He laughed, then we both lapsed into silence until he sighed and blew the whistle.
I touched his hand. “There’s something so sad and mournful about that sound, isn’t there?”
“Yeah,” he said and I knew he was thinking about this past week, too. The Wentworth boys lying dead while ice rained down on them. Sarah and Malcolm standing beside Mallory’s coffin. Malcolm’s suicide.
But life, of course, does move on. Dwight stood up and pulled me to my feet.
“Guess we’d better get started,” he said and went down the hall to make sure Cal was asleep before we began bringing in his gifts.
When Dwight came back a few minutes later, he was smiling.
“Asleep?” I asked.
He nodded. “But it’s the damnedest thing.”
“What is?”
“There’s like a bunch of little shiny things right over his head.”
He nodded solemnly. “I don’t know, Deb’rah. Maybe I’m wrong, but they look just like dancing sugarplums.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My heartfelt thanks to retired district court judge Shelley Desvousges and to Karen Scott for setting me straight on certain legal technicalities; to Dana Mochel for a funny incident; to Brynn Bonner Witchger for excellent suggestions; to Luci Hansson Zahray, the mystery world’s “Poison Lady”; and, as always, to Rebecca Blackmore, Shelly Holt, and John Smith, who have given indispensable help almost from the very beginning of Deborah Knott’s career. I truly could not have written these books without them.
And finally, my long-overdue thanks to Les Pockell and Celia Johnson, who have done as much as any two editors possibly could to fill the void left by Sara Ann Freed.
Table of Contents
FRONT COVER IMAGE
WELCOME
DEDICATION
DEBORAH KNOTT’S FAMILY TREE
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
