LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter One

      Four days until trial

      Sunday, February 2

      Winchester, Tennessee

      It was colder now.

      The meteorologist had warned that it might snow on Monday. The temperature was already dropping. She didn’t mind. She had no appointments, no deadlines and no place to be—except here.

      Four days.

      Four more days until the day.

      If she lived that long.

      She stopped and surveyed the thick woods around her, making a full three-sixty turn. Nothing but trees and this one trail for as far as the eye could see. The fading sun trickled through the bare limbs. This place had taken her through the last weeks of summer and then fall, and now the end of winter was only weeks away. In all that time, she had only seen one other living human. It was best, they said. For her protection, they insisted.

      It was true. But she had never felt more alone in her life. Not since her father died, anyway. That first year after his death, she had to come to terms with being only twenty-four and an orphan. No siblings. No known distant relatives. Just alone.

      Bob nudged her. She pushed aside the troubling thoughts and looked down at her black Labrador. “I know, boy. I should get moving. It’s cold out here.”

      She was always keenly aware of the temperature and the time. When it was this cold, the idea of an accidental fall leading to a serious injury haunted her. Other times, when she couldn’t bear the walls around her a minute longer, no matter that it was late in the day, she was careful not to stay gone too long. Allowing herself to get caught out in the woods in the dark—no matter that she knew the way back to the cabin by heart—was a bad idea. She started forward once more. Her hiking shoes crunched the rocks and the few frozen leaves scattered across the trail. Bob trotted beside her, his tail wagging happily. She’d never had a dog before coming to this place. When she was growing up, her mother’s allergies wouldn’t allow pets. Later, when she was out on her own, the apartment building didn’t permit pets.

      Even after she married and moved into one of Atlanta’s megamansions, she couldn’t have a dog. Her husband had hated dogs, cats, any sort of pet. How had she not recognized the evil in him then? Anyone who hated animals so much couldn’t be good inside. Whatever good he possessed was only skin-deep and primarily for show.

      She hugged herself, rubbed her arms. Thinking of him, even in such simple terms, unsettled her. Soon, she hoped, she would be able to put that part of her life behind her and never look back again.

      Never, ever.

      “Not soon enough,” she muttered.

      Most widows grieved the loss of their spouses. She did not. No matter the circumstances, she had never wished him dead, though she had wished many, many times that she had never met him.

      But she had met him, and there was no taking back the five years they were married. At first, she had believed the illusion he presented to her. Harrison had been older, very handsome and extremely charming. She had grown up in small-town Georgia on a farm to parents who taught her that fairy tales and dreams weren’t real. There was only reality and the lessons that came from hard work and forging forward even when the worst happened. Suddenly, at twenty-six, she was convinced her parents had been wrong. Harrison had swooped into her life like Prince Charming poised to rescue a damsel in distress.

      Except she hadn’t been in distress, really. But she had been so very hopeful that the future would be bright. Desperately hopeful that good things would one day come her way. Perhaps that was why she didn’t see through him for so long. He filled her life with trips to places she’d only dreamed of visiting, like Paris and London. He’d lavished her with gifts: exquisite clothing, endless jewels. Even when she tried to tell him it was too much, more came.

      He gave her anything she wanted...except children. He had been married once before and had two college-aged children. Though he was estranged from those adult children, he had no desire to go down that path again. No wish for a chance to have a different outcome. She had been devastated at first. But she had been in love, so she learned to live within that disappointing restriction. Soon after this revelation, she discovered a way to satisfy her mothering needs. She volunteered at Atlanta’s rescue mission for at-risk kids. Several months after she began helping out part-time, she was faced with the first unpleasantness about her husband. To her dismay, there were those who believed he and his family were exceptionally bad people.

      The shock and horror on the other woman’s face when she’d asked, “You’re married to Harrison Armone?”

      Alice—of course, that wasn’t her name then—had smiled, a bit confused, and said, “I am.”

      The woman had never spoken to her again. In fact, she had done all within her power to avoid her. At least twice she had seen the shocked woman whisper something to another volunteer, who subsequently avoided her, as well. Arriving at the center on her scheduled volunteer days had become something she dreaded rather than looked forward to. From that moment she understood there was something wrong with who she was—the wife of Harrison Armone.

      If only she had realized then the level of evil the Armone family represented. Perhaps she would have escaped before the real nightmare that came later. Too bad she hadn’t been smart enough to escape before it was too late.

      She stared up at the sky, visible only by virtue of the fact that the trees remained bare for the winter. She closed her eyes and tried to force away the images that always followed on the heels of memories even remotely related to him. Those first couple of years had been so blissful. So perfect. For the most part, she had been kept away from the rest of the family. Their estate had been well away from his father’s. Her husband went to work each day at a beautiful, upscale building on the most distinguished street in the city. Her life was protected from all things bad and painful.

      Until her covolunteer had asked her that damning question.

      The worry had grown and swelled inside her like a tidal wave rushing to shore to destroy all in its path. But the trouble didn’t begin until a few weeks later. Until she could no longer bear the building pressure inside her.

      Her first real mistake was when she asked him—point-blank—if there was anything he’d failed to disclose before they married.

      The question had obviously startled him. He wanted to know where she

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