2

Clinging to the tire rope, balancing like the monkey her daddy claimed her to be, she crawled out of the doughnut hole of the tire swing. She raised her skinny suntanned legs up until at last, she stood on the top of the tire holding onto the rope with all her might.

She jumped straight out at him. “Watch, Daddy! I can fly!”

And in that split second of time, she knew she was going to fall and he wouldn’t be there to catch her. The air rushed past her face, impact seconds away.

With a small involuntary cry, Alison jerked herself awake. Disoriented, she realized she lay on a sofa in a strange room. A clock ticked.

She swung her legs over to the floor. Her heart hammering in her chest, returned to reality. Her dream. Not in Florida. Not seven anymore. Her daddy had died a long time ago. That bitter realization upon waking—time and again—never failed to rend her heart.

Here, in her home in Raleigh, she waited for . . . ? What had she been waiting for? With a rush, the events of what must now be yesterday flooded over her.

She’d fallen asleep waiting for Frank to return. She stood, too quickly for her equilibrium, and swayed, lightheaded. Her brown leather flats lay beside the sofa on the Oriental rug where she had kicked them off the night before.

A streak of pink and gold hovered at the edge of the horizon above the tree line. She glanced over at the grandmother clock in the corner. Early morning. Not yet six.

The children. She must get them up soon for school. Befuddled, she rubbed the sleep from her eyes. She needed coffee.

Where was Frank?

Had Frank somehow slipped past her and left her to sleep undisturbed on the sofa? Or had he come home at all?

She padded on bare feet out of the front room, through the foyer and down the hall into the kitchen to yank open the connecting door to the garage.

Alison rocked back on her heels. His black Corvette did not sit in its usual space beside her car in the garage. With all his secret assignations and late-night partying, he always came home at some point during the night.

The doorbell rang, followed by an insistent pounding. Frank had forgotten his key or, drunk again, had lost it. He’d wake the children. She didn’t want them to see him like that.

As she entered the foyer, Justin’s tousled head peeked over the banister of the landing. “Someone’s at the door, Mom.” He stretched and gave a big sleepy yawn.

Claire, in her pink polka dot pajama shorts, popped up behind him. “Do they know what time it is?”

Anxious to divert their attention from their father, she fluttered her hand. “Go back to your room. Get ready for school.”

Without bothering to see if they complied, and not pausing to look first through the glass panels on either side of the massive oak door, she reached for the brass handle, throwing the door wide open.

Mike took an involuntary step backward on the porch.

The Uniform, as he liked to refer to them, cleared his throat. “Mrs. Monaghan?”

A tall, painfully thin woman stood in the doorway, blinking in confusion. Whatever she expected to find on the other side of the door, it had not been policemen.

“Mrs. Monaghan?” prompted the officer again.

“Y . . . yes?”

She swallowed, Mike noted, and licking her dry lips, tried again. “Yes, I’m Mrs. Monaghan.” Fear sharpened the focus of her coffee-brown eyes. She drew a shaky hand up to her throat.

Interesting. Already dressed at this time of day, yet her attire appeared rumpled, her hair in disarray.

As if she could somehow read his thoughts or the direction of his gaze, she removed her hand from her throat, stroking down the unruly strands of her silver-blonde hair, tucking both sides behind her ears.

He also observed the toenails of her bare feet were painted the same pink as her blouse.

“What’s happened?” Her voice heightened in pitch.

He perceived the quickness of her breaths in and out as if she’d just run a marathon. Having delivered bad news countless times in his career, he supposed it was never a good sign when policemen appeared on your doorstep. He remained silent. His role was observer at this point. The Uniform would handle the rest for now.

The Uniform took a small step toward Alison Monaghan. “Ma’am, I’m Officer Randy Ross and this,” he gestured to Mike, “is Detective Sergeant Mike Barefoot.”

Her lips tightened. “What’s wrong?”

Officer Ross wouldn’t enjoy this any more than any other cop, but they were paid to do the unpleasant and deal with the fallout.

“We have bad news for you, ma’am.” Ross wore his compassion on his face. “Could we come in?”

The lady opened the door wider and motioned for them to follow. A dazed expression on her face, she halted in the spacious foyer.

Ross glanced at the sofa visible in the living room. “Maybe you’d like to sit first.”

The woman shook her head.

It never helped to delay. Better to get it over with.

“Your husband, Frank Monaghan.” Ross took a quick breath. “I’m sorry to say, ma’am, he was found dead this morning.”

Mike’s gaze never left Alison Monaghan’s face. He caught the split-second flicker of relief flashing across her face, followed immediately by a flush that stained her sculpted cheekbones. Guilt?

She staggered two steps away from them as if she could flee their words. Her hand groped behind her. She started a rapid descent to the floor. Ross caught hold of her arm, slowly lowering her the rest of the way.

“No! You’re lying!” screamed a girl leaning over the banister at the top of the stairs.

He, Officer Ross, and Alison Monaghan jerked their heads toward her. A boy tugged her back onto the landing. Ross shot Mike a look.

Mike frowned. He’d not realized children were present. Not the way any kid should find out about their old man.

The girl collapsed to her knees, her face in her hands. The keening arising from the teenage girl sent a preternatural shiver down the spine of the usually unflappable detective.

It was a sound he’d heard once when he was a boy with his grandpa on one of their camping trips in the hollows of the Blue Ridge. Her pain, as ancient as Eve, reminded him of the wild mountain creature they’d discovered mortally wounded in a man-made iron trap. Or, the sound the Ranger—what was left of him—made when the IED—

The boy bent over her, wrapping his arms around her, as she rocked back and forth in a crouch, tears streaming down her face. But thank God, the horrible sound stopped.

Now it was his turn. He scrutinized the motionless woman at his feet.

“Mrs. Monaghan?”

He repeated it twice more before he penetrated her mental cloud and she lifted her face.

Shock? Fear? Defeat? All of which could indicate complete innocence or calculated deceit. He also marked the absence of tears. She’d not spoken since Ross broke the news to her.

If indeed, it was news to her.

As elegant and refined as she appeared, he knew better than to assume the innocence of anyone. He’d been on the investigative team a few years ago, resulting in the conviction of a perky blonde woman, highly educated and successful, who’d poisoned her equally attractive and successful young husband. She’d almost gotten away with it.

Though a cliché, it was true. The spouse usually committed the murder. The one who was supposed to love you the most and forever.

Like that ever happened in real life. Or at least, maybe not to him.

Marriage, he often remarked to his like-minded cronies, was unfortunately the best motive for murder. It’s why he avoided it. In his early thirties, he had long ago given in to the rampant cynicism of cops who’ve seen too much. Too many beautiful women to stick to just one anyway.

Alison Monaghan peered at him. “I don’t remember your name.” He saw the flash of intelligence and the wariness that followed. “But you are a detective.” She started to pull herself to her feet.

Officer Ross grabbed her by the forearm and helped her stand. Mike exchanged glances with Ross. “Perhaps we’d better go into another room.”

Alison Monaghan’s face constricted at the sound of her sobbing children, but she squared her shoulders and faced him. “My children first.”

Before he could respond, she took the stairs two at a time, resting a hand on each of her children’s faces. “I need to talk with these officers. I need for you to go to—”

The boy shook his head. “No.”

“Please,” she whispered. “Just for a few minutes, I promise.”

The children trudged up the stairs with a little more prodding, the girl sending a parting scowl over her shoulder at him and Ross.

He pictured the motherless faces he mentored in his off-duty hours at the Teen Center. Alison Monaghan, a loving, devoted mother?

But then again, so were black widows, up to and including, the moment they devoured their spider spouses. The Southern species, in particular, noted for their deadly, sexual cannibalism.

She rejoined the officers. And angling to the open room on her right, she walked on, leaving the policemen to follow her faint fragrance of lavender.

Intelligent and gutsy, somehow she had grasped he was the one in charge and that there was more. More she didn’t think the children should hear. He could almost like this lady if she wasn’t his number-one murder suspect.

They followed her into the high-ceilinged room. With a frown, he seated himself in the pale blue wingback chair she indicated. Officer Ross continued to stand by the arched entrance.

Mike was astonished this unprepossessing Raleigh housewife had somehow seized control of his interview. He liked to decide where the suspect sat, preferably in strong light, giving him a psychological advantage as the investigating officer.

Squinting as the sunrise made a brilliant splash of light into his eyes, trying to hide his irritation at being upstaged, he removed a pen and small notebook out of his suit pocket. He had a familiar routine he liked to employ in such matters.

Before he could begin, she leaned toward him from the spot she’d taken on the sofa. He realized during his abstraction she’d quietly slipped on some shoes sitting beside the couch.

Armor?

“Now,” Alison Monaghan knotted her hands together. “Tell me exactly what has happened to my husband.”