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  The fingers of Kyra’s right hand arched into claws and began to scratch at the tattooed roses in a steady, relentless rhythm as she continued. “Reba said that they didn’t have sex anymore. I don’t know— maybe that’s why he had a mistress. But, in public, Mother always acted the part of a loving wife— she couldn’t admit to her family that she’d made a mistake by marrying him.”

  The restless fingers lay still at last. “Everyone’s afraid of him. I try not to be; I defy him with stupid little things like moving out, dyeing my hair, the tattoos. And I know I can get to him. But I never thought he’d go after Boz and Aidan.” She paused, and then looked at Phillip, her eyes wide and pleading. “It’s my fault that Boz is dead and Aidan’s in jail. That’s why I want to hire you to help me prove that my father had Boz killed. Because then they’ll have to reopen the case about my mother.”

  * * *

  Later that evening Elizabeth sat on her front porch, enjoying the sounds of the crickets and the cooler night air. Kyra had swallowed a few bites of supper and, pale with exhaustion, had gone to bed early in the quiet guest room at the back of the house. Ben had retired to his cabin, and Phillip, after declining to be hired as a private investigator, had at last said, “I’ll see what I can find out, unofficially, of course.” He had turned down Elizabeth’s offer of a sandwich for supper, saying that Aunt Omie’s banana pudding was still with him and the walk down to his car would do him good. He had promised to be in touch soon, and Elizabeth had watched him go with a vague feeling of disappointment.

  The sweet fragrance of night-flowering nicotiana vied with the earthy odor of the three dogs lying at Elizabeth’s feet. Hypnotic chirring from a thousand crickets almost drowned out the sound of a distant car down on the hard road.

  Elizabeth was busy thinking over Kyra’s story when she heard an unfamiliar buzzing inside the house. Puzzled, she went in to investigate and soon realized that the sound was coming from a cell phone lying on the kitchen table by Kyra’s knapsack. She hesitated, knowing that her guest was probably asleep by now— it was well after nine— but feeling that the call should be answered. Reluctantly, she picked up the little device and, after fumbling to find the right button, said, “Hello, this is Kyra’s phone. Elizabeth Goodweather speaking.”

  There was a silence at the other end. Then a peremptory voice said, “This is Marvin Peterson. Let me speak to my daughter.”

  “Just a moment. I’ll see if she’s awake.” Elizabeth went quietly down the hall toward the guest room. Kyra’s door was closed and no light showed under it.

  “She’s asleep, Mr. Peterson. I’d rather not wake her; she’s had a rough day. Do you want—”

  “You’re the neighbor, right? So she’s run to your house. I sent a car out for her when I heard about what had happened to her boyfriends, but my man said she wasn’t at her house.”

  She could hear him speaking to someone in the background and could just catch the words “…next time…” He sounded furious but when he spoke to her his voice was calm and deliberate.

  “Mrs. Goodweather, is my daughter okay? She’d probably refuse to talk to me anyway, even if you did wake her up. I don’t know if you realize how emotionally fragile she is.”

  “She’s told me a little about…” Elizabeth considered and chose her words with care. “…a little about her mother. And of course she’s upset at Boz’s death and Aidan’s arrest—”

  “Aidan!” snorted Peterson, “now there’s a piece of work! A useless parasite like all of them. Artists! They say I ought to support the arts— what bullshit! I figure that the very generous allowance my daughter gets is supporting the arts— both those useless little shits were living off her money—‘but it’s Art,’ they whine…Art, my ass— a bunch of fags and dykes painting themselves with chocolate or saving bottles of their own piss and they want to tell me it’s Art. Well, I say it’s bullshit!”

  He paused to collect himself and Elizabeth could picture him wiping the foam from his lips. She remembered that the newspaper stories at the time of Rose Peterson’s death had made much of her husband’s humble beginnings and his swift transition from an ordinary, so-called uncultured, working-class Joe Six-Pack to a smooth-spoken, custom-tailored patron of the arts whose accent hinted at Harvard or Yale. Evidently Marvin Peterson had not entirely forgotten his roots.

  “I think Kyra’s all right—” she began.

  “Mrs. Goodweather,” Peterson interrupted. His anger was leashed in now and his voice had returned to an even pitch. He sounded almost, almost conciliatory. “Mrs. Goodweather, I’ve just been in touch with the doctor who treated Kyra during her breakdown after her mother’s death. He was very insistent, warned that a second trauma could send her totally off the deep end, said that I should get her into therapy as soon as possible. I have to talk to her about going back to the clinic for a while.”

  Elizabeth’s feelings were torn— the angry vulgarian had abruptly been replaced by what? Suave diplomat…or concerned father? Is he trying to help his daughter…or get her out of the way?

  Her inner questions still unresolved, she assured Peterson that she would have Kyra return his call. His voice was full of warmth, and something else that could have been anxiety, as he thanked Elizabeth for taking care of his daughter. By the time the call ended, Elizabeth realized that she was beginning to be swayed by the man’s charm— the charm that had kept Peterson in the forefront of Asheville society in spite of his dubious past.

  After replacing the cell phone by the knapsack, Elizabeth went to the door to call the dogs in for the night. Down in the front yard she could hear Ursa beginning an alto howl in response to a distant siren. Then Molly chimed in with her deep hound’s baying and at last James broke into a high-pitched yipping. Elizabeth smiled at the sounds of the dog chorus, then frowned as she realized that the siren was getting much closer. She stepped quickly out to the porch and listened; yes, it must be just down the road on Ridley Branch.

  With an abrupt gurgling noise the siren stopped and Elizabeth was horrified to see a red glow tinting the night sky, just in the direction of Dessie’s house. Pushing her feet into her boots, she started for her car, then turned and hurried back to the guest room.

  “Kyra!” She rapped urgently on the door. “Kyra, wake up!” There was no sound within. Elizabeth opened the door and said again, “Kyra—” The light from the hallway revealed an empty bed. The French door leading outside stood ajar.

  Elizabeth hesitated. The path beyond the door led down the mountain by way of Ben’s cabin. Maybe Kyra had—

  “Dammit, Elizabeth, don’t just stand there,” she said aloud. Stepping out the open door, she faced Ben’s cabin. Lights were still on and for once he didn’t have his music turned up loud. “Ben!” She pitched her voice to carry, and called again. “Ben!”

  Almost immediately the cabin door opened and Ben emerged, wearing only boxer shorts. “Aunt E?” He peered into the night, straining to see. “Is something wrong?”

  “I think there’s a fire down on the road— maybe Dessie’s place! We’d better go down and see. Is Kyra…” She paused. “Have you seen Kyra?”

  “No,” he called back, sounding puzzled. “Isn’t she over there? Gimme a second to get some clothes on and I’ll meet you at the car. You might want to grab some rakes and shovels in case they need help with brush fires.”

  As Elizabeth went back through the house she called Kyra’s name but still there was no response. She was throwing two rakes and a shovel into the back of her jeep when Ben appeared, clubbing his long hair back into a doubled-up ponytail. The dogs were howling again and more sirens could be heard. “Did you find Kyra, Aunt E?” he asked as they hurtled down the road.

  “Not a sign of her. I don’t understand—” Her words were cut off by the sight of Dessie’s house, windows glowing red and flames shooting from the roof. Three fire trucks were parked in the yard of the little house, and yellow-suited volunteer firemen aimed heavy fire hoses at the conflagration
.

  Ben and Elizabeth left the jeep at the foot of their drive and sprinted across the paved road to the fire. It seemed confined to the house; the barn that The 3 had used as a studio was untouched, and the surrounding vegetation, still damp from a heavy rain the day before, was not in danger of burning.

  “Jerry!” Ben hurried over to a heavyset man who, though completely togged out in firefighting gear, was leaning against the truck and seemed to be observing, rather than engaged in, the work at hand. “Was there anyone in the house? The girl who lives here—”

  “She’s over under that tree, Ben. Howdy, Miz Goodweather. Yep, that little gal come runnin’ down your road just about time we got here. Said she had her a feelin’ somethin’ was wrong. Tried to run in the house after some of her things but we had to stop her. She’s all tore up about it, some picture of her mama, I believe she said.”

  In the glare of the fire engine headlights, Elizabeth could see Kyra leaning against the trunk of the big sugar maple that dominated the little yard. The girl was looking away from the house, and once again she was obsessively rubbing the tattooed roses on her left hand. Her knees were drawn up to her chest and she didn’t turn when Elizabeth sat down beside her.

  “I couldn’t sleep,” Kyra said softly. The words were soft and devoid of emotion. “I could hear music over at Ben’s cabin and thought I’d go over and talk to him for a while. There was a flashlight there by the bed and I thought I could find the way. But when I got outside, I had this funny feeling that something was wrong and I just started walking down the road. Then I heard sirens and I started running.”

  She hugged her knees tighter. There were no tears and her face was a mask. “When I got to the top of the hill by the old graveyard, I could see the flames. And then the black car. It was on the road above our house, just sitting there with its lights off. And when the fire truck came down the road, the black car took off around the mountain.”

  “Was it a car you recognized?” Elizabeth asked. “It might have been just someone passing by, maybe watching but then afraid of being suspected when the fire truck arrived—”

  “I recognized it,” said Kyra, her voice still lifeless. “It’s always around. The driver’s a mean-looking guy in sunglasses. Sometimes he pretends he’s reading a newspaper, or looking at a map, but really, he’s watching me. I call him my nanny.”

  CHAPTER 6

  WILLOW

  (WEDNESDAY MORNING, AUGUST 31)

  THE EARLY MORNING MISTS LAY HEAVY ON FULL Circle Farm. “For ever’ fog in August, they’ll be a snow in winter” was the local saying, but though Elizabeth had tried keeping track of these fogs and the allegedly resultant snows, she had never been able to prove or, for that matter, disprove this particular old wives’ tale. What was important to her about these frequent morning fogs was that they provided a cool interval before the heat of the day— an interval she was using now to pick her tomatoes.

  Kyra was still asleep— exhausted after the events of the previous night. Ben was in the house— working on the farm accounts, he had said. “And when Kyra wakes up, I don’t think she should be alone. I’ll be right here if she needs me, and I can get that billing done.”

  The tomato vines, heavy with fruit, were sagging on their baling twine supports. The lower leaves were spotted and rusty with incipient blight. They would have to be clipped and burned, but the upper parts of the vines were continuing to put out tender new growth and starlike yellow blossoms. Elizabeth began to fill her plastic milk crate with the long, firm San Marzanos and Romas that would form the basis of herb-rich sauces to be stored in the freezer, as well as providing leathery oven-dried tomatoes bursting with the concentrated flavor of summer. There was also a small basket for the tiny grape tomatoes whose seeds a cousin had brought from France— the first choice for a tossed salad or eating out of hand. Finally, there were the enormous slicing tomatoes— the aristocracy of the garden— deep crimson Brandywine, dark Cherokee, Black Krim, and a bright yellow nameless beauty whose seeds had come from Miss Birdie, a little bland in taste perhaps, but so gorgeous in company with the others. Elizabeth laid these giants carefully in her big willow basket, envisioning a cobalt blue platter heaped with rounds of red and yellow interposed with slices of creamy fresh mozzarella, the whole glistening with generous amounts of olive oil, a prudent sprinkling of balsamic vinegar, shining crystals of sea salt, and fragrant ribbons of fresh green basil.

  She laughed as she realized that her mouth was beginning to water at the image she had conjured up. “Eight-thirty A.M. and thinking about dinner already. Elizabeth, you are hopeless!”

  The sound of a car’s straining engine cut through the peaceful morning air. What new adventure? She carried her basket to the end of the row and peered down the road. Too early for Jehovah’s Witnesses and it’s not the farm truck. Whoever it is, it doesn’t sound like they’re going to get much farther.

  Below the barn she could hear tires spinning desperately on the gravel, a moment of silence, and the sound of the vehicle backing. Probably just someone who took a wrong turn, she assured herself and began loading the crates and baskets of tomatoes into the back of her jeep. But then she heard the high-pitched whine of a car engine being pushed to the limit and around the corner of the barn shot an ancient green Volvo, bucking and swerving on the steep road.

  “Ouch!” Elizabeth winced as the low-slung car hit the water break, a deep trench across the road used to carry rain off into the ditch. There was the scrape of metal on rock but the Volvo kept coming. Elizabeth quickly stepped out into plain sight and signaled the driver to stop. “You’re going to tear up your muffler if you try to make it any farther!” she shouted, hurrying toward the car.

  But the driver had pulled over to the side and stopped the engine. She put her head out of the window and called out in a slightly accented, flutelike voice. “Namaste. Is this the place where Kyra has found refuge?”

  Without waiting for an answer, she got out. She was a small, fair woman whose pale hazel eyes were ringed with kohl. Her trailing skirt of rainbow-hued gauze did not quite hide her rather dirty bare feet, and her sagging breasts swung loosely inside a long sleeveless tunic of thin lavender material. A length of white cheesecloth was draped lightly around the tangle of faded blonde hair carelessly pulled back and twisted into a knot secured by an orange lacquer chopstick. Apart from the kohl, she wore no makeup. Her face, framed by dangling beaded earrings and smiling up at Elizabeth, was pretty in an old-fashioned way.

  “Namaste.” She pressed her palms together just under her chin and bowed slightly. “I am Willow. Aidan is my son.” Her expression saddened and a single tear tracked its way through the kohl.

  Elizabeth hesitated. She started to put out her hand, stained and sticky from the tomato vines, reconsidered, and wondered if she should instead bow in return. Settling on a friendly nod, she said, “I’m Elizabeth; yes, Kyra’s staying with me for now.” She studied the smaller woman briefly. As Laurel said— aging-hippie type. Probably forty-something. And what’s with that accent? Oh, yes, she and Aidan lived in India for a few years.

  “Thank Spirit that Kyra is safe.” Willow flicked her eyes heavenward, then fixed Elizabeth with her pale gaze. She continued in her soft, singsong lilt. “I felt guided to speak with Kyra about…about recent events. I rose before dawn so that I could arrive early when our energies were strongest. But when I saw the house…all blackened, smoking ruins…I did not know….”

  Her eyes closed and, flattening her palms against her midriff, she inhaled and exhaled slowly and deliberately three times before continuing. “Many official cars and trucks were there and I saw uniformed men poking about in the rubble. I felt trapped in some terrible nightmare— Boz dead, my beautiful son in jail— and fear for Kyra overtook me. I parked by the studio and stayed in my car, taking deep, healing breaths. At last a man came to me and shared what had happened. He said that he was the sheriff and he assured me that Kyra was unharmed. He shared that you had taken
her into your home and he pointed to your driveway.”

  Willow smiled and held out her hands, palms up. “And here I am. Spirit is working in all things. Kyra is safe and the fire has harmed no one.” Her expression hardened and the lilting accent disappeared. “And they can’t fucking blame my beautiful Aidan for it— since they have him locked up. Maybe this will start them looking for the real murderer. I mean, how could anyone think that a gentle soul like my boy could have done something so—?”

  She shook her head vigorously and made a gesture with her hands as if shaking them free of some noxious substance. “No, I will give no more energy to that thought.” The accent returned. “It is in the care of Spirit. I have been guided here to support Kyra, to help her to embrace this transition in her life.”

  Willow opened her arms wide and turned in a slow circle, her multicolored skirt flaring out around her. “How beautiful it is here— the loins of Mother Earth,” she trilled, motioning to the wooded slopes above them, “and her bounty.” She encompassed the garden tiers and the baskets of tomatoes in a vague wave. “There is deep harmony and healing in this green place.” Reaching up, she suddenly pulled the gauzy wrap off her head. “I sense that this will not be necessary here.”

  “No,” agreed Elizabeth, “you won’t need that. The gnats were bad back in May but they’re mostly gone now.”

  “Gnats?” Willow smiled indulgently. “Oh, no, no, no, the veil is a protection against evil influence and negative energy. Sri Namanandapura blesses these veils and bestows them on his disciples.”

  Elizabeth opened her mouth to speak, reconsidered, and closed it again. Take a deep healing breath, Elizabeth, she admonished herself.