"I have to pick up Joan at the sitter's," Angel said apologetically. "Roe, would you like to come back to town with me? Spend the evening?"

There was no way in hell I was going to admit I wanted to be with someone, not while Arthur was standing there looking sorry for me. "I have a lot to catch up on here," I said, keeping my face calm as a pond. "Thanks for visiting, Robin. I'll talk to you later, Angel. Tell me when you need me to take you to pick up your car." Angel patted me on the shoulder. She'd asked Robin for a ride back into town, and he'd seemed glad to oblige. If I'd been him, I wouldn't have been too enthusiastic about getting back to the motel to face Joel Park Brooks, either.

To my dismay, somehow Arthur managed to linger while Angel and Robin left.

"How is Lorna?" I asked brightly, fishing the little girl's name out of my memory with a desperate yank.

"She's great," Arthur said, his eyes focused on my face. Not too many people look at you so directly, but Arthur had always been a forceful and direct man. Except when he'd been dating me, and sleeping with Lynn Liggett. And asking her to marry him, when she was pregnant. Except for that. "She's in the first grade."

"Oh gosh," I said, the impact of the years that had gone by hitting me between the eyes. I remembered how jealous Martin had been of Arthur, when he found Arthur pursuing me after Arthur divorced Lynn. All that emotional energy, wasted.

"Yes, I know." Arthur laughed a little. "They've moved into Atlanta. Lynn wanted to put Lorna into a private school, so she took a job with a big company that installs security systems for businesses. She's pulling in the big bucks."

"How often do you manage to see Lorna?" I was struggling to keep the conversation going.

"I have her two weekends a month," Arthur said. "And some holidays."

"Did you remarry?" I asked, all too aware that my voice was too bright and social.

"You know damn good and well I didn't," he said. He didn't sound angry—-just as if he were dusting off my pretense of ignorance. "You would have known. I've dated a lot, come close to being that serious once."

I automatically wanted to know who the close call had been, but that wasn't something I could ask.

"How are you recovering?" he asked.

I bit my lower lip and looked down at the hardwood floor. "I'm probably doing better than I thought I would," I said.

"That sounds pretty uncertain."

I considered that. "I thought I'd really collapse," I said. "Then I thought I was just being brave for a while and I'd collapse after that. But I guess I won't ever."

"You seem surprised."

I nodded.

"He never was..." Arthur began, and I held up a warning hand. There was a long silence.

"I'm leaving," Arthur said. He rose wearily from the couch, ran a hand over his pale hair. "Do you... would you like someone to stay out here at night with you?"

"You offering?" I was trying to get a little lightness into the conversation.

"I'd do it in a minute," he said flatly, and I was sorry I'd spoken.

"Thanks, but I'm used to being by myself at night." I did appreciate his thinking of my feelings. But the habit of turning Arthur away had gotten so strong I couldn't break it, and it would really be bad for me to begin asking someone to spend the night at the house to keep me company—not to mention what it'd do to my reputation, though I was pleased to find that consideration was strictly secondary.

"If you need me, you call," Arthur said. "But I know I make you rattled." He looked resigned to that. "There's someone who'd love to stay out here with you, and she needs money, if a paying situation would be more comfortable for you. The new young patrolwoman is just panting to meet you. She'd be glad to keep you company, especially if there was money involved."

"Oh, she's on the poor side?" Why on earth would anyone want to meet me? Oh... the movie. Someday, I'd quit being completely naive.

"Her husband ran up all their credit cards as high as he could before he left," Arthur said, carefully showing no expression.

"He ran off with someone?"

"Her stepbrother."

I let that soak in for a minute, until I was sure I had understood Arthur correctly. "I guess my own problems aren't too bad," I muttered, and Arthur nodded.

"That does put your life in perspective," he agreed. "Plus, the SOB took their car."

"That's one of the worst stories I've ever heard," I said after I'd thought it over.

"Tell me about it. So, if you want Susan to stay with you, give me a call." Arthur patted me on the shoulder, walked across the front porch, and opened the screen door. "And call me if you think of anything about this morning, or about last night. Anything that might have happened while you were having dinner with the movie people."

"I will," I said, feeling sure I'd already told Arthur everything that could have a bearing on the murder of Celia Shaw.

I stood in the living room, all alone, and looked at the clock on the table. Amazingly, it was only noon. Equally amazingly, I was due at work.

Breakfast (two pieces of toast) had been an eon ago. I got some chicken salad out of the refrigerator and ate it out of the bowl, with crackers to scoop it up. I was glad I had a job where I was due, glad something had broken into the dreary pattern of my life...

Where had that come from?

I wasn't glad Celia was dead, was I?

No, not really. I was just glad something had happened to change things, jolt me out of my misery, cause people to treat me as something other than pitiful.

Because I wasn't, I told myself crisply. I was not pitiful, and I was not just a forlorn rich widow. I was no tragic figure to be wrapped in cotton batting, either. I was a kick-butt rich widow. I began to feel better and better as I cleared away the cracker crumbs and the glass, and by the time I got in my car to go back to town, I was in a mood to take on a grizzly.

No one looking at my four-eleven exterior could tell I was loaded for bear, and it was a considerable surprise to Lillian and Perry when I told Janie Finstermeyer that her son had way too many overdue books, that it was getting to be a real habit of his, and that she'd better energize him into getting to the library with those books before the day was over or we'd yank his card.

I turned away from the telephone to find them staring at me as if I'd dyed my hair green.

"Can we even do that?" Lillian asked.

"You just watch me." But it wasn't necessary to put the threat to the test, because Josh Finstermeyer flew into the library as if propelled within an hour, money in hand and an apology on his lips. He even took his baseball cap off in the library.

I tried to be equally gracious.

Chapter Eight

Of course, I heard from my mother that night. My mother, tall and elegant and reminiscent of Lauren Bacall at her coolest, might as well have been born on a different planet from me; I cannot imagine her carrying me in her womb, no matter what evidence there is to the contrary. I am an only child, and I've seen pictures of her pregnant, so I guess I'm really hers.

I was never much a child of my father, except biologically. He left when I was in my teens, my early teens. My mother, in her excellent vengeance, became a real estate tycoon in a modest way—if a tycoon can be modest—and lived in more affluence than I ever would have if I'd stayed with my newspaperman father. He'd remarried, and had a son named Phillip, my half-brother. I hadn't seen Phillip in years. My father had decided I reminded the boy of a traumatic incident, and that seeing me was bad for Phillip.

When he got his own computer, Phillip began emailing me. I could tell, in his first messages, Phillip considered himself daring, contacting his dangerous older sister. I replied so calmly and matter-of-factly that it made my teeth ache, but at the same time I tried to make it clear that I was very happy to hear from him. Now we exchanged news once or twice a week. I hadn't had much to tell him since Martin died (Phillip had sent me the biggest, most sentimental card he could find, covered with a glittery substance). That wasn't the case tonight.