LITMIR.BIZ

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      Claire refused to feel even a twinge of guilt for the slightly hurt note in her mother’s voice.

      “But call me if you change your mind and decide you want me there.”

      “I will. Thanks, Mom. Good night.”

      Her mother hung up and Claire closed her eyes and leaned her head against the couch, just relishing the silence, broken only by Chester’s snores on the floor beside the couch.

      Dealing with her mother always exhausted her. Sometimes she was deeply jealous of the easy, comfortable relationship Alex and her sisters had with Mary Ella. Claire wanted that, too, but it seemed like every interaction with her mother ended in weary frustration that Ruth could be so needy and demanding.

      Ruth hadn’t always been like that. Before her father’s scandalous death, Claire remembered her mother as a strong, funny, independent woman. Someone very much like Katherine Thorne.

      When Claire was eight or nine, her mother had been the PTA president during a tumultuous time when some in Hope’s Crossing had been trying to gather support to build a new elementary school. Claire had vivid memories of her mother speaking out with vigor and eloquent prose about the importance of educating young minds in a safe, clean environment.

      The memory always made her sad because of the stark contrast between that capable woman and what her mother had become later.

      Claire sighed, reaching for the rolling office chair she had found much more convenient than the wheelchair she’d brought home from the hospital. She transferred to it and scooted with her healing sprained ankle into the kitchen, where she opened the refrigerator and scanned the contents for something appealing to warm for her dinner. She finally settled on some of the sinfully divine cream of potato soup Dermot Caine had brought over from the diner a few days earlier—perfect for a cold, stormy night.

      She dished some into a bowl, grateful the children hadn’t unloaded the dishwasher before they left or she would have had a struggle trying to reach the plates and bowls in the upper cupboard.

      As she waited for the soup to warm in the microwave, her thoughts returned to her mother.

      She could pinpoint exactly the moment Ruth had changed. April twentieth, twenty-four years ago, 11:42 p.m. She had been twelve years old, her brother eight, the same ages her kids were now. The night had been rainy, like this one. She remembered she had been sleeping when something awakened her. The doorbell, she realized later. Claire had blinked awake and lain there in bed, listening to the branches of the big elm click against the window in the swirling wind and wondering who could be ringing the doorbell so late and if her father would be angry with them because he always rose early for work.

      And then she’d heard her mother cry out, a desperate, horrified kind of sound. With a sudden knot of apprehension in her stomach, Claire had opened her door fully and sidled out to the landing, looking down through the bars.

      She had recognized the longtime police chief, Dean Coleman, but had been able to hear only bits of his hushed conversation.

      Dead. Both shot. Jealous husband. I’m sorry, Ruth.

      Everything changed in that moment. Gossip roared faster than a wind-stirred fire. Even though the adults in her life had tried to keep it from her and her brother, their children heard and absorbed snippets about the scandal and a few of them had delighted in whispering about it loud enough so they knew that Claire would overhear.

      Her father—the man she had adored, president of the biggest bank in town, a leader of church and community—had been having a torrid affair with a cocktail waitress at the Dirty Dog, the sleazy bar outside of town.

      Apparently the woman had a jealous husband, a biker thug by the name of Calvin Waters. When he came home early one night, he caught them in bed together. In a drunken rage, he shot them both with a sawed-off shotgun before turning the gun on himself.

      The scandal had exploded in Hope’s Crossing. She could still remember those awful days as she had endured stares and whispers and hadn’t known what to do with all the anger and shame inside her—or with the grief for her lost innocence.

      Claire and her brother had endured those first difficult months by keeping a few friends close and basically sticking their heads down and plowing through.

      Ruth, on the other hand, had completely fallen apart. She had taken to her bed for several months after the scandal, addicted to alcohol and the Valium doctors had prescribed her for sleep.

      Left with little choice, Claire had stepped up to take care of the three of them. She had been the one who did laundry, who fixed lunch for her younger brother, who walked him to school and helped with his homework and comforted him when he cried for a mother who had been too absorbed in her loss and humiliation to see her children needed her, too.

      Claire knew now, taking charge of her flailing family had been her way of dealing with the chaos.

      She sipped at her soup, wishing the rich, creamy taste could wipe away the bitter memories. Ruth had lived in that numb state for about six months, until Mary Ella and Katherine and other friends had forced her to break free of her addiction.

      She had fought it with courage and strength and Claire would always admire that in her mother. But even after rehab, Ruth had continued to rely on Claire to make sure her life flowed smoothly.

      Claire knew she bore plenty of responsibility for the patterns they had fallen into. Even when she had lived away from Hope’s Crossing while Jeff was in medical school, she had handled any crisis of Ruth’s long-distance, whether that was dealing with a parking ticket or a doctor bill or calling a plumber to repair a leaky faucet.

      She could justify to herself that if she didn’t take care of things, her mother’s life would fall back into chaos, but she knew that was only an excuse. This was her way of feeling needed, important, to a mother who had basically forgotten her children amid her own pain.

      With a sigh, she set down her soup. She wasn’t hungry after all. She would just watch the movie, she decided. She wheeled the chair to the sink and rinsed the bowl, reaching the switch on the disposal only with the help of a large soup ladle.

      She headed back to the family room and turned on the movie, eager for any kind of distraction from her thoughts. The movie apparently worked too well. She barely remembered the first scene—when she awoke some time later, the credits were rolling and Chester was standing in the doorway, his hackles raised.

      “What’s the matter, bud?” she asked.

      He gave that low-throated hound howl of his and scrambled for the front door, his hackles raised and his claws clicking on the wood floor.

      Claire frowned but curiosity compelled her to transfer to her rolling office chair and follow him. Chester wasn’t much of a watchdog but he would sometimes have these weird fits of protectiveness. Probably just the Stimsons’ cat or maybe a mule deer coming out of the mountains to forage among the spring greens. For all she knew, her silly dog could be barking at the wind that still howled.

      “Come on, boy. It’s okay. Settle down.”

      Still, the basset hound stood beside the door, that low growl sounding somehow ominous in the silent house.

      Claire maneuvered down the hallway after him until she reached the window beside the front door, set just low enough that she could peek over the sill from her seated position.

      She squinted into the darkness and caught a flash of movement that materialized into a dark shape there on the porch.

      Her heart skittered.

      Someone was out there.

       CHAPTER SIX

      CLAIRE COULD HEAR HER pulse pounding in her ears, but she quickly tried to talk herself down.

      She was seeing things.

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