Buckling the seat belt over the guy slumped in the driver’s seat, Nick checked everything and was about ready to drive the SUV over the cliff when he stopped and picked up the dead man’s left hand and removed the glove. He worked the claddagh ring off his finger and put it on the dead man’s left hand ring finger. It had been tight on him but fit this fucker perfectly.

Time was tight, but he took a moment to look down at his wedding ring on the man’s hand.

Always knew I wasn’t made for marriage, he thought.

Reaching in and igniting the Lexus’s engine, he put it in gear, placed the dead man’s foot on the gas pedal, and pressed down on his knee. The Lexus rolled forward. Perfect. In the last possible second before the car drove off the cliff, Nick threw an open match into the footwell, slammed the door closed, and ran back to the other side of the road.

The Lexus caught fire in midair. Nick watched the fiery ball in its long descent down into the valley below, lighting up the dark afternoon sky.

It took several seconds for the Lexus to hit the bottom. When it did, it exploded, the sound echoing through the valley.

Someone was going to come check out that explosion soon. Nick had to get out of here, fast.

Nicholas Ames, stockbroker, was gone now, forever.

He strapped on his shoulder rig, tossed the guy’s Sig Sauer into the glove compartment, threw his suitcase and emergency kit into the back of the now-battered SUV, and pulled out, heading for the van.

Not only was he now going to have to tell Di Stefano, Alexei, and the boss that he was married. He was also going to have to break the news that he was dead.

Seventeen

Parker’s Ridge

November 25

Charity raised her left hand and admired her wedding ring for the bazillionth time. The first thing she’d done when she got home was to switch on her computer and research claddagh rings on the Internet. She was a librarian, after all. Getting information was her specialty. Inside an hour, she knew everything there was to know about the claddagh symbol.

The story Nick had told her was there, together with others, each more charming and more romantic than the last. It was the perfect wedding ring.

It was the perfect wedding.

Over the years, Charity had been to a lot of weddings—of high school friends and college chums and colleagues. It seemed everyone was gripped with wedding fever. Not marriage fever—a lot of the marriages were already over—but some insane compulsion to turn the wedding ceremony into a ridiculously expensive and overblown spectacle.

She’d accompanied friends to fittings of $50,000 gowns they’d never wear again and helped choose $10,000 bridesmaid’s outfits. Agonized with them over outrageously extravagant floral arrangements and debated the virtues of ten tiers of vanilla meringue buttercream cake as opposed to eight tiers of chocolate truffle ganache. With the solid-gold monogram cake topper.

Leafing madly through bridal magazines as thick as War and Peace.

And the orchestra and the favors and the wedding meal menu—one friend had had over twenty-two courses—and the going-away outfit. With the special lingerie and the stockings and the shoes. Oh, and the beautician and the hairdresser on call…the details were never ending.

During the course of the average planning sessions, her friends would fight with their mothers, their fiancées, the bridesmaids, then make up in tears. Some lost ten pounds. Some gained twenty from anxiety. She’d laughed and planned with them and let them vent their nerves and all the time thought how foolish all this fluffy fuss was for an event that was supposed to be the most solemn event of one’s life. A private act of love between two people. An avowal of lifelong fidelity.

The end of one life as a single and the beginning of another as a couple. Except for parenthood, the most sacred bond of all.

Her marriage today was one she’d never have dared planned on her own—one lived in society after all—but it had been perfect for her. Especially after Nick had said that they would have a reception at Da Emilio’s afterward. Her aunt and uncle were too wrapped up in their problems to feel left out. Her friends would be happy with the party later. The wedding itself—that had been between just her and her husband-to-be. Husband, now.

Perfect.

She so wanted the rest of the day—and night—to be as perfect as the ceremony itself. Nick said he wouldn’t be back until after five or six, so that should give her plenty of time to prepare things.

Bless Mrs. Marino, her aunt and uncle’s housekeeper, who was on a crusade to fatten her up. Charity didn’t have to make a mess or smell up the house cooking a wedding feast. It was as if Mrs. Marino had known and had cooked a feast just for her.

In the freezer was exquisite finger food, platters of lasagna, veal in Marsala sauce, gratinéed vegetables, and even a wedding cake in the form of the best tiramisú this side of Rome. She had smoked salmon and caviar in the fridge and two bottles of superb Chilean champagne in the cellar, courtesy of Mr. Hernandez, owner of the only landscape gardening business in Parker’s Ridge, whose son she’d coached in English.

They could have their honeymoon right here. A week in the house without ever coming up for air.

And…she had the perfect outfit. A heavy silk peach-colored low-cut full-length nightgown with matching negligee, still in its wrapping paper. She’d never worn it. It had been the fruit of a hunting trip in Filene’s Basement while visiting a friend in Boston. She’d been looking for serviceable work sweaters and had stopped, awestruck, when she’d seen the beautiful outfit.

Mary, her friend, had urged her to buy it. Even discounted from $700 to $300 it was outrageously expensive, and for what? There wasn’t a man in her life at the time and hadn’t been for years. Who would she wear it for?

She’d been about to say no when Mary had taken her hand and curled it around the bias-cut skirt. The silk felt like cool water beneath her fingers. It felt sexy and classy, like an artifact from another life. One more exciting than hers.

When she tried it on, it was as if it had been tailor-made for her. So she’d caved in and bought it, feeling guilty, and placed it in the bottom of her dresser drawer, thinking she’d never wear it.

And now she was wearing it for her wedding night! The thought was so enticing she shivered.

She set the table carefully, bringing out the heavy white Flanders tablecloth, Grandmother Prentiss’s Limoges service, and her parent’s Waterford crystal glasses. The family silver. The big, heavy silver candelabra family legend had it that her great-grandmother had used to break the skull of an intruder during the Depression.

She filled the candelabra with candles and then continued around the room. She loved candles and had them in every shape and size, most vanilla-scented. She covered the sideboard, the mantelpiece, and the coffee table with candles and stood back, pleased.

Around five, she’d switch off all the lights and light the candles. Nick would come back to a candlelit home. It would be so beautiful.

In the bedroom, she placed candles on her dresser, nightstand, and the windowsills. The small cozy room looked like a bower, ready for a night of love. Between husband and wife.

What a delicious thought.

She changed the sheets on the bed, choosing her finest set—300-thread count flowered Egyptian cotton sheets, thick, starched and smelling of lavender.

Charity pulled out the nightgown and negligee. They were as gorgeous as in her memory. She fingered the heavy, beautiful silk, imagining Nick’s face when he saw her in it. No princess on earth would have a finer outfit for her wedding night.