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the discovery that Tony had lied to her, cheated her and then abandoned her in the most final way possible.
    That was what happened when you trusted someone. She’d learned that lesson a long time ago. Too bad she’d had to have a refresher course.
    She could tell Rachel all of it. Rachel would try to understand. She’d be loving and sympathetic, because that was her nature. But underneath, she’d be thinking that poor Caro had blown it again.
    It was far better to avoid that as long as possible. She didn’t need to lean on her sister. It was safer to rely on no one but herself.
    She took a last sip of the cooling coffee and rose. “I’m going to drive down to the grocery store to pick up a few things. Do you need anything?”
    Rachel seemed to make a mental inventory. “Actually, you could pick up a bottle of vanilla and a tin of cinnamon for me. Otherwise, I think I’m set. Just put everything on the inn account. Your stuff, too.”
    “You don’t need—”
    “Don’t argue.” Rachel was unusually firm. “If you were staying in the house, you wouldn’t think twice about that.”
    She nodded reluctantly. There was independence, and then there was the fact that her bills were coming due with no money in her bank account, thanks to Tony. What did you do with it all, Tony?
    She felt a flicker of panic. How could she have been so wrong about him?
     
     
    Main Street was quiet enough on a Tuesday morning in March that he could patrol it in his sleep. Zach automatically eyeballed the businesses that were closed during the week, making sure everything looked all right. They’d open on the weekends, when the tourists arrived.
    The tourist flow would be small awhile yet, and his township police force was correspondingly small. Come summer, they’d add a few part-timers, usually earnest young college students who were majoring in criminal justice.
    He enjoyed this quiet time. He liked to be able to spend his evenings at home, playing board games or working puzzles with Ruth, listening to the soft voices of his parents in the kitchen as they did the dishes.
    Families were a blessing, but worry went along with that. Look at Caroline Hampton, coming home to her grandmother with who-knows-what in her background. No matter how you looked at it, that was an odd story, what with her not telling her family she was married, let alone that her husband died. The sort of odd story that made a curious cop want to know what lay behind it.
    He’d poked a bit, when he’d called the Santa Fe PD back to let them know that the lost sheep was fine. The officer he’d spoken with had been guarded, which just increased his curiosity.
    It might have been the city cop’s natural derision for a rural cop, or something more. In any event, the man had said that there was no reason to think the death of Tony Gibson was anything but an accident.
    And that way of phrasing it said to him that someone, at least, had wondered.
    He slowed, noticing the red compact pulled to the curb, then a quick figure sliding out. Caroline Hampton was headed into Snyder’s Grocery. Maybe it was time for his morning cup of coffee. He pulled into the gravel lot next to the store.
    When he got inside, Etta Snyder gave him a wave from behind the counter. “Usual coffee, Chief?”
    “Sounds good.”
    Caroline’s face had been animated in conversation, but he saw that by-now-familiar jolt of something that might have been fear at the sight of him. It could be dislike, but he had the feeling it went deeper than that.
    She cut off something she was saying to the only other customer in the shop—tall guy, midthirties, chinos and windbreaker, slung round with cameras. He’d peg him as a tourist, except that tourists didn’t usually travel in the single-male variety, and the cameras looked a little too professional for amateur snapshots.
    “Here’s the person who can answer your questions,” she said, taking a step toward the counter. “Chief Burkhalter knows all