If he didn’t stop snoring, she was going to take great pleasure from shoving a sock into his mouth. If he was lucky, she would choose one from the drawer and not one from the laundry basket.

Another guttural outburst from the depths of Seth’s palate and diaphragm vibrated the room.

Nic threw back the blankets and jumped from the bed. She slammed the bedroom door open, letting it hit the wall as she stalked down the hall. She stopped with her hand in place to yank open the bedroom door when another snore rattled the doorframe.

She couldn’t do it. He had been up most of the night working on the latest Rubicon Ranch death.

Her hand fell from the doorknob. She turned and walked across the cold floor back to her own room. She slid back between the sheets and pulled the warm blanket over her.

Then she put the pillow over her head. It didn’t help. She briefly considered going back in and waking him up but just as quickly discarded the idea. He only snored like that after a couple of beers. In this relaxed state, his bedroom would be dangerous ground for his wife.

Sharing his house and sharing his limelight didn’t include sharing his bed or allowing him to touch her. Drawing that line between personal and business was not always easy to do.

She put another pillow over her head. It amplified each snore. With a heavy sigh, she slipped her feet over the edge of the bed to the floor.

In the adjoining bathroom, the image in the mirror was a tired looking old woman. She sighed again as the mirror rattled with another snore.

Her blonde hair was starting to show dark roots if she stared hard enough. “I miss my hairdresser.” The reflection said nothing but stared at the bags under her blue eyes. At least some parts of her were still youthful and perky. Those assets were purchased when Seth was still her knight in shiny armor. Now the gold had faded just like her hair.

In her shorts and t-shirt, she padded down the hall past the smaller bedroom where the sawmill slept and past the hall bathroom. The short hallway went into the open kitchen, dining, living area and beyond it was the doorway into the single car garage.

Her Mercedes was parked in there. It was the small things with German engineering that made life livable.

If the sun was up, she would do yoga on the cozy back patio to relax her. At least there she wouldn’t hear Seth snoring. The December nights in the high desert were chilly. She returned to her room and threw on jogging pants and a sweatshirt. She laced on her running shoes and headed for the street.

Her feet hit the pavement but each one felt like a brick instead of a spring. It would be so easy to go back to her house in Greene City, the big beautiful house with two stories, four bedrooms, three bathrooms, a two car garage and a pool boy. She could just go back to the house and get in her car and go. She earned that house after being married to a cheater for a couple of decades. She should have more than just a nice house. She should be the beloved wife of the Chief of Police, held to a higher standard. Respected. In high school, she was the envy of everyone. She was beautiful and talented. She gave everything she had to earn the attention of the star quarterback.

She pushed herself harder, running faster in the dark suburban streets. Somehow, everything she had wasn’t enough for Seth. He was charming and conniving. Those qualities made him the best detective on the west coast. Those same qualities made him a terrible life partner. The cheating may have even begun in high school. She had her suspicions but no evidence. There was definitely a girl at a party in college but Seth swore it would never happen again.

She wasn’t surprised when Seth told her about Lieutenant Lydia Galvin. She had no choice but to believe the words as they fell from Seth’s lips. The lover threatened to tell Monica if Seth didn’t leave. The tramp thought she could lure Seth away and take Monica’s place. Lydia was more than a little surprised when Seth showed up on her front doorstep with Nic in tow. She was even more surprised when Nic told her she could keep Seth in her bed and keep her legs open to him as long as she kept her mouth shut.

Lydia couldn’t do it. She wanted Seth’s bed and his ring on her finger. Nic wasn’t willing to give up her claim to Seth without adequate compensation for the years she’d given him. There was no price for her lost youth.

Her feet slowed their murderous assault on the pavement. The cold air stung her lungs as each sucked in breath froze her lips and each exhale sent a plume of her warmth into the air.

Her surroundings were unfamiliar. She had run out of her comfort zone. She turned and began walking back, collecting her breath and thoughts at the same time.

She would never again let her heart override her mind. Maybe someday someone could love her, and only her. Maybe it would even be Seth if he would think about what he was doing with his heart or his mind instead of his…

A car sped by too close to the shoulder where she ambled on in the dark. She automatically picked up speed. It was no use feeling sorry for herself. She had to make plans for her future. It was a good thing she was with Seth when the call came in about the latest death in Rubicon Ranch. She had been with him all evening. He told her about the death of the realtor in passing as he drove her back to his house. He was quiet, only speaking enough as his thoughts came together. He was already working out the details in his mind as soon as the call came.

He dropped her off at his house before he went out to Rubicon Ranch to investigate. Nic had tried unsuccessfully to convince him to take her with him. She wanted to be in the middle of the throng, standing beside Seth. Instead of being there, she watched the action unfold on TV as reporters harassed Deputy Midget and the locals. At least she didn’t have to look at Lieutenant Rosaria Frio on the newscasts. Seth had probably spent personal time with his tall, beautiful, well-built lieutenant. At least Frio would be a step up from the last Lieutenant Seth and his nightstick gave a raise to. Lydia Galvin wasn’t even pretty.

At the first familiar street, Nic took a right and headed for home. Home. She frowned. This little closet Seth lived in wasn’t her home. She really needed more sleep. She had still been awake when Seth arrived at about 3 am. She heard him open her door and was aware that he stood there for a few moments before leaving her in peace. Part of her sleeplessness was due to concerns about who Seth had been keeping company with. Part of it was due to her excitement at a new development in the Rubicon Ranch fiasco. But most of the lack of sleep was due to her fear of what may happen when Seth reviewed Nancy Garcetti’s records and realized that Nic had been looking to buy houses in Rubicon Ranch.

Lydia Galvin stood like stone behind the partially closed plantation shutters in her bay window. From this spot, she had a good view of her front yard where Nancy Garcetti’s body had been found. Lydia had remained vigilant for hours, beginning even before that Melanie person had stumbled on the scene, and she’d heard enough to know who all the players were in her own private police drama.

But now, the body had been cleared away, the crime scene technicians had packed up their evidence, the department photographer had decamped, the sheriff had come and gone. All that remained was lurid yellow crime scene tape draped around the deflating figure of Santa on a motorcycle . . . and the two deputies in charge—Lieutenant Rosario Frio and Deputy Kelvin Midget. Lydia could hear snatches of their conversation. They were comparing notes about canvassing the neighborhood, but they spoke so softly she couldn’t hear many details. And then, as if he knew she was within earshot, Deputy Midget raised his voice.

“I’ve knocked on the door several times,” he all but shouted. “Maybe nobody lives here.”

“But why would someone bother to put up decorations at an empty house?” Frio responded in a voice just as loud.

“Who knows what anyone does in this ghoulish neighborhood.”

Lydia thought she saw Midget wink at Frio, perhaps in acknowledgment that he himself now lived in Rubicon Ranch, but the wink could have been a trick of the moonlight.

Would it surprise them to know that putting up the decoration had merely been a whim? She’d found the silly figure in the garage of the rental house, and it had somehow seemed fitting considering the rebellious atmosphere of the neighborhood.

“I’m surprised Seth doesn’t do anything to clean up the area, especially since she lives here,” Frio said.

Lydia knew the “she” Frio referred to was Melanie Gray, the very woman who inadvertently brought her here. In newspaper articles, television coverage, online stories and blogs about the Rubicon Ranch murders, Melanie Gray had earned as much space as Seth himself. Only one or two photos showed the two of them together, but their images had been placed side-by-side often enough to make it seem as if they were a couple. And Melanie Gray seemed just Seth’s type—smart, remote, vulnerable, and ripe for sweet words that soothed the soul. But in the two months Lydia had been watching Melanie, hoping to catch Seth in action, the sheriff never once put in an appearance. Even the brief phone calls she’d heard on the tapped line had been strictly business.

“Do you think the people who live here are hiding from us?” Midget asked.

“It’s possible,” Frio said. “But I don’t know why. The innocent never have anything to fear.”

Lydia almost snorted, but caught herself before she made a sound. The innocent had nothing to fear from the cops? Who was Frio trying to kid? The innocent had everything to fear since they had only their innocence as protection, and innocence was tissue-paper thin.

“Maybe one of residents killed the woman,” Midget said, still playing the naïf.

“And dragged the body under the wheel of their own Christmas decoration? No one is that stupid.”

Maybe it wasn’t smart, Lydia admitted to herself, but it had almost done the trick. Melanie found the body as Lydia had hoped, but the woman left before Seth arrived. How could she have known when she arranged the tableau that Seth would be with his wife Monica—Nic—instead of rushing to the scene? He detested Nic almost as much as Lydia did. The only good thing about this situation was that Seth finally got a taste of what it felt like to suffer. And he deserved it after what he put her through.

He’d fed her and bedded her. Treated her as if she were the most special woman in the world. She’d been leery of him at first, knowing his reputation, but when he’d looked her in the eye and said with a sad little boy sigh, “I’ve been more open to you than I’ve ever been to any other woman,” she was lost. She had the feeling they’d found refuge together, he from his demanding wife and she from her abusive husband, but when she discovered the romancing had all been part of his come-on, her heart broke.

She hadn’t really expected him to leave his wife when she suggested it. She just wanted a bit of assurance that she came first, at least part of the time, but he turned on her. Called her a vituperative bitch. Whatever that meant. She’d never intended to confront Nic, but Seth must have believed she would and confessed the affair to his wife, making Lydia out to be the villain. Seth brought Nic to her house and stood there while his wife told her to be content with what she had with Seth and just let the rest go, that the affair was messing up all their lives. Her husband overheard the conversation, and later that night, he beat Lydia, smiling with every lash.

And it had all been Seth’s fault. If he had only left her alone. . . . It was bad enough getting abuse from her husband, but she couldn’t bear to be treated badly by the man who once called her the love of his life. She told their captain of the affair, insisting Seth had misused his power. Although a disciplinary action had been filed, Seth got off, of course, but both of them lost their jobs.

On their last day, she found him standing in the police department parking lot, watching the custodian paint over his name. Her heart had gone out to him. They hurt each other badly, but still, she could feel a connection.

“Can’t you understand how much I love you?” she’d said softly, tearfully.

He’d just stared at her with the icy non-caring eyes of a predatory bird and said, “I’m still licensed to carry a sidearm in California and if you come near me again I’m going to shoot you between the eyes.”

What was left of her broken heart turned to stone. And she’d been stone ever since.

She hadn’t felt anything when she left that day even though she’d lost both her last chance at love and her hard-won spot as a lieutenant in the police department. She hadn’t felt anything when she didn’t find another job while Seth, golden boy still, had landed himself a great position. She hadn’t felt anything when her husband ended up murdered, leaving her with enough money to get her through the coming empty years.

And she didn’t feel anything now when Frio and Midget marched to her entryway and banged on the front door.

“This is the sheriff’s department. Open up,” Frio shouted, sounding authoritative. If Lydia hadn’t once practiced such a voice herself, she might have been intimidated enough to answer the door. But all she did was stand and wait for Seth’s two deputies to give up and drive away.

Even if the deputies suspected that someone lived in the house, they couldn’t prove it as long as no one saw her. Only Nancy Garcetti knew she lived there. Nancy owned the house, one of the many she’d purchased at a steal because of the declining real estate market in Rubicon Ranch, and she’d rented it to Lydia for a bundle of cash and a promise of no paperwork work or records.

Now Nancy was dead.

Seth and Nic were together.

And Lydia was stone.

TICK . . . TICK . . . TICK . . .

The incessant beating . . .

The throbbing in his brain . . .

The pulsating, spasms of pain . . .

His anguish was worsening with each moment, with each tick of its infernal mechanisms. Twice now he had tried to stop its torture, but twice he had succumbed to its devilish devices. It had begun again—the relentless bombardment of his senses, the merciless assailment of his sanity.

TICK . . .TICK . . .TICK . . .

Yet, pain cleared the cobwebs from his mind. It helped him to think clearly. It helped him see . . . the truth.

It was clear to him now. He was a prisoner. He had always been a prisoner. The victim of some twisted mastermind who, for reasons unknown, had littered his life with the barbs and pitfalls of his malevolent will. An evil genius who had inundated his mind with psychotic delusions drudged from the very pits of hell.

His murderous father… the horrors of the orphanages… his constant loneliness… all were caused by his faceless nemesis. The man of the shadows…

TICK . . . TICK . . . TICK . . .

He’d always been there, lurking in the darkness. He can see that now. At each important point in his life, he was there—sabotaging his plans, dashing his dreams, bringing pain and disappointment instead of contentment. Yes, he had been doomed from the start; born to be a foil for some otherworldly demon. Destined for some dark and whispered purpose.

THUNK . . . THUNK . . . THUNK . . .

Clark Bailey snapped back to reality, jarred by this new pain, this loud and demanding rapping.

The door! Someone was knocking on his door!

He arose from his chair, his legs weak and uneasy. His gaze fell on the overturned trashcan protruding from the kitchen, its contents strewn over the dining room floor. A broken plate lay nearby.

THUNK . . . THUNK . . . THUNK . . .

“I’m coming, mind you!” He rushed to the litter, shoving it out of sight behind the kitchen wall. Satisfied, he stood at the front door, preparing to meet his unknown caller.

He must remember . . . concentrate . . . BECOME!

He opened the door.

“Mr. Bailey?”

A hulking figure stood in his doorway, silhouetted from behind by flashing police lights.

“Y-Yes, I’m Clark Bailey.” He was momentarily taken aback, despite years of mental discipline.

“I’m Deputy Kelvin Midget. May I come in?”

“Yes, of course.”

Deputy Midget stepped through the door, ducking his head to avoid a bump. Clark was struck by the sheer size of the man. Now illuminated by the pale glow of the kitchen light, he presented a formidable figure indeed. A muscular build highlighted by broad shoulders. His head was large, with a square jaw and eyes that peered from beneath a strong brow.

“I apologize for the lateness of my visit. But there’s been an . . . incident . . . in Rubicon Ranch.” He paused. “I saw your light and I was just wondering if I could ask you a few questions.”

Clark twisted his face with concern. “Yes, I heard the sirens . . . saw the lights . . . the police cars, and . . . the coroner’s wagon.”

He stepped back from the door. “But I’m forgetting my manners, aren’t I? You must be weary from your work. Come in . . . sit down here at the table. May I get you something to drink?”

“No, thanks.” Deputy Midget settled his frame into a seat, his bulk causing the small, wooden chair to groan under the stress.

Clark joined him at the table, clearing its surface of the day’s mail—circulars, solicitations, and bills. Lots of bills.

“I hope I haven’t awakened the missus . . . ,” said the deputy.

“Marion? No, no. I doubt that, officer.”

“Good, good. Perhaps she would like to join us then.” Deputy Midget smiled slightly, his eyes watching his reaction with rapt attention.

Clark returned his smile, never allowing his eyes to falter. “My wife . . . Marion . . . is under the weather.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, Mr. Bailey. Nothing serious I hope.”

“That remains to be seen. Marion suffers greatly and, with the help of some of the best physicians in the country, we’re exploring the cause of her illness. But until then, I’m afraid she spends most of her time in bed.”

“I see. Well, I hope they can help her. Now, to the business of the evening. Just a few questions for you. Did you and your wife purchase your home through a local realtor?”

An odd question to begin the interrogation but Clark would be happy to play along. “No, we didn’t. Well, actually, ‘I don’t know’ would be a better answer. You see, I married Marion about a year ago. And she already owned this beautiful Spanish colonial. She was happy here in Rubicon Ranch. No need to go anywhere else.”

“I see. No need, indeed. Do you happen to know any local realtors, Mr. Bailey? Or had any dealings with some of the real estate offices in Rojo Duro?”

“No, I don’t. On both questions.” He paused. “I’m picking up on a theme here. Did something happen to one of our local realtors?”

Deputy Midget smiled. “I’m not obliged to say at this point, Mr. Bailey. But tell me, did you see anything out of the ordinary tonight? Anyone here in Rubicon Ranch that seemed out of place? A stranger? Or maybe some suspicious person or activity?”

Clark thought. “Nothing. I’ve actually been here all evening. Inside the house. Marion was . . . a little more demanding than usual. She needed my constant attention.”

“I see. You didn’t mention your wife’s symptoms . . .”

“No, I didn’t.”

The big man continued to stare at him, waiting for him to elaborate.

“Deputy, I’m afraid I’m not obliged to discuss my wife’s medical condition with you at this time. She prefers to keep her business private.” He stood up. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

Deputy Midget stood. “No, Mr. Bailey. You’ve been most helpful.” He walked over to the door. “Again, my apologies for stopping in so late.”

He opened the door to a group of people gathered on the small porch. “Deputy Midget! What can you tell us about the latest murder?” A young reporter, her cheeks pink from the cool evening air, shoved a microphone in his direction.

“No comment.”

“Why is Rubicon Ranch such a magnet for murderers, deputy? Is it the Morris Sinclair connection?”

“I said no comment!”

He shoved his hand toward the television camera filming his departure. He slammed the door of his patrol car and drove down Delano Drive, leaving the television crew empty-handed.

Clark delayed too long. The young reporter was on him before he could retreat inside his house, before he could slam the door in her idealistic face.

“How about you, sir? What did Deputy Midget discuss with you? Is there anything you’d like to share with our viewers?” Her foot was firmly planted on the threshold, preventing the door from closing.

Clark stood dumbfounded for a moment as the cameraman focused the lens on his face. Panicking, he shoved the reporter backwards and slammed the door, shouting an abrupt ‘NO COMMENT’ as an afterthought.

He stood inside the house, leaning on the door. He listened as the reporter threw a barrage of questions at the closed door. Eventually the crew gave up, the clump of their footsteps fading onto his walk.

He finally exhaled.

So this is how it will end for him here in Rubicon Ranch. With a death, no doubt, from what he had gathered from the deputy’s face. A real estate agent murdered in his own neighborhood.

He sighed. His nemesis had returned, raining down his darkness upon him. Swallowing him in a sea of doubt and confusion. And pain.

TICK . . . TICK . . . TICK . . .

He cursed the clock. He cursed the darkness. He cursed the pain.

Clark Bailey cursed the day he had wandered onto Rubicon Ranch.

Celeste Boudreau sat in her living room, staring out the front window in a blind haze. Her eyes were unfocused, her pupils large. Her house smelled vaguely of herbs she burned to aid her visions. Aside from a splitting headache, the forced session had accomplished nothing.

The emergency vehicles were clearing out, but she saw movement on the street. Some of the crazy Morris Sinclair fans were on the prowl once more. Their antics had prompted her to fence off her yard, using a combination of headboards and footboards from different metal beds. The front gate was made from an old fireplace grate someone had dropped in the dessert. She’d come across it on one of her walks.

Since taking Ward Preminger’s house off his hands, she’d leveled the yard, adding decorative gravel, statuettes, iridescent glass globes, wind chimes, strings of lights, colorful, whirling flowers, wind socks, banners and signs. Her chartreuse VW Beetle sat in the driveway. The vehicle was covered in flower stickers, Save the Earth and a Love a Witch bumper stickers. Her car tag read PSYCH 1. A large, chartreuse and pink sign in the window read: Celeste Boudreau, Psychic Readings!

When she got home this evening, Celeste had shed her usual attire. The diaphanous scarves and skirts were scattered on the bedroom floor in a dizzying puddle of colors. She’d dressed in a flowing silk kaftan in a bold, floral print. Dozens of polished stone bracelets and bejeweled bangles were laid in a bowl on the coffee table. She still wore her many necklaces and earrings, taking them off only to bathe and sleep. Her daily wig, a brilliant magenta, lay on the couch next to her.

She was jolted from her reverie when someone knocked on her door. It was followed by the doorbell ringing.

Celeste heaved herself off the couch and went to see who was bothering her. She looked through the peephole in the front door. An attractive Latina stood there, partially facing away from the door. Celeste saw disgust in her profile. The woman wore what looked like a uniform. To be safe, Celeste opened the door with the security chain.

“Yes?”

“I’m Lieutenant Frio from the sheriff’s department.”

“Yes?”

“I’d like to speak to you for a moment.”

“Yes?”

The officer pinched her lips together and Celeste got the impression she’d better speak in more than monosyllables.

“What do you need, Lieutenant?”

“There’s been a crime. We’re canvassing the neighborhood to see if anyone saw anything.”

“I saw all the goings on. Would you like to come in? It’s getting chilly.” She made a move to close and unchain the door.

“Not necessary,” the deputy said, holding up her hand. “We’re asking if anyone saw any strange cars or people in the neighborhood.”

Celeste couldn’t suppress a giggled. “It’s spook central out there,” she said with a wave of one chubby, ring laden hand. “Everywhere you look, there’s another stranger. They’re all lurking, poking around and going through everyone’s trash. If you ask me, Morris Sinclair’s killer didn’t do the rest of us any favors. Couldn’t he have had the decency to cut up the old man and throw him in the landfill like everyone else?”

Frio frowned, blinking slowly as she listened to Celeste. “I’m sorry? Landfill?”

“Or dumped him in the desert and let the buzzards have him. Do you know they came in my yard and started rummaging through my pyramid?”

Lt. Frio leaned forward, turning her ear toward Celeste as if she hadn’t heard her correctly. “Pyramid?”

“Why, yes.” Celeste banged the door shut and unchained it.

The sputtering deputy stood with her fist raised to bang on the door. It was at a level with Celeste’s face. The chubby psychic grinned, sweeping past Frio in a fragrant floral cloud.

“Here, see?” She led the young woman to the eastern edge of her property.

The pyramid was solidly built of local stone and took up nearly a third of the available yard space. It was nearly six feet tall and covered in hieroglyphs. There was a wooden door in one side. The lock had obviously been tampered with. The plate was scratched.

“I had it built and installed last week. I must have it for my energy and meditations. I’m also putting up a to-scale replica of Stonehenge in the back. Would you like to see?”

“No, thank you. You say they tried to get into the pyramid?”

“Yes, but that nice Deputy Midget came and put a stop to it. Such a nice man. Lovely aura. It’s a nice, sunny yellow. Yours is a bit muddy, dear. With quite a dark spot at your third chakra. I can take care of that if you’d like to come back for a consultation.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I can also help with the murder investigation. I was just trying to get a reading, but there’s too much negative energy at the moment.”

“How do you know it was a murder?”

Celeste shrugged, eyes wide. “Of course it was. And that poor woman. Such a lost soul.”

“What is your name, please?”

“Celeste Boudreau.”

“Ms. Boudreau, you’re going to have to come in to the office. The sheriff will want to question you.”

“Whatever for? If that man wants to talk to me, he can come here. It would be good for him to steep in the positive energy of my home. You really need to do something about your chakra, dear. It’s terribly misaligned.”

The lieutenant handed Celeste a card. “We’ll be in touch. If you think of anything else, call me.”

After taking it, the psychic gave the deputy her business card. “I shall, dear. And if you decide to get your chakras in order, call me.” She patted Frio on the shoulder.

“Yeah, you bet.”

Celeste watched Lieutenant Frio walk to the front gate. She opened it, after a little difficulty, and closed it behind her. Shaking her head and muttering, she proceeded down the sidewalk to the house next door.

Smiling, Celeste closed her front door, leaning against it with a contented sigh. “Thank you, dear. Thank you so much.” Still grinning, she went back to her meditations with a renewed vigor.

Zazzi let out a grunt of pain as her ankle twisted under her considerable bulk. Platform clogs probably weren’t the best shoes to wear in her new environment. The desert sand and pebbles seemed to be under foot no matter where she walked in this hick town. And the street lamps on Delano Road were so widely spaced the areas between them were dark voids lit only by the big sky above. Zazzi wasn’t much of a sky gazer. Not unless she was lying on her back in a hunky man’s arms.

As she came to the middle of the block, a display of Christmas lights reflected off her shiny green jacket, dotting her permed blonde hair with splotches of color, but doing little to light her uphill progress. Maybe it would be better to just go back home. No, she wanted to see the action first hand. Five minutes earlier, she’d been evaluating emails from the latest batch of job applicants when the street noise topped a level way beyond what she’d become used to on her street. Although she’d known about Rubicon Ranch’s notoriety, Zazzi hadn’t expected Rubicon Ranch to resemble a zombie theme park. A constant stream of ghoulish tourists traipsed back and forth from afternoon until dawn pawing every push and shrub in search of body parts. Presumably they slept in to digest the blood they drank each night.

Zazzi wasn’t much of a morning person herself. In order to conduct her business in complete privacy, she’d rented a fenced-in house, but she often heard her neighbors chasing the invaders off their property. The nightly revelry didn’t bother her too much. In fact, in the future, it should enable her employees to come and go without notice. But tonight she didn’t see the usual weirdos—not even the hippie wannabe with the rainbow-tinted scarves.

Everyone in town seemed to be congregating in front of a house fifty yards ahead.

The crowd had been held back by squad cars, two vans and the efforts of two young cops who looked more like boy scouts. Strong lights had been set up beyond the perimeter, giving the whole area the ambience of a dimly lit stage. Unable to see through the throng of people in front of her, Zazzi edged toward a pair of thirty-something women who were talking with an overweight young man holding a tape recorder. From an arm’s length away, she could smell his body odor and his heavy breathing told her he was either in heat or had run up the hill to get a scoop. Probably a freelance reporter.

“Nancy sold me my house,” said the taller woman, leaning toward the tiny recording device to make sure none of her pearls of wisdom would be lost to posterity. “She seemed to be a straight business woman, but these days, you never know, do you?”

Her companion nodded. “I guess that’s true, but I still think it must have been a random attack. Those sexual deviants are everywhere, you know. And I can’t believe nice Ms. Garcetti had enemies. I mean, what reason could there be to kill her?”

“I could give you a few,” Zazzi whispered as she backed away. A scene from the not too distant past flashed before her eyes. She could almost feel Nancy Garcetti’s long fingernails raking across her cheek. . . . And later that day, Zazzi found her cell phone tucked in a handbag compartment she only used for keys. She’d wondered ever since if the two events were related and if so, what had Nancy seen? Caught up in her flashback, Zazzi bumped headlong into a toddler being dragged from the scene by an elderly man. Ignoring the man’s accusations and the child’s distress, she increased her pace and made a beeline for home.

One hour and three beers later, Zazzi stood in her yard watching a cigarette butt float on the jewel-like, brilliantly lit surface of her swimming pool. She let out a long sigh. How would she successfully make the switch to upper class clients if she didn’t break her own coarse habits? Still, she gave herself points for not hurling the ashtray in as well. Or the whole damn patio set. For everything, big or small, she’d ever accomplished there seemed to be a defeat waiting right at its heels.

She glared at the patio umbrella which tonight had been defying her each step of the way. After twenty minutes of hardcore assault, the pole finally allowed itself to be anchored into the base, but now the damn ribs had frozen in a half furled position. She gave them one more, futile shove and sullenly examined her lacquered nails for damage, reflecting that this was a two-person task. But Zazzi had no helper, not since her partner had run off without her. He was wanted by the cops and she wondered what he’d say if they caught him. Men were not to be trusted. They weren’t all that bright either. That’s what made them such easy marks.

A fly buzzed past her ear and landed on her sweaty throat. She quickly smashed it with her fleshy palm and stopped herself just short of casting the little corpse on the same trajectory as the cigarette butt. The arrested movement proved to be the final straw for the spaghetti strap that had reached its tensile limits holding up her tube top—the other strap had long since succumbed to the umbrella fiasco.  As the tube top and its bountiful contents surrendered to gravity, Zazzi’s doorbell began to chime. Grabbing a measure of the ruby red spandex in one hand, she strode through the house to the front door, looking forward to venting her anger on whoever she found.

The peephole revealed a runway model decked out in a cop’s uniform. Hmmm, maybe this woman was applying for a position as an “escort” and she specialized in cop costumes? No, get real, Zazzi. You should be so lucky. Given the noise her clogs produced when she crossed the tiled foyer, Zazzi figured she couldn’t pretend no one was home. Anyway, how could the law be on to her in this backwater? She’d moved in only a month before and had barely gotten her internet business off the ground.

The door chime sounded again. The officer now thrust a knuckled fist at the door. Zazzi quickly yanked the door open and the cop, who’d put a lot of force into the motion, lost her balance and tilted forward.  Zazzi caught the woman’s upper arm and in an easy, fluid motion set the officer upright, nearly lifting her off the ground in the process.

“Oh—thank you,” said the cop, but her forced smile immediately became an expression of shock.

Zazzi lowered her chin to follow the officer’s gaze. As a result of using both hands to save the officer from falling, her tube top had rolled itself into a belt, exposing all of what she preferred to call her assets.  Rather than cover herself, she decided to let the scene play out and see what would happen. If the cop felt ill at ease, it would work to Zazzi’s advantage.

“So, officer, what can I do for you?”

“My name is Lieutentant Frio and I’m with the local Sheriff’s department. Sorry to bother you, but we’re investigating an incident in the neighborhood. I’d like to ask you a few questions, but feel free to finish getting dressed if you like.”

“I’m good. I’m kind of in the middle of a home improvement job, but I’m always willing to make time to help the authorities.” Zazzi detected the barest trace of an eyeroll, but the cop evidently had decided to pretend the Empress had clothes. Or maybe she was used to nudity; with a figure like hers, Frio could have been a pole dancer. Well, there was no logic to people’s life choices.

“Were you home all evening?” asked the Lieutenant.

“Yeah, but I been out back. I heard some sirens, but didn’t pay much attention.”

“Have you seen any strangers or strange vehicles in the area today?

“No more than the usual gang of weirdo tourists. What’s going on?”

“Are you the only one living here Ms….I don’t believe you gave me your name.”

“It’s Zazzi. Zazzi Monet. MOAN-AY, you know, spelled like money but with a T on the end.”

“Oh, like the artist. Is Zazzi a nickname?”

Zazzi hated the artist reference and hated answering this question even more. “It’s Lavender, if you must know. So are you gonna tell me what’s going on or not?”

Lt. Frio kept her eyes fixed on a neutral point somewhere beyond Zazzi’s right ear and said, “Well, Lavender, I can’t really give you that information. If there’s someone else here, I need to interview them as well.”

“No one’s here but me.”

“Okay, Ms. Monet, I guess that’s it for now. If you think of anything else, here’s my card.” The Lieutenant placed it into Zazzi’s hand without touching skin.

Zazzi set the card on a small table without looking at it. “Hey, if you got a minute, I could really use some help with some patio furniture. I can’t offer to pay you since that might be, like, a bribe.”

But the officer was out the door before the word help hit the air. Zazzi shrugged and shut the door after her. She’d had plenty of visits from cops before, but this Lieutenant didn’t fit the usual mold. What did cops make, anyway? She could offer her three times the income. Something to consider.

Zazzi got herself a fresh beer and sat down to consider her current situation. She wondered if an alibi would be called for. Most of the time having one made the cops as suspicious as if you didn’t. That’s why she hadn’t stuck around Arbor City to give one and didn’t expect them to come looking for her here. Of course, she hadn’t expected to run into Nancy Garcetti either.

Moody tired to ignore the noise outside. Since Morris’s death, she’d rarely left the house. Instead of the freedom she thought she’d have with the gory passing of her father, the crazy Morris fans that had flocked to Rubicon in macabre tribute constantly reminded her of his death. The incarceration of her brother for their father’s death should have set her free, but Moody was imprisoned by the ghoulish nuts creeping on the street at all hours of the day and night.

She’d replaced the curtains throughout the house with heavier ones. A new top line security system was in place and, after she’d been accosted by a vampire wannabe as she was putting out the trash one evening, she’d hired a security guard to sit in the driveway at night.

He lasted three days before he quit. When he told her why, she’d laughed. The make-believe groupies had gotten to him. He said he’d pulled a back muscle from repeatedly jumping in his seat with the constant barrage of painted faces popping up alongside his car’s window. Moody read between the lines. He was a wuss despite his baldhead, mean eyes and tattooed arms and neck.

Growing up, Moody had been through more hellish nights and days with real Sinclair demons than this security guard had seen in his measly three days. She had no sympathy for him and told him so. She’d even suggested he exchange his uniform for a twirly dress, pink bow and patent leather shoes.

Crazy people surrounded her house, but now she would be the one to earn the reputation as a crazy old lady. She wanted to leave.

It would be fairly easy. Someone would buy Morris’s house at a premium just because of its evil previous owner. She would have no trouble selling. She’d even talked to that agent, Nancy, who hung around Rubicon. Of course, after talking to Nancy, Moody decided not to list the house with her. Among other reasons, the avarice in the agent’s eyes somehow reminded Moody of Morris.

Money wasn’t a problem anymore. The estate was divided three ways, but since no one had seen or heard from her younger brother in decades, Moody figured his share of the estate was also hers.

Where would she go when she truly freed herself from the shackles of Rubicon Ranch? This was the question she asked herself almost hourly during her waking time. There were so many places to choose. But, before she could make any changes in her life, she needed to change her appearance.

She’d already started. Her long dark hair was cropped above her ears and tinted a soft strawberry blonde. The no-nonsense black glasses had been replaced with a funky pair of pastel pink ones. She wore earrings now and she’d swept the bland clothes out of her closet and replaced them with skinny jeans and fitted tops.

A passing glance and Moody could pass for a normal person. Looking closer, like she did in the mirror every morning, and a damned Sinclair stared back. She’d never be able to fully escape her heritage. Morris and others were making sure of that.

Something bumped against the front door and Satan barked. She’d adopted the German Shepherd shortly after Morris’s funeral when a crowd of Morris morons followed her home. Satan was very protective of his mistress and Moody had plenty of personal space around her the rare times she left the house.

He was a good dog, but ugly as sin. Instead of the typical German Shepherd face, Satan’s face looked like it had been pushed in and then pulled back out partway. His face looked like the face of a lovechild between Ernest Borgnine and a giraffe.

No matter. She adored the dog. He fit right in. She had surprised herself with how much she cared. She certainly didn’t care this much about any person, living or dead. His unconditional devotion was all she needed.

The noise outside grew louder and the brief sound of a siren made Satan growl. Moody peeked out the window and saw people milling around down the street. An ambulance slowly wound its way through the crowd with its light off.

She needed to see. Grabbing a cap and jacket, she commanded the dog to stay as she went out the backdoor. Creeping across backyards had become an art for Moody over the past months. She was adept at night crawling.

Keeping close to the last house before an opening, she nonchalantly joined the growing crowd on the street. With her hand on the taser in her pocket, she felt safe but no one paid attention to her. Too bad. It had been a week or so since she’d tasered a groupie who had gotten too close to her. Not that it mattered. Morris’s diehard fans were immune to pain. Some even seemed to like it.

Moody turned to see where everyone was staring and saw a police photographer taking pictures of a figure under a giant Santa decoration. How fitting for this place, Moody thought. A typical Rubicon Ranch gift—death.

In the light of the camera flash, she recognized Nancy Garcetti. The real estate agent looked as cold as she had in life. Moody stared at the clever handiwork of a realtor assassin. Out in the open and trampled by the crowds, what evidence was left to uncover the killer? Since the police department had been inept at running the Morris fans out of Rubicon Ranch, how in the world would they solve this crime?

Moody smiled as she thought of Sheriff Bryan interviewing the plastic Santa. Of course, with his wife in town, the sheriff was being kept on a tight leash. One of the deputies would probably end up taking the Christmas decorations downtown for a talk. The bulbs and wreaths would have to come in, too, as material witnesses.

Moody sighed. Sinclairs didn’t have feelings like normal people. Moody knew this and her smile faded. No matter what she did, no matter what she had to do, no matter what candy coating she put on, she would never fit in with the rest of the world.

She’d visited Jake regularly and, though she detested her brother, he was all that was left. Only he knew what it was like to be a Sinclair. There was no one else she could talk to. Well, the groupies, but they were worshippers, not compatriots.

“Morris did it,” she heard someone whisper behind her.

“Yeah, he did. Looks like something he’d do,” another voice answered.

“Dead don’t stop Morris,” the first voice said with a laugh.

“All he’d need is an arm and hand. Is that one of the pieces still missing?”

Seriously, these people were complete and utter morons. Sinclairs were special, but not that special.

However, wouldn’t it be something if this murder could be pinned on Morris? Although he’d been identified, Morris had been an anomaly during his lifetime. What if he really could come back? His books suggested it was possible.

Maybe she’d talk to one of the deputies. Probably Midget. She didn’t care for the other one. Midget would have to hear her out.

What if one of the fans was so obsessed with Morris that he or she made a ritualistic sacrifice to bring Morris back to life? The only flaw was why had the body been here and not in Moody’s front yard? Even thinking about bringing these theories to the police was making her want to laugh. After the coldness following Morris’s death, she’d lost the little respect she had for the area’s police department.

Thinking of that, she realized she had enough money to buy her own police force. Maybe she would. Or, maybe she’d sink a fortune into Sheriff Bryan’s competition in the next election. Someone Moody could control.

Walking back to her house, Moody thought about how upside down it would be if she could get someone elected who would always be on her side. Smiling again, she thought about how much fun this new interest of hers could be. Politics. Who would have thought?

Slipping back across backyards, Moody saw a devilish face pop up from the ground. She had long since stopped jumping at the sights of the Morris loonies. Instead, she pulled out the taser and in one swift move, sent the idiot flying.

Tasing was a lot like the final throes of a violent death. It was fun. Moody knew she should be worried about herself, but she didn’t care.

She was, after all, a child of the monstrous Morris Sinclair. Death and the facades of death were part of her family. Morris would have been proud.

Melanie Gray typed THE END, then sat back and studied the words on the computer screen. She’d found no satisfaction in telling the story of famed horror writer Morris Sinclair’s macabre life and death, and she felt no elation now that she’d finished the task. The evil man should have been buried in unhallowed ground and left to rot rather than be immortalized in a book, but she’d needed the money her publisher had offered. With the generous advance, she would be able to devote herself to finding out who killed her husband five months previously and, more importantly, why the murderer wanted Alexander dead. Morris had wooed death his whole life, so it was no surprise that death had come for him, but Alexander’s murder could not be so easily dismissed.

Tears stung Melanie’s eyes. She scrubbed the tears away, furious at herself for still grieving. She’d always considered herself a strong woman, up to any task, and yet she couldn’t write “the end” to her grief.

Damn you, Alexander! How could you do this to me?

She rose stiffly, stretched to get the worst of the kinks from her body, and tottered to the front closet for her coat. Except for a few hours of fitful sleep each night during the past nine weeks, she’d spent all her time at the computer, and she was sick of it. Sick of Morris Sinclair. Sick of death. Sick of Rubicon Ranch.

She opened the front door and blinked at the shadowy figures gliding through the darkness. Morris’s fans had descended on the neighborhood when news of his demise had hit the airwaves, and they had stayed when they learned that not all of Morris’s body pieces had been recovered. Dressed as vampires and zombies and ghouls of every imaginable—and unimaginable—ilk, they roamed the neighborhood and the nearby desert looking for necropieces in some sort of grisly treasure hunt.

Melanie hesitated, wondering at the wisdom of going out so late in the evening, but the twinkle of Christmas lights adorning a nearby desert willow made her set aside her caution.

Alexander had always loved Christmas, and no matter where in the world they happened to be living, he managed to find a tree and decorate it. If Alexander still lived in her memory, he’d want her to wander through the neighborhood so he could see the lights.

Smiling at the whimsical thought, she locked the door behind her and strolled down the driveway to Delano Road. Even with half the houses lit up with holiday decorations, the neighborhood seemed dark. Too many people had left the area, temporarily abandoning their homes, though the flickering of candlelight through closed curtains hinted that squatters had taken up residence in some of the empty houses.

Melanie stood at the curb, trying to decide whether to go right or left. “It’s your fault, Alexander,” she murmured. “Until you died, I never had a problem making decisions.” But now, it didn’t make any difference whether she went north or south, whether she left Rubicon Ranch or stayed. Without Alexander, everything seemed uniformly bleak.

A house across the street all at once came ablaze with thousands of small white lights. Melanie cut across the road and headed for the brightness, wishing Alexander could see the decorations for real. Lights outlined the driveway, every bush, every rock, and dripped from the eaves like dazzling falls of lace.

She walked leisurely, savoring the radiant display on Alexander’s behalf, then hurried past the next dwelling, which was dark, and slowed again at the following house to look at the whimsical blow-up figure of Santa on a motorcycle.

After the brilliance of the lights at the first domicile, she had to wait a moment to let her eyes adjust to the relative dimness of this scene. And then she wished she hadn’t hung around to get a better look. Santa, with a wide grin and an upraised hand, seemed to be gleefully running over the prone body of a woman. A mannequin, it looked like.

Melanie drew in a sharp breath. Who would create such a morbid tableau for Christmas? But then, seeing a vampire with glowing teeth run past her, she sighed. Anyone in this insane neighborhood could have done it. After Morris Sinclair’s demise, Rubicon Ranch had become a bacchanalia of death, a celebration of the worst in humanity.

A car moved along the street behind her. The headlights illuminated the scene as clearly as if it were day, and suddenly something seemed wrong. So very wrong.

The woman being run over by the cheery Santa looked stiff in the way of death, not stiff like a mannequin.

Melanie told herself to continue on, to forget the gruesome sight and enjoy the rest of the decorations, but her leaden feet refused to do her bidding. Finally, wishing she were anywhere but here, she crept closer to the scene.

She caught a faint whiff of death—like meat just beginning to go bad—and her heart beat faster.

No. No. She’d had enough of death. Alexander. Poor kidnapped little Riley Peterson. Morris Sinclair. How could so much death be associated with a community as small as Rubicon Ranch?

Melanie bent over the body and touched a finger to the side of the woman’s neck to check for a pulse, though she already knew the truth.

She fumbled in her coat pocket for her cell phone and wondered if the sheriff would continue to believe in her innocence. Hell, she didn’t believe it herself. Maybe she was some sort of Typhoid Mary when it came to death. She’d been the one who found Riley Peterson’s body out in the desert, stuffed in a television console. She’d been the one to lead the sheriff to the desert where they’d found the body of Riley’s birth father. She’d been the first one to come across a necropiece—a dismembered foot—after Morris was killed. And now once again she had found death.

She punched in 999, but when the call didn’t connect, she realized she’d used the emergency number for Britain. She cleared the number, then punched 119. Crap. Wrong again. That was the emergency number for Mozambique. Where was she? She took a deep breath, and let it out slowly.

Rubicon Ranch. Rojo Duro County. Mojave Desert. California. USA. Ah, yes. 911.

Melanie made the call, gave the information to the dispatcher, then pulled her coat more firmly around her to protect her from the chill of the high desert winter night.

She’d expected to wait a half an hour or more until the sheriff or his deputies could make the thirty-mile trip from Rojo Duro, but only ten minutes had gone by when a dark SUV pulled up to the curb, and Deputy Kelvin Midget slid out from behind the wheel more nimbly than seemed possible for such a massive man.

The SUV didn’t have official county plates, so Melanie supposed the vehicle was the deputy’s private ride. She felt a spasm of guilt at cutting into the man’s personal time, but then she remembered what Deputy Midget had once told her—that he’d lost his wife to pancreatic cancer about three year and a half years ago, and had come out west to start over so he could heal. Maybe, like Melanie, he had no real life but was just going through the motions of living.

“What seems to be the trouble, Ms. Gray?”

Shivering, Melanie pointed to the body.

Midget picked his way through the xeriscaping, got down on his haunches to check the woman’s neck as Melanie had, then rose to his feet without using his hands to shove himself upright.

“Did you see what happened?”

“No. Just found her lying here is all. Checked her pulse. Called it in.”

Midget walked around to the other side of the body, scanning the ground, his dark brow furrowed. “Did you find her purse?”

“No, but I didn’t look for it.” Melanie wondered about the deputy’s concern for the woman. It seemed more than simply a law enforcement officer’s professional interest in a crime scene. “Did you know her?” she asked.

“Didn’t you?”

“I don’t think so. I don’t know many people in the neighborhood.”

“Seth—Sheriff Bryan—thinks you notice everything.”

“Well, the sheriff thinks a lot of things that aren’t true.”

Midget made a small sound that might have been a chuckle. “Hit a nerve, did I?”

More to get away from the uncomfortable topic of the Sheriff than because she wanted to identify the woman, Melanie circled the body so she could get a better look. The woman did appear familiar at that. Aquiline nose, close set eyes, coiffed hair, manicured fingernails with a shimmering design painted atop the polish, high heels, tailored business suit.

Melanie backed away from the body. “I think she might be a real estate agent. I’ve seen her around the neighborhood.”

“Nancy Garcetti,” Deputy Midget said. “She sold me my house. Poor woman. She was such a terrible judge of character. Looked at the superficial and assumed she knew what the person was about. Kept notes of everything. You sure you didn’t find her purse?”

“Maybe the person who murdered her took it.”

“What makes you think she was murdered?”

“What else could it be? Nancy got tired, so she decided to take a nap by the wheels of Santa’s motorcycle and froze to death?” Regretting her caustic tone, Melanie huddled deeper into her coat. Had she become so used to murder that all death seemed so unnatural? But death was unnatural. A deletion of life. A void.

“People die from many causes,” Deputy Midget said. “It’s possible she had a heart attack. A stroke. Some sort of accident. A mugging gone wrong. Could be anything. We won’t know until the ME gets here.”

A tan Navigator parked behind Midget’s SUV, and Lieutenant Rosaria Frio stepped out of the vehicle.

The lieutenant looked even more like an Hispanic Barbie doll than when Melanie first met her. No emotion showed on the law enforcement officer’s beautiful face, and the dim light made her skin look plastically perfect. Only the glitter of the lieutenant’s dark eyes and her easy stride confirmed her humanity.

She greeted Deputy Midget with a nod. “You got here fast.”

“I just bought a house here in Rubicon Ranch over on Adobe Pobre Court. I told you about it. Got an awesome deal from a couple who could hardly wait to get away from the area. They said there was too much crime.”

“Imagine that.” Lieutenant Frio turned to stare at Melanie. “And here is our one-woman crime spree herself. Or maybe cadaver dog would be a better description.”

Melanie returned the Lieutenant’s gaze, but refrained from answering in kind. Lieutenant Frio seemed to have taken her in dislike when they met after Riley’s murder and her manner had only grown colder with the passage of the months. Melanie didn’t entirely blame her. If their places were reversed, she’d probably be just as skeptical as the lieutenant about her penchant for finding corpses.

Lieutenant Frio walked to body and stood over it for a moment, then slanted a glance toward Melanie. “Sheriff Bryan will be here shortly. He and his wife were dining out, and he needs to take her home first.”

Melanie remained impassive. She already knew the sheriff and his wife were back together. Melanie had talked to him a couple of times to get details for her book, and he had told her his wife had decided the celebrity-ridden area might not be such a backwater after all. He’d sounded apologetic, but other than behavior that bordered on unprofessionalism, he had nothing to apologize for. They hadn’t had an affair, not even a fling. Just a little bit of flirtation and a lot of anger.

“Can I go?” she asked.

“I’ve questioned Ms. Gray,” Deputy Midget said. “If we need her again, we know where to find her.”

Lieutenant Frio turned her implacable gaze toward Melanie. “Don’t leave the county.”

If anyone else had deadpanned such a remark, Melanie would have assumed it was either a friendly suggestion or possibly a joke, but coming from the lieutenant, the command sounded like a jail cell slamming shut.

Melanie wanted to run back to her place, but she forced herself to walk since she was sure the lieutenant would see haste as a sign of guilt. She tried not to look at the houses she passed. The joyful decorations suddenly seemed obscene.

She didn’t believe Deputy Midget’s suggestion that Nancy had died of natural causes. The missing purse hinted that something grimmer was going on. What secrets Nancy had kept in her purse? Everyone in Rubicon Ranch seemed to have something to hide. And someone—perhaps someone in one of these very houses—might have a secret they would kill to protect.

Rubicon Ranch is a collaborative and innovative crime series set in the fictional desert community of Rubicon Ranch and is being written online by authors of Second Wind Publishing.

In Rubicon Ranch: Secrets, the third book of the series and our current work in progress, the body of a local realtor is found beneath the wheels of a blow-up figure of a Santa on a motorcycle. The realtor took great delight in ferreting out secrets, and everyone in this upscale housing development is hiding something. Could she have discovered a secret that someone would kill to protect? There are suspects galore, including a psychic, a con man, a woman trying to set up an online call-girl service, and the philandering sheriff himself. Not only is the victim someone he had an affair with, but he also has to contend with an ex-wife who has moved back in with him, and a jilted lover, both with their own reasons for wanting the realtor dead.

Although some of the characters were introduced in Rubicon Ranch: Riley’s Story, the first collaboration in the series, and further developed in Rubicon Ranch: Necropieces, Rubicon Ranch: Secrets is a stand-alone novel. A new chapter will be posted every Monday. You can find the first chapter of our work-in-progress here: Chapter 1: Melanie Gray — by Pat Bertram. The chapters we have completed you can find here: Rubicon Ranch: Secrets.

We hope you will enjoy seeing the story develop as we write it. Let the mystery begin! Whodunit? No one knows, not even the writers, and we won’t know until the very end.

She turned at the sound of voices coming from the hallway. The short and stocky figure of her assistant appeared in the doorway, gesturing over her shoulder at Ward Preminger, who loomed behind her. “Sorry, Egypt, he wouldn’t wait. He insisted on coming in.”

From Ward’s tight expression, Egypt didn’t think he was coming to bring her a get-well bouquet. The assistant quickly glanced from one to the other, wheeled around, and slipping past him, leaving Egypt alone with her visitor.

“This is a surprise. I thought you left town, Ward. Have you come to say goodbye?” Egypt studied his face for a hint of his intent, but came up empty.

His cheeks reddened, but he immediately gained control of himself. “I—we have unfinished business.”

She felt a surge of fear and reflexively stepped back. He must have caught it because he quickly said, “I didn’t come to challenge you, but I need to clear things up. When we first met I felt something happen between us, something real, but the reasons you gave for coming here didn’t make a lot of sense. After you were attacked, I realized you’ve been more involved than just a bystander. I really should have figured that out right away ‘cause I know you went through my wallet the day you brought me home.

So, if you don’t mind, just to satisfy my curiosity before I leave this insane town, I’d like to hear your side of things.”

Egypt’s throat felt dry. She reached for a bottle of mineral water and drank down what remained. Trying for a light tone she said, “And here I thought I put everything back perfectly. Just goes to show you, crime doesn’t pay.”

Ward hitched a seat on the corner of her desk like he wasn’t going to budge until she gave him what he wanted. Egypt sighed. Where to start?  And what was he really after?

“I guess you wouldn’t believe it if I said I also felt the . . . energy . . . between us and just wanted to find out more about you?”

There was a glint in Ward’s eyes. “You can try to convince me of that later, but really, if that was the case, why didn’t you just ask?”

“Fair enough. But if I’m not mistaken, your interest goes beyond my searching your wallet.”

“You’re still not answering my question.”

No, she wasn’t and he didn’t make it any easier. Ward was wholly focused on her like one of her zoom lenses that showed every flaw and every nuance. Might as well get it over with.

“It’s simple. I didn’t know what your relationship was with the Sinclairs. My cameras caught you checking out their property on several occasions. But for all I knew Morris or Moody hired you to keep watch for them.”

“What if they had? What’s it to you?”

Egypt picked up her iPad but her fingers froze on the screen. Could she trust him?

Ward continued, “In case there’s any doubt in your mind, I think Morris finally wrote up his own fate and deserved the end he got.”

Before Egypt even knew it, she’d accessed a document and handed him the tablet. As soon as it was out of her hands, she had a flashback to Jake coming at her in this same room. No, Ward wasn’t like Jake . . . or was he? Now all she could do was watch.

Ward’s eyebrows came together in a frown as he read. He closed his eyes for a long moment, let out a long breath and handed the tablet back without meeting her eyes. The drone of an airplane flying overhead broke the heavy silence. Finally, he said, “You—you sent Jake Sinclair a letter saying that Morris was going to cut Jake out of his will? How did you know what Morris was going to do? And why did you tell Jake?”

“I didn’t know anything about Morris’s will, but I knew Jake would take action.” Seeing the amazed expression on his face, she added, “I met Morris years ago. For now, it’s enough to know that I owed Morris some payback.”

“My god, Egypt.”

A chill went down her spine. She’d shared her secret on impulse. It could bring them together or he could turn on her. If he chose to do so. She had to make him understand.

“I can explain, but it’s a long story. Right now what you need to know is I had no idea the man’s son—a monk for pete’s sake—would turn out to be a killer.” She instinctively touched a hand to the bruising around her neck.

Ward shook his head. “You’re lucky to be alive. The attack is what made me finally decide to come by before leaving. You got way more punishment than you deserved for a search of my house.” Ward’s expression softened. “I guess I’ve learned from my experiences here, too. The last few days have been pretty unforgettable, wouldn’t you say? You know, what happened, everything that’s happened in this place would make a pretty good story. Or . . . a movie.”

Unexpectedly, the corners of Ward’s mouth turned up in an ironic smile. He stood and stretched his hand toward her. As she clasped it in a firm handshake, they both began to laugh.

She was used to people looking at her with suspicion. After moving in with Morris, that “look” was an everyday occurrence. This time would be no different.

As she pushed open the hospital’s main door, the fresh evening air felt like a renewal. Her life would continue. She was slightly giddy when she realized it would be without Morris and Jake.

Slightly giddy? Who was she kidding? Certainly not herself. She could barely contain her joy at a life unencumbered by the other Sinclairs.

One little detail Moody didn’t mention to the police happened the day after Morris disappeared. When she’d dragged that heavy bag of trash to the curb on the day of their big fight, she’d noticed a few crumpled sticky notes in the grass. Her father drove her crazy with his annoying habit of dropping his little paper reminders anywhere and everywhere in the house.

She remembered following the perverted Hansel trail through the neighborhood and to the front door of the Peterson’s house. At the time she was determined to send her father off to the funny farm if she found him inside this house of death playing another of his macabre games.

When she’d walked inside, she found her father dead on the floor and at the center of a game he would have appreciated. Buried in his head was his own mattock. A few feet away lay a large hunting knife. Whoever killed Morris had done it with one blow. The knife had been unneeded. Until now.

The image made Moody shiver as she bounced back to the present. Sitting in her car in the hospital parking lot, she couldn’t stop thinking about how death hadn’t changed Morris’s looks. His dead hooded eyes were the same as they were during his life. Malice emanated from him even in death.

After making sure he was really dead (she was afraid it was a sick trick – when she was growing up, Morris liked to pretend death in order to terrify his young children), she made good on her promise to cut her father into little pieces.

It felt good.

Even now, so many days later, it still felt good. The only thing she couldn’t touch or move was his head. She’d felt part revulsion, part fear, but more so, an overwhelming sense of primal fear. She had been afraid her father would snap his dead teeth and chew her up into little bits.

Shivering as she started the car, Moody drove almost out of the hospital’s grounds before she was overcome with tears. She pulled into a space in the deserted backend of the hospital’s parking lot and wept.

She wept for her past and the inability to change it, and she wept for her future and what it might hold. She wept for the normality everyone else had that she’d never in her life experienced. She wept for the death and imprisonment of her family and the sad fact that she was glad for both.

She didn’t weep for her brother. In the desert after he’d been attacked, Jake had told his sister that he’d killed Morris.

“Why?” she’d asked.

“He’d sent me a letter saying I wasn’t in his will. I’d get nothing and the old bastard owed me for what he made me do. Bastard wouldn’t own up to sending the letter, but he told me he wasn’t leaving anything to dead kids like me.”

“Is that when you killed him?”

“Yeah. I figured a dead kid like me was the perfect instrument of destruction for a devil like Morris.”

Jake had stopped talking after that. Moody didn’t know if he stopped because he realized he’d said too much or if the pain in his arm had been too intense to keep talking.

Despite his admission, Moody wasn’t going to rat her brother out. She also wasn’t going to tell him Morris couldn’t have mailed a letter to him. For one thing, Morris never mailed anything. His only mode of communicating was by phone. He’d had a pathological hatred of the High White Devil Postmaster and believed the man in charge of the local post office had been out to get him from the time he moved to Rubicon.

The second reason was more logical. Morris had no interest in his children other than what they could do for him. Even if he’d found Jake, the path Jake had taken with religion would not serve Morris. Moody was the only child he needed. If he’d been able to keep a housekeeper for more than a month at a time, he wouldn’t have even needed Moody.

So, the mystery remained. Who had sent the letter? Moody knew what was in Morris’s will. Everything was divided three ways. If any of his children preceded him in death, their heirs would inherit. If there were no heirs, as in Moody’s case, that part of the estate would be divided between the remaining heirs.

Starting the car again, Moody left the hospital grounds. As she drove in traffic, her mind raced around the question, who? Although Morris’s will was at his attorney’s office, it was not filed with the court. There was no public access to the will because Moody had convinced her father it would only make more money for the attorney.

Although that had not been entirely true, Moody didn’t want the world to have access to her eventual fortune. And, she didn’t want her siblings to know what was in the will and its conditions. She didn’t want either of her brothers coming to Rubicon and stirring up trouble and danger for her.

Maybe her own father had actually contacted Jake behind her back. Even though Jake said Morris denied sending the letter, it would be in keeping with his character for Morris to commit suicide by patricide. After all, the old man was breaking down in body and mind. He would not want to be helpless with only a resentful daughter left to take care of him.

Still, that would require more effort than Morris typically wanted to expend. As Moody pulled into her driveway, she knew deep down that Morris didn’t start the whole tragic ball rolling.

Who, then?