Father and Child Reunion. Christine Flynn

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      Chapter One

      July 15

      Eve stopped in the doorway of her mom’s bedroom, packing boxes in hand and a knot in her throat. She wouldn’t think about what she had to do. She’d just do it.

      The resolution made, she dropped the boxes by the lace-covered four-poster bed, whipped back the curtains overlooking the flower garden and opened the doors of a tall cherry armoire. The cubicles at eye level were filled with neatly folded sweaters. Cardigans and lightweights on one side, jacket-types and bulky knits on the other. Without letting herself recall the last time she’d seen her mother wearing any one of them, Eve put the lot in a box designated for the women’s shelter. She set the small floral sachet she found tucked behind them in a smaller box for mementos she would save for Molly.

      Keeping her mind carefully blank, she turned next to the narrow drawer beneath the now empty shelves. It held scarves. Soft squares of soft periwinkle, rose and yellow lay next to lengths of poppy red, royal blue and emerald green. Patterns were separated from solids. Pastels from primaries. Each color group was separated further by size.

      She’d known her mother was efficient, even admired her innate sense of order. But had she ever realized she was this organized?

      At the thought, Eve’s resolve faltered. She wasn’t a strong person. A little stubborn, maybe. Independent, definitely. And that, out of necessity as much as training. But she really wasn’t strong enough to divorce herself from the ache in her chest. It was just that, after packing up most of the closet yesterday, blocking her mind to what she was doing had seemed the only way to get through the rest of the room without dehydrating herself.

      She hesitantly touched a square of indigo blue. She didn’t want to be here. She wanted to be home in Santa Barbara. Back in her sunny apartment with the tulips she and Molly had planted struggling to grow on their tiny patio. Back at work, arguing with jerky Geoff Englebright about whether or not she could handle major accounts on her own. Back in the familiar world of shuttling Molly to preschool and day care and to T-ball or tumbling class on Saturday, and spending evenings with the sketches she hoped would someday be good enough to sell.

      What did she know about filing for probate and liquidating assets and whatever else the attorney had said she needed to do? She knew color and texture and space. She knew how to design interiors that were functional, appealing, stunning. Whatever the client wanted. She knew “Disney princesses” and how to make cupcakes with smiley faces. But she still didn’t know what she was supposed to do with all the things her mother had loved.

      Squares of fabric turned into a kaleidoscope of color as the scarves blurred.

      Blinking furiously, Eve pulled a breath and picked up a stack of silk. Her mother’s possessions wouldn’t pack themselves, so she’d best get on with it. After all, taking care of her mother’s belongings was part of the reason she’d come back.

      Shortly after the funeral, she had returned to Santa Barbara to finish what design projects she could, then turned over the rest to her boss and begged for a leave of absence from her job. She’d been so busy, she could scarcely think. But the numbness that had protected her during that time had vanished the moment she’d walked back through the door of the spacious, two-story house, Molly and suitcases in tow. Though she’d been gone for almost a month, and she’d had a two-day, thousand-mile drive in which to prepare herself for her return, she’d felt just as rocky when she arrived as she had the day they’d left. Nothing had changed. In the days following her mother’s death, the unimaginable—the unthinkable—had become the reality.

      Eve still couldn’t believe what the police had told her. Her mother hadn’t just had a heart attack. She’d been murdered.

      “A lethal injection of potassium” was how the detective had so calmly described what the killer had used for a weapon. “Someone definitely knew what he was doing.”

      The last of the scarves went into the box. The senselessness of her mother’s death only compounded the ache in Eve’s chest. Or maybe, she thought, it was some sort of unacknowledged rage at whoever could have done such a thing that made it so hard to breathe whenever she thought of why her mother was no longer there. It didn’t help СКАЧАТЬ