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gnomes—what did she know? Maybe everyone here was slightly mad.
    It occurred to her that the pile of sodden footwear supplied a reasonable explanation for the plaster statuary along the drive. She wondered also if this same teen had been the one to fish out the hideous carpet padding which she was fairly certain was more recycled river wrack.
    Chloe began to wonder seriously about how eccentricher new client was. Previously, she had only been concerned with running into tomb-robbers and being polite to her boss’s chum while he reminisced about women he had known. But perhaps that wasn’t the greatest danger facing her.
    Roland had suggested that MacGregor Patrick, while a bit of an old-style patriarch and firm about maintaining his privacy, was entirely rational and pleasant—not at all like his father, Callum Patrick, who had been fanatical about keeping his distance from outsiders, even to the point of shooting at them. Chloe had gathered that MacGregor’s view of the world was a monochromatic one, but the color was rosy since he saw himself at the top of the hierarchy, God’s own top-kick, and she had been given to believe he would welcome Roland’s protégé into his domain with open doors, and likely open arms.
    Yet, nothing had been said about the garden gnomes and there certainly hadn’t been any in the one old photograph of Riverview she’d seen on Roland’s wall at the office. Maybe this client had gotten weird since the last time Roland came to visit. Old age took some people that way. Chloe’s Granny Claire had certainly crossed the line from being eccentric to downright nuts.
    Of course, all this oddity was a far cry from the dark things Chloe subconscious had been planting in her dreams. This was quirky, not dangerous. Quirky she could live with. So it was, all in all, a relief to have finally arrived, and to put anend to her fears of haunted mansions and ghoulish graveyards.
    Chloe drove along slowly. She’d have answers to all her questions soon enough. The house couldn’t be too far on. The river took another turn less than a mile away; unless there was another bridge, Riverview had to be nearby.
    She kept a weathered eye out for more oddities along the trail, and soon spotted a clematis hedge that proved to be growing on a frame made up entirely of deer antlers stitched together with—what else?—Virginia creeper. It was a formidable structure, perhaps not as long as the Great Wall of China, but it would serve to keep out anything larger than a mouse unless it could fly. The gap for the gravel road was the only break Chloe could see.
    Roland had mentioned that MacGregor, in addition to liking his privacy, always had an eye out for a bargain. But wasn’t this taking thriftiness and privacy to ridiculous lengths? There weren’t enough deer in the state to supply the antlers for the hedge—not in one man’s lifetime! What had he done; gone scrounging out-of-state for cast-off horns in bankrupt steakhouses and hunters’ cabins? Why would anyone want or need such a fortification around one’s home anyway?
    Feeling both an enlarging curiosity and a return of mild trepidation, Chloe advanced slowly through the narrow, prickly gap and found Riverview itself waiting beyond the hedge.
    â€œWell, damn.”
    It was a pleasant house, if somewhat over-wrought for modern tastes. Ornate pilasters supported baroque architraves at every door and window, and the porch was overloaded with Doric columns and sculptures. It was also just slightly too tall for its width, even considering the porte cochere that had been added on to the south side of the building sometime in the twenties. The two wings met up awkwardly, reminiscent of the masks of comedy and tragedy. Taken all together, it gave the visual impression of existing on the other side of a giant wide-angle lens.
    But Chloe was too pleased with the shady trees and perfumed air to