"Nothing," Natalie intervened. "Could you call the florist and tell her we'll be there soon? I don't suppose you want to go with us, do you?"
"No. I don't know anything about flowers. I don't even like them. I think we should ask for donations to the suicide hotline in lieu of flowers."
"Tam loved flowers and she didn't give a damn about the suicide hotline," Lily fired back.
Warren looked incensed. "There you go, giving all the orders as usual. You see, Natalie, this is why I'm not getting involved in the funeral arrangements." He turned and stalked downstairs.
"Lily, Tamara organized the suicide hotline," Natalie said.
"She only organized it to please Warren. Writing grant applications, making public pleas for donations, was pure misery for her. Besides, I want her to have flowers," Lily fumed. " Warren just wants to stick her in the ground as quickly and cheaply as possible." Good lord, Natalie thought. Were all funerals so fraught with familial antagonism?
"Okay, you can fill the funeral home to the roof with flowers, but please try to get along with Warren for the next few days."
"No. I hate him."
"Lily, you sound like a petulant five-year-old."
Lily ignored her and Natalie could have been angry with her if she hadn't known the petulance was simply a manifestation of unbearable grief. While Lily seethed on the bed, Natalie finished assembling clothing for Tamara, insisting that the pearls be excluded. She placed everything in a shopping bag.
Lily took one last look around the room. Her gaze lingered on a silver-framed wedding picture of Tamara and Warren. In the photo Tamara looked young, lovely, and unsure of herself. Warren smirked-impeccably handsome and self-satisfied. "It was a beautiful wedding," she said softly. "Tam thought Warren was so wonderful then."
"She thought Warren was wonderful until the day she died," Natalie said softly. "She was happy, Lily. Warren did not make her miserable."
"I guess you're right. I don't like him and I don't trust him, but Tam loved him. I just hope he was worth her love."
The phone rang once. Warren must have picked it up. "We're ready to go," Natalie said. "They'll be expecting us at the florist's."
She descended the stairs first. The lush carpet muffled her footsteps. When she reached the bottom, she saw Warren sitting in an armchair with the phone receiver in his hand. His head was slightly lowered, his face turned away from the stairs. "I can't. Not today. Not for several days," he said. Something in his tone made Natalie freeze. After a brief pause he went on. "I don't want you to come to the funeral. You weren't friends with Tamara. It might look suspicious." Silence. "I need to see you, too, but-" Silence again, then a sigh. "All right. Tonight." He glanced up and saw Natalie. A burgundy stain bloomed across his face. "I must go now," he said formally. "Thank you for your condolences."
After he hung up, Natalie glanced behind her. Lily stood there, rigid, her hazel eyes simmering with hatred.
Nick Meredith swiveled his desk chair around and looked out the office window. Another beautiful, crystal-clear day in Port Ariel, where the air was pure, the scenery spectacular, the crime rate low. He'd spent his childhood in a tough Bronx neighborhood where learning how to fight was essential for survival. When he was twenty, his younger brother had been stabbed to death on a street corner. Fifteen years later his wife Meagan had been shot to death in a liquor store. So he'd left New York City and brought his little girl to a place that was safe, a place where murder was nearly unheard of…
Until now.
Not all the toxicology reports on Tamara Hunt had come back yet, but Nick didn't really consider them important. Someone dragging a razor-sharp, smooth-bladed knife across her slender neck had killed Tamara Peyton Hunt. According to the preliminary M.E. report, she bore a three-inch single incised wound at the base of her neck, directed backward, medially and downward. The carotid artery and external and internal jugular veins had been severed. Bruising appeared around the throat, indicating that the victim had been grabbed from behind and held while the fatal wound was administered. The state of rigor placed the time of death between eight and ten p.m. the previous evening. The pattern of lividity showed that the body had not been moved. There were no signs of sexual assault and no skin had been retrieved from beneath the victim's fingernails. Human hair not belonging to the victim had not been recovered, although ca nine hair was found on the hands and around the neck.
And, finally, Tamara Peyton Hunt had been eight weeks pregnant.
Nick remembered when his wife Meagan had told him she was expecting. She'd been finishing her master's degree in English. He'd just made detective second grade. He'd been at work when she called and said abruptly, "Nick, you're going to be a father," then hung up. He'd immediately called home, but there had been no answer. When he arrived back at the apartment for dinner, Meagan was furiously stirring a pot of spaghetti sauce. She'd looked at him almost fearfully with her big brown eyes. Then she saw the yellow roses and the bottle of sparkling cider topped by a bow he carried, and she'd burst into happy tears.
He hadn't told her how much he wanted a child because he knew becoming a college professor was so important to her. He didn't want her to feel pressured to interrupt her education. He later learned she hadn't talked about how much she wanted a child because he was the eldest of seven children. She thought he was sick of kids and she didn't want him to feel pressured. But the day Paige was born was the happiest of their marriage.
Had Tamara Hunt wanted this baby as much as Meagan had wanted Paige? From everything Nick had heard about her, she had. Desperately. How about her husband? Warren Hunt seemed more of a mystery than his wife was. Everyone they'd questioned had wonderful things to say about Tamara. They talked about her sweetness, her generosity, her devotion to her husband. No one seemed willing to volunteer much about Dr. Hunt except that he seemed to have a fairly successful practice and he dressed well. Glowing comments, Nick thought wryly.
"We going to question Warren Hunt today?" Ted Hysell asked.
Nick swiveled back in his chair, looking at Hysell's eager face gazing at him from the doorway. The guy tried to hide his excitement over the case beneath a stern veneer, but it wasn't working. Even though he'd known Tamara Hunt and supposedly liked her tremendously, he was delighted to be working a murder case. Maybe if Nick had spent ten years on the police force and never encountered a serious case, he'd feel different, too. But Tamara was only slightly younger than Meagan had been, and so much he'd heard about her reminded him of Meagan-Meagan, too, kind and loving and murdered with the world ahead of her.
Hysell's enthusiasm rankled and Nick stared at the man for a moment. He would like to take someone else with him, but Hysell had seniority among the deputies. Nick forced away emotion. "Give Hunt a call and make sure he's home. Don't let him put you off, but don't scare him, either."
"Give him the 'it's just routine' routine, right?"
Hysell beamed at his own clever turn of phrase. Nick nodded, sighing within. Hysell annoyed the hell out of him.
Twenty minutes later they pulled into the Hunt driveway. Nick saw Jimmy Jenkins standing in his own driveway watching avidly while from somewhere outside, his mother bawled reprimands to one of the other children. He waved briefly at Jimmy, who returned something like a salute. Jimmy was a pistol, Nick thought. Bright, funny, obsessed with that smartass TV cop, and seemingly with Paige. Nick didn't mind them being friends. He just didn't want them to be best friends. He wasn't sure Jimmy's influence was all that healthy on an impressionable eleven-year-old girl.
Warren Hunt opened the door promptly. He wore neatly pressed khaki pants, a pale blue oxford shirt, expensive loafers, and CK cologne. He was clean-shaven and his dark brown hair was still damp from the shower, but the whites of his eyes bore a network of red lines and his well-kept hands shook slightly. "Good morning, Sheriff," he said affably, smiling broadly. Then doubt flashed in his eyes and he turned down the smile a notch. "Come in."