Copper Lake Confidential Read Online Free PDF Page B

ornately carved, still stood against the wall, the cherrywood gleaming from its recent cleaning. She opened the bottom drawer, then closed it before sliding open the next one. Necklaces, bracelets, earrings, rings, watches—too much gold and too many gems for a woman who’d never really cared about jewelry.
    The first and second drawers, peeked into on tiptoe, held cuff links, Mark’s watches and a half dozen antique pocket watches. He’d known exactly which Howard ancestor each had belonged to.
    She opened the third drawer last, the only one that they’d shared. This had been their everyday stuff: matching Rolexes, the first necklace he’d ever given her, their wedding rings.
    She had refused to have the ring buried with him. Finding out the truth about him, learning that the man she’d loved didn’t really exist—she couldn’t have borne having that connection with him through eternity. The only thing she was grateful to him for was her daughter, and considering that grief and sorrow and scandal had taken her second daughter from her, she figured they were even. She owed him nothing.
    Shoving the drawer shut, she continued her walk-through of the suite. His closet, his bath, her closet, her bath. There she stopped at the window, fingers parting the wooden blinds enough to give her a view of the backyard that had given her such pleasure, of the pool and the guesthouse. That had been her idea, a place for family to stay when they visited, where Miss Willa could live if she ever had to leave Fair Winds.
    She sniffed. Mark’s grandmother had left the family home, all right. After the funeral, she’d gone to Raleigh with her and Clary to stay with Mark’s mother. A month later she’d gone to sleep and never woken up.
    She never would have stayed in the guesthouse anyway. Except for Brent a few times, no one ever had.
    Movement at one of the windows caught her eye, and abruptly she blinked. It must be a reflection from the setting sun, she told herself, or the shadow of a bird flying overhead. But the sun was too low to cast reflections or shadows at that angle. She leaned closer, until her nose was pressed against a wooden slat, and stared harder through the narrow slit.
    It was still there, pale and sort of oblong in shape, like a hand parting the blinds at the right height for a person to peek out just the way—
    She swallowed hard. Just the way she was doing.
    Dread washing over her, she jumped back as if the slats had burned, then kept moving backward until the tile floor changed to carpet. There she spun around and raced down the hall and the stairs to escape.
    * * *
    The aromas of a thin-crust pizza with heaps of onions and cheese scattered with the best of Luigi’s toppings filled Stephen’s car as he turned into Woodhaven Villas. The only thing keeping him from grabbing a piece already was the fact that he was driving, and the only thing protecting the pie from Scooter was the doggy seat belt securing him in the backseat. He was voicing his mournful disapproval when Macy Howard came running out of her house.
    Running, Stephen mused. In heels. Not very gracefully, granted; he wouldn’t have imagined her body could move so un gracefully. It just didn’t fit with the image of a Southern belle. But still, running.
    She came to a stop in the driveway near the minivan, though not actually stopping. Her hands patted her sides, the way a person did when feeling for keys or a cell phone in pockets, but her dress didn’t appear to have pockets. She looked from the van to the closed garage door, then back in the direction she’d come from, and her face, he saw, was ghostly pale.
    Already knowing what his choice would be, he debated it anyway: Luigi’s pizza hot from the oven or damsel in distress? Before he even completed the question, he’d brought the car to a stop at the end of Macy’s driveway.
    Scooter whined as Stephen unbuckled his belt. “I know, buddy,” he agreed. “But this’ll just take a