She need not have worried that Riker would catch her watching over him. When he finally turned around, he was as good as blind, tears blurring his eyes and streaming down his face. After he had disappeared over the rise of the gravel path, an angry Mallory approached the gravestone to see what the dead woman had done to him. But there was nothing written there that could break a man in half, no words at all beyond the doctor's name and the dates of her life and death.

Understanding came swiftly as a hammerfall.

The man had come to a boneyard, of all places, looking for love, and he had gone away without it. Johanna Apollo had died for him, and, for a little while, something very rare had belonged to Riker – until Mallory had destroyed the only evidence.

In her own inimical, violent style, her own version of remorse, she slammed one closed fist down on the gravestone, wanting the pain, wanting to feel something. Mallory turned toward the path, intending to hunt Riker down before he reached the gate. She planned to hurt him with the certain knowledge that Johanna Apollo had loved him more than her own life. This fresh agony would be her gift to him – all the details of the altered crime scene.

But she could not move.

It was as if a wall had suddenly sprung up about her, surrounding her with invisible bricks of irony. Riker would never believe her – not her, a liar and a manipulator extraordinaire, though he would nod and smile, thanking her for her trouble. Then he would pour himself a shot of bourbon, dismissing her gift as some new trick to fix him one last time.

Riker had lost everything.

A family of four came along the path, crunching gravel underfoot and bearing flowers for a nearby grave. They gave a wide berth to the young woman who stood there so quietly, all of them believing that her sorrow must be recent and profound. The mourners departed. Night fell. And Kathy Mallory was left in the cold company of stone.

The marker was a plain one of deep red granite, and its only ornament was modest. The flower carved within a heart was not a rose, nor any bloom that one could readily identify. It was small, not much to look at – a common pimpernel.

Carol O'Connell

Born in 1947, Carol O'Connell studied at the California Institute or Arts/Chouinard and the Arizona State University. For many years she survived on occasional sales of her paintings as well as freelance proof-reading and copy-editing.

At the age of 46, Carol O'Connell sent the manuscript of Mallory's Oracle to Hutchinson, because she felt that a British publisher would be sympathetic to a first time novelist and because Hutchinson also publish Ruth Rendell. Having miraculously found the book on the 'slush pile', Hutchinson immediately came back with an offer for world rights, not just for, Mallory's Oracle but for the second book featuring the same captivating heroine.

At the Frankfurt Book Fair, Hutchinson sold the rights to Dutch, French and German publishers for six figure sums. Mallory's Oracle was then taken back to the States where it was sold, at auction, to Putnam for over $800,000.

Carol O'Connell is now writing full time.