Marilyn Pappano - Copper Lake Confidential

Movement at one of the windows caught her eye, and abruptly she blinked.

It must be a reflection from the setting sun, she told herself, or the shadow of a bird flying overhead. But the sun was too low to cast reflections or shadows at that angle. She leaned closer, until her nose was pressed against a wooden slat, and stared harder through the narrow slit.

It was still there, pale and sort of oblong in shape, like a hand parting the blinds at the right height for a person to peek out, just the way—

She swallowed hard. Just the way she was doing.

Dread washing over her, she jumped back as if the slats had burned, then kept moving backward until the tile floor changed to carpet. There she spun around and raced down the hall and the stairs to escape.

MARILYN PAPPANOhas spent most of her life growing into the person she was meant to be, but isn’t there yet. She’s been blessed by family—her husband, their son, his lovely wife and a grandson who is almost certainly the most beautiful and talented baby in the world—and friends, along with a writing career that’s made her one of the luckiest people around. Her passions, besides those already listed, include the pack of wild dogs who make their home in her house, fighting the good fight against the weeds that make up her yard, killing the creepy-crawlies that slither out of those weeds and, of course, anything having to do with books.

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Going home alone? Are you crazy?

With her brother’s words echoing in her ears, Macy Howard pulled into the driveway of the house she’d left a year and a half ago and stopped. The garage door slid up at the touch of a button, revealing a space empty but for a few tools and yard-care equipment. The lawn was mown, the hard surfaces neatly edged, the flowers freshly watered. She had no doubt the backyard looked as good, that the pool was sparkling clean, the house and guesthouse dusted and vacuumed and ready to be lived in again.

Not that she would ever live in this house again.

Hands trembling, she eased the minivan into the garage, shut off the engine and watched in the rearview mirror as the door slowly came down. If she closed her eyes, if she relaxed, she could almost believe it was a normal day back before her life had blasted all to hell. Clary would be in the child seat in back, tired after a morning of play and shopping, and the groceries would be waiting to be carried in and put away. She would fix lunch—sandwiches, probably; Clary was in a peanut-but-ter-and-jelly rut—then she would put her daughter down for a nap before Mark made his usual post-lunchtime call to see how his favorite girls were.

But it wasn’t a normal day.

Clary was in Charleston with her uncle Brent and his bride, Anne.

Mark was dead.

And Macy was fiercely glad he was.

The tips of her fingers began to ache. Taking a deep breath, she forced them to unclench from the steering wheel. Things she used to do without thought now required conscious effort: undo the seat belt, open the door, slide out, close the door. Her footsteps echoing on pebbled pavement, she walked across the garage to the door that led inside, then stopped.

She couldn’t do this. She should have stuck to the original plan: drive up Friday morning with Clary, Brent and Anne. Check in to a hotel. Come to the house with her brother and sister-in-law. Pack what she intended to keep—nothing that would remind her of Mark. Leave and never come back.

But no, she’d wanted to be alone her first time here. Didn’t want an audience for whatever emotions she might feel. Didn’t want to show even the tiniest bit of weakness to people who watched her, every moment, for just that.

She fitted her key in the lock, twisted and opened the door into the laundry room. Though shutting off the alarm system came instinctively, the first step beyond that was like slogging through knee-deep concrete that hadn’t yet set. The second was hard, too, and the third, but finally she reached the pantry, then the kitchen.

Stainless, stone and tile gleamed. Her lawyer must have hired a cleaning service after getting her email that she was returning. A lime-green colander filled with fresh red apples sat on the island. The sweet scent of hazelnut mixed in the air with wood polish, and a vase of rusty-hued flowers occupied the center of the breakfast table. Through the window over the sink, she could see the beds that had been her passion, bright and alive with color, as if she’d never gone away.

Home. She was home. In a place that could never be home again.

Grief swept through her, and she mercilessly squelched it. She’d done all the mourning she intended to do for Mark within the first week of his death. After that, when the truth had come out, she’d sworn to never feel one more moment’s sorrow for him. Her only regrets were for her daughter and herself, and for the sweet little baby he’d caused her to lose. The life she’d lived, the future she’d planned, the past that had been nothing but lies…

A sound startled her before she realized it was her own strangled emotion. Anger , she named it. Anger was good. Anger would carry her through this.

Her shoes clicked on the high sheen of the marble floor as she walked through the house that Mark had built. It had been a happy home, or so she’d believed. A shared home. But all the choices had been his—the style, the materials, the colors.

She thought back to the warm, muggy October day he’d died and shuddered. All the choices had been his. But the question still haunted her: How had she not known? She’d lived with him, loved him, had a child with him and been carrying their second daughter. How could she not have known him for the monster he was?

Stopping at the foot of the stairs, she looked up. Despite the recent cleaning, dust motes floated on the air, scattered, slowly drifting toward her. For too many months, she’d been like them, scattered and drifting. She’d been weak, vulnerable. Fragile , the doctors had called her.

Her chest tightened, making each breath harder to take. She imagined the dust particles flowing in with the air, carrying the faint scent of Mark’s cologne into her lungs, and with a sudden shudder, she pivoted toward the French doors that opened from the family room onto the patio.

In all her years in the house, the backyard was the one place she’d felt truly comfortable. It had been her space, her choices, her retreat. The stone patio gave way to lush grass, to the shimmer of the pool and the gardens and beds that spread everywhere.

She could breathe out here.

The only request she’d made of Brent, who’d handled her affairs for the past eighteen months, had been that he hire Bo Larkin to take care of the garden, and he’d done it. Bless his heart, he would have done anything to help her get better.