Near midnight--the first Friday in April

Johnny pulled the heavy door shut. The rusty hinges groaned into the chill night air. He shivered. This was the part that still unnerved him, the getting away after he'd done it. He started down the porch stairs but froze in mid-step, chills prickling the back of his neck.

He felt someone watching him.

Peering into the darkness, he steadied himself against the square porch post and quieted his breathing, the better to hear. Despite the near-freezing temperature, sweat beaded his forehead. Minutes ticked by, the stillness interrupted only by the mournful howl of some wild animal. Finally, disgusted that he'd allowed nerves to get the best of him, he stripped off yellow vinyl gloves, hitched the duffel bag strap over his shoulder, and hurried down the steps.

Seeing eyes in every shadow is one more reason for this to be the last one.

At the car, he shed the oversized wet suit that had protected him from coming in contact with anything inside the old Bradford Mansion and stuffed everything into the trunk. All these years he'd played it smart and never come close to getting caught, but part of being smart was knowing when to quit.

He started the ancient Corvette and took one last look at the hulking, old building silhouetted against the distant glow of lights from Park City, Utah.

Johnny sped down the winding drive. He smiled, thinking of Heather: tiny, blond, and beautiful. He had arrived in town last fall just before Thanksgiving but hadn't found her until the second week in January. The minute he saw her he knew she was the one. She had that timid look in the eyes, like she'd bolt if somebody said 'boo'.

He thought of the others. Finding a blond with that special quality sometimes took months. Often, he wondered if he was too picky, but it was important to get just the right one. The harder he had to work at it the better he liked it, and the rush when he chose each girl was the best high in the world. Time was never a factor; patience and planning were, but now it was over and the ever-lurking unease again began to gnaw. He'd come to expect it, but that still didn't make it any easier to deal with. His big hands trembled on the steering wheel. If only the planning could last forever.

Preoccupied, he nearly missed the sharp bend in the road. He struggled for control, and as the car skidded around the corner, two reflected points of yellow light wavered in the headlights. He screeched to a stop and watched a big black Labrador disappear into the underbrush.

Buddy? Looked a lot like Buddy, but all black Labs look the same.

Guilt ate at his gut. After work he should've gone home and walked Buddy, but there wasn't time. He had to be at the high school when Heather got out. Besides, Buddy was a good dog. Johnny had trained him to hold it until he took him outside. When Buddy was a pup, sometimes Johnny had to take a stick to him to make the dog behave, but now Buddy never messed inside. Not anymore.

Slowly, he drove along the dark road. Tomorrow, he and Buddy would head east. A new job waited for him in Sydney, Nebraska. Now that he'd decided this was the last one, maybe he'd settle down, find somebody special, get married, and have a couple of kids. An ordinary life sounded good. On mental autopilot, Johnny tracked along those happy thoughts as he drove, turning off at Ridgewood Lane and parking in his slot.

A distant siren jerked him back to the present. His headlights loomed bright against a wall. He tromped the brakes hard and in that instant realized he was already parked. He punched off the lights. Panic seized him. How long had he been sitting there? Had anyone noticed?

He stepped out, quietly clicking the car door shut as he glanced about for curious onlookers. All was silent, the windows in nearby apartments, dark. His thoughts turned to his dog. Buddy would be waiting. He always made Johnny feel better. His spirits lifted a little as he strode to the apartment, turned the key in the lock, and braced himself for Buddy's slobbery welcome.

Nothing?

He strode about the tiny, immaculate apartment calling, "Hey, Buddy. Here, Buddy."

The only place he hadn't looked was the bedroom. Johnny found the dog in the cubbyhole between the dresser and the wall. He patted Buddy. "What's the matter, fella? You can't get sick now, we've got a long trip ahead of us."

Buddy struggled to get up but fell back, whimpering.

Stroking the smooth, black coat, Johnny grew more alarmed as he felt the dog tremble beneath his hand. He examined Buddy's nose. It was dry and hot to the touch.

"Damn! I gotta find a vet."

He hurried to the kitchen, grabbed the phone book from the drawer, and flipped through the yellow pages until he found 'Veterinarians'. He called number after number, but all he got were answering machines with messages to call after eight in the morning. Chucking the book against the wall, he tromped about the tiny kitchen. Surely there was a vet on call somewhere. Maybe Heber City had a twenty-four-hour clinic.

He grabbed the phone book off the floor and searched the Heber City listings. Wasatch Veterinary Clinic, Sheldon Meyer DVM. He dialed the number. A sleepy voice answered, and Johnny explained the problem. Dr. Meyer sounded reluctant, but he agreed to see Buddy.

Johnny hurried to the bathroom, ran water over a comb, and pulled it through his unruly hair.

He grabbed an old blanket off the closet shelf and wrapped the dog in it. Buddy yelped with pain when Johnny tried to pick him up. It took several attempts before Johnny found a position the dog could tolerate. Gingerly, he carried him to the car. As he drove along the nearly deserted streets toward the freeway, the small voice inside his head nagged: This isn't part of the plan, Johnny. It's bad luck to change the plan.

He willed the voice to be silent. The vet would make Buddy well. They could still leave in the morning.

Early Saturday morning

Abby Carlson drove across town toward the west hills. The windshield wipers methodically cleared away light rain that sifted from high, pewter-gray clouds. She caught up with Mike and Judith Hall, followed them up the winding drive to the Bradford Mansion, and parked next to their truck with the Hall Construction logo on the side.

With the practiced eye of an architect, Abby studied the structure, a two-story Victorian mansion with hip roof. The exterior siding was in bad shape, and the building had that long-deserted look. Patches of shingles were missing, while others grew green moss. The porch roof sagged, and one corner of the tall brick chimney had crumbled away. The drizzling rain distorted the image, making the place seem even older and more dilapidated. Her gaze took in the overgrown and unkempt ten-acre estate. It would take lots of work just to get the grounds in shape.

She thought of her father's words: 'One acre or a hundred takes 'bout the same machinery to run. Remember that, Ab, when you get rich enough to buy a place of your own'. Her eyes refocused from mental images of the Colorado ranch where she grew up back to the Bradford Estate. A big yard wasn't her idea of fun, but Mike and Jude loved a challenge.

Abby grabbed her camera and notepad off the seat and, dodging a mud puddle, she followed her friend Jude to the house. Mike carried three-year-old Megan tucked under an arm and in his free hand, he held an oversized flashlight. He put her down on the porch, and her little feet thumped gaily against the weather-checked wood.

Abby tried to insert the skeleton key into the lock. The door creaked open. She looked at Mike. "Someone forgot to lock this door."

She entered a foyer with two access routes into the house. Abby stepped across the threshold to the larger room and ducked under cobwebs. "Eww ... spiders. I hate 'em!" She swatted at sticky strands that had caught in her shoulder-length auburn hair. Long ago, she had reluctantly accepted the crawly critters that inhabited such places as the downside of her occupation.

Jagged cracks in the plaster and peeling wallpaper confirmed Abby's fears that the interior would need to be gutted back to the lath, a horrid job, but the whole place needed rewiring, so no great loss. Across the room, shards of glass hung like icicles in the broken windowpane. Abby pulled up her collar and buttoned her coat against the cold.

Jude pried loose a strip of molding and swept down the webs, while Mike gave the room a cursory inspection. The clomp of his heavy boots against bare wood echoed as he strode through the place.

"This is perfect for the teaching studio." Jude's voice rose with excitement. "Plenty of room to teach classes. Those angled bay windows on the south let in lots of natural light. We can put the spinning wheels there and floor looms and tapestry looms in the remaining space. How many can we get in here?"

The sound of Megan's happy giggles rose to a crescendo as she explored the rooms.

"Hey, Megan," Mike hollered. "Quiet down, we can't hear over your racket."

The giggling continued but the volume subsided a bit.

Mike rubbed his chin. "Let's take a look through first to see which area would work best for the studio and which for the retail shop, then we can start measuring rooms and make some decisions." He turned to Abby. "Once we know what we want, how long will it take you to draw up the plans and get me some construction documents?"

"Oh three, maybe four weeks, if I spend some overtime hours."

"That'll work out about right. I'm nearly finished with the Evans' home. As soon as we close on this place, I can start gutting the interior and be ready to start the renovation as soon as you have the plans finished. We should be able to complete the rebuild by fall."

They walked from room to room on the main floor. Abby took photos from several angles in each room and jotted notes on her yellow pad as Mike and Jude discussed their options. Then, they climbed the wide bank of stairs to the second floor, which would be the Hall family's living quarters. Ahead of them, Megan tugged her way up the stairs singing, "Jack / and Jill / went up / a hill / to get / a pail / of waaater.

It was darker up there. Mike clicked on his flashlight. Abby had wondered if one level would be enough living space for them, but the mansion was huge, much bigger inside than it appeared from the outside. Jude brought the stick with her and swept down more spider webs.

One room had been a library with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Abby wiped dust off a shelf. Beautiful, fine-grained hardwood, definitely worth the effort to restore. She took extra shots in that room.

A loud thump-bump and Megan began to wail. They hurried toward the sound. To the side of one room, a narrow stairway led to the attic. Megan lay at the bottom of the steps, her honey blond hair a jumbled mass across her face. Jude scooped up the child and kissed the red bump on her forehead. Megan's cries quieted to a whimper.

"An attic." Jude's eyes twinkled. "Maybe they left antiques."

Mike brought the flashlight and led the way. "Be careful, these stairs are steep."

"It's old houses like this where you find antique spinning wheels and chests full of old clothes," Jude effused.

"More likely we'll find dead rats and lots of dust," Mike cautioned.

He turned the cut glass doorknob at the top of the stairs. The others followed him into a large, windowless room.

"What's that smell?" Abby shrank from the thick air.

"Smells like gas of some kind," Mike said. "Diesel maybe, but why up here? I didn't catch anything like that downstairs."

He aimed the light about the room, illuminating bare studs all around with rafters that sloped to a peak. Not a piece of furniture in the place.

Abby took six photos from various angles in the attic. "At least there aren't as many spider webs," she said, making no effort to hide her relief.

Mike aimed the light up and down the walls. "That's odd. Of all places you'd expect to see lots of cobwebs, it'd be in an attic."

Meg started to fuss. Jude put her down, and Meg immediately made a game of running backwards, giggling when she fell.

Mike made another sweep with the light then brought it back to shine on an object tucked into the far corner of the room. He crouched low to avoid bumping his head on the rafters. "It's just an old wooden box. The top's secured with screws. Probably nothing in it."

"But there might be," Jude coaxed. "It'd only take a minute to remove the lid."

Mike grinned at her, pulled a screwdriver from his tool belt, and backed out the rusty screws. He looked for a place to put them. Abby held out her hand. Mike placed the lid on the floor and picked up the flashlight. Abby and Jude pushed forward to see.

For Abby, the world tilted; her heart pounded in her ears. A dead girl, the body wrapped in a blanket, her head exposed, lay in the pool of light. The screws slipped from Abby's fingers and fell, unnoticed, to the floor.

Megan ran toward them. Jude grabbed her. "I have to get Meg out of here!" Shielding the child, she hurried toward the stairs.

Surreal horror held Abby in its grip. She struggled to breathe, unable to wrench her gaze from the face that looked so much like her sister Lianne. Memories that Abby had long ago pigeon-holed into the far recesses of her mind now rose to the surface. The long blond hair and delicate, finely detailed features were so familiar ... but no, this wasn't Lianne.

Abby's stomach lurched. She bolted from the room, down the stairs, and barely made it to the front porch railing. Searching her pockets for a tissue, she struggled to quiet the dry heaves. Abby wiped her mouth and sucked in huge gulps of air. She looked to the horizon for a calming view of the mountains, but a solid canopy of clouds now obscured the view.

"Abby, are you okay?" Wide-eyed, Jude stood clutching her child.

Abby nodded.

Megan tugged at her mother's coat collar. "I wanna go climb the stairs," she pouted.

"No!" Jude pulled the front door shut. "Be a good girl and play here on the porch." She put the child down and turned back to Abby. "I barely got a look, but she seemed really young."

Abby nodded. The girl's image had burned itself into her brain. She hadn't thought about Lianne in a long time, had trained herself not to dwell on the sister, two years younger, who one day simply disappeared.

"Abby?" Jude touched her shoulder, concern in her eyes.

"She looks like Lianne." The words escaped as barely a whisper.

"What are you talking about? You mean the dead girl ... your sister, Lianne?"

"No, of course not. Lianne would be twenty-five now. That girl is a lot younger, but she has blond hair and something about her reminds me of Lianne."

"This is too weird." Jude shuddered and hurried to retrieve Megan, who had wandered out into the wet grass.

Abby watched Megan playfully try to outrun her mother.

As a child, Abby never tired of hearing her mother tell the story about the day they brought ten-day-old Abby home. Frank and Birdie had waited such a long time to adopt, and they accepted the likelihood that Abby would be their only child. Then Lianne had come along.

Lianne. Abby still remembered the day they brought her home to live with them. At first, five-year-old Abby had been so excited to have a little sister, but her enthusiasm quickly cooled. Lianne was tiny for being almost three years old and so pretty, long blond curls and a smile that melted everyone's heart, and they all made such a fuss over her. Abby recalled feeling ugly by comparison. With a stab of guilt, she also remembered wishing Lianne hadn't come to live with them, a regret buried deep in her soul, one that she had never shared with anyone.

Megan screeched in protest as Jude lugged her back to the porch. The child flailed her arms about, wanting to get down. She wiggled free and began tossing a pile of last year's leaves over the porch railing.

Reattaching a cell phone to his belt, Mike emerged from the house. "I just put in a call to the cops. Said they'd be here in a few minutes." Mike took Jude's hand. "There's something you should know before they get here. I think that girl up there is Heather."

"No, it can't be," Jude protested. "It doesn't even look like her."

"I know." Mike nodded. "I almost didn't make the connection. Her face is badly swollen, but I think it's Heather."

Jude, her face pasty white, sank to the porch steps. "Her mother is in our Weaving Guild. She isn't very strong, this will kill her."

Megan tugged at her mother's coat; a gust of wind tousled the child's hair. "Where's Heather? I want to play with her."

Her eyes welling with tears, Jude hugged the child close. "We can't play with Heather today, okay?"

A jagged bolt of lightning slashed the sky followed by a clap of thunder that shook the building. Megan squealed with fright.

Jude jumped to her feet and grabbed the startled child. She turned to Mike. "I should take Megan home."

Mike nodded. "I'll have Abby bring me home as soon as we talk to the police."

Clutching Megan in her arms, Jude ran to the truck.

At that moment, more than anything Abby wished Jared were there to wrap his strong arms around her. With any luck, he'd be with the police when they arrived.

Abby watched Jude drive away and absently kicked at the uneven boards under her feet. So much effort had gone into saving this place, literally snatching it away from developers set on demolishing it for a new luxury spa and hotel, and now to have it marred by a murder.

Another flash of lightning triggered the heavy clouds, and they released their load in a thunderous downpour, nearly drowning out the wail of police sirens in the distance.