Beth handed her a cup of black coffee and sat next to her. “You okay?”

Mace drank some of the coffee and lay back against the head-board. “Yeah, I’m good.”

“You look a little out of it. Bad dream?”

Mace tensed. “Why? Did you hear anything?”

“No, just thought it was probably normal. Your subconscious probably thinks there are still bars on the doors and windows.”

“I’m fine. Thanks for the java.”

“Anytime.” Beth rose.

“Uh…”

Beth looked down at her. “Something on your mind?”

“I remember what a media circus it was when I went to prison. I was just wondering.”

“Why there wasn’t a media army camped outside on your return?”

“Yeah.”

“The easy answer is you’re old news. It’s been two years. And every day there’s some national or international crisis, big company collapsing, people getting blown up, or some psycho with automatic weapons and body armor gunning people down at the local mall. And since you’ve been away hundreds of newspapers have folded, existing ones have cut their staff in half, and the TV and radio folks usually chase stuff far more bizarre than you to get the big ratings. But just in case, I sort of pulled a reverse strategy on the media grunts.”

Mace sat up. “What do you mean?”

“I offered to make you available to them for a full interview. I guess they figured if it was that easy, why bother?”

“That’s pretty slick, Beth. Busy day today?”

“Nope, didn’t you hear? Last night all crime miraculously went away.”

Mace showered and changed and checked her hair, face, and clothes in the mirror. Then she got mad at herself for even doing this. No matter what she looked like, her mother would find something wrong with her appearance. And frankly, it would be easy pickings for the woman.

Minutes later she fired up the Ducati. Immediately, Blind Man started howling from behind the door. She smiled and revved the gas. Soon she was heading due west, left D.C. proper, and entered Virginia over Memorial Bridge. As she cut in and out of traffic, Mace started to think about the upcoming encounter with the woman who had given birth to her over three decades ago.

Part of her would take prison again over that.

CHAPTER 21

MACE RACED DOWN the straightaway of Route 50, weaving in and out of the dregs of the morning rush hour. The one traffic light in Middleburg caught her and she geared down the Ducati, finally braking to a stop. The street parking here leaned to Range Rovers and Jag sedans with an occasional Smart car thrown in for green measure. The small downtown area was hip in an upscale rural way. And here one could, for millions of dollars, purchase a really swell place to live. Years ago Mace and Beth had visited their mother, seen the fancy estate, dined at a nice restaurant, done some window shopping, and then gone back to busting bandits in D.C. One visit for Mace was truly enough.

Though Beth Perry was only six years older than her sister, she had played far more of a nurturing role for Mace than their mother ever had. In fact, the first person Mace could ever remember holding her was Beth, who was already tall and rangy at age nine.

Though he’d died when Mace was only twelve, Benjamin Perry had left quite an impression on his younger daughter. Mace could vividly recall sitting in her father’s small den doing her homework while her dad put together his legal arguments, oftentimes reading them to her and getting her input. She had wept harder than anyone at his funeral, the casket closed to hide the gunshot wounds to his face.

As she flew past lavish estates residing majestically on hundreds of acres, Mace knew that her mother had ascended to this level of wealth principally by design. She had methodically hunted and then snared a fellow who’d never worked a day in his life but was the only child of a man who had earned a fortune large enough to allow his offspring to live decadently for several generations. By then both daughters were grown and gone, for which Mace was enormously grateful. She was more coach fare and Target than private wings and Gucci.

Beth had gotten her height from her mother, who was several inches taller than her husband. Mace had always assumed that she inherited both her father’s average stature and his pugnacity. Benjamin Perry’s career as the U.S. attorney in D.C. had been tragically cut short, but during his tenure he’d prosecuted criminals through some of the most violent years in D.C. history, quickly becoming legendary for his scorched-earth pursuit of bandits. Yet he also had a reputation for always playing fair, and if exculpatory evidence came along, defense counsel always saw it. He had told Mace more than once that his greatest fear was not letting a guilty person go free, but sending an innocent one to prison. She had never forgotten those words, and that made the appointment of Mona Danforth to her father’s old position even more difficult for her to accept.

Benjamin Perry’s murder had never been solved. His daughters had taken various cracks at it over the years, with no success. Evidence was lost or tainted, witnesses’ memories faded away, or they died. Cold cases were the toughest to solve. But now that she was out of prison Mace knew, at some point, she had to try again.

A few miles past Middleburg proper she slowed the bike and turned off onto a gravel path, which would become a paved cobblestone road about a half mile up. She drew a deep breath and pulled to a stop in front of the house. They called it by some Scottish name because hubby was Scottish and took great pride in his clan back home. While Mace and Beth were there previously he had even entered the room dressed in a kilt with a dagger in his sock and a bonnet on his head. That had been bad enough, but the poor fellow had caught his skirt on the sword handle of a large armored warrior standing against one wall, causing the skirt to lift up and reveal that the lord of the manor wore his kilt commando style. It was all Mace could do not to blow snot out of her nose from laughing. She thought she had carried it off fairly well. However, her mother had sternly informed her that her husband had not taken kindly to Mace rolling on the floor gasping for air while he was desperately trying to pull his skirt back down to cover his privates.

“Then tell Mr. Creepy to start wearing underwear,” Mace had shot back in earshot of her stepfather. “I mean, it’s not like he’s got anything down there to brag about.”

That had not gone over very well either.

As she rounded a bend the manor came into full view. It was smaller than Abe Altman’s, but not by much. Mace walked up to the front door fully expecting a uniformed butler to answer her knock. But he didn’t.

The thick portal flew open and there stood her mother, dressed in a long black designer skirt, calf-high boots, and a starched white embroidered tunic shirt over which a gold chain was hanging. Dana Perry still wore her whitish-blond hair long, though it was held back today in a French braid. She looked at least ten years younger than she was. Beth had her mother’s facial structure, long and lovely, with a nose as straight and lean as the edge of an ax blade. The cheekbones still rode high and confident. Her mother cradled a comb-teased Yorkie in one slender arm.

Mace didn’t expect a hug and didn’t get one.

Her mother looked her up and down. “Prison seems to have agreed with you. You look to be lean as a piano wire.”

“I would’ve preferred a gym membership, actually.”

Her mother pointed a long finger at her. “Your father must be turning over in his grave. Always thinking of yourself and never anybody else. Look at what your sister’s accomplished. You’ve got to finally get it straight, little girl, or you’re going right down the crapper. Do you understand what I’m saying?”