Tom’s car. Then another shot hit one of my van doors.

“Move!” he hollered. Panting with pain, he wrenched me toward the boulders lining the far side of the parking lot. “Get behind those rocks and stay down! See if we can, see if we can…”

Running hard, my heart thudding, I thought he said, See if we can dig a hole. Dig a hole? I stumbled; Tom’s hand wrenched me upright. I couldn’t catch my breath. Those shots had not been like the explosion that rocked our house. They’d been higher-pitched, not as loud, more like a firecracker… .

I let go of Tom’s hand and leaped above the crevice between two boulders. When I slid down, Tom pushed himself next to me. Blood from his shoulder stained the rocks. I gasped. How badly was he hurt? Where was the shooter? Why was this happening?

“Stay down,” Tom ordered me. His sleeve was wet with blood.

Oh, God, I prayed. Help him, help us. I couldn’t tear my eyes from Tom’s wound. Sometimes I think I learned too much in Med Wives 101. The subclavian vein. If that major artery had been hit, Tom could bleed to death in minutes. Please, God. Not Tom.

With his good hand, Tom pulled the radio off his belt. “Officer needs assistance. Shots fired.” He bit the words, his face contorted with pain.

How could I compress the wound? Think, I ordered myself desperately as a voice answered Tom’s call. “Unit calling?”

“X-ray six,” Tom replied. “Location is south side of Cottonwood Creek, by Hyde Chapel, on Highway two-oh-three.” Tom’s involuntary groan sent my heart racing. If there were no broken bones, if the bullet had not nicked a lung, then perhaps I could compress it and stop some of the dangerous blood loss. “Am behind boulders by chapel parking lot,” he went on. “Am now fifty yards from Cottonwood Creek, next to Highway two-oh-three. Do not know mile marker.”

There was static on the other end of the radio, but I prayed the operator was telling him that units were responding. What have I done? Why didn’t I get out of here when Tom told me to? Where had the shots come from? Was there someone on the other side of the road, up in the trees of Cottonwood Park?

“Believe assailant has a rifle, possibly AR-fifteen. My shoulder’s hit. .

. .”

“Can you give location of assailant?” the operator’s voice crackled.

“Believe he is on north side of road. Possibly fifty yards up in the trees, judging from sound of shots.”

“Can we land a helicopter there, X-ray six?”

“Don’t know - ” The radio fell from

Tom’s hands. It was slick with blood. I picked it up and pushed what I hoped was the correct button.

“This is Tom’s wife, Goldy Schulz,” I yelled into the radio. “Send paramedics with your team!” Tom had slumped forward. Static spewed from the radio. I placed it on the ground and leaned in close to my husband. “Tom!” His eyelids fluttered. “I’m going to compress this wound,” I told him. “You have to tell me if it feels like you’ve got a broken bone. You also have to tell me if pressure makes it harder to breathe. Do you understand?” His face paled as he nodded. I couldn’t imagine his pain. If the collarbone was broken, any weight I put on the wound would cause him agony.

I steeled myself. He was losing on awful lot of blood. With shaking fingers, I pushed on the area where blood spurted through his once-white shirt. Tom moaned but did not tell me to stop. His eyes sought mine. Tears ran down my cheeks as I pressed on the hot, bloody slash in his left shoulder.

As I gently exerted pressure, I listened. Was the shooter planning to try again? All I heard was the gurgle of the creek.

The blood slowed to a trickle and fanned out into a delta of ripples, first on Tom’s shirt, then on the snow-dusted rock. He blinked and grunted as he reached for the radio.

“Don’t do that!” Hysteria threaded through my voice as my hands, slippery with blood, lost their grip on the wound.

He held the radio up with his right hand. “Talk.” His voice was thick. I composed myself and pushed in again on the wound. “Talk into the radio,” Tom muttered. He groaned again, a deep guttural sound that didn’t sound human.

“All right, all right,” I promised hastily as I first stabilized my pressure on the wound, then scooted awkwardly to get closer to the radio. “Just don’t move again. Please, Tom - “

“Goldy, I’m sorry …” His voice had descended to a hoarse whisper.

“Don’t worry. Everything will be fine.”

“No …Goldy “

Fear spiked up my spine. Where was the shooter? My hands began to cramp on the wound. I willed them to relax.

Again Tom said, “I’m sorry … .”

“I’m the one who’s sorry. Somebody will be here soon. Ambulance, cops … they’re on their way.”

“I can feel my right arm, but not my left - “

“They’re bound to be here any sec.”

Tom’s eyes rolled back in his head, then came forward again. “Goldy.” He was struggling to speak. “I have to tell

you.” Each word heaved out, like an enormous, painful sigh. “I’m …” with great effort, he said, “I don’t love her.”

“Tom! Be quiet. You’re delirious.”

“I was just … trying to figure out … what was going on. So you’ll understand … .” His voice trailed off.

I stared at him.

“Listen,” Tom said again, weakly. “I’m … so … sorry.”

My voice made no sound as I concentrated on stopping the blood still leaking from the ugly wound in his shoulder. But my mind screamed, “Sorry for what?”

-7-

How long had it been since Tom had been shot? Seconds. Hours. No, not hours. Minutes. Fractions of minutes. Tom floated in and out of consciousness, his face drained of color, his body slumped against the boulder. He looked like a dying bear. There was no further sound from the radio. I pressed against Tom’s wound and begged for him to live.

Then something changed. At first I was not sure if the piercing noise was sirens or ringing in my ears. And perhaps the distant wop wop wop was the drumbeat of my heart, and not the helicopter I desperately wanted it to be.

Please, I prayed again.

Then: Men shouted. The sirens screamed closer. Not far away, a helicopter landed with a blast of air that hurt my ears and made my eyes water. The helo engine cut off and more men yelled. Overhead, I thought I could hear another copter.

“Here!” I yelled, without moving from Tom’s side. “We’re over here!”

After what seemed like a century, a policeman in full SWAT gear leaped through the rock barrier ten yards from us. He was big, muscular, and limber, with dark skin and dark hair. Crouching expertly, he spoke into a radio as he scrambled across the distance to us.

A second later, he was crawling around Tom and me. He told me not to move my hands as he bent in to get a look at the wound. He felt for Tom’s pulse, murmured into his own radio, then turned his full attention back to Tom.

“Schulz! Schulz! Can you hear me?” The SWAT guy’s radio crackled. “Schulz!” he cried again. “Are you in there?”

“Of course,” Tom said unexpectedly, and I almost laughed with relief.

The SWAT cop nodded to me. “Are you hurt?” he asked. I shook my head. “Can you talk?” I nodded. “Good. How many shots?”

“Three.” My voice sounded weird. “One went into his shoulder. Another hit his car. The last one struck one of my van doors.”

“Could you tell where the shots came from?”

“From across two-oh-three, it seemed. At the time, I thought someone was up on the hill in Cottonwood Park. In the trees.”

“How far up the hill?” the cop demanded.

I didn’t know. “Maybe a hundred feet, maybe fifty.” Tom’s eyes had closed again, and I leaned in close to him, murmuring his name.

The SWAT guy talked into his radio, then tried again to communicate with Tom until his radio crackled back. The cops must not have found the shooter, because the officer jumped up, waved over the boulder, and hollered for the medics.

Moments later, two medics - both young men with shaved scalps - clambered over the boulders. They instructed me to ease off the compression and move out of the way. I obeyed. One assessed Tom’s wound while the other checked his vital signs. The second medic told the SWAT guy to get the police copter out of the meadow. They were bringing in Flight-for-Life. This meant the medics were skipping the ambulance. Again I wished I didn’t know so much. They were skipping the ambulance because of the severity of Tom’s wound. Time had become critical and an ambulance would take too long… .

I felt dizzy and keeled backward. My body was shutting down, drained of its initial surge of adrenaline. One medic ordered me to lie on the ground. He told the SWAT officer to check me for shock.

Without realizing how I got there, I was suddenly lying on an uneven sheet of ice. A rock stuck into my left shoulder blade. My whole body turned very cold, very fast. I have to call the Hydes, I thought, as the blue sky whirled over my head. There’ll be no luncheon today. The SWAT deputy was talking to me, telling me to keep my eyes open, to keep looking at him. He asked if my collar was tight. I didn’t care about my damn collar. I couldn’t see Tom. The deputy informed me that the situation on the other side of the rocks had stabilized. The shooter had fled. Captain Lambert of the Furman County Sheriff’s Department had radioed to say I could follow the medical helo down to the hospital. If I wanted to. If I was well enough.

I said I was fine. I tried to sit up but my head swam and I sank back, helpless and frustrated. I wanted to be with my husband, my voice croaked. And could someone please call the Hydes, Eliot and Sukie, who owned the castle on the hill above the chapel, and tell them what was happening? The SWAT man nodded and told me the police chopper was leaving now, so Flight-for-Life could land. When the medical helo left, the police chopper would come back to take me to the hospital. Did I understand? I nodded. Captain Lambert would meet me in Denver. A trauma team at the hospital was

already getting prepared for Tom.

A trauma team. I was having trouble breathing. The SWAT deputy had not mentioned the body in the creek.

When officer needs assistance, shots fired comes in, I knew, everything else gets dropped. My mind repeated the words. A trauma team. Getting ready. For Tom.

I couldn’t hear the SWAT guy anymore.

I registered the deafening racket and harsh wind of one helo taking off and another landing. A uniformed man and woman - both flight nurses, I realized - threaded through the boulder wall. They stabilized Tom’s head, tersely asked the SWAT deputy for a report, then bandaged Tom up and belted him into a stretcher. I craned to watch. My dear Tom, big in body and spirit, charismatic with his men, loving to Arch and me, was always on the move, without being hurried. Now he was unconscious, his face gray, his body drenched in blood. Working in sync, the two nurses expertly heaved the stretcher bearing Tom over the boulders. The SWAT man didn’t stop me as I struggled to my feet. When I swayed and nearly fell, he gripped my elbow and walked me through the rocks.

The sheer number of cops assembled was astonishing. At least fifty police officers, their uniforms and cars emblazoned with the insignia of the Furman County and nearby Jefferson County sheriff’s departments, as well as Littleton, Lakewood, and Morrison police departments, were crowded onto the road, talking into their radios, taking notes, investigating the scene, keeping tabs on more officers combing the trees. I wished that Tom could have seen it.

My mind backtracked to Tom’s words about her. Don’t think about it, I warned myself. He’d been shot. He was out of his head.

Still, as the medical helo whipped into the air, my brain again supplied Tom’s shaky, apologetic tone. I don’t love her! What could he have been thinking? That he was going to die, and that I would find something incriminating from before we’d met? Like what? Love notes? Hotel bills? Or was his concern more recent? Had he compromised himself with a hooker in Atlantic City? Had she threatened to give me a ring?

Stop. Stop, stop, stop.

I watched the medical helo recede into the sky.

Less than ten minutes later, the sheriff’s department chopper took off with me in it. Below us, on the other side of the creek, police officers continued to swarm through the trees of Cottonwood Park. The corpse was still in the water; crime-scene techs were videotaping and combing the site. Half a mile east of the scene, where Fox Creek flowed down into the Cottonwood, cops had stopped traffic. On the south side of the road, on the hill far above Cottonwood Creek, rose the castle. Its moat glittered in the morning sun like a medieval vision. Had the police notified the Hydes of what had happened? Or were they still expecting me to be there to cater the lunch?

The helo swept eastward. The castle estate adjoined an enormous cattle ranch, and the noise of the copter drove dozens of steer below us into a brisk trot. To the south stretched acres and acres of pine trees.

I glanced back at Cottonwood Creek, where Andy Balachek’s receding body was a bright spot in the dark water. In the county park, a cluster of uniformed officers had stopped at a dirt road that cut through the expanse of trees. They were studying something on the road. Shells from the bullets fired at us? Footprints in the snow? Tracks from a vehicle?

I turned and stared at Highway 203, now receding from sight. Had someone shot out our window, then somehow followed me to the castle? Had that same person murdered Andy Balachek and dumped his body in the creek, where I would be almost certain to discover it? Had that person then waited across the road, to try to shoot me? Or had Tom been his target all along?

I turned back, determined to focus on Tom. In the cockpit, the pilots’ mouths worked as they spoke into headsets. Out the window, the endless spread of forest fell away beneath us. I closed my eyes and prayed for Tom.

But thoughts intruded. Either my mind was struggling to make sense out of all that had happened, or my soul was trying to generate hope. What had Tom told me about gunshot wounds? It depends on the weapon. If someone shot a high-powered rifle at your shoulder, goodbye shoulder. If it was a low-powered rifle, something might be salvaged if a bone hadn’t been hit, or if a major blood vessel hadn’t been opened up. If a bullet tore open the subclavian vein, you could bleed to death before you reached a hospital. Would they give blood in the medical helo? I didn’t think a Flight-for-Life IV could contain anything besides glucose.

The helo pilot, who looked too young to be shaving, much less flying a helicopter, murmured into his radio, then swerved the aircraft to the right. Unless I was extremely disoriented, we were heading south-by-southeast. This was not the direction to the base for Flight-for- Life: Saint Anthony’s Hospital in Denver.

“What’s going on?” I yelled over the whir of the helicopter blades.

“Saint Anthony’s is overloaded,” the pilot hollered back. “They’re on Divert. The medical helo is going to Southwest Hospital, so that’s where we’re heading. Southwest has a new trauma center that can handle this.”

I bit my lip painfully, anxious to get Tom somewhere. I knew Southwest Hospital, across from Westside Mall in the southeast corner of Furman County. It was where Marla had been taken when she’d had her heart attack; afterwards, she’d donated money for a new coronary care wing. Southwest also belonged to the same chain of Denver hospitals in which John Richard had once worked.

I veered away from that thought as we swooped over one of the residential areas in the foothills, where houses sat higgledy-piggledy along a winding dirt road. Swing sets shuddered in the cold wind coming off the higher elevations. Week-old, wind-carved snowmen newly dusted with white indicated the presence of happy families.

In the not-so-happy family department, where was John Richard at this moment? I wished I knew. Could he possibly have shot Tom? Would he have? Yes, oh yes, no matter what Arch said about his father not being good with a gun. My head ached as I remembered an incident from when we were still married. The tale had come from a nurse at Cityside Hospital, one of the places where John Richard had done deliveries. Her voice trembling, she’d called me to confess she’d repeatedly rejected John Richard’s advances. When she’d protested to Doctor that she was married, she told me, the Jerk had calmly replied, How about if that troublesome husband of yours was out of the way? I didn’t know why the nurse had phoned me with this message. What did she think I was going to do? My advice had been that she put as many miles as she could between herself and Dr. Korman. Not long after, another nurse told me that the object of John Richard’s affections had quit her job and moved to a hospital out of state.

I couldn’t see the medical helo, but I knew it was in front of us. More knowledge I’d gleaned in Med Wives 101 came up like a fresh computer screen. The human body is mostly water. Even a bullet that only goes through soft tissue causes massive damage, beginning with the shock wave to the system known as the hydraulic effect.

Were the medics treating Tom for shock? Of course. Had I done enough to compress the wound? My teeth chattered. I grabbed a silver space blanket one of the pilots had put on the seat beside me. I was so cold. How to avoid shock? Stop feeling and start thinking.

But I couldn’t. It was too painful. I saw Tom’s body jerk back. Watched him bleed. Heard him say, I don’t love her. I’d endured years of infidelity from the Jerk. But this was different.

Incredibly, I still had my cell phone. I drew it out and stared at it. Could I use it in the helo? Should I call Elk Park Prep? Should Arch be told? I looked down. We had left the mountains and were swooping over the Hogback, an ancient, jagged geological formation that rose between the mountains and plains. The Hogback had fascinated generations of elementary-school science students. But the rocks still screwed up any cellular communication you tried to make while crossing them. Plus, making a cell call was undoubtedly not allowed in the helo, as it wouldn’t be in the hospital. So: Once I knew Tom was being taken care of, I’d find a pay phone, call Marla, call the Hydes, call the church. All crises in

due time, my mind numbly supplied.

The helo was just starting over the flatlands that stretched toward Denver. We whump-whumped over a development, row after row of gray-and-beige tract houses. Ahead, Westside Mall loomed. Beyond it, Southwest Hospital and its crammed parking lot shimmered in the sun.

The police helicopter hovered near the mall. From our vantage point, the hospital landing pad was in full view. It looked as if an emergency nurse and orderly were meeting the medical helo. I swallowed and watched the flight nurses unload Tom hot, that is, with the helo blades still going. Then I saw Tom, still on the backboard, being transferred onto a gurney and wheeled away.

First the trauma team, then a hot

unload. You only unloaged hot when you thought you were going to lose somebody.

What felt like an eternity but probably was not more than twenty minutes later, after the police chopper had landed and the hospital security officer had escorted me to a bathroom to clean Tom’s blood off my hands and arms, I arrived in the ER waiting room. I was told the ER doctor would come out to talk to me as soon as possible. A few moments later, Tom’s new captain, Isaac Lambert, loomed next to me. Awkwardly, I got to my feet.

“Goldy,” he murmured. He hugged me, but knew better than to ask some clichéd question about how I was doing. “They have a good team here.”

“Okay.” Gray-haired, hawk-faced Captain Lambert was a tall, heavy man whose bones creaked when he sat in a plastic chair. The row of brown buttons on his tan uniform stretched to capacity across his Buddha-like belly. He smelled of Old Spice and gave the impression of a benevolent giant trying hard to be comforting. I sat down next to him, grateful to have someone with me.

“Where’s Tom now?” I asked. “Have you seen him?”

“No, but I know the procedure.” His voice was kindly and reassuring. “The flight team gives their report to the ER doc. Tom’s age, how many shots fired, how much blood loss, that kind of thing. The ER doc assesses and then acts.”

We said nothing for a few minutes. I looked around. Sitting in the waiting room felt like floating near the bottom of a deep well. Sunlight filtered through blue-tinted frosted glass and illuminated pale blue walls, dark turquoise chairs, navy blue couches opposite a wall of windows looking out on a busy hospital hallway. For the first time, I noticed that the room appeared to be full of women: women staring, women sobbing quietly, women listening with frozen faces to jammy-clad doctors giving them the news.

“They unloaded him hot,” I told Lambert, just to be talking. “That means - ” My throat shut.

The captain’s expression and tone did not change. “They gave him blood while they were assessing him.”

I could just imagine the ER team swarming around my husband: putting in IV’s that contained blood and glucose, taking blood pressure and pulse, hooking

up the heart monitor, checking for respiration and mentation, that is, assessing how cogent the patient is.

How cogently was Tom thinking when he told me he didn’t love her?

“They do X rays,” the captain continued in that maddeningly soothing voice. “Once they know what they’re dealing with and have their surgical team together, they’ll put him right in - “

The doctor appeared, a short, slender man with gray hair, pale eyes, and a greenish tint to his skin that might have been the effect of the neon lights. He introduced himself as Dr. Larry Saslow and asked if I was Mrs. Schulz.

“Your husband’s wound,” the doctor began, “is not as bad as it could have been. The bullet missed bone, but nicked a major blood vessel. The subclavian, heard of it?” When I nodded mutely, he went on: “A vascular surgeon is working on him now. He should be out of surgery in a couple of hours.”

I wanted to hold on to this man. I want reassurances! But I could do nothing but nod.

“Thanks. Good. Very good,” replied Captain Lambert before the doctor walked away. When I continued to say nothing, Captain Lambert mumbled he’d be back in a minute. Moments later, he lumbered back with two plastic cups of coffee that looked like recycled motor oil. “It’s better than nothing,” he said apologetically. Mechanically, I took a sip and instantly burned my tongue. “It’s great, thanks.” My voice sounded faraway.

“This is good news, Goldy. What the doc said. They’ll keep Tom in ICU overnight. A couple of our deputies can stay to check on him every hour, if you need to go home - “

“I am not going home,” I said fiercely. My hand trembled and coffee slopped onto my knee. I knew I needed to make calls, but I wasn’t ready. “Okay, okay. Stay here, then.” I was being unreasonable and shrill, and I didn’t want to respond to the graciousness of Captain Lambert this way. Still, I didn’t know how to act. So I just sat, prayed, and drank bad coffee. Finally, I asked the captain if he knew about a phone I could use. He said the waiting-room phone was ten feet away. Did I want him to walk over there with me? No, thanks.

First I called Saint Luke’s Episcopal Church in Aspen Meadow. Into the priest’s voice mail I crisply stated our news, adding that I was at Southwest Hospital and would be for the next twenty-four hours. I asked that Tom’s name go out immediately on the prayer chain. Then I called Marla’s cell. Please pick up Arch from Elk Park Prep and call me at the following number, I said numbly into her messaging system. Better yet, please bring Arch to Southwest Hospital, as I need to be with both of you. Tom’s been shot, I explained, my voice quavering.

Then I called the Hydes. With them, I was relieved to get a machine. Briefly, I announced what had happened, and where I was. We’ll have to postpone the luncheon until later in the week, since the area is now a crime scene. I’m sure the donors will understand…

Finally I went back to my plastic chair. I felt numb.

“Goldy?” Captain Lambert asked. “I’ve been wondering, I’m just curious … of course, you’ll be talking to a detective later, but… what happened?”

And so I told my tale: how the window at our house had been shot out, how Sergeant Boyd had politely ordered my son and me to get out until Tom returned. We’d schlepped to Hyde Castle, just above Cottonwood Creek and Hyde Chapel, where I was supposed to cater a luncheon today… . And then I’d found Andy Balachek’s body in the creek, and Tom had been shot “And there’s something else you should know.” I told him about my ex-husband’s early release from prison.

“We’re trying to find Korman now,” the captain replied. “We think he’s at his old country club home in Aspen Meadow. At least, that’s where he told his parole officer he was headed - “

“Wait,” I interrupted him. My attention veered to the far side of the waiting room.

At the window that looked out on the hall, a woman’s face - porcelain skin, fine features, ink-black hair - appeared, then vanished. Goose bumps chilled my skin.

What was Chardé Lauderdale doing at Southwest Hospital?

-8-

I jumped up, raced to the waiting-room door, and checked the hall. It was a noisy place. The intercom blared litanies of names and messages; orderlies rattled past pushing patient-loaded gurneys; families, nurses, and doctors chattered and strode, fast and slow, along the squeaky linoleum.

And there was Chardé Lauderdale, walking quickly away. Her black hair was swept up in a French twist held with a gleaming barrette. Her red and black suit hugged her athletic figure as her high heels clickety-clicked into the distance. Maybe she was here to have her little daughter Patty examined again, to determine if there were any long-term effects from the shaking Buddy had given her. Chardé turned and glanced at me, then trotted around the corner.

I rubbed my dry, cracked hands together. Curse of the caterer: too many washings, too little lotion. I stared at the hallway, as if daring Chardé Lauderdale to reappear. Had Tom ever mentioned someone trying to intimidate him?

Was someone trying to intimidate me? Could the Lauderdales and their thirst for revenge be behind all that was happening? I walked back inside the waiting room.

“Captain Lambert, I need to tell you about some people named Lauderdale.” My mouth filled with bile even as I said their name. Briefly, I told Lambert of the New Year’s Eve party and its aftermath.

“I read the article,” Captain Lambert mused. “Read the report, too. We’re following up on the Lauderdales. And on your ex-husband. And on the hijackers Tom’s investigating. At this point, the suspects in the shooting of Tom are the same ones we’re considering for shooting at your house. First thing, we have to look at Balachek.”

“What exactly was going on with Andy Balachek?” I asked. “Tom only told me a few details.”

The captain pursed his lips. “Tom didn’t tell you we used to call Ray Wolff the Stinky Beef Boy?”

My mind swam. “He never mentioned bad-smelling meat. I would have remembered that.”

“A while back, Wolff stole a truckload of what he thought was prime-grade steaks. Turned out it was beef rectums.” Lambert chuckled. “The rectums were unsalable to restaurants, naturally. So he abandoned the truck. Smelled up six city blocks before Denver P.O. figured out what it was. Witnesses gave a physical description of Wolff, whom law enforcement already knew about.”

“So then Wolff got a couple of partners, one of whom was Andy Balachek?”

Lambert cocked an eyebrow. “You’re not going to go chasing after them, are you?”

My reputation for poking around in unsolved crimes again reared its busybody head. I reddened. “Of course not.” Lambert’s look was skeptical. No doubt the captain knew all about my sleuthing.

“All right,” Lambert continued after a moment. “The three-million-dollar stamp heist. The Stamp Fox is an unusual place. It’s high-class and very specialized. This country doesn’t have many fancy stamp stores, not the way they do in London or Zurich. George Renard, the owner, tried to get publicity for his store by getting articles in the local papers about Tucson’s big philatelic show. Renard wanted the world to know the value of the stamps he’d be exhibiting, and wouldn’t his boutique be a cool place to shop?” Lambert rubbed his large forehead, sighing over the store owner’s stupidity. “Problem was, the article also said Renard was flying to Tucson and shipping the collection. So your smart thief will watch the store. How many days to the stamp show? What courier does the store use? How often does the courier come? That’s how he figures out that when a FedEx truck shows up three days before the show opens, he can hit it and cash in.”

“How many valuable stamps were taken?”

“Three of them were from Mauritius. Each of those was valued at half a million pounds, which is about eight hundred thousand dollars per stamp, at today’s exchange rates. Know anything about old stamps from Mauritius? Do you even know where Mauritius is? I had to look it up.”

My laugh sounded hollow, somehow. Every amateur stamp-collector quickly learns the location of small countries that produce important stamps. “Mauritius is an island country off the coast of Africa. East of Madagascar. Their old stamps are extremely rare,” I said. “First issue was in … ah … 1850, or thereabouts? Has a picture of Queen Victoria?”

“Very good. 1847.” Lambert sounded impressed.

I thought for a minute. “But … aren’t those stamps going to be hard to fence?”

“Maybe in this country, where using pawnshops would be stupid. But if you’ve got contacts in the Far East, according to Renard, you can fence anything. Before you know it, the stolen stamps, now with huge price tags, show up in European shows. Watch it, though, Goldy. We haven’t published any pictures of the stolen stamps, or even a list of the inventory. Got it? That’s a key to our investigation. No one must know.”

“Right, okay, thanks for telling me.” The keys to a case were secret, and closely guarded by the authorities. Without willing it, I mentally placed The Stamp Fox in Furman East Shopping Center. The luxury strip mall was a mile from Lauderdale Luxury Imports. It was also, as I recalled, not far from The Huntsman, the euphemistically named gun shop for which the Jerk’s new girlfriend, Viv Martini, worked as a sales rep. The Huntsman was a freestanding store, since mall developers didn’t favor firearm retailers.

I felt dazed. “Where does shooting Tom come in?”

He shook his head. “We figure the thieves haven’t fenced the stamps yet. But we also believe Balachek was getting antsy. The FedEx driver was killed in the robbery, and Balachek could face murder or complicity charges. Plus, he had stolen his father’s truck last year, sold it for gambling money he lost, and then never paid him back. Now his dad’s in coronary care. Andy wanted his share of the robbery money so he could make things right with his dad before he died. At least, that’s what he told Tom. At first, Andy strung Tom along as to the location of the stamps. Andy told Tom when Wolff would be at Furman County Storage and Tom arrested Wolff there. It was a great collar. But our team found no stamps on Ray Wolff. Our theory is that Andy knew the location of the stamps, but wanted to trade that knowledge for a better plea deal. It’s very tentative, but we’re figuring Wolff’s gang killed Andy to keep his mouth shut. And maybe they’re after Tom because they figure Andy did tell him where the loot was.” He gave me an apologetic look. “It’s all really speculative,” he repeated.

“And the other people in the gang?”

“We just have Wolff and Balachek as suspects at this point. But witnesses to the hijacking are very clear about seeing three people. Balachek refused to tell Tom the name of the other hijacker, or if there were more people involved. That kid was scared.”

I nodded numbly. I was thankful the captain had shared his theory with me. He’d also given me more information than

cops usually gave civilians. But he knew Tom talked to me about his cases. He also knew that I’d proved helpful - if a tad meddlesome - in the past. I didn’t feel particularly helpful now, though. All I could think of was Tom slumping against a boulder as his blood ran down the granite.

I asked, “The other hijacker, could it be a woman?” Cops have a way of hearing questions. The captain’s tone became guarded. “We don’t know the exact number of people involved in the heist, or their gender. Why?”

I shrugged. Why? I don’t love her. Had she pointed a loaded gun at our window in the wee hours, then shot Tom this morning, as he walked toward me? Was she, like the Jerk, the jealous type? Is there any way my husband would have become emotionally involved with a member of a theft ring?

Lambert shrugged, as if he’d made a decision. “Until recently, Ray Wolff had a girlfriend. Possibly she hooked up with Andy Balachek, too.” The captain added carefully, “But … I would have thought you’d know about her. Tom ever mention Viv Martini?”

I choked. “Viv Martini? She’s involved with these crooks?” Why had Tom not told me this? “Viv is my ex-husband’s girlfriend.”

“Yeah, so we heard. The woman gets around. Our most recent information was that Martini was involved with Ray Wolff. Last month, we thought we spotted her at a Denver hotel, either alone or with Andy Balachek.

Then we heard she was interested in John Richard Korman.”

She gets around? That seemed an understatement. To my way of thinking, the Furman County Jail sounded postively incestuous. I remembered Arch’s words: Dad stole the girlfriend of one of the convicts. The guy was pretty pissed off and yelled at Dad that he’d get back at him. But Dad and Viv are doing okay. Viv told me she’s happier with someone finishing a prison stint than with someone who’s just getting started on one. She likes it that Dad has money. He told her he was buying her something nice, a Mercedes or maybe a trip to Rio.

I felt as if I were inside the washing machine with all the Jerk’s dirty laundry, past and future. Let’s see: The Jerk stole the hijacker’s girlfriend. This past Friday, the Department of Corrections released the Jerk. Very early today, Monday morning, someone blasted out our front window. Two hours ago, Tom, who arrested the hijacker, was shot, right next to where the corpse of the hijacker’s murdered young partner, the man Tom had been seeking in Atlantic City, had been dumped.

Even a paranoid has real enemies.

The captain’s pager beeped. “I’ve gotta go make this call from my car,” Lambert informed me, and left.

I used the waiting-room desk phone to call Marla again. My watch said half past nine. While I was waiting to be switched to my friend’s voice mail, I ate one of the two emergency chocolate truffles I keep in my purse, then tore into a cellophane-wrapped package of crackers left for waiting-room families. Feeling slightly better, I told Marla’s messaging that Tom was now in with a vascular surgeon.

“Please call the hospital’s main number and see if they’ll page me,” I added. “I’m still hoping you can bring

Arch to the hospital so we can decide what to do. I’ll be spending the night hero. Oh, and I’m desperate for some clean clothes, if you can scrounge anything up. Thanks, friend.”

Captain Lambert trundled back into the waiting room. “Okay,” he began without preamble, “our guys on the hill just called in a preliminary report. What they think are the shooter’s footprints start by a picnic table in Cottonwood Park, then go down to a spot across from the creek, then back up to the table. At the point across the creek, a tech found a spent shell. There are some tire tracks by the picnic table. So someone was watching from above, then came back down to do the shooting, then went back up to his vehicle. Was the person waiting for Tom? Was the shooter waiting for the person who found Balachek’s body? But that was you, right? Would the perp have waited all day to shoot at a cop? We can’t tell yet.”

Waiting for Tom? Waiting for any cop? My thoughts whirled. If you’d murdered Andy Balachek, why not just leave? Why stay?

The captain continued, “The investigative team has begun detection around the body. Rigor’s already set in, so he’d been dead for a while. Which makes even less sense. How long had the perp been waiting up in the pines? Hours? Oh, and by the way, all this is for your ears only, Goldy,” he warned.

“Yeah,” I said. “Okay.” As if I was going to ask some stranger how to make sense out of all this.

“Okay, regarding your house,” the captain said, switching back to his reassuring tone. “Since your security system’s down from the shooting, your neighbor Trudy volunteered to watch your house. Another thing you should be aware of: I’ve assigned two of Tom’s men to investigate this case. Officers Boyd and Armstrong. Boyd will be lead investigator.”

I felt relief. The captain also had a long message from Marla, who had called the sheriffs department. She’d pulled Arch from school, Lambert reported. She and Arch were going to Boulder to find someone named Julian. Then the three of them were coming here to the hospital. Lambert talked on about how the policemen’s wives had wanted to organize meals to be sent to the castle, where he assumed Arch and I would want to stay, but they weren’t sure if I’d want them, with me being a caterer and all. I smiled involuntarily at the image of historic-food buff Eliot Hyde peering into a tuna noodle casserole. I thanked the captain and assured him meals would not be necessary.

While Lambert sat patiently, I paced for another hour. Finally a young, grim-faced doctor in surgical clothes came into the room. “Mrs. Schulz?” He nodded at Lambert. A pins-and-needles anxiety swept over me.

Dr. Dan Spier, vascular surgeon, was concise. His small fingers indicated on his own chest the bullet’s point of entry. It had indeed gone through soft tissue only. He talked about the surgery his team had undertaken, and told me that Tom’s shoulder would have to be immobilized for about a month, although he could start moving around as soon as he felt up to it. Tom was lucky, Spier continued dryly, that no bone had been hit, lucky that the weapon had not been an automatic, lucky that there had been only one bullet. And he was particularly lucky, Spier added with a pinched smile, that I’d had the presence of mind to compress the wound.

Lucky. I turned the word over in my mind.

Spier concluded by saying I would receive discharge instructions on changing the bandage and on bringing Tom back in to be examined. As long as all went well during a night in ICU, Tom could go home in the morning.

“That seems early,” I protested. How could we go home, until the cops had a better sense of who the shooter was? And if we didn’t go home, how would the Hydes take to having a wounded cop recuperating at their place?

Spier shook his head. “It’s not really early. All you have to do is keep an eye on the wound and get the patient to rest.” I thanked Spier. He nodded impassively and left.

Finally, finally, I was allowed to see Tom. His skin was yellow. With an IV in his arm and oxygen tubes up his nose, he appeared utterly helpless. The bedsheet rose and fell as he slept. I closed his hand in mine. His eyelids flickered but did not open. I love you, I told him silently. I love you now and forever and ever: No matter what.

A Furman County deputy was stationed outside the ICU. An older nurse with a flat midwestern accent told me I could see Tom ten minutes each hour, the usual drill. I should not try to wake him.

“It’s going to be a rough twenty-four hours for you, Mrs. Schulz,” she warned, her voice laced with sympathy.

“You might want to get some family here with you. Get yourself something to eat.”

“Rough,” I repeated numbly.

But we’re lucky, oh so lucky. Tom is alive.

I told the nurse I would be back in an hour. When she turned to talk to a family whose daughter had just come out of surgery, I walked unsteadily to the ICU waiting room.

-9-

Tom opened his eyes once, on my second visit to the ICU. When he turned his head a fraction, I jumped to his side and carefully took the hand not connected to an IV I asked him how he felt. He groaned but said nothing before the medicated fog reclaimed him. With grim determination, I continued my hourly visits through the afternoon.

At six o’clock, Marla burst into the ICU waiting room with Arch and Julian Teller in tow. To their worried barrage of questions about Tom’s condition, I replied that he’d had surgery and was on the mend. Arch, fighting back tears, gave me a brief squeeze before withdrawing behind Julian and Marla. Julian stepped forward and hugged me hard. His handsome face now boasted a college-grown mustache and goatee. Not tall, he possessed a lean, muscular, swimmer’s body, barely visible as he shoved his hands into pockets of a khaki outfit that resembled an oversize uniform of the French Foreign Legion. When he pulled away, he ran his hand through his tobacco-brown hair, now a mown thatch, and mumbled that he felt terrible, that he couldn’t believe someone had shot at us, that he wished he could have been at the hospital earlier.

“Julian.” I pulled him in for another embrace. For almost three years, Julian Teller had been a much-loved member of our extended family. Not only was he dedicated to becoming a vegetarian chef, he was a great kid to boot. So I wasn’t going to listen to him apologize about anything. “You say you’re sorry again, we’ll have Steak Tartare for breakfast.”

Julian’s mouth twisted into a shy smile. “I left messages for my professors.” His body tensed with energy as he tried to make his shrug appear offl1and. “Told them I was taking a few days off for a family emergency. I mean, I was already set to help you with that banquet Friday night. I can stay a few weeks if you need it. And if the people at the castle wouldn’t mind having me,” he added, his eyes pleading. I started to say that he need not leave school indefinitely, but stopped when I glimpsed Arch’s worried face. It would be good for him to have Julian around for a while. Julian was an excellent student and would manage. Whether the Hydes would welcome yet another live-in guest was another matter.

“Let me check with the castle owners,” I murmured. Marla, her face set in forced jollity, bustled forward in one of her “February is for Valentine’s Day” outfits: a long-sleeved scarlet knit dress patterned with white hearts the size of fried eggs. Her voice was matter-of-fact. “We’re all taking a few days or weeks off or whatever Tom needs. Who do these criminals think they are, anyway?” The dish-size hearts trembled as Marla handed me a shopping bag and leaned forward for her hug. “Sweat suit from the Brown Palace Gift Shop. I’m so sorry this is happening,” she whispered in my ear. “If I had a husband I loved the way you love Tom, I’d be hysterical. You don’t think El Jerko did this, do you?”

“Not sure,” I murmured, then, in a louder voice, thanked her for the clothes and for bringing the boys. I turned my attention back to Arch. His static-filled brown hair, thick glasses, and pinched expression gave him the look of a young professor whose experiments had all failed. He waited until the others had hugged and spoken to me before giving me another hug.

“Mom.” He kept his voice low. “Did they try to shoot you, too?”

“No,” I said lightly, trying to be matter-of-fact. Arch still suffered from the occasional nightmare, and I needed to reassure him.

“I’m sorry I lost my cool this morning.”

“It’s okay.”

It was not a bad apology, as apologies went. Obviously, he was afraid to ask about Tom yet. I answered the rest of their questions by giving the barest details of what had happened. Tom was almost certainly coming back to the castle the next morning, I said. The Hydes would just have to understand. After all, where else could we go?

We took turns seeing Tom. With his slack, jaundiced face, IV streaming under the bandage on his arm, and his heavy snoring, he looked and sounded terrible. At eight forty-five the priest from St. Luke’s showed up. He saw Tom alone, and then the five of us prayed together briefly in the waiting room.

At nine-thirty, a yawning Marla announced that the boys should come back with her to the Brown Palace. Arch protested that he couldn’t, that all his bags, clothes, and “stuff” were at Hyde Castle, and by the time they drove to Aspen Meadow, picked up his paraphernalia, and schlepped back to Denver, it would be morning and he’d have to leave for school. Julian jumped in to say he had a sleeping bag in his Range Rover and could drive Arch back to the castle. And, he added, he could find the castle at night with no problem. He was willing to sleep on a couch or even on the floor of Arch’s room, if the Hydes would allow it. Then he could take Arch to and from school and help with the historical cooking. “I’ll stay for as long as you want,” he concluded in a tone that brooked no argument.

“Thanks for the offer,” I told him. “But it’s up to the Hydes.”

Marla left to call Eliot and Sukie about Julian’s request to be housed at the castle. When she returned, she said she’d talked to Eliot, who couldn’t have been nicer.

“‘Yes,’ he gushed,” Marla said, imitating Eliot’s sonorous voice, “‘bring the injured policeman, bring the college student, we’ll have a grand household here just as they did in medieval times.’ He was slightly freaked out that you’d found the body of Andy Balachek,” she added. “Apparently, Andy used to come to the castle quite a bit when he was little, because his father, Peter-the excavator, do you know him? - rebuilt the Hydes’ dam after Fox Creek flooded. Eliot didn’t know ‘poor little Andy’ might be involved in illegal activity. So he’s spooked.”

“Great,” I muttered.

“Oh-kay,” Marla went on, “Eliot also asked if you would be able to cater the labyrinth-donor lunch in three days, on Thursday. The police should be finished with the crime scene by then, he figures. Oh, and the St. Luke’s staff is going to call all the donors, to notify them of the change.” She raised her eyebrows at me. “Eliot was also worried that doing both the lunch and the fencing banquet on Friday might be too much for you.” She grinned mischievously. “I knew you didn’t have any catering events until Saturday night’s Valentine’s Day dance. So I told him Thursday would be fine. Hope that’s okay. I also offered Julian’s services both days. The king of the castle,” Marla said with a toss of her head, “was able to retire in peace.”

“Wearing his nightcap, no doubt.”

“Are you kidding? Wearing a crown.” She frowned. “So you’re all right with that catering schedule?”

“Absolutely, thanks. Tom needs to rest. Julian and I can do big-time cooking. It’ll be good for us.”

“Really,” added Julian.

“Come on, guys,” Arch pleaded wearily, “I’ve got a ton of English homework, and I’ve got to use the binoculars to see what phase Venus is in. The teachers don’t excuse missed assignments unless you yourself are in the hospital. Maybe not even then,” he added glumly. Poor Arch!

We made sketchy plans. Elk Park Prep had a late start the next day, so if the hospital released Tom early enough, we might return to the castle before Arch and Julian left for school. After Tom was settled in our castle suite, I’d finally go home for the disk that had my recipes and notes on historic English food, plus information on how castles were run, and background on labyrinths - all areas Eliot had asked me to research. I’d also find a photograph of the Jerk, I added silently, for the benefit of castle security. Then Julian and I would plunge into finishing the planning and doing the cooking for the luncheon and dinner. Before the three of them left, we gave each other one last reassuring hug.

When they’d gone, however, I felt a flood of loneliness, as if the events of the day were just now catching up with me. I changed into the gift-shop sweat suit. But dozing on the waiting-room couch did not seem to be in the cards. The bright overhead lights, intercom announcements, and shuffling and buzzing of folks in the hall, not to mention my own awareness of each upcoming ten-minute visit, all conspired against it. Chardé Lauderdale, I found out from a nurse who was an old friend, had indeed been in with baby Patty for a visit to the neurologist. To my relief, Chardé did not appear again.

Finally, near dawn, slumber overwhelmed me. Bad dreams brought visions of Andy’s body in the creek, the crack of a gunshot, Tom falling toward me, his arms outstretched. The expression on his face… I unintentionally shouted myself awake, only to look up into the eyes of Captain Lambert. He’d brought me a still-hot, four-shot latté, bless him, made just the way Tom had once told him I liked it. Chilled and stiff from my restless night, throat sore, eyes gummed from crying, I gratefully sipped the rich drink. The captain waved my thanks away and pointed to a brown paper bag.

“I brought a department sweat suit Tom’s size. And we had your van towed up to the castle. Workmen’s comp is paying for everything, including an ambulance to take Tom back to the castle with you, unless you want to go someplace else. We’ve had lots of offers from his friends. Tom has lots of friends,” he reminded me gently.

“Thanks, but all my cooking equipment is at the castle, and I’m doing two events for the Hydes this week. If Tom’s up to it, I’d love to get out of here ASAP.”

Lambert obligingly pulled strings. I received my instructions about caring for him once he was released. Tom was discharged ten minutes later. That’s the great thing about cops. Even doctors are afraid of them, almost as much as they are of lawyers.

An orderly piloted Tom to the discharge doors and then into the waiting ambulance. Captain Lambert strode along next to the wheelchair and told me Boyd and Armstrong would be up to the castle that afternoon to talk to me. Once Tom was strapped into the back of the ambulance and the wheelchair was folded and stored beside him, I climbed in. A moment later we were bumping out of the parking lot.

“I’m sorry to put you through this,” were Tom’s first words. Nonplussed, I blurted out my own apology. How wrong I’d been not to leave that area by the creek when he’d told me to. How I shouldn’t have run to welcome him.

He shook his head. “I should have waited till backup arrived.” His voice was hoarse, his breathing labored. “Then you never would have jumped out. No… blame.” When he stopped talking, I knew better than to reply. “Andy,” he added fiercely.

I squeezed Tom’s hand. “Don’t think about him. In fact, Tom? Don’t talk at all.”

“I want to get on with this.” He spoke slowly, insistently. “I need to get back to - “

“Tom, please. You’ve got to heal.”

“Working heals me.”

“Tom - “

“Where was I?” He squinted at the beige ceiling of the ambulance interior. “Oh, yeah Andy just makes me so damn mad. Made me mad. And now he’s got himself dead.”

I didn’t care about Andy Balachek; I cared only about Tom. Clearly, he wasn’t going to follow doctor’s orders and stay quiet. He didn’t want that. He wanted to talk about the corpse in the creek. “Okay,” I said. “Balachek’s death was avoidable. Why?”

“That kid was the king of communication. Loved e-mail. Sent me a letter with no return address telling me to set up thus-and-such new e-mail address, operated only out of my home. So I did, with the D.A.‘s blessing. Balachek said he’d tell me who killed the truck driver if I could get him off.” Tom’s eyes closed. I clasped his hand in mine.

The ambulance began the winding, westward ascent up Highway 203. When we’d left the hospital, shimmering white clouds had been hovering over the forests blanketing the foothills. Peering through the ambulance’s windshield, I could see that the cloud cover had now turned the color of ash. A freezing fog misted the

pine tops. More snow was on the way.

“Andy wouldn’t tell me who his other partners were,” Tom announced abruptly, startling me. “I mean, besides Ray Wolff. Andy wouldn’t divulge information about the stamps. The home address linked with his e-mail was his father’s, who’d kicked him out when Andy stole his excavation truck. And you know we thought Andy was in Atlantic City when he called last Friday.”

I nodded. Andy, frantic, had called our house from a cell phone in Central City, Colorado, where gambling was legal. He was calling from a bathroom, because he’d stolen some body’s cell phone and wanted to talk to Tom. I’d said Tom was in Atlantic City, looking for him. Andy had bitterly replied that he guessed he’d

have to go to New Jersey to see Tom, because his partner threw his computer into the lake. Then he hung up. With no leads materializing in New Jersey, Tom had decided to come home. And now he was determined to talk about the case. I sighed.

“Did you ever figure out who the partner was?” I asked. “Are there more than three people in the gang?” I paused. “Ray Wolff is in prison. Whoever the third person is, he or she or whoever couldn’t have known Andy was talking to you over the Internet, or Andy would have been killed right then. I mean, if we’re talking about the same person who did kill him in the end.”

“I’m willing to bet,” Tom said with great effort, “that the ‘other partner’ is the third hijacker witnesses saw. Maybe there are more people in the gang, but you usually don’t use the word ‘partner’ unless you’ve only got a couple of them.”

“So somebody got wind of Andy’s e-mails?”

Tom grimaced. “Don’t know.”

Talking had exhausted him. He closed his eyes as the ambulance passed the sign indicating that Aspen Meadow was only ten miles away. I was glad he was finally asleep. Every time he opened his mouth, I was afraid he was going to confess to some terrible sin that I couldn’t bear to hear.

Andy wouldn’t divulge information about the stamps. I felt a pang of envy. Would I ever get to see those Victorian wonders? Like every other eleven-year-old on my block, I’d been a voracious stamp collector. My mother had gotten tired of all the philatelic packets pouring in “on approval,” which meant stamp clubs sent stamps every month and I had to send them back by a certain date, or pay. Unfortunately, I never had the heart to return the beauties, and I’d ended up babysitting around the clock to fund my hobby. When my grades fell and I slept through a baby’s sobbing, my mother canceled all my stamp club subscriptions. Heartless! And that, unfortunately, had rung the death-knell for my stamp-collecting hobby.

We rounded a sharp corner and Tom’s stretcher shook. He groaned but did not awaken. Andy sent e-mails. Andy called. Andy got himself dead.

Maybe Tom did not blame himself for what had gone wrong in the hijacking investigation. Maybe he didn’t love some other woman. No matter what, it sounded as if he’d gotten himself emotionally connected with hapless, “gotta-talk-to-you” Andy Balachek. And if there’s one thing they teach you in cop school, it’s that you shouldn’t let a criminal live rent-free in your brain.

-10-

The ambulance made a slow, wide turn onto the castle drive, then moved through the open gates. I checked my watch: eight-ten. We thumped over the causeway across the moat and stopped in front of the gatehouse, where the medics swung open the back doors. With a glance at Tom, I scrambled out. Michaela Kirovsky, her white cloud of hair and pale face the picture of concern, stood by the portcullis. She disarmed the castle security system and helped the medics set up a portable ramp for all the stairs inside the castle. After much grunting, heaving, and clicking of ramp parts, Michaela and one of the medics managed to get Tom inside the castle. An eternity later, they pushed Tom’s wheelchair toward our assigned suite.

Following them, I felt light-headed with fatigue and hunger. I was thankful we had not run into the Hydes. Still, goose bumps raced down my skin. Why did I feel we were being watched? I glanced around for closed-circuit cameras, but saw nothing except stones, windows, and fading tapestries. Once I thought I caught movement out of the corner of my eye, but whatever it was disappeared before I actually saw anything. Just the

day before, though, I’d decided I’d imagined a noise only seconds before our picture window was blown to fragments. I hadn’t believed I’d seen something in the creek, and it had turned out to be poor Andy Balachek. So if I was persuaded I’d seen something out of the corner of my eye, then perhaps I had. I stopped and looked all around again: Nothing. Maybe I was just tired.

Michaela told me that Eliot and Sukie were out having breakfast, even though Julian had offered to make them his vegetarian Eggs Benedict. She brightened, and added that Julian was making breakfast, anyway, and had promised to go grocery shopping after he left Arch off at Elk Park Prep.

“I’ll tell you,” Michaela said with a wide grin, as I finished straightening the covers over Tom. “I love having that kid around. He works. You stay here much longer, I’m going to get lazy.”

I smiled. Yes, Julian was a blessing. But hale-and-hearty Michaela drifting into laziness was impossible to imagine.

After Michaela and the medic left, Tom murmured, “I feel helpless.”

“You’re not helpless, you just need rest,” I replied. My hands traced circles on the green-and-pink coverlet. I prayed that Tom wouldn’t start up again on the subject of Andy Balachek.

“I’ve been here before, you know,” he said mildly. “The castle.”

“Investigating a case?” I asked, surprised.

“Not exactly.” He chuckled. “Checking to see if the owner was a loony bird.” He raised his jaunty, sand-colored eyebrows at me.

“What do you mean?” I demanded.

“It’s a long story. I’ll tell you later.” He tried to shift his weight. “You stayed in a client’s home once before,” Tom reminded me. “Didn’t turn out too well, as I recall.”

“That was a family thing,” I replied. Arch’s and my brief stay with Marla’s sister had indeed not turned out well. “This is business - “

My protest was silenced by twin thudding knocks at the door: Arch and Julian. They tumbled into the room, clustered around Tom, and demanded to know how he was feeling.

“Need chocolate?” asked Julian. “I was thinking of making cookies or cake after I get back from the grocery store. Plus I just put a frittata and some rolls into the oven. They’ll be done in about ten minutes.”

“Maybe later.” Tom’s smile was thin. My heart squeezed in sympathy. “Arch.” He tilted his head at my son. “I need to laugh. I need to hear some jokes. It’ll make me feel better.”

“I just had to write a poem for my Shakespeare and His Times class,” Arch piped up, straightening his glasses. “I could read that to you, if you want.”

“I do,” Tom said, with a small grin. Arch pulled a sheet of paper out of his backpack. He warned, “It’s, you know, aa, bb, cc, dd, like that.” He poised himself at the foot of the carved four-poster bed. He cleared his throat twice, then read:

Two enemies met in a foreign field, Each pointed his spear; each clasped his bright shield. I watched from afar; to see the pair fight, Chivalry would bind them! Each was a knight. Their horses raced forward, a cold wind blew; One knight was gored, the spear went right through! Bloodied, he fell; the terrain was rocky. “Wow!” I thought. “This is worse than hockey!”

It was nice to have a laugh; it was great to be together. After a moment, Tom said he needed rest. Julian and Arch raced off for the kitchen, while I sat at Tom’s side. By the time Julian poked his head back into the suite to invite me down for rolls, frittata, fresh fruit, Cheshire cheese, and tea, Tom was asleep. The Elizabethans hadn’t eaten frittata, I was pretty sure. Nor, I’d been surprised to learn in my research, had they drunk tea. But having substituted packaged crackers for regular meals for the past twenty hours, I was ravenous. The heck with food history. Besides, I couldn’t remember what the Elizabethans had for breakfast. That’s what I was going back to our house for, right? To get the disk with all my research. I promised Julian I’d be right down.

When I entered the enormous kitchen moments later, Julian, Arch, and Michaela were already sitting at the oak trestle table. A cozy fire crackled in one of the kitchen hearths. Soon, I was slathering one of Julian’s hot rolls with soft butter and homemade plum jam that Michaela had retrieved from Eliot’s backup stash in the dining room. Heaven. The creamy, custardlike texture of the frittata provided a tangy complement to the sharp cheese. Relishing the delicious breakfast, I recalled that, indeed, Queen Elizabeth herself had indulged in enormous breakfasts - before she went hunting. I told Arch, Michaela, and Julian as much as I could remember of one menu: cold sausages and powdered neat’s tongue. Arch asked what a neat was, and I replied that “neat” was an archaic term for cow or ox. Michaela grinned and served us steaming cups of strong English Breakfast tea. I asked Arch how the fencing was going.

“Pretty well,” he answered cautiously, wary of appearing boastful in front of his coach.

“He’s done brilliantly,” Michaela declared as she split her third roll and piled the center with cheese slices. “I’m going to have him be part of our demonstration Friday night.”

Arch blushed. Julian slyly added, “That’s not because your former girlfriend is on the team? Maybe Lettie -

“

“Stop!” warned Arch. His face had turned scarlet. I decided to say nothing. Arch had kept me in the dark about his post-Christmas breakup with Lettie, also fourteen. When he’d told me after the fact, he said that he wasn’t going to tell me the reasons, because then I would try to argue with them. Oh-kay, I’d said. Now I wondered idly if the breakup had been so bad that Lettie might have shot at our window.

I took another sip of tea and told myself not to be ridiculous.

“Couple of messages for you,” said Michaela as she gathered up the dishes. “One, your tables were delivered yesterday morning to the chapel. Or rather, they weren’t delivered. The police turned the delivery guys away. Eliot asked them to come back early on Thursday.”

I sighed. If I hadn’t had so much on my plate, I would have called Party Rental and told them what was going on. “Thanks.”

“No problem. The police have given me the go-ahead to setup the chapel tomorrow. I’ll be unpacking our space heaters, opening our own serving tables and folding chairs, and setting up our screen for Eliot’s slides.” She paused. “Eliot wants to review the menu with you this afternoon. If you’re up to it.”

I nodded. “No problem. And the second message?”

“Two detectives want you to call them.” She handed me a note with the names of Boyd and Armstrong, as well as their office and cell phone numbers. Then she loaded the rest of the dishes into the wood-paneled dishwasher, one of the kitchen’s numerous disguised amenities. I thanked Michaela again for helping. She looked at the floor and said it was the least she could do, after what we’d been through.

After the boys had been assured that Tom and I would be fine, just fine, they gathered up Arch’s gear and Julian’s grocery list - he insisted he was making dinner tonight for everybody - and hustled down to Julian’s Rover. From one of the narrow windows in the well tower, I watched them roar away.

Back in our room, Tom was still sleeping. I knew I had to go back to our house. I needed to check on the animals, too, and so I used the phone - a portable device placed in our magisterial bathroom, which I hadn’t seen when we’d first arrived - to call Trudy. She reported that Jake the bloodhound and Scout the cat were in good shape. She’d collected today’s mail and would continue to do so until we were home again. The police had come by early this morning, she said, and told her that deputies were working hard on the Balachek murder and the window shooting.

“Everybody on the street’s watching the place till then,” Trudy added. “We’re even keeping track of unfamiliar license plates.”

I murmured that that wasn’t necessary. But Trudy interrupted me, her voice insistent. “There’s a strange car out there right now. It looks as if the driver is keeping a close eye on your place.”

“Is it someone from the sheriff’s department?”

“I don’t think an unmarked car would be covered with rust, Goldy. Plus, a cop would be more obvious. This guy is being very surreptitious. Actually, it’s a woman.”

My skin turned to ice. “Trudy, are you sure she’s watching our house - “

“Goldy, she’s been sitting in her car for two hours now. She’s hiding behind a newspaper. I know she’s not reading it because when I took out my binoculars, I could see her eyes peering over the top of the paper. I’m telling you, she’s just staring at your broken window.”

-11-

Did you c-call the sheriff’s department?” I asked, cursing the choke in my voice.

“Not yet. The woman hasn’t actually done anything. I took Jake out there on a leash, though, so I could talk to her. I said we’d just had a shooting on our street and that there were cops all over.”

“What did she say?”

“She asked if anyone had been hurt. I said no and very obviously looked inside her car for a weapon. She didn’t have one, or at least, not one that I could see. She said she was waiting for someone. When I asked who, she just drove away. Then a while ago, she came back.”

It was as if I’d been punched in the solar plexus. Could it be Viv? If the Jerk’s new girlfriend was haunting our street, I would sic Jake on her myself. “Is she skinny, with white-blond hair, big boobs, and a sort of rock-star face? Late twenties?”

“Nah, she’s older,” Trudy replied promptly. “Probably fifty. Dark hair. Pretty face, but weathered. Looks like she might be tall and slender. Maybe she’s an ex-model who wants Tom to do some investigating for her. Anyway, she doesn’t look like one of John Richard’s bimbos, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

I thanked Trudy and told her I’d be home soon. Then I replaced the receiver, filled a glass of water for Tom, and went back into our room. Holding the glass, I stared out the leaded-glass windows lining the wall of the suite. A snow flurry sent swirls of thick flakes into the moat. She didn’t look like one of John Richards bimbos …

“I’m awake,” Tom said from the bed. Was that a suspicious note in his voice, or was I being paranoid again? “Miss G.? Want to tell me what’s going on?”

“I need to get my computer disk with the research for this week’s food prep,” I replied lightly. I didn’t mention the woman lurking on our street. Why worry Tom when he was immobilized? On the other hand, I was not going back to our place without giving the cops - that is, the cops who could do something - advance warning. I needed to call Sergeants Boyd and Armstrong. I went on, “I also have to get a picture of the Jerk, so that the Hydes can know not to let him in.” And I have to check out that woman, I added silently. Not to mention that my curiosity was demanding a trip down to the creek. If the sheriff’s department was no longer processing the crime scene, I wanted to have a look at the place myself.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to go home alone,” Tom replied. “And did you talk to A.D.A. Gerber about visitations for Arch?” So he was worried about John Richard Korman, too. Good old Tom.

“Not yet. On my way over, I’ll call Boyd and Armstrong on the cellular. Not to worry. I’ll be fine at the house. Plus, Trudy will be right next door. How are you doing?”

“I’m bored. I want to get up and call my office. I want to get cracking on this case.”

I kissed his cheek, which smelled of rubbing alcohol.

“I shouldn’t be gone more than an hour,” I promised, as I handed him the water glass and a long straw. “Unless by some miracle the window repair guy shows up. Then I’ll stay and supervise.”

“I’ll be fine,” Tom assured me, stubbornly placing the glass on the end table. “Just find me a portable phone, would you?”

I brought him the phone from the bathroom, then left. As I drove down the castle driveway, I put in a cell call to Sergeant Boyd’s voice mail: I was headed to our house, I reported, since I had to pick up a few things, and hoped to meet him there. Oh, and a neighbor had reported a strange woman hanging out in a car across the street. Could the sheriffs department check it out?

The snow flurry ended. In its wake, winds in the upper atmosphere had left feathery traces of cirrus clouds. I crossed Cottonwood Creek and waited for the traffic to clear. Below, the narrow stream furrowing through ice banks winked in the winter sunlight. As I passed the bridge that led to the chapel, two uniformed sheriffs deputies stood outside the yellow crime-scene ribbons, conferring with Eliot and Sukie.

Next to the Hydes’ matching silver Jaguars was another, newer Jag. To my horror, I recognized the car and its driver. Leaning against her sleek black vehicle, her arms crossed, was Chardé Lauderdale. She lifted her eyes and glanced at the road as I drove by. Recognizing me, she immediately turned back to the Hydes.

Clearly, I would have to return at a later time.

I stepped on the accelerator and the tires spun in the snow-frosted road. I needed to see what was going on at our house.

She was alone, sitting up very straight in the driver’s seat of a beat-up, rust-spotted station wagon that had once been white. The car was parked directly across the street from our house. I drove by slowly and looked at the woman. She had shoulder-length black hair dramatically shot with gray, and Trudy was right: her unmade-up, slender face was quite beautiful.

Hmm.

She wasn’t so much staring at our house as gazing at the framed crag that had been our living-room window. To keep out snow and deter looters, the cops had

put up plywood behind what was left of the glass. If the woman was a crook or even the shooter, she wasn’t acting very smart. A criminal simply didn’t sit out here in the open in a small-town neighborhood, waiting to have her license plate recorded by an armed Neighborhood Watch.

Further up the street, I pulled into a driveway. I was about to reverse when I heard an engine revving, then groaning, like a sports car being downshifted. I felt a familiar unease. Glancing in the rearview mirror, I saw a shiny gold Mercedes descending our street. A laughing Viv Martini, her luminescent hair rippling in the frigid breeze from her open window, sat in the passenger seat. The driver was the Jerk.

I hunched over the steering wheel until they’d passed our house. They continued down to Main Street, then turned left, in the direction of the Grizzly Saloon. I waited five minutes and tried to catch my breath. What in heaven’s name were they doing here? Even if the Jerk was looking for Arch, he had to know he was in school. Or had he heard about Tom’s shooting and hoped to find a hearse in our driveway? Maybe Viv would get the flu from exposure to the elements.

I turned and piloted my van back toward our house. I eased into Trudy’s driveway, hopped out, and headed toward the station wagon.

The woman in the wagon looked about fifty or fifty-five. She was even more lovely than I’d first thought, with high cheekbones, wide-set eyes, a full, sensuous mouth, and delicate chin. Now she tore her gaze from our front door to give me a perplexed glance. She didn’t look like a crook, she looked like Jackie Kennedy. She certainly didn’t seem like someone who knew her way around a gun. My legs wobbled the last few steps to the car, but I was not going to be scared off my own street.

“I’m Goldy Schulz,” I announced with a courage I was far from feeling. “Are you from the window repair shop?”

The woman’s mouth fell slightly open, and the gorgeous face darkened. I peered boldly into the station wagon. She wore a green sweatshirt with jeans, and no discernible jewelry. A newspaper and thermos were perched on the tattered seats. No tools, no plate glass. No weapon. No camera, either, trademark of the tourists who flood our rustic mountain town in the summer. And of course, this was winter.

So what was she doing here? “I’m just waiting,” the woman replied, as if she’d read my mind. Her voice sounded as rusty as the exterior of the wagon, and she spoke in a half-whisper, as if English were her second language.

Shouting my name, Trudy launched out her front door with our howling bloodhound in tow. Red-haired and pear-shaped, Trudy has the kind of complexion that turns crimson when she is upset. The mystery woman turned the key in her ignition as Jake, bellowing mightily, I tugged Trudy in our direction. Before I could think of another thing to say, such as Do you need directions to Main Street?, the station wagon had roared off.

“What was that about?” Trudy demanded. “What did she say?”

“Nothing.” I took Jake’s leash from her and ordered him to be quiet. He ignored me.

“A piece about that Balachek boy’s body in the creek was on TV this morning. All the Denver channels. Did you see it?” When I shook my head, Trudy continued, “They also showed the front of your house and that window. They had a bit about Tom, too. Was Tom investigating Andy Balachek? The reason I ask is that a couple of nosy media people have called me wanting to know if it was a case of vengeance run amuck. Andy shoots out a cop’s window, the cops gun down Andy.”

“That is ridiculous!” I said fiercely.

“That’s what I told them.” Trudy nodded, as if to confirm the absurdity of such a notion. She squinted in the direction the old station wagon had taken. “Anyway, after all the fuss in the news, I guess you have to figure you’re going to get some gawkers.”

Maybe so. But that gal hadn’t looked like a gawker. I couldn’t concentrate to wonder further about the mysterious woman in the wagon, though, because Jake chose that moment to put his paws on my chest and slobber on my face.

I pulled out of the way to avoid being drowned. “Take Jake back to your place for a bit, would you?” I begged Trudy. “I need something from the house, and I don’t want him stepping on glass and cutting his paws.” Jake howled mournfully as he was led away. I wanted to comfort him, but was distracted by a pickup now chugging up our street. Large rectangles wrapped in brown paper sat propped in the truck’s rear. Were the rectangles large enough to be picture-window panes? Or would that be too good to be true?

The grizzled man driving the truck introduced himself as Morris Hart from Furman County Glass. Morris was amazingly bowlegged, with a voice like sand and a wide, deeply wrinkled face. I thought I smelled booze on him, but couldn’t be sure. He asked if I was Goldy Schulz, and could I give him the okay to get started. The job should take an hour or two, he added optimistically. Despite the slight stench of whiskey - it could be on his clothes, I thought hopefully - I replied that he should begin as soon as possible, that I could stay until he was done, if he wanted. Then I zipped up to the door and let myself in.

The front room was dark because of the plywood. I turned on a light. The sudden sparkle of glass shards gave the place a desolate, abandoned air.

In the kitchen I retrieved my recipes-and-research disk. Outside, Morris Hart’s ladder creaked open. I touched the blinking button on the message machine. Maybe Boyd had called to say he was on his way. Once our window and security system were fixed, would he think it was safe for us to move back in? Or would he want us to wait until the department figured out who had fired the gun at our house?

The first message on my tape dropped

my spirits back to the nether zone.

“Goldy Schulz?” Chardé Lauderdale began, her Marilyn Monroe voice high and breathless. “How dare you tell the police that we shot at your house! After all you’ve put my husband and me through, don’t you think it’s time for you to stop your hate campaign against us? You discuss our conflict with anyone, and you can just add a little defamation suit from us to your list of woes. And by the way, we understand you will be doing some cooking for a group of donors to which we belong. This makes us very unhappy. We are demanding that the hosts find someone else to do that job immediately.”

What was Chardé reading from? A text supplied by her lawyer? Or her child-abusing husband? Hard to believe that the former Miss Teen Lubbock could be so articulately bitchy. When I called the cops after her husband had shaken their tiny daughter to unconsciousness, all she’d managed to screech was, “Who the hell do you think you are?”

On our tape, Chardé went on stiffly: “If you persist in trying to harm us, we will retaliate. And not just in court,” she concluded breathily, in what sounded like an afterthought.

Hmm. How ‘bout I save this message, I thought, to play for the cops? Ever hear that making a threat of bodily harm is a crime, babe?

I put in another call to Boyd and was again connected to his voice mail. It was half past nine, I said, and I could wait for him at our house, meet with Armstrong

and him in town, or see them later at the castle. His choice. The window repairman was here, I added, and I was grateful to the department for getting the repairs started so soon. Any chance the cleaning

team could come in this week?

Hanging up, I suddenly felt that I had to get back to the castle. Tom might be in pain. But something was holding me back, and it wasn’t just the window repair, which Trudy could supervise, if necessary. That kid was the king of communication. Loved e-mail, Tom had said. Andy Balachek had ended up dead in Cottonwood Creek … and somebody had taken a shot at Tom.

I don’t love her. Don’t love whom?

My eyes traveled to the kitchen’s south wall. After dinner most nights during January, Tom had walked dutifully through that door to the basement. In the cellar, he had his own computer to type up reports, write notes on cases, send e-mails… .

How much investigating of the Andy Balachek case would Tom be able to do from the castle? Probably not much. Unless, of course, I helped him by downloading his files.

This is not because I’m nosy, I thought as I headed down the basement steps. I mean, Tom was the one who kept saying he needed to work, that he wanted to get back to the case, right? And there might be files on this computer that he would need. Maybe he even kept an e-mail address book with Andy Balachek’s screen names. This was all data he would need, data I could bring him. To be helpful.

Uh-huh. Tom’s computer sat on a massive, scuffed, department-discard desk that was piled neatly with files and papers. Morris Hart, the window guy, banged and clattered above as I booted Tom’s computer. While the machine hummed, I scanned Tom’s desk for other files he might need. Or, perhaps, that I might want to have a look at.

What am I doing?

Before this trickle of self-doubt could become a deluge, I stared at the demand for a password, then blithely typed in chocolate, the password Tom and I had laughed at when former clients had used it for their security gate. To my astonishment, the hard drive opened instantly. I slipped in my food-research disk and began to copy Tom’s files. I wouldn’t look at them - not without his permission. Not yet, anyway, I added to myself. I did, however, read the titles of the subfiles: Balachek e-correspondence. Criminalistics course. Current cases. History.

“Mrs. Schulz?” Morris Hart cried from above.

Startled, I composed myself and called that I was in the basement and would be up in a few minutes. But Hart schlepped across the kitchen floor, following my voice, then traipsed down the basement stairs. I clicked madly to finish my copying.

When he was two steps from the basement floor, I made my face impatient to hide my guilt. “I’m just going to be a minute or two longer.”

“Sorry to bother you, but I have a high-powered vacuum to get up those glass shards. It has a tendency to blow fuses in older houses. Just wanted to warn you.”

“Okay, okay,” I said, resigned. “Just go ahead and start it.” I worried briefly about our walk-in refrigerator. But with its surge protector and backup power source, it should be okay.

He grunted and tramped back up. Copy, copy, copy, the computer repeated as my disk filled up. I won’t read this material, I kept telling myself. I’m just being helpful here.

I couldn’t help it: I glanced back at the names of Tom’s files. What did the file named History cover? Tom really wouldn’t mind if I took a quick peek, surely?

I clicked on the file, which contained subfiles with dates. “S.B., January 1.” And “S.B., January 3.” “Follow-up, January 4.” Then, “Conv. W/State Dept., January S.” The State Department? U.S. or Colorado? And who was S.B.? I opened the file from the first of January, when I’d been dealing with the aftermath of the Lauderdales’ party. The file contained an e-mail with the following text:

Do you remember me.? You said you’d love me forever. Your S.B.

My throat was suddenly dry. I should not be doing this, I thought. Curiosity can kill a cat … or a marriage. Still, I had to know. Without reading more, I copied all the rest of the e-mails onto the disk. My mission complete, my heart aching, I quit the program, ejected the disk, and slipped it into my jeans pocket.