This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2004 by Margaret Maron All rights reserved.
Mysterious Press
Warner Books
Hachette Book Group, USA
237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Visit our Web site at www.HachetteBookGroupUSA.com.
First eBook Edition: August 2004
ISBN: 978-0-446-50739-4
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Deborah Knott novels:
HIGH COUNTRY FALL
SLOW DOLLAR
UNCOMMON CLAY
STORM TRACK
HOME FIRES
KILLER MARKET
UP JUMPS THE DEVIL
SHOOTING AT LOONS
SOUTHERN DISCOMFORT
BOOTLEGGER’S DAUGHTER
Sigrid Harald novels:
FUGITIVE COLORS
PAST IMPERFECT
CORPUS CHRISTMAS
BABY DOLL GAMES
THE RIGHT JACK
DEATH IN BLUE FOLDERS
DEATH OF A BUTTERFLY
ONE COFFEE WITH
Non-series:
LAST LESSONS OF SUMMER
BLOODY KIN
SHOVELING SMOKE
In memory of Sara Ann Freed (1945-2003) who graced so many lives.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
I am a flatlander, born and bred, so there is no way I could have sent Deborah Knott to the mountains of North Carolina without the generous help of many people. I am particularly grateful to Harriette Buchanan, P. M. Sharpe, Celeste and Johnny Blankenship, and especially Kaye Barley, who not only brought key news-paper articles to my attention, but also gave me a grand tour of her part of Appalachia and answered a hundred e-mail questions.
Special thanks also to Davidson Neville, who very patiently explained the intricacies of business-related insurance policies.
Without the watchful eyes of District Court Judges Rebecca W. Blackmore, Shelly S. Holt, and John W. Smith of the 5th Judicial District Court (New Hanover and Pender Counties, North Carolina), Judge Deborah Knott would probably commit reversible errors every time she held court. I am forever in their debt.
Lafayette County is an amalgam of several regional counties, and Cedar Gap is a completely fictional town there. Any resemblance to a particular town or county is strictly coincidental. (I know I’ve said the same about Colleton County, but this time it’s true!)
Margaret Maron
Johnston County, NC
The Great Smokies are the largest single mountain range in eastern North America. Even so, they are but a small piece of the jigsaw puzzle that makes up the Southern Blue Ridge Province.
So, if you live in the Smokies region, you can wake up every single morning and say to yourself: “Well now, here I am in the general area of the Great Smoky Mountains, a mountain range on the western front of the Southern Blue Ridge Province, a part of the Blue Ridge Province, one of the four provinces in the Southern Appalachians, a part of the Appalachian Mountains, which are probably named after a Florida Indian tribe.”
George Ellison
Smoky Mountain News
Waynesville, NC
14 February 2003
AUGUST
Fog was so thick in the lower elevations that Dr. Carlyle Ledwig had his windshield wipers on the slowest setting to swish away the fat droplets that formed on the glass and obscured the road ahead. With visibility almost down to zero, he crept along at thirty-five miles an hour, though he often hit sixty on these straight stretches in nicer weather.
From beside him, Norman Osborne chuckled. “All you need’s an orange on your license plate and they’ll think you’re from Florida.”
Ledwig grinned “I am from Florida. Remember?”
“Yeah, that’s right. Well, from New York then.” The big man sat back in the passenger seat of Ledwig’s SUV as if he were lounging in his leather executive’s chair down in Howards Ford and looked over at his friend. Ledwig’s hair wasn’t nearly as gray as his, but neither of them was young anymore. “Driving in fog’s like a foretaste of senility, isn’t it?”
“How do you mean?”
“Can’t see behind you, can’t see ahead.”
“Not the worst way to be.”
Osborne gave a sour laugh. “You ever wonder what your old age is going to be like?”
“If I got my dad’s genes, I’ll be playing eighteen holes of golf twice a week at eighty-five, the way he still does. If I got my mom’s, I’m due for my first stroke any minute now.”
“Not before we get home, okay?” said Osborne. “I don’t want to wind up one of those car wrecks off the side of this mountain, where they don’t find us for eight or ten years.”
He was silent for a moment, as if contemplating what such a death would mean to his wife. Then he shrugged. “Ah, what the hell? Dead’s dead, isn’t it?”
“Maybe. But we’ve both got a whole lot of living left to do.”
At that instant, Ledwig drove out of the fog and into sunshine. Above, the sky was a cloud-dappled blue. The road flattened slightly and curved west. To the right, the shoulder dropped off into white nothingness; ahead, tall trees lined the street, and the first hints of autumn colors were beginning to spread their sheltering glory above the immaculate houses on the front edge of Cedar Gap. A huge maple caught the light so that every other leaf seemed veined in gold, but beyond that, a two-hundred-year-old oak was still completely green. It was a scene right off one of the postcards sold in the souvenir shops along Main Street.
“God, I love this town!” said Ledwig.
“It gets prettier every year,” Osborne agreed.
“Worth every battle we had to fight,” Ledwig said complacently, remembering all the hours both of them had devoted over the years to getting a planning board in place. They’d had to twist a few arms and make a few enemies to convince local businesses to agree to some rules and restrictions for the greater good of Cedar Gap, but this was their reward: a prosperous and picturesque town whose beauty drew thousands of visitors from early spring to late fall, a mountain jewel whose desirability extended to enclaves of expensive vacation homes in the surrounding hills and hollows.
In gardens behind the low stone walls, summer’s zinnias had begun to fade while fall’s blue asters and clear yellow chrysanthemums headed for their bright peak. The houses became larger and closer together. Small green wooden signs neatly lettered in gold announced that here was an antique store, there was an upholstery shop selling designer fabrics, and over there, three Victorian bed-and-breakfasts in a row. So discreet were the signs, one could almost forget that these were now commercial establishments, no longer private homes.
Ledwig rounded the curve where Main Street formally began and his complacent smile darkened into a scowl as it always did the moment he saw that dilapidated log building on the right with its raucous red-and-white decorations that would clash horribly with fall’s oranges and browns when leaf season began. The shabby cedar siding, the rusting drink signs, the broken paving of the parking strip out front—everything about the place irritated him beyond all reason.