LITMIR.BIZ

      Conversation had dried up.

      Stephanie drifted in and out of troubled sleep, and Joan concentrated desperately on holding the old van on the road. It started snowing: huge silent flakes that quickly coated everything in a festive blanket. But both women knew how dangerous the snowfall could be. There was a very real danger that they could get caught on the highway and be forced to spend Christmas in a sleazy motel or, worse still, become trapped on one of the minor roads and run the risk of freezing to death in the car.

      Stephanie wondered how Robert would react if he read about it in the newspapers. How would he feel? Relief that “the Stephanie Burroughs problem” had gone away? Would he feel even vaguely guilty that it was his fault she was driving through a snowstorm on Christmas Eve in a gasping van that sounded like it was about to conk out at any moment? However, since he rarely read a newspaper and she doubted that the deaths of two women in a snowstorm would make the Boston Herald, he’d probably never know.

      Maybe she could haunt him.

      The heater in the van suddenly decided to work and now pumped over-hot and vaguely acrid air into the van. The combination of the heat and exhaustion drove Stephanie into a light, uncomfortable doze in which ominous thoughts of Robert and Kathy were never far away.

      The crunch of gravel and grit under the tires brought her awake. They had turned off the freeway and onto a narrow country blacktop. As she struggled to straighten and sit up, Joan said, “Nearly there.”

      Stephanie rubbed her sleeve against the side window and peered out into the night. It had snowed here recently, and the world had lost all shape and definition. The streets were deserted, but in the majority of the Craftsman and bungalow houses, set well back from the road, she could see a Christmas tree winking in the gloom. Some of the houses had been decorated with thousands—tens of thousands—of lights, but most of the lights had been turned off now, and the displays of Santas and reindeer, snowmen, and Christmas trees seemed rather forlorn.

      It was close to midnight as they turned onto Lake Mendota Drive where a single house was ablaze with sparkling lights. Stephanie craned forward to look. This was the home of their childhood. The wan lights of the van washed across the front of the pale yellow house. An enormous Christmas tree dominated the living room’s bay window, and Stephanie knew it would be festooned with the same balls and trinkets it had always been decorated with. She knew she would find the silver-foil and pipe-cleaner angel she had made in first grade; she knew that the crown her eldest brother Billy had worn when he’d played a wise man in the Christmas pageant in kindergarten would adorn the top of the tree. She’d once found such traditions rather petty and almost embarrassing, but as she got older she’d come to realize that there was something comforting in them, and the trinkets on the tree symbolized simpler times, happier times.

      Climbing out of the car, she was surprised to discover that there were tears on her cheeks, and she tried, unsuccessfully, to convince herself that it was just the chill wind on her face.

      The front door opened wide, and the long shadows thrown by the sisters’ parents danced across the snow. The two women grabbed their bags and hurried out of the icy night air.

      At fifty-nine, Toni Burroughs was a tiny woman, standing an inch under five foot.

      To Stephanie’s eyes, Toni looked the same as she had when Stephanie was growing up. Her features were all planes and angles: a pointed chin, sharp nose, prominent cheekbones, and skin that looked almost unnaturally smooth. Stephanie doubted that her mother used Botox and knew that a face-lift was simply out of the question, so she put her mother’s perpetual youthfulness down to good genes and hoped that she would look as good as her mother when she was her age.

      Toni met Stephanie on the step and reached up to wrap her arms around her daughter. “I can’t begin to tell you how happy you’ve made me,” she breathed in Stephanie’s ear.

      “I’m happy to be home,” Stephanie said. And in that moment, she meant it.

      “What made you change your mind?”

      “Maybe I just wanted to be home with my family for Christmas,” Stephanie murmured.

      “Maybe,” Toni said in that tone of voice that suggested that she didn’t believe a word of it.

      Matt Burroughs released Joan and gathered Stephanie into his arms. “Now this is the best Christmas present an old man could have.”

      “Dad . . .” Stephanie could feel tears prickling at the back of her eyes, and her throat felt unaccountably tight.

      “Come inside now. You both must be freezing.”

      Matt Burroughs looked every inch the college professor. Tall, potbellied, and now beginning to stoop a little, he still possessed the thick mane of jet-black hair that, even now in his seventieth year, was showing remarkably little gray. But Stephanie noticed the extra lines around his eyes, the creases in his brow, the more pronounced stoop when he walked. He’d aged since she’d last seen him.

      Matt ushered his daughters into the hall and closed the door. The small, cramped hallway was made even smaller by the addition of the second Christmas tree—the kid’s tree—that was put up every year for the grandchildren to showcase their handmade decorations. This year the greenery was almost lost beneath a confection of silver and crepe paper, pipe-cleaner stars, and papier-mâché balls.

      After the chilly drive, the house was luxuriously warm, rich with the smells of Christmas cooking, scented Yankee Candles, and pine. In the surprisingly deserted living room, a log fire was burning down to embers.

      “Where is everyone?” Stephanie wondered. She’d been expecting to find the entire clan still up.

      “Gone to bed,” her mother announced, with just a hint of disapproval in her voice. “I thought they’d wait up for you.”

      “They’ll be up early with the children,” Matt said softly. He nodded toward the pile of brightly wrapped boxes piled haphazardly around the enormous tree that filled the window. “This is the first time in I don’t know how many years when the entire family will be home for Christmas,” he said with a smile. He reached out and squeezed his daughter’s arm. “I’m so glad you could make it.”

      “So am I, Dad.”

      Toni caught hold of Joan’s arm and pulled her out to the kitchen, leaving Stephanie alone with her father.

      “No doubt your mother is pumping Joan for information right now,” Matt said with a grin. He opened the antique rolltop drinks cabinet. “I know you don’t really drink hard liquor,” he said, opening a bottle of Maker’s Mark with its distinctive red wax top, “but I think you might need this.” He poured a double and handed it to Stephanie. “You look like you need it.”

      “Usually I don’t, and normally I wouldn’t, but tonight . . .” She tilted her head and threw back half the bitter liquor in one gulp. She felt it sear the back of her throat and then explode, warm and soothing, into the pit of her stomach. “It’s been a really long day.”

      Matt poured himself a tiny drop into a cut-glass goblet that was older than he was, swirled it in the bottom of the glass, and breathed in the sweet aroma. Placing the goblet on top of the mantelpiece, he poked at the crumbling remains of the blackened log with a fire iron, watching red-black and yellow-white sparks spiral up into the chimney.

      “You were lucky to get a flight,” he said, without turning around. “It must have been very last-minute.”

      “It was. I didn’t book flights until this afternoon . . . well, afternoon East Coast time.”

      Matt retrieved his glass and turned to face his

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