Charlie greatly admired Ryan Flannery. Ryan had done something practical and exciting with her art degree, while Charlie's own art education had certainly gone awry, or had seemed to until recently. Her attempt at a commercial art career had been a royal bust, had at last sent her scurrying to her only living relative, to her aunt Wilma-for moral support and for a roof over her head. She had been living with Wilma when she started Charlie's Fix-it, Clean-it service. Not until much later did she have this surprising success with her animal drawings. Animals had always been her one great pleasure in the arts.

They sat studying the elevations, looking for any undiscovered problems. As Charlie watched Ryan red-pencil in a change they had agreed on, she could see, through the bay window, the three dogs playing in the pasture. The two young Great Dane mixes still acted like puppies. The presence of Ryan's beautiful weimaraner with his devilish cleverness made the two mutts act far more juvenile. Rock was smarter than they were, a year older and far quicker, a handsome canine celebrity who had come to Ryan quite by accident-or maybe by providence, Charlie thought, if you believed in such matters. The dogs were chasing one another and chasing the sorrel mare, when she agreed to run from them.

Charlie studied the plans again but could find nothing to be improved upon. In her view the design was perfect, and she could hardly wait to get started. She had risen to fetch the coffeepot, glancing out at the lane, when someone on a bike turned in, heading for the house.

"Dillon," Charlie said with curiosity. "She hasn't been here in a while."

"Surprised she's here now, after Max scolded her this morning at the Quinn place. You heard about that?"

Charlie nodded. "Max wasn't happy with her." Charlie had stopped by the station after she showed Kate the apartment. Max had been glum and silent, hadn't much wanted to talk about Dillon. Charlie watched the pretty redhead bike slowly up the lane, hardly peddling. Even at a distance, Dillon looked sour and unhappy.

"Sullen," Ryan said. "I'm sorry to see that. Consuela Benton is not a good influence."

Dillon walked her bike to the porch and leaned it against the porch rail. Slowly she slumped up the steps. Dillon was tall for fourteen. Her red hair was piled atop her head, tied with a purple scarf. Her tan windbreaker was tied by its sleeves around her waist, hiding her bare belly under the very tight T-shirt. She mounted the steps with a belligerent swagger. Charlie rose to let her in. No one used the front door. With the new addition, that, too, would change. Back and front entries would become one, with a large mud room for coats and dirty boots. Entering the kitchen, Dillon crossed in silence to Charlie's side and plunked down at the table, staring at the blueprints that drooped over the edges. "What's all this?"

"Plans for the new addition," Charlie said. "You want coffee? Or make yourself some cocoa."

Dillon rose, slouched to the counter, and poured herself a cup of coffee, dumping in milk and three spoons of sugar. Charlie was deeply thankful to have gotten past that age long ago-too old to be a child, too young to be a woman, caught in a world where you were expected to be both but were offered the challenges of neither. In ages past, at thirteen you were learning to be a woman, learning the needed survival skills, the small simple skills involved in everyday living and in raising a family and, in the best of times, the urgent intellectual skills so necessary to human civility. Charlie found it hard to conceal her anger at the change in Dillon. Observing the girl's attitude, she found it difficult to remember that only a few months ago she had considered Dillon Thurwell nearly perfect, had thought Dillon was working very hard at growing up. Training the horses under Max's direction, Dillon had been mastering the skills of concentration and self-management, building confidence in her own strength-absorbing the building blocks that she would so badly need as a strong adult.

To see Dillon now, to see the change in her, to see the twisting of her strong early passions into self-destruction, angered Charlie to the point of rage.

All because of her mother-and yet that was so lame. Dillon was still her own master, she still had the luxury of choice in what she would make of herself, no matter how her mother behaved.

Sipping her coffee, Dillon stood by the table staring at the plans and elevations, then glanced down the hall toward the living room and three bedrooms. "What's the point? This house is big enough already." She stared at Charlie. "You starting a family? You pregnant?"

"I am not starting a family. Not that it would be any of your business. I need workspace. A studio." Charlie couldn't help feeling confrontational. She watched Ryan, who was studying Dillon, probably fighting the same impulse to paddle the child.

"So what was this murder last night?" Dillon said. "Some guy fell dead in your lap?"

Charlie managed a laugh. "That's putting it crudely but accurately. You missed the excitement. I was hoping to see you at the opening."

"I don't go to art exhibits. I suppose my mother was there with what's-his-name."

"I saw Marlin Dorriss. I didn't see your mother."

"So who died? Some waiter? What, poison in the canapes?"

"He worked at Jolly's. Sammy something. Blond, good-looking guy." Charlie's voice caught at Dillon's expression. "You know him?"

"Why would I know some waiter?"

"Why not? Something wrong with waiters? You never go in Jolly's? Who knows, he might be-have been, some college student working his way through. Not that it matters. Did you know him?"

Dillon stared at her.

"What?"

Dillon shrugged. "Maybe he hung out around the school. Some tall, blond guy hung around the high school."

"Not around your school? Not around the junior high?"

Another shrug.

Charlie wanted to shake her. "He was a bit old to be hanging out with school kids. What was the attraction?"

"Maybe he has a younger brother."

Charlie just looked at her. Ryan turned the blueprints around, laying the elevations of the new living room before Dillon. Dillon, in spite of herself, followed the sweep of the high ceiling and tall windows.

"This is what we're doing," Ryan said. "This will be the new living room. There," she said pointing to where the new arch would be constructed, "off the kitchen and dining room."

"That's gonna cost a bundle." Dillon had grown up knowing, from her mother's business conversations, the price of real estate, and knowing what it cost to build. "I didn't think a cop made that kind of money"

Charlie and Ryan stared at her.

"I guess it's none of my business what you do with the captain's money."

"I'm spending my money," Charlie said quietly. "And that is none of your business. However, for your information, we're using money from the book I worked on after the author died. And from my gallery and commission sales." She wanted to say, What's with you? You think dumping on me is going to solve your problems? You think belittling me is going to make you feel better about your mother or yourself? With heroic effort, she said nothing.

Ryan said, "The two smaller bedrooms will be joined to make Charlie's studio. Tear out this wall, here, we have a fifteen-by-thirty-foot room. Add a couple of skylights and voila, Charlie's new workspace. You have a problem with that?"

Dillon looked at Ryan with interest. Charlie watched the two of them face-off, Dillon a defiant, angry young lady; Ryan both angry and amused. Charlie thought that Ryan was a far better match for Dillon Thurwell's rage than she herself. She didn't much like confrontation-but Ryan had grown up with cops, and she knew how to give back what she got.