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aware of her dark, drab, shoulder-length hair. Her body beneath the gown. Not willowy, not fat, but not as toned as it used to be. Riddled with scars that she laughingly referred to as her war wounds but that she now saw as defects. Not glorious things of which to be proud, but ugly damage.
    And she thought of David. And in that moment of clarity she understood one of the reasons, maybe the biggest reason, she didn’t want their relationship to change, to move beyond what they had. She didn’t want him to see her body. And she particularly didn’t want him to see what Atticus Tremain had done to her.
    It was different when you met someone at your peak, married, and grew old together. Midthirties certainly wasn’t old, but Elise’s abused body was on the downhill slide, and it would never be beautiful again. She wanted to be beautiful in David’s mind. She wanted him to imagine what it would be like, what she would be like. And that imagining would be so much more than they could ever have.
    It was very unlike Elise to have such thoughts make their way to the surface of her brain. She didn’t care for them.
    “I’m sorry if I startled you,” Melinda said. “I live in Savannah, but I often drop by to do laps in the pool.”
    “Your mother loved to swim too.”
    Melinda tossed the towel over the chair. “Listen.” Her face took on a let’s-be-frank expression. “I know why you’re here. Aunt Grace is contesting the will. You have to realize how ridiculous that is. I’m Anastasia’s daughter. And she and my aunt hadn’t talked since before I was born. Why wouldn’t she leave everything to me?”
    “Grace led me to believe that they’d reconnected in the past several years.”
    “Not that I know of. My mother never mentioned her. Her sister didn’t exist as far as Anastasia was concerned.”
    “You’ve had no contact with Grace?”
    Those lovely brows drew together in puzzlement. “None. Ever.”
    Elise filed that away to ponder. “How long have the windows been painted blue?” she asked.
    “Windows?”
    “The windows and doors are painted blue.”
    “Ah, I’m not sure.”
    “Did your mother say why she painted them that color?”
    “We never really talked about it. I just thought it was an artistic choice.”
    “Structurally the building is in bad shape, yet she painted the windows and doors.”
    “I’m sorry. I don’t know. My mother did a lot of things that could be considered peculiar.”
    “Did she ever voice any fears? Of people? Of . . . well, evil spirits?”
    Melinda gave it some thought, and then shook her head. “Anastasia was fearless.”
    “That’s how I remember her,” Elise said. Which made the blue trim all the odder.
     

CHAPTER 6
    T he morning after David dropped off Elise at the plantation, he got up before dawn to jog. Located in a rough area of downtown, his apartment was on the third floor of an ancient building called Mary of the Angels. Like all of Savannah, it had a dark history. Mary of the Angels was a sad place that had once housed children orphaned by the yellow-fever epidemic, and was later turned into a home for TB patients. People claimed it was haunted, but David said that was bullshit.
    By the time he’d tugged on his gray sweatpants and black T-shirt, laced his shoes, and hit Forsyth Park, the sky was beginning to lighten and birds were singing.
    He’d started running after his son was murdered. Back then it had been the only way to wear himself out enough to sleep, and the rhythmic pace hypnotized him, lulled him into oblivion. Now he ran because he liked it, and, no matter the time of year, he preferred early morning to take a tour of a city he’d come to love.
    Never dreamed he’d ever say that, but the place had gotten to him in so many ways. Even the smell. Especially the smell. He couldn’t place it, and people from Savannah didn’t seem to notice it at all. Whenever he asked about the source, fingers pointed to the paper mill and its