“What do you think? Does the Jennings woman know what Lucy was into?”

Bryce turned and admired his cousin. She was quite stunning by moonlight. “I don’t know yet. She hasn’t given any indication of it.”

Sharon reached back with one hand and freed her blond mane from its neat twist, tossing her head. “I can’t imagine Lucy leaving everything to her without including all her dirty little secrets in the bargain.”

“It won’t matter,” he said, thinking of other complications. “Nothing to worry over.”

He really wasn’t concerned at all. It was a game to him. A game he couldn’t lose. The stakes were huge for some, but he held nearly all the cards. That was the beauty of power and a brilliant mind.

Lucy had understood. She might eventually have been a worthy rival for him, or a worthy partner. He had certainly enjoyed her charms in bed and out enough to consider the possibilities.

Pity she was dead.

MARI’S FIRST order of business the next morning-after watching the sunrise-was a trip to Our Own Hardware to purchase cleaning supplies. She loaded up on sponges and cleansers, bought a bucket and a mop and a broom, not willing to count on Lucy to have owned this sort of thing. She shot the breeze with Marcia, who worked the counter, starting with a friendly debate over Formula 409 versus Fantastik, and going from there into a light discussion of local politics and the pros and cons of home permanents.

From the hardware she jaywalked to the Rainbow and had a cup of coffee and a slice of lemon meringue pie with Nora. Nora directed her to the Carnegie Library, and she went in search of books about llamas, finding one in the small children’s section of the cramped old building. There was nothing on the care and understanding of mules, but since mules were so closely related to horses, she hunted up a couple of texts on horsemanship for a refresher course.

She struck up a conversation with old Hal Linderman, who had taught math in the New Eden high school for forty years before retiring to become the town librarian. An hour later she had a temporary library card and an invitation to join the Presbyterian church.

Pleased, she headed back toward her Honda. She would pick up a supply of junk food at the Gas N’ Go and head out to the ranch for a day of cleaning, reading, and contemplating. Cutting across the square, she paused to watch the sculptor at work out in front of the courthouse. Marcia at the hardware store had been dubious about the project. She couldn’t see what good it would do, but Mari stood outside the roped-off area and studied the model, finding it interesting.

“It symbolizes the conflict of old ways and new ways coming together to bond into something strong and beautiful,” Colleen Bentsen said. She was dressed for welding from the mask tilted back on her head to the torch in her gloved hand. She had her coveralls unzipped partway, revealing a T-shirt from Hamline University. Hal Ketchum sang out of the speakers of a boom box on the other side of her cluttered pen. There was a long table lined with tools and piles of what looked like scrap metal.

“Sounds good to me,” Mari said. She tilted her head and scrutinized the lines of the model. “I like the elements-the rough and the smooth twining into a single arm that will be stronger than its individual components.”

The artist beamed. “Exactly.”

That kind of partnership between the old and the new factions of New Eden seemed unlikely, but Mari was the last person to shoot down idealism. Dreams were important. To her way of thinking, even unattainable goals were worth striving for.

She thought of her own goals as she drove out of town. There had been a time when she had dreamed of making it big as a singer and songwriter, but her parents had pressed hard for college and a career in law. She had fought them and fought within herself, the independent young woman in her warring with the insecure child. The factions compromised. Her dreams lost. No one lived happily ever after.

What’s wrong with being a court reporter? You wanted me to go into law. That’s a job in law.

We wanted you to be a lawyer, Marilee. You’re so bright. You have so much potential. You could be anything you want.

Fine. I want to be a court reporter.

It wasn’t that she wanted to be a court reporter. She didn’t want to be a lawyer. Court reporting seemed like a fair compromise. She could still see her parents wagging their heads sadly, wondering where they went wrong, wondering why the rogue gene of the Jennings clan had surfaced in their progeny. She could still feel their disappointment weighing down her heart like a stone. She still mourned sometimes for the dreams she had given up in her futile attempt to please them.

“The slate’s clean now, Marilee,” she said over the twang of Bruce Hornsby’s piano. She sped toward the ranch with the windows down, the wind whipping her hair into a frenzy. “Dream new. Dream large.”

But there were too many loose ends in the present to focus on the future, and the only large thing that came to mind was J. D. Rafferty.

She spent the rest of the day cleaning. Her housekeeping habits had always leaned toward a binge and purge cycle. She would let clutter accumulate, oblivious of it for weeks, then suddenly she would see it, as if she had just come out of a trance, and she would throw herself into the task of cleaning with dedication and enthusiasm until the place sparkled. The mess in Lucy’s house couldn’t be ignored. Nor could Mari’s need to get rid of it. The destruction by the vandals was too much of an insult to the memory of her friend and too reminiscent of random violence. The pall of that hung in the air, and she opened all the windows in the place in the attempt to dispel it.

She started in the kitchen, scraping the mess off the floor, scrubbing the Mexican tile, washing out the refrigerator. By the end of the day she had worked her way through the great room. The dead ficus had been dragged out, the prints on the walls straightened, the Berber rug vacuumed. There was nothing she could do about the split in the seat of the red leather sofa except hide it with a multicolored serape she had found in a heap next to the woodbox. She salvaged what throw pillows she could and discarded the others. The kindling that had been a rocking chair and an end table were hauled outside.

Mr. Peanut watched the proceedings from his perch on the thick wood mantel of the fieldstone fireplace. Mari imagined Lucy’s spirit lurking behind the painted eyes, snickering as she worked herself toward exhaustion. Lucy’s knack for avoiding physical work-for roping other people into doing it for her-had been phenomenal.

I should have been born into your family instead of you, Marilee.

God knew she would have fit the Jennings clan like a glove in many respects. Their family motto was “Live well, dress well, and hire help.” Mari had always consoled Lucy with the fact that her mother wouldn’t have tolerated Lucy’s promiscuity. In view of Lucy’s taste for life in the fast lane, it was better that she didn’t have a mother looking over her shoulder.

Mari found herself regretting the words now when she thought of Lucy dying alone. Shed a tear or two for me. No one else will.

With the great room finished, Mari looked through what was left of a glass-paneled door into a cozy study and groaned in agony at the sight of it. There were books and papers everywhere. Smashed statuary and more mutilated plants. A bronze sculpture of an eagle with outstretched wings had been used like a bludgeon on the sleek walnut desk, splintering the top. Mari couldn’t even begin to think about tackling it. Instead, she pulled the last two cans of a six-pack of Miller Lite out of the fridge by their plastic collar and went outside.