"Five minutes until it's on the table," he said.

I reached into the closet and pulled out a sapphire-blue dress. It shimmered in the light of the closet and for an instant I was right back where I'd been before, the image of the dead intruder suddenly fresh in my mind.

"Who cleaned up?" I asked, whipping around and walking back out into the kitchen.

Carlucci kept his back to me. "I did. I didn't want you coming back and finding that."

I stood there, holding the dress up to my chest, staring at the spot on the floor where the body had been. I'd been so caught up in Vernell and Marshall that I hadn't even given it any thought until now. Two men had died in my home now: Vernell's brother, Jimmy, and an intruder who'd meant to scar me for life.

After Jimmy died, I came to feel as if his spirit still lingered around. It wasn't a sad or scary thing, it was oddly comforting, as if he still wandered through my life, keeping in touch. But this other person, this intruder, that was different and frightening. I stared at the floor and saw no trace of blood.

"Thank you for doing that," I said.

"It's all right," he muttered. As I watched, he lifted my big stockpot and poured the contents into a colander in the sink.

"Do you know who he was?" I asked. "Did they tell you?"

"I knew who it was." He still didn't look at me. "His name was Sammy Newton, but everybody called him Mouse." I waited, because I knew there was more. "He's Redneck Mafia, Maggie. I figure you know that."

I supposed I had, but I'd blocked it out, not wanted to think about it or face it. When Tony turned around, he was holding a steaming platter of pasta.

"Go put that down and come eat. Let's don't talk about trash right now." His face was a tight-set mask of control. Even looking into his eyes didn't tell me what emotion lived there, or how he felt about killing a man and then cleaning up the gory aftermath. It was a closed subject.

I turned away from him, laid the dress out across my bed and walked back through the kitchen and into my dining room. Carlucci was lighting candles, throwing the room into a milky yellow glaze of soft lighting and good smells. It was like entering another dimension, where violence had no place and death was kept at bay, held off by the sounds and smells of living.

Tony Carlucci's black hair gleamed in the candlelight. His strong shoulders rippled as he moved a heavy white bowl to the center of the table. His hands were a roughened contrast to the smooth white surface of the dish he held. I wondered about him for a moment. Who was he underneath that tough exterior? Where had he lived before he'd arrived in Greensboro? Who had he left behind? Did she miss him?

He looked up when I entered, then back down at the table.

"This is a recipe handed down from my great-grandmother, on to my grandma, to my mother, and now to me. Don't even try asking for the ingredients or anything else, because if I told you, I would be forced…"

He broke off, not wanting to finish the phrase, to kill you. I looked at my plate and back at him.

"Well, whatever you did, it smells wonderful. I'm starving." I smiled and made a big show of digging in, but all I could do was think. The events of the past few days ran through my head like a slide show. Vernell turning back up should've been the release I needed, but it only made matters worse, because as sure as I sat there eating lemon-cream pasta, I knew he'd be charged with murder by daybreak. That's just the way Vernell lives. If a storm is gonna come up, Vernell's gonna be stuck smack in the eye of the hurricane.

I looked back at Carlucci and found him watching me, his smoky eyes dark and impossible to read. When he reached for the pepper I found myself watching the muscles in his arms. I wondered what it would feel like to have them wrapped around me. Just as quickly, I shook the image off and swallowed. What in the world was I doing thinking like that?

As if he read my mind, Carlucci smiled.

"You should wear that robe to dinner more often," he said. "And let your hair go like that, so it just goes all curly. You ever think about not fixing it up, just leaving it be?"

"You know," I said, laying my fork down on my plate, "you and my ex-husband would get along."

"And how's that?" he asked.

I stared right back at him. "Whenever Vernell doesn't want to deal with something, he starts complimenting me. Here you are, in my house again, without my permission, making yourself at home, and I'm supposed to just take it and go on."

Carlucci licked his lips. "Exactly."

"Why?"

"Because you'll get yourself killed if I don't stick around. Besides," he added, "I think we've got some unfinished business."

I could feel my face flame up under his gaze, the heat spreading down my neck and into my chest. What did he mean, unfinished business? Who was I kidding? I knew exactly what unfinished business he meant.

I tossed my hair back over my shoulders and looked at him. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

Carlucci laughed. "You most certainly do. I can see it in the way you squirm when I look at you."

I jumped up, pushing my chair back behind me. I didn't want him to see it in my face, to read what we both knew I felt. I didn't want to deal with him. I couldn't face what I felt. Not now, maybe not even later. "I'm late. I've got to get ready."

Carlucci just stared at me, his eyes roving down the V of my robe, taking his time. "You do that, Maggie Reid, you get ready."

I turned away from him and stalked off to my room, closing the door and locking it behind me. Who did he think he was?

Chapter Eighteen

I left Tony Carlucci and a pile of dirty dishes, headed for the Golden Stallion. If there was one cure for trouble, it was music. It didn't matter how bad things got, or how screwed up my love life was, music was the cure. All I had to do was hear Sparks slide into the intro with his silky pedal steel guitar, and I was transported away from every worry I'd ever known.

The Golden Stallion club is my home away from home. It sits in a pitted gravel parking lot looking like a derelict, A-framed warehouse just back off busy High Point Road. It isn't a thing to look at, inside or out, but it's where I feel the most like myself of anywhere next to my house or Mama's.

Of course, just stepping through the doorway makes me sick. The stage fright overwhelms me, right up until the band starts playing my song and I run up the steps, out onto the stage and take the mike in my hands. It was no different tonight than it is any other night. I stepped into the front door, hugged Cletus, the bull-necked bouncer, and ran for the ladies' room.

But as soon as Sparks launched into "Your Cheatin' Heart," I was out the door and walking up on stage, my heart pounding, my palms sweating, and a huge smile on my face.

Sparks looked up from the pedal steel, his huge white cowboy hat sparkling under the lights. His mustache takes up half of his face, and when he smiles, he'll melt your heart, but Sparks doesn't give himself away easy. He holds on to that smile and only lets it out when he's assured that he's in charge and things are going his way. I figure it's on account of him being short. He has to set the tone with you, let you know his bite is just as strong as his bark. Tonight he wasn't smiling. I'd missed early rehearsal. I hadn't even remembered it, until I saw the scowl. Oh well, this was just not the day for perfection.

Harmonica Jack saw me and danced across the stage, the harmonica up to his lips and his eyebrows wiggling with the exertion of playing the melody line.

I strolled up to him, rubbed up against his shoulder and began to sing. Behind me, Sugar Bear, the rhythm guitar player, stood like a massive dark-haired, bearded mountain man.