Twilight. Sherryl Woods

carpeting you never liked anyway. How can you be scared to face that?”

      Because with Ken there, it had been home. It was as simple as that, proof positive that it wasn’t the appearance of a place that turned it into a home, but love. She had felt it every time she had walked through the front door.

      Now she faced only emptiness. For one brief second she regretted leaving the boys in Florida. They would have filled the place with noise and laughter. Their presence would have kept loneliness at bay, at least until the darkest hours of the night.

      How pitiful was that? she thought ruefully. How pitiful was it to even consider using her kids to buffer the pain? Besides, she had come home for one reason and one reason only: to find Ken’s murderer. That was the best thing she could do for all of them, the only thing that would give them any peace. She couldn’t afford any distractions if she intended to solve things quickly so that they could move on with their lives.

      That reminder was enough to stiffen her resolve. Revenge is a powerful motivator. Even though her hand shook, she managed this time to get the key into the lock, even to walk through the front door.

      Perhaps it was better that it was the middle of a moonless night, pitch-dark so that she couldn’t see the collection of family photographs sitting on top of the upright piano that Ken had played with more enthusiasm than skill, couldn’t see the eclectic stack of books beside his favorite chair, or the notes he had been making for his last sermon, still scattered across his desk.

      But even though the room was cast in shadows, she could imagine it all, could visualize it as clearly as if every light blazed. It was as if he had just stepped away for a moment or an hour, not forever.

      She dropped her luggage inside the door, tossed aside her jacket. Guided by pure instinct, she made her way to his chair, the overstuffed one where she had often sat cradled in his lap, content just to be held as the strains of Brahms or Beethoven surrounded them at the end of a long day.

      She reached out, traced the butter-soft leather, and smiled at the memory of how appalled he’d been by the indulgence when there were so many more practical things they could have used. It had gone against his frugal nature to waste money on luxuries. But even as he’d protested, he had settled into the chair, sinking into the deep cushions, caressing the leather as sensuously as he might have traced the curve of her hip or the weight of her breast. He had fallen in love with it, just as she’d known he would.

      It was a wonderful memory, one to cherish, she thought as she plucked an afghan from the back of the nearby sofa and settled into the chair. The coldness of the leather was a shock, snapping her back to reality like a slap. Even this, it seemed, would never be the same. The warmth was gone.

      Still, she craved the sense of connection that sitting in Ken’s favorite chair gave her. It was personal, something he’d used daily, yet it lacked the intimacy of their bed. She wasn’t sure when she’d be able to sleep there alone, if ever. From the night she had learned of his death until she had left for Florida, she had slept in this chair. It had brought her a small measure of comfort.

      Now, once again, she wrapped the afghan around her and curled up, cradled by leather now, instead of Ken’s strong arms. Even so, the restlessness that had plagued her in Florida eased. For better or worse, her journey to find the truth behind Ken’s murder had begun.

      Finally, as dawn turned the sky gray, then mauve, and at last a pale, winter-weary blue, she slept, more soundly than she had in weeks. It was as if her body were preparing for whatever lay ahead.

      Her dreams, though, were disturbing. They were not of the man she’d loved so fiercely, but of a shadowy gunman, his face tantalizingly obscured.

      Dana awakened at midday to find her best friend staring down at her, hands on generous hips, a worried frown puckering her brow.

      “How’d you get in?” she muttered groggily.

      Kate Jefferson waved a key ring under her nose. “I found these in the front door. Even if I hadn’t, I have the one you gave me so I could bring in the mail, remember? When did you get home? You were due in at eight. The plane was on time. I checked. I called until all hours, but you never answered. I finally decided you’d changed your mind or missed the plane.”

      “I got here in the middle of the night,” Dana said without elaborating. She struggled awake. Her back ached. Her neck was stiff and she was freezing. She’d forgotten to turn the heat up when she’d come in the night before. It couldn’t be much more than fifty-five in the room, the temperature her father had decreed would at least keep the pipes from freezing.

      “Where are the boys?” Kate asked. “Didn’t they come with you?”

      “No. I enrolled them in school in Florida for the rest of the year. They’re with my parents.”

      Kate stared at her in shock. “You’ve enrolled them in school? Have you decided to move to Florida, after all?”

      Dana sighed. “No, not for sure. I haven’t decided anything definitely. I can’t think that clearly. I just wanted them to get some sense of normalcy back into their lives.” She stood up and headed toward the kitchen. “Any more questions will have to wait until I have coffee.”

      “It’s already made,” Kate said, proving once again that she had an admirable, take-charge attitude. Dana had often told her it should have been put to use running some company, instead of being wasted on her often unappreciative friends or two typically rebellious teenage daughters.

      “An hour ago, in fact,” Kate added pointedly. “I’ve been banging pots and pans ever since, hoping to stir some sort of a reaction from you. I thought maybe you were planning to sleep into the next century.”

      “Would if I could,” Dana told her as she filled a mug with the gourmet blend she hadn’t been able to give up, despite Ken’s conviction that instant served the same purpose. Leaning against the kitchen counter, she carefully avoided looking outside toward the small church where Ken had preached and beyond to the cemetery where he was buried. She drank deeply, one long swallow, then another. Finally she met Kate’s worried gaze. “Stop frowning. Aren’t you glad to see me?”

      “Of course I am. You just gave me a fright when I found the keys in the door and you didn’t answer after I knocked or rang that awful, screeching bell.”

      Dana figured it was a testament to Kate’s anxiety that she’d touched the bell at all. The sound was more appropriate for some creaky Addams Family domicile than a parsonage. Kate shuddered every time she was forced to ring it. Dana had always thought it was a hoot, which probably showed just how perverse her sense of humor was.

      “If the boys are in school in Florida, why are you here? I thought you’d be down there a few more weeks at least,” Kate said. “I thought the plan was for you to get some rest before you came home to tackle everything that needs to be done here.”

      Dana shrugged. “Plans change.”

      Kate’s brow puckered again. “Meaning?”

      “There are things that can’t wait.”

      “What things?”

      “The house, for one thing. Sooner or later, I’m going to have to get out of it. It belongs to the church.”

      “Lawrence Tremayne told you it was yours for as long as you needed it,” Kate reminded her. “Local pastors are taking services for now. If they hire a new pastor, they’ll make temporary arrangements for him, if they have to.” She gave Dana a penetrating look. “So, what’s really going on?”

      “You know, you’d make a great private eye,” Dana observed. “You poke and prod with the best of us.”

      “I thought you’d retired.”

      “I did.”

      Kate’s frown deepened as she apparently guessed what was going on in Dana’s head. “Dana, you can’t investigate Ken’s murder,” she protested. “Leave it to the police.”