LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER ONE

      WHERE WAS FINN? Carly Maxwell scanned the funeral guests clustered around her late aunt Irene’s living room for the tall, dark-haired musical prodigy. Finn Farrell had been Irene’s star pupil, his family’s greatest hope and Carly’s teenage crush. He should be here. He’d disappointed her aunt enough during her lifetime. Did he have to add to it after her death?

      Carly moved among the guests, pouring tea from a huge earthenware teapot, trying to hold herself together when all she wanted to do was curl up under the covers and bawl her eyes out. It didn’t help that she was still on New York time and jet-lagged.

      “More tea, Brenda?” Carly paused before her cousin, a comfortably plump blonde in her early forties who had sunk deep into soft sofa cushions.

      “Yes, please.” Brenda’s blue eyes were sympathetic as Carly poured unsteadily into a hand-thrown pottery mug. “You’ve been on your feet since early this morning. Can I take the tea around for you?”

      “Thanks, but no,” Carly said. “If I stop moving I might never get going again.”

      In fact, she hadn’t stopped the entire week, from the moment she’d heard about Irene’s death. Finn’s Facebook message had popped into her work inbox like a Molotov cocktail, exploding her crammed diary into shards of missed meetings, unreturned phone calls and hurried apologies. Rushing back to her apartment, she’d listened to voice mail messages from her aunt’s neighbor, Frankie, who was worried about Irene’s dog, and Irene’s lawyer, Peter King, who said her aunt had listed Carly as next of kin.

      Carly had caught the red-eye from New York to Seattle, rented a car, and driven up to Fairhaven, Washington, an historic district at the south end of Bellingham. Grief-stricken and in a daze, she’d arranged for a celebrant, put notices in the newspapers and on Irene’s social media, organized the funeral home and the caterers. After the service Carly had invited everyone to Irene’s three-story Queen Anne home on South Hill for the reception.

      Now here they all were. With barely a moment yet to shed a tear she had a feeling she would look back and think the organizing and activity was the easy part. Dealing with her grief was going to be harder.

      “Sit down a moment, at least.” Brenda patted the taupe cushion next to her. “We haven’t had a chance to talk.”

      Carly sank onto the couch, cradling the warm teapot against her navy suit jacket. “Could you hear me okay when I was giving the eulogy? I wasn’t sure if I spoke loudly enough.” She’d choked up, every painful pause thick with sorrow. Several of Irene’s friends and music students had also spoken. One young girl broke down completely and had to be led off by her mother.

      “You were great.” Brenda clutched a damp, shredded tissue. “I couldn’t have done it.”

      Carly blinked away the salty moisture burning her eyes. “I can’t believe she’s gone. Only fifty-eight.”

      “Fifty-eight going on eighteen,” Brenda said with a watery smile. “She was so much fun.”

      “Thank God she isn’t alive to witness her own funeral.” Carly glanced around at the somber faces. A girl drooped over the keyboard of the Steinway grand piano, softly picking out minor chords. The gloomy atmosphere was at odds with Irene’s uproarious house parties in happier days. “She would have hated all this weeping into hankies.”

      “Everyone’s shell-shocked,” Brenda said. “Irene was so full of life, it’s hard to believe she could die so quickly. I guess that’s what can happen with a brain aneurysm.”

      “Is it?” Carly asked dully. “I have no idea.”

      “I Googled it,” Brenda said. “Sometimes people survive but have brain damage. Sometimes they go like that.” She clicked her fingers.

      “Don’t, please,” Carly begged. “I can’t help thinking that if someone had been with her, she might have survived.” And not just anyone—her. If she’d accepted Irene’s invitation to go on the Alaska cruise, her aunt might be alive today.

      “You shouldn’t torture yourself. That’s an impossible question to answer.” Brenda sighed and patted Carly’s arm. “It’s good to see you, even under the circumstances.”

      “Are you staying in town long?”

      “I have to go back to Portland tomorrow. Work.”

      “I should be going back to work, too, but there’s too much to do here.” Carly chewed the inside of her cheek, tasting blood. The timing of Irene’s death couldn’t have been worse from her perspective. Her high-pressure job as a recruitment consultant for executives had started only a few months ago and already she’d had to ask for time off.

      But she wouldn’t have had it any other way. Irene had been like a mother to Carly after her own mom died when Carly was nine years old. An only child, she’d spent every summer after that, and sometimes Christmas, with her aunt. At any rate, there was no one else to organize the funeral. Irene had never married and had no children. Her brother, Brenda’s dad, was on a sailboat somewhere in the South Pacific.

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