LITMIR.BIZ

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that required work gave the woman the creeps, Natalie thought. “Eloquently put,” she murmured under her breath.

      The general tone, since the words were not audible, earned her a dirty look from her stepmother. Bored and frustrated, Ricky’s whining went up a notch. It was a little like walking into an insane asylum, Natalie realized.

      Her father shifted his attention to her. “Natalie, exactly when can we expect to have your sister’s body released?”

      Her father was a reasonably intelligent man. He should have known the answer to that. And then it occurred to her that he expected her to have some kind of special pull at the coroner’s office. The system didn’t work like that.

      “As soon as the ME finishes the autopsy and determines the cause of death,” she replied patiently.

      Horror registered on Silver’s face. “You mean they’re gutting her like some kind of fish?” she asked, not bothering to stifle a shiver.

      “We know the cause of death,” Jenna insisted. When Natalie looked at her, waiting, her younger sister declared, “Someone killed her.”

      Was everyone being deliberately obtuse, or had the fuse on her temper been shortened by Matt’s sudden reappearance into her life?

      “That’s not the cause, that’s the effect,” Natalie explained, trying to at least sound patient. “If we know how, we might know who.”

      “What good is that going to do us?” Jenna asked sullenly. “She’ll still be dead.”

      “No, Natalie’s right,” Harold cut in. “If we know who, then we’ll know if killing Candace was personal—or personal.” Was his daughter killed by a jealous lover, or someone who had it in for the family, for him, and this was their way of striking out?

      A loud, exasperated sound escaped from Rebecca Lynn’s lips. The other women in the room all looked in her direction. “Okay, you’ve officially gone off the deep end,” she told her husband nastily.

      “Don’t go declaring him mentally incompetent just yet, Rebecca Lynn, although I’m sure that the thought is near and dear to your heart,” Natalie said, a deliberately fake smile on her lips. Turning to her father, her “smile” vanished. “Just what do you mean by that?” she wanted to know.

      Before Harold could say anything, Rebecca Lynn presented herself to him, her hands fisted at her waist. “Are you going to let her talk to me like that?” she demanded.

      “Why not?” Silver interjected. “You talk to him like that all the time.”

      Whatever heated words Rebecca Lynn retorted to her stepdaughter were drowned out by Ricky’s screams because no one was paying any attention to him. The next moment, he was scrambling up onto the piano bench and banging on the keys, adding yet another layer of dissonance to the cacophony.

      Jenna’s voice was almost shrill as she demanded, “Will someone please shut that kid up?”

      Harold looked as if he was down to his very last nerve as he implored his wife, “Rebecca, please, take him out of here.”

      Rebecca Lynn crossed her arms before her, a portrait of immovable stubbornness. Everyone in the room knew that there was nothing she hated more than to appear as if she was being ordered around. “Why don’t you? He’s your son, too.”

      Though she wanted nothing more than to just withdraw and go home, Natalie found herself coming to her father’s rescue.

      “In case you hadn’t noticed, Dad’s the one who called the meeting.” Rebecca Lynn patently ignored her and picked up her all but empty second glass of gin and tonic. She’d raised it to her lips when Natalie added, “But I’ll be happy to take my little brother out of here.”

      A look of alarm descended over Rebecca Lynn’s face. Swallowing a curse, she set her glass down hard on the coffee table and quickly rose to her feet. Striding across the room, she grabbed her son by the hand and yanked him off the piano bench. The boy’s screams only swelled in volume. Glaring at Natalie, Rebecca Lynn dragged her son from the room.

      Ricky was heard kicking and screaming all the way up the stairs to his room.

      If she knew Rebecca Lynn, Ricky was quickly going to become the housekeeper’s problem, Natalie thought, feeling sorry for the older woman.

      Harold took advantage of Rebecca Lynn’s absence. His young wife had a way of intimidating him that neither Anna, nor June—the late, lamented love of his life—ever had. “Can’t you put some pressure on this ME of yours?” he asked Natalie. “I want to get Candace buried and put this whole nasty business behind us as soon as possible.”

      “He’s not my ME,” Natalie pointed out, then realized something. “You’re worried that this is just the beginning, aren’t you?”

      “What do you mean, just the beginning?” Confused, Jenna looked from her father to her sister. “Just the beginning of what?”

      “Nothing,” Harold dismissed Jenna’s question much too quickly. The look he shot Natalie said that he’d told her what he had in confidence.

      If she’d felt that this only involved Rebecca Lynn, she wouldn’t have said a word in front of Silver and Jenna. But her father had given her the impression that this thing went beyond her grasping stepmother and her unruly half brother.

      Natalie looked pointedly at her father, passionately wishing he had a backbone. “They have a right to know, Dad.”

      Jenna’s eyes nervously shifted from her to their father. “Know what?”

      Since her father still wasn’t saying anything, Natalie took the matter into her own hands. “Dad thinks that the ring is cursed.”

      It still didn’t make any sense. Jenna exchanged looks with Silver, who looked no more enlightened than she felt. “What ring?” Jenna wanted to know.

      Again, Natalie waited for her father to say something. He didn’t. So she did. “The Tears of the Quetzal.”

      The mention of the priceless diamond dissipated the fog Silver seemed to be encased in. They all knew that the gem was rumored to be theirs. Half the time, she thought it was all a myth, made up by her stepfather to court publicity.

      “What does that have to do with Candace’s—?” Silver stopped abruptly as the realization suddenly occurred to her. “Was Candace wearing the ring when she was killed last night?”

      “Either the ring, or a damn good paste imitation,” Natalie answered. But they all knew Candace. Her late twin couldn’t abide fakes. She took great satisfaction in flaunting the real thing. The stone had certainly looked real enough on the casino tapes she’d viewed. “When they interviewed her on camera last night, just before she walked into The Janus, Candace was waving her hand around for all the world to see.”

      “Then anyone could have broken into her condo and killed her for it,” Jenna speculated.

      “Yes,” Natalie agreed. “Except for one thing.” The two women and her father looked at her, waiting. “Candace knew her killer.”

      “What makes you say that?” Jenna demanded, sounding almost hostile about the suggestion.

      “There was no sign of forced entry,” Natalie told them. “The room where they found her was a mess, as if she was trying to fight off whoever she’d chosen to bring home with her. But it was obvious that she was the one who had opened the door in the first place.”

      Harold sighed and sat down in the winged armchair that his wife had vacated. He closed his eyes wearily. “I always knew this was going to happen.”

      The nature of Natalie’s job forced her to look beyond the obvious and delve deeper. She gave her father’s words a different interpretation. He wasn’t talking about her twin’s lifestyle.

      “You’re talking about the curse, aren’t

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