LITMIR.BIZ

      To Tonya, my oldest sister. She let her friend offer me my first

       (and only) cigarette when I was eight years old and she was eighteen, then cried laughing when I nearly hacked to death. She locked me and my other siblings out when she baby-sat so she could bake cookies and eat them without us. She refused to let us cross the holy threshold of her room, where she entranced us (standing outside looking in) with such mysterious antics as burning incense and making bottle candles out of crayons.

      She also rocked me for hours when I was a baby,

       bathed me until I was old enough to bath myself, married young and let me stay with her almost every weekend, took the heat from my parents when I stupidly caused the loss of something important to the family, taught me how to cook and clean and decorate. You’ve been a friend, a sister, a mother to me, Tonya. For everything, I love you.

      CONTENTS

      CHAPTER ONE

      CHAPTER TWO

      CHAPTER THREE

      CHAPTER FOUR

      CHAPTER FIVE

      CHAPTER SIX

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      CHAPTER NINE

      CHAPTER TEN

      CHAPTER ELEVEN

      CHAPTER TWELVE

      CHAPTER THIRTEEN

      CHAPTER FOURTEEN

      CHAPTER FIFTEEN

      CHAPTER SIXTEEN

      CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

      CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

      CHAPTER NINETEEN

      CHAPTER TWENTY

      CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

      CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

      CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

      EPILOGUE

      CHAPTER ONE

      THE VACANT HOUSE LOOKED haunted. Large and imposing, with a full moon hanging directly behind, the old Victorian cast a grotesque shadow across the snow, and the windows shone like so many eyes.

      Ignoring the gooseflesh that prickled her arms, Lucky Caldwell stood on the ornate porch, braced against a chill wind as she pushed the heavy front door a little wider. She didn’t really want to venture inside now that it had grown so late. The house had sat empty long enough that rats, possums, raccoons or other crawling things could easily have taken over. Or maybe she’d find some mass murderer hiding in one of the rooms….

      If she was anywhere else, she’d head into town and get a motel for the night. But as soon as even one person in Dundee spotted the distinctive strawberry-blond hair she’d inherited from her mother, word would spread all over town that she was back. And she didn’t want to alert anyone to her return just yet. She needed to get her bearings. Coming here was a risk, a huge risk, and she’d never been as lucky as her name.

      The floor creaked as she stepped across the threshold. Instinctively she reached for the light switch, but then paused. Somehow, waltzing inside and lighting up the place seemed too brazen. She didn’t belong here; she’d never belonged here.

      But she didn’t belong anywhere else, either.

      Marshalling her nerve, she flipped the light switch anyway.

      Nothing happened. The pace of life in Dundee was maddeningly slow but, evidently, not so slow that Mike Hill, executor of the Caldwell Family Trust, hadn’t gotten around to having the utility company shut off the electricity. Which, after six years, didn’t come as any big surprise. She’d inherited this rambling Victorian when Morris died and hadn’t been back since. During that time, she’d received a couple of calls from Fred Winston, the town’s only real estate agent and a man she remembered as wearing a cheap brown toupee. He’d told her the paint was peeling and the porch was sagging and asked if she wanted to sell. But she knew who wanted to buy and the answer had been and still was—no. At least not yet. She had unfinished business here in Idaho.

      She set her backpack on the dusty floor and searched for her flashlight. Unfortunately, it was already on when

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