LITMIR.BIZ

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had gone wrong?

      When Maisey called him yesterday, she’d said the coroner was expecting to rule their mother’s death a suicide. The police had found an empty bottle of sleeping pills on the marble floor of the bathroom, as if she’d tossed them back with a glass of wine.

      But Keith couldn’t believe she’d do that. Having the police tramp through her house to find her naked in a bathtub would be humiliating to her. If she was going to commit suicide, she’d put on her most flattering dress and arrange herself on the bed.

      Except that she wouldn’t commit suicide at all. Swallowing a bunch of pills and sinking beneath the water would smack too much of giving up, of admitting that her life wasn’t perfect. Josephine was all about appearances. Some of Keith’s worst beatings had been triggered by incidents he’d shared with other people that were unflattering to her—usually about the severe punishments she’d doled out to him.

      And there was more than her pride to consider. She had spent almost every living moment protecting her beauty and trying to turn back the hands of time. Why would she fight aging so much if she’d had a desire to end it all?

      Something else had to have happened. An accident. Or—he hated to acknowledge the possibility—murder wasn’t an entirely unreasonable conclusion. His mother had plenty of enemies. She hadn’t been the kindest person in the world. Most of the time, she hadn’t been kind at all.

      But Fairham had almost no crime. Keith couldn’t believe that anyone here would harm her. He’d asked Maisey if anything had been stolen or if there was any sign of forced entry, and had been told there wasn’t. Even the five-carat, $90,000 diamond ring on Josephine’s finger hadn’t been removed.

      Since Pippa, his mother’s housekeeper, typically went home at night—and worked only five days a week—his mother had been alone in the house, taking a bath with her pills and her wine. Barring some injury to her body, which the coroner presumably hadn’t found, Keith could see why the police had reached the conclusion they did.

      But they didn’t truly know her...

      He passed The Sugar Shack, the barbershop, the burger stand, The Wild Rose Café and the Fairham Marina. Then the road began to climb. Most of the islands off the coast of South Carolina were flat, but Fairham had a sizable hill on one side, which they called a “cliff.” Although it wasn’t much of a cliff by most people’s standards, it was high enough that someone could be killed by falling onto the rocks below, especially a child. They’d once believed Roxanne had fallen onto those rocks and her body had been dragged out to sea. Coldiron House gripped the top of that hill and peered down on the rest of Fairham Island like an eagle guarding its clutch.

      A sudden deluge of rain hit his windshield, hard as rocks, as he rounded the final bend in the road and encountered the tall gates of the fence that circled the property. Through the rhythmic slash of his wipers, he stared at the ornate wrought iron with the elaborate C in the center, wondering if he was going to have to call Maisey for the code.

      He assumed he would. But it took only three tries to get the gates to open. The code turned out to be his birthday—ironic considering that he and his mother had been estranged for so long. She’d loved him, in her own twisted way. That was the part that always messed with his head, and his heart.

      His phone rang as he parked near one of five garage stalls. Stacia Snider, his assistant, was trying to get hold of him. On the West Coast it was only two thirty. But he silenced his phone instead of answering. He couldn’t deal with her now, couldn’t deal with anything else. He felt as if his mother had her hands around his throat and was squeezing...

      A memory flashed before his mind’s eye. She’d choked him once, when she’d gotten worked up and gone too far. After she released him, he’d spit in her face, and then she’d really let him have it. That was the only time he ever remembered his father stepping in. Malcolm had been so passive. Whenever Josephine got upset, he’d simply hunker down and wait for her anger to blow itself out. The funny thing was, no one ever wanted him to do anything else. The situation just got more volatile if he tried to insert himself. Josephine had to win at everything, which was partly what had caused Keith’s problems with her. He was the only one who ever stood up to her, who ever fought her complete domination—at least until Maisey got older and walked out on her. Just like he did later...

      The car pinged as he got out, reminding him that he needed to turn off the headlights. His BMW did it automatically; he’d forgotten that most cheaper vehicles didn’t.

      Although the rain was still falling heavily, soaking his hair, jacket and jeans, he spent a few minutes searching for the groundskeeper, Tyrone, to no avail. The place looked deserted. Since it was after five, Tyrone must’ve left. Or maybe he hadn’t come today. No doubt Josephine’s death had thrown the hired help into chaos. If Keith had his guess, they were all at home, fearing they were out of a job, grieving for their own loss if not for the loss of their tyrannical employer.

      Flinging his wet hair out of his face, he hurried up the front steps to the wide veranda. The door was locked but, within minutes, he found the key hidden behind the porch light—the same place it had been since he was a teenager. Although he didn’t want to think about it, that meant anyone else who knew about the spare could’ve gotten in without breaking a window or making a fuss...

      He swung open the heavy front door and stepped into what he had, for years, sarcastically referred to as his mother’s “palace.”

      The scent of fresh-cut flowers, which were changed regularly, rose to his nostrils. That was when the fact that she was really gone hit him—conjuring up a startling and profound sense of loss. Regardless of what his mother had done over the years, what he struggled to forgive, she’d been a magnificent woman in many ways. He’d never known anyone stronger or more determined to reach whatever goal she had in sight. Everything she did was done well. She had a sharp tongue but a sharp mind, as well—coupled with the face and figure of a femme fatale, a woman who’d looked two decades younger than her true age. Everyone’s head turned when she walked into a room; he remembered certain moments when he’d taken great pride in being connected to a figure people revered that much.

      Maisey had often told him he couldn’t get along with her because they were too much alike. He hadn’t been able to see it then, but these days he could easily recognize that they both had to be on top, in charge. They were what his father used to diplomatically refer to as “strong” personalities.

      His father hadn’t admired “strong” personalities quite like Grandpa Coldiron had.

      God forbid that Keith made other people’s lives as miserable as his mother had made his—although he certainly used to.

      Thinking of Grandpa Coldiron, Keith walked into the dining room, where there was a giant portrait of his grandfather looking every bit as somber and austere as the paintings of the old aristocracy hanging in the castles and palaces of Europe. His grandfather had been a “strong” personality, too. And he had accomplished great things. There were benefits to the genes he’d inherited, Keith decided—as long as he could control his temper and his drive.

      Before the quiet stillness could press too close, he left the dining room and took the stairs up to the second story. He found no crime scene tape, nothing to bar him from entering certain rooms. Coldiron House was eerily normal, far more normal than he’d thought it would be. When someone as powerful as his mother passed away, shouldn’t there be more to mark the event?

      Once he reached the double doors of her bedroom, he had to pause, to brace himself for what he might see. He didn’t expect to encounter a bloody mess, or anything like that, but he knew he’d imagine finding her the way he’d been told she was found—and that would be disturbing.

      Another expansive flower arrangement confronted him when he went in, only this one hadn’t been ordered as part of the household routine. He knew because it included a card.

      Keith wasn’t in any hurry to reach the bathroom. He was too busy preparing for what the sight of it might do to him. So he took a second to see who the flowers were from.

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