Chapter 1

Jack is dead. Finally.

I can’t bring myself to go inside St. Philip’s Church for his funeral. Clenching the steering wheel, I close my eyes and imagine leaving the air-conditioned car to join the steady stream of mourners trudging through the muggy heat. Only visualization combats the constant anxiety, a condition I blame on the dead man inside.

Fiddling with my hair, I ignore the mirror. I don’t want to see the fine lines on my forehead and the faint crow’s feet that sprouted three years ago at thirty-five. I tuck an errant curl behind my ear as I fight the memories of his world swirling in my head.

A sharp rapping on the car window jolts me, and I slam my knee into the steering column. A woman from my church peers at me through the window.

“M. L. Danforth, what are you doing in that car? Get out here and get in the cool church before you fry your brains.”

I grin, pointing to my cell phone as if on a call. The lady bobs her head as she turns and marches toward the church’s front doors.

My black sheath dress, freshly highlighted blonde hair, and pleasant Charleston-honed demeanor are ready even if my heart and soul are not. Releasing my seat belt, I straighten the top of my dress and open the car door, ensuring my modest heels are solid on the cobble-stoned pavement before I stand.

My stomach continues its familiar flip-flopping. I haven’t felt this nervous since my first oral argument ten years ago. But this isn’t just nerves. Trepidation wraps around me like the thick Lowcountry humidity of Charleston.

I am opening a padlocked door to my past that should remain fully bolted.

Jack Marshall, the dead man, was my employer at fourteen. He progressed a year later to mentor and with a slow, careful seduction, by age seventeen, after the risk of statutory rape had passed, was my lover. Mama would have keeled over dead then if she’d known that the well-regarded Christian man she held in such high esteem seduced her precious daughter. At least now the sonofabitch is dead, although I refuse to believe it until I see him prone in that casket.

Jack’s wife, Victoria, teeters by my car on too-tall pumps. Her thin form is topped with a tiny black fascinator perched to one side, black netting covering her face. A stab of vicious hatred hits deep in my chest. The lawyer part of me insists I be here, even though the rest of me is fighting it. Because he was such a giant in the community, I cannot skip his funeral without raising more than a few eyebrows.

Pushing my shoulders back, I mentally don my lawyer armor, the attitude and confidence that carries me through the terrors of equity courtroom interactions, conferences with vapid clients I loathe, and the long, dreary docket calls where I am one of the few women in a room full of men. I take a deep breath to quell the ever-present nausea and follow the crowd into the sanctuary.

The leaded glass windows that light the building’s main cathedral are in full glory, and the standing vases of long-stemmed white roses at the end of each pew catch the streams of colored light. Jack’s funeral should have been at the tiny church on Wadmalaw Island, where he grew up, not here. This is all Victoria’s doing.

And Jack hated roses.

In the middle of the entry, I am struck with a vivid memory, and I stop, causing the woman behind me to hiss under her breath when she bumps into me. Snapshots of daffodils and narcissus flood my mind. At nineteen, I was painted naked by Jack in a field of them.

A wave of disgust floats up my throat.

I shift to the side of the entrance to sign the guest book, then change my mind and drop the pen back into its holder. That witch will know soon enough I am here. There is no reason to make it a permanent record. The church fills quickly as I walk down the center aisle, taking the first open seat. The mourners talk in low voices, and the antique pipe organ exudes soft tones that float to the massive arched ceiling.

Victoria sits in the first row, her black hair streaked with gray pulled into a chignon, the feathers in her ridiculous fascinator bouncing like a dancing rooster. Seated to one side is her daughter, a young woman with dark blonde hair whose name I can’t remember. On the other side is her son, Brad. Displayed on an easel as if surveying his domain, is a framed head shot of a smiling, happy Jack.

I glare at his photograph. Twenty years of anger twists in my soul, desperate to be free like a genie escaping a bottle, followed by a hurtful pang in my heart. I remember all those mornings working side by side as his office assistant followed by the illicit afternoons filled with heat and lust. He was a grown man teaching me, a young girl, of sex and love.

And I hate him for it.

The music stops, and a junior minister appears at the front. I guess Victoria couldn’t afford the big guns. I tune him out, surrendering to the scenes running through my mind until the congregation’s laughter snaps me out of it. My stomach rolls from the cloying odor of funeral flowers. I pray for the massive organ pipes to begin their music again, stopping the man in front of me whose words reveal he never knew Jack.

I shift forward in the pew to leave, but the church is packed. Walking out now will brand me as a pariah in a world where everyone loved Jack. He basked in that hero worship, especially from the women. Yet I knew the realJack. The righteous, irreproachable Victoria would be mortified. Her husband was a hot-blooded artist boy-man inside, with blasphemous questions about God and a penchant for the deviant—and the father of the child I’d been forced to give up for adoption.

Yet all I can think of now is how Jack, instead of apologizing to me for his errant first kiss, turned from me and apologized instead to God. It is all I can do not to grasp one of those ridiculous vases of roses and throw it against the wall.

As the attendant moves down the aisle, he reaches my row. The people next to me stand to go either toward the casket and the receiving line or toward the exit. I look at Jack’s photo again and freeze.

I cannot do this.

Collapsing onto the pew, my legs block the people behind me. Mutters float over my head as mourners jostle past me out of the pew. After several more rows file past the casket and head toward Victoria, I finally get the courage to join them. I need to finish this.

At the casket, I lean forward to look carefully at Jack’s face. Something isn’t quite right. I pull back in disgust at the odor of stage makeup, moth-balled clothing, and chemicals that cloak the body. His face has been molded back into shape as if he were a victim of a horrific car accident instead of a heart attack.

I stand there, uncaring of the whispers floating around me. A surge of hatred rises in me like a boiling pot, the likes of which I’ve never felt. Before I can stop myself, I hack up spit and let it fly. It lands on Jack’s cheek and runs down his face, exposing the pallid skin underneath and leaving a half-inch trail of ghostly white in the undertaker’s makeup.

My words are loud and crisp as if I’m standing before a judge in a Charleston County courtroom.

“I hope you rot in hell, Jack.”

Chapter 2

Her. Marjorie Lee Danforth. The one person who could bring it all tumbling down in an instant. The one person who should not be at her husband’s funeral and who, in front of a church full of people, just spit on his dead body.

For a second, Victoria froze, unsure what to do. Marjorie Lee knew things no one else did, from the beginning of Victoria and Jack’s tumultuous marriage to things about Jack that no one should know, not even God. There shouldn’t be a scene, especially here.

But it was too late.

Oblivious to what was happening behind him, the next man in the receiving line stuck out his hand and leaned toward her to kiss her cheek.

“Victoria, we are so sorry for what happened to Jack. If there is anything we can do…”

Victoria ignored the man. Marjorie Lee stood there glaring at Jack until a cough from someone in line behind her broke the silence. Looking up, she realized she was the center of attention.

“Brad, Janine, I’ll take care of this. You stay here. She leaned close to her son and daughter, motioning for them to come closer. “Brad,” she said softly, “be sure you remind Deacon Haggers how much we appreciated his last check. See if you can get another one, or even better, one every month.”

Victoria caught Janine rolling her eyes and ignored her daughter’s typical response to anything related to donations, money, or the farm business. Her father’s daughter. It didn’t matter. The girl would be on a plane to California in a few hours. At least she lived and worked in San Francisco, as far across the country as possible.

Brad gives Victoria a wink as his hand extended toward the next person in line. This was the final act of Jack’s death, the reminder to all of Charleston that his family was still here and the farm still needed their money.

As Marjorie Lee pivoted toward the main doors, Victoria shoved through a group of mourners, ignoring their gasps and words of alarm. Angling toward Marjorie Lee, she blocked the woman’s way.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Victoria grasped the younger woman’s arm.

“Get your hands off me,” Marjorie Lee responded, batting her arm away.

Victoria felt a wave of raw hatred radiating from the woman as Marjorie Lee stepped around her and headed for the exit, kicking off her heels and snatching them up with one hand. The cathedral doors slammed behind her, but not until Victoria saw her running barefoot down Church Street.

Victoria followed, even though she had no idea what she would do if she caught the woman. Ahead, Danforth wrenched her keys from her purse and squeezed the remote. The Audi’s headlights blinked twice, and the woman grabbed the door handle, slid inside, and slammed the door. Victoria stopped as the engine roared to life, catching herself before she let out a scream in front of mourners on the sidewalk.

Brad barreled past her, stopping only when Danforth slammed the car into drive and sped down Church Street to the stop sign. Standing in the empty parking space, Brad’s hands were on his hips as the Audi turned right on Queen Street, almost plowing over three tourists exiting an art gallery.

“Mother, we need to finish the receiving line,” Brad replied, his voice concerned. His eyes cut to the people watching them.

“Yes, we should.” Yet she does not dare miss this opportunity. Brad turned toward the church, and as Victoria reached for his arm, she swooned. Pretending to faint on the sidewalk, no one heard her murmured complaint as she fell.

“Damn it, Jack. This is all your fault.”

Chapter 3

Halfway to my office on Archdale Street, I jerk as my cell phone rings through the car’s stereo system with the final crescendo of Barber’s Adagio for Strings. I shift into work mode and accept the call on speakerphone.

“M.L. Danforth.”

“You need to figure out who did this, and why.” The voice is older, female, and a bit strange. “Before someone else gets hurt.”

First nerves, then trepidation, now this. I hit the brakes to stop myself from hitting a pedicab pulling out in front of me, the cyclist standing on his pedals to avoid a collision.

“Who is this?”

“Now’s your chance to redeem yourself, and maybe help dozens of girls caught up in this mess.” The voice is electronic. I am talking to a computer.

“I’m hanging up unless you tell me what you want.”

“Just look at the text. You’ll figure it out. I’ll be in touch.”

“What…?” The phone dings with an incoming text.

I pull into a loading zone on Queen Street, leaving the engine running and the air conditioning blowing at full blast. A horse cart filled with tourists clops past me. I shiver. The summer is too hot for me to be this cold.

I look at the photos the caller has forwarded. Taken from five feet away, blood covers Jack’s face. His forehead is mangled. Another close-up photo shows a gunshot wound in the center of his chest.

I open the following message, which contains a link to a voice memo labeled “Press Conference.” Chancing the repercussions of opening something from a sender I don’t know, I click the link. The familiar voice of Clint Harbin, the Charleston County Solicitor, booms out of the speaker.

An unfamiliar voice questions whether Harbin is considering criminal charges against the principals of Timberland Farm. The accusations appear to be against Brad. I know from my work in high school at Timberline Farm—Jack and Victoria’s farm for abused, neglected, and unwanted children—that each year, social services brings a half dozen young girls to the farm, either as orphans or by families incapable of caring for them. Even though the facility is for boys, the farm never turned girls away, and eventually, a different location was built for girls.

Clint evades questions about allegations of child abuse, and then murder charges. Voices then talk over each other as questions are shouted, and Harbin deflects them all.

As an attorney, I can read between the lines. Something nasty has happened at Timberline Farm, and Harbin is trying to side-step. I can guess what happened because of my history with Jack and Victoria.

My nausea rises, this time with the force of a volcano, and I wrench open the door only seconds before I am sick, my earlier lunch splattering the pavement outside the car. Most days, I can stop it, but today is proving to be one where I can’t. Using the steering wheel to right myself, I dig in the glove box. After a wet wipe, mouthwash, and repetitive calming breaths, I force myself to listen to the audio file again.

Jack is dead, someone having murdered him for me. I am finally free, and the problems at Timberline Farm are those of someone else. Except they are not. I was the first person abused there, and from questions thrown out at this press conference, there are others. For years, I shoved my abuse to the back of my mind, hoping it would go away.

But it didn’t. And now, someone is expecting me to do something about it.

Grabbing another tissue and chewing gum, my mind churns. There are most likely plenty of victims to create a long list of suspects for Jack’s murder. Those numbers are the probable reason for Harbin’s avoidance. Yet, his statements give no sign he is investigating at all. Why not do his job?

And why do I care? I don’t want to care. Murder is way out of my lane, and as long as Jack, my abuser, is dead, my problem is solved.

Squeezing my eyes closed, I travel through bits and pieces of images as they float through my mind, guilt building with every memory. A smile here, a kind word there—little gestures and tiny gifts given to others younger than me by Victoria and sometimes Jack. Little bribes.

Staring at the dashboard, a trickle of sweat rolls down my neck. I close the car door and turn down the air conditioning. The voice on the phone might be one of those children. There was so much hatred unhidden by the electronics. Until today, I had myself convinced I was the only victim.

A lie.

Back at my office, my practice manager, Clarice Richardson, steps from the kitchen with what is most likely her tenth coffee of the day. The woman has coffee running through her veins. She is not just my office manager but my sounding board, right-hand jack-of-all-trades, and best friend.

Clarice follows me into my office, a large room with window-paned French doors that look out over the planted rear garden I saved from demolition in the remodel. Tall and lithe, I admire my friend as she dresses like a fashionista every day. Gray filters through her short cap of hair. Today, she is wearing her favorite canary pants, with a floral sleeveless blouse that sets off her smooth mocha skin. Her toned arms from countless hours at the gym remind me I must use my membership or cancel it.

Most of my success as a lawyer is because of Clarice. I am too much of an introvert. She is the one who schmoozes the realtors, builders, and bankers that make up the client base of my practice.

Plopping down in my desk chair, I remove my heels with relief.

Clarice sits close by, ready for gossip. “Well, how was it?”

“Brutal. Especially at the end.”

Her forehead wrinkles in concern as I unload half my purse on the desk, hunting for my cell phone. Finding it, I allow myself to stop, closing my eyes for a second, wishing the past—and what I’d just done at St. Philip’s—to disappear.

“Lee, what’s wrong?” Clarice’s hazel eyes grow wide. As my eyes open to meet hers, she places her cup on the desk and waits.

I say nothing, so she tries again. “Don’t blow me off. I can tell this is important. What happened?”

“I’m pretty sure Jack was murdered. His face looked bad in the casket, and then on the way home, someone sent me some photos and a link to one of Harbin’s press conferences.”

“Any idea who did it?”

“No. There’s more, but…”

“But what?”

“I spit on him.”

Clarice chokes out a laugh. “Come again?”

I open my eyes and bend forward, pounding my head on the desk several times before sitting back up.

“I couldn’t hold it back. Everything had built up for so long.” I stand and walk to the window overlooking the garden. The daylilies are in full bloom, in various shapes and colors, as they reach for the sun through the shade of the old oak tree.

“It just happened. After I spit on him, I told him how I felt about him, right there at the casket, turning into a fire-breathing dragon. I made a fool of myself in front of half of Charleston. And her.”

“I think this deserves something stronger than coffee.” Clarice tugs my sleeve and heads toward the antique cabinet that holds the liquor. Pouring two fingers of a fourteen-year-old scotch whisky into a crystal glass, she motions for me to sit beside her on the couch.

“Now start over and spill. Who is her?”

“Clarice, I know we’ve been together for years, but there’s a lot I haven’t told you. Especially about Jack. I’ve tried to put all that behind me.” I take a big sip of the scotch, a present from my grandfather that Clarice and I try not to touch except in an emergency.

Today would be such an emergency.

Her eyes are sympathetic, and Clarice pats my arm. “Everybody has secrets. Is yours with Jack Marshall?”

“Yes.” If I start blathering about Jack now, I won’t stop for a week. “I’m not sure I can discuss this.”

“I won’t pry. You can tell me, but only if you want.” She sits back and crosses her legs, getting comfortable on the overstuffed chintz couch, her glass of scotch cradled in her hand, waiting. Regardless of her words, I know she will sit there until Christmas to hear the details.

“Let’s just say we were closer than we should have been.”

Clarice breaks the silence when I refuse to elaborate. “When was this?”

Looking at the floor, I wanted it to swallow me whole, right in the middle of the medallion of the Turkish carpet.

“When I was a kid,” came my soft reply. To her credit, Clarice’s gaze never changes.

“I thought he was married.” Expecting disdain, I look up. My friend’s face holds sympathy instead, and with a rush, everything tumbles out.

“Yes. His wife’s name is Victoria. They were married just after college. That is the “her.” She was, of course, at the funeral.”

“How long did this last? With you, I mean.”

“Seven years.” I exhale and look at the ceiling. “As bad as it sounds, we were only friends until I reached seventeen. Then, our relationship bloomed into a full-blown affair. We even had our own love nest a few hours from here.”

What am I doing making excuses to my best friend? Particularly since Jack’s first kiss was when I was barely fifteen. I had hidden this my entire life and the embarrassment would not allow me to say the truth.

“It doesn’t matter how I try to frame this, Clarice. It was wrong, and on his part, it was horrible. I was a kid who thought she knew what love was. But it’s taken me twenty years and a lot of therapy to understand how sick our relationship was.

Clarice takes a sip of her scotch, and I upend my glass, unable to hold the cough at the end as it burns fire down my throat.

“It was bizarre for a man supposed to be the epitome of virtue. He had two distinct lives, and I was one of them. I was young, naïve—oh, I don’t know—stupid, I guess.”

Clarice’s face is incredulous as she rises from the couch, reaching to pull me from the chair and into her arms. Her voice is soft as she holds me tight.

“You never told me this.”

I squeeze her and step back to sit again, refusing to meet her warm gaze.

“I only told the Judge and only because I had to.”

Judge Thomas Augustus Rhineholdt married my grandmother when I was nine. It was a second marriage for both. Grandmama passed when I was in college, and Mama a few years ago, so the Judge is my last living relative. Even though not a blood relative, the Judge is most decidedly my grandfather. A Scot, he lives on Sullivan’s Island, a half hour from my office in downtown Charleston.

“Then there’s the call.” I run my finger around the edge of my glass to steady myself. “I mean, after the funeral. There was a strange call from an electronic voice. I thought it was a woman, but it could be anyone.”

“Weird spam call?” Concerned, she sets her glass on the side table.

“Weird, but not spam. Photos and an audio file.” I hesitate, then retrieve my phone. “They probably embedded a virus in my phone, and I fell for it. I guess we need to wipe it and start over again. You’ll have to call Angus and Nikki for me.”

“What were the photos?”

I hand her my phone.

Her face scrunches as she winces. “Who is that?”

“The illustrious Jack Marshall.”

She makes a disgusted face at the gore, then swipes back to look again.

I point to the phone. “Go to the next text and start that audio file.”

She clicks and then increases the volume. I shake my head as the shouted questions on the clip blare across the room.

“Will you ever get hearing aids?” I ask.

“I’m fifteen years older than you, but I still have all my faculties.” Clarice’s face twists in a grimace. “It’s not my fault I loved rock’ n’ roll as a teenager.”

When the recording ends, she crosses her arms over her chest, the concern on her face now uneasiness. “Are you involved in any of this?”

It wasn’t the first time Clarice had accused me of causing trouble, but my unfortunate tendencies had to do with my loud mouth, not murder.

“Where Jack was concerned, I thought about it.” I hesitate in admitting this to Clarice. I should have admitted my affair to her years ago. “But I didn’t kill him.”

She squints as she looks at the wall, thinking. She knows me too well. “Why are they sending you this?”

“Because someone knows I had a relationship with Jack and thinks that his murder would matter to me. And others, like me, were abused. But that’s the responsibility of the sheriff’s department, and it’s up to Harbin to prosecute. I don’t care one way or the other what the Solicitor does. Jack’s dead and out of my life forever.”

“Then stop doing whatever’s in your head,” Clarice replies. “It was a long time ago. It’s over. And now that he’s dead, you can’t have him prosecuted, something you probably should have done a long time ago.”

“I know.” I don’t tell her I tried several times but could never go through with it. I can’t meet her gaze, but Clarice is never one to mince words.

“What is going on in that head of yours?” She leans toward me with that look she gives me as if she can read my soul.

I clench my glass so as not to throw it across the room. “I’m just embarrassed by all this.”

What does Clarice think of me now? A man sexually assaults me, and then I stay with him for seven years? There is no telling what the rest of Charleston thinks. I begin shuffling things on my desk, and Clarice gets the hint. I am finished talking. Life has to go on.

“Then let’s get going. You have new clients coming in, and as you can see…” Clarice points to the stack of files on my side desk. “We have a lot to do.”