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hall. “I couldn’t believe it when Sheriff Foster drove up, lights flashing, and pulled Cornelia out of the car in handcuffs. I was headed out there to tell him what I knew when Karrin ran up, screaming, and slashed Cornelia’s face with her nails.”
    “Like a cat.”
    Rainbow nodded. “Then Karrin collapsed, sobbing, and confessed right there in the street. It was the most dramatic scene I’ve ever seen in my life. Foster had to take his handcuffs off Cornelia to put them on Karrin.”
    “So he looked like a fool. Good. That guy hasn’t done anything except give parking tickets since he solved the Banner murder case, and that was twenty-three years ago.”
    Silence.
    “What did Cornelia do then?” Kateri asked.
    “She went in and gave her report. The phone company’s cooperating with the investigation, so Cornelia is free and expected to testify in Karrin’s trial.”
    Silence.
    The timer beeped in Rainbow’s pocket. She pulled it out, looked at it, went to the refrigerator, and took out the whole milk. She put it in the microwave for fifty-three seconds, went to the pie, measured the crust, cut it at exactly the right angle. Taking the warm milk and the pie, she walked to Cornelia just as Cornelia’s computer pinged. Rainbow put the pie and the milk on the table. “Milk’s at 140 degrees. Today the pie is cherry, two inches at the crust.”
    Cornelia looked at her. Just looked at her as she always did.
    Rainbow delved into her pocket. “Look. This is a restaurant. We use knives a lot, so I keep antiseptic ointment here …” She pulled out the tube and showed it to Cornelia. “That scratch on your face looks painful. Want me to put some on your cheek?”
    Cornelia blinked in surprise. “Yes.” She tilted her head.
    Rainbow smeared ointment on the slash left by Karrin’s nails, capped the tube, and turned back toward the counter.
    “Rainbow?” Cornelia spoke in a monotone as always.
    Rainbow turned back to her. “Yes?”
    “Thank you.”
    Now Rainbow blinked in surprise. “You’re welcome.” She sidled back to the counter.
    Kateri had watched the whole scene. She offered Rainbow a fist bump. “You won that round.”
    “True …” Rainbow grinned. “Now if I could get her to leave a tip.”
    “Good luck with that.” Kateri stood. “Gotta get back to the harbor and see if I can whip any sense into Landlubber.”
    “If anybody can, you can.”
    “You wouldn’t say that if you’d met him.”
    The door opened, and both women turned to face the Oceanview Café’s newest customer.
    The woman who stood in the doorway was breathtaking. Blond hair, blue eyes, porcelain complexion, and a curvaceous body that quivered like Jell-O on springs.
    The guys from the Virtue Falls Canyon science geological study followed close on her heels, and were practically tripping over their tongues.
    Kateri turned to Rainbow. “Holy shit. Who is that?”
    Rainbow straightened up from the counter and stood, arms straight and stiff at her sides. She stared at the newcomer through bleak and bitter eyes. In a pained tone, she asked, “She looks just like her mother… . Don’t you recognize her?”
    Kateri shook her head. “Should I?”
    “That’s Elizabeth Banner. That’s the girl who watched her father kill her mother with the scissors.”

Read on for a sneak preview of
    VIRTUE FALLS
    the new novel from Christina Dodd

    Available September 2014
    Copyright © 2014 by Christina Dodd

CHAPTER ONE
    Virtue Falls, Washington State
August 14
6:15 p.m.
    If Elizabeth Banner noticed the interest with which the townspeople talked about her in low tones behind her back, she gave no indication. And in fact, she didn’t notice. For as long as she could remember, she had always been the girl who had watched her father kill her mother with the scissors.
    Although Elizabeth hadn’t set foot in Virtue Falls for twenty-three years, the memory of Misty Banner’s murder was still fresh in many people’s minds. That made