Cry Wolf

"NO!!!" The denial tore from her throat like a scream. "NO!!!" she screamed, stumbling down the last few stairs.

She hurled herself at Ke

Surreal, she thought dimly, a part of her feeling strangely detached from the turmoil of the moment. This couldn't be happening. She couldn't be yelling or lashing out at Ke

"Laurel, no! She's gone. She's gone. Oh, dear God! She's dead!"

Another cry of anguish and shock reverberated against the high ceiling of the hall. In her peripheral vision, Laurel could see Mama Pearl, her face contorted, reaching for Caroline with one hand, the other groping along the wall as if she had gone blind.

"God have mercy, I love dat chil'. I love dat chil' like my own!"

"Mama doesn't love me," Sava

They lay in bed together, wide awake, way past Laurel's bedtime. She cuddled against her sister, knowing she was supposed to be too old for it but afraid to move away. Not a week had passed since Daddy's funeral, and she was too aware of the precious, precarious state of life.

It was a knowledge no child should ever have to grasp. The weight of it was terrible. The fear it inspired had been with her day and night-that the world could be tipped upside down in a heartbeat. Everything she knew, everything she loved could be snatched away from her without warning.

Knowing that made her want to hang on with both hands to everything that was dear to her-her dolls, the kittens old mama cat had hidden in the boat house, Daddy's tie pin, Sava

"I love you, Sister," she said, quivering inside at the desperation in her voice. "I'll always love you."

"I know, Baby," Sava

Laurel sat down on the bottom step, dazed and weak, her stu

The sister who had loved her, protected her, defined her world, was gone. And it didn't matter that she was thirty, or that there were other people in her life now who mattered. In that moment, as she sat there on the step, she was ten years old all over again, and she was alone. Her world had turned upside down, and the most precious thing in it had been snatched away, leaving nothing behind but a small heart of gold.

"I want to see her."

They sat in the parlor at Belle Rivière, Ke

The sound of Mama Pearl weeping drifted in from the kitchen, breaking the silence that hung as Ke

Caroline sat at the other end of the sofa. Her aura of power and control had been snuffed out, doused by a tidal wave of shock and grief, leaving her powerless. A queen who had suddenly been stripped of her potency. For the first time since her brother had died she seemed completely at a loss, so stu

Lifting a crumpled tissue to her eyes, Caroline looked up at Laurel, who paced the width of the Brussels carpet like a soldier, shoulders back, chin up. She had been this way when her daddy had died, as well, full of stubborn denial and anger. Ten years old, demanding she be taken to him, insisting that he wasn't dead.

She could remember too clearly the rage, the fear, the heartbreak, Vivian telling the girls to cry softly into their hankies like little ladies. Caroline had gone up to Sava

"I want to see her," Laurel said again.

Caroline caught her eye and shook her head sadly, reproachfully. "Laurel, darlin', don't…"

Laurel jerked away, clinging to her stubbor

Ke

"I don't think that would be a very good idea," he murmured.

Laurel wheeled on him, ears pi

He glanced away from her, unable to meet the accusation in her eyes. His gaze landed on a graceful side table that held framed photographs of the Chandler girls, Sava

"Next of kin has to make a positive ID," Laurel said, grasping hold of practicality for an excuse. She wasn't feeling practical. Desperation was like a wild thing inside her. She had to see her sister now, sooner than now. Maybe someone had made a mistake. Maybe it wasn't really her. Maybe Sava

"We already have an ID, Laurel," Danjermond said, his smooth, low voice penetrating her thoughts. He sat in Caroline's throne, his masculine grace perfectly at home draped over rose damask. He met her gaze evenly. "Your stepfather came down to the funeral parlor."

He could just as well have slapped her. The idea of Ross Leighton's being the first of them to see Sava

"Sheriff Ke

Yes, she understood. Business. Danjermond and Ke

"The necklace was Sava

"Do you have any idea how it might have gotten there?"

"I expect someone put it in there, but I didn't see it happen."

"You think the killer put it there?"

Killer. Her stomach churned at the word, sending sour bile up the back of her throat. She choked it down and snatched a quick, hard breath, rubbing a hand at the base of her throat. "No one else would have gotten it off Sava

Danjermond rose and came around to face her, his hands in the pockets of his gray trousers. His expression was one she had seen in the courtroom a hundred times, a look she had honed to perfection herself-subtle disbelief, designed to rattle a witness. "You think the murderer took it off her and somehow slipped it into your handbag without your knowledge-for what purpose?"

The rush of anger was welcome. It distracted her, focused her attention on something she could affect the outcome of-an argument. She went to the Sheraton table and with jerky, angry movements, dug through the purse she had left there, tossing out Kleenex, Life Savers, a tampon. In one handful she scooped out the heart-shaped earring and the butterfly necklace and dumped them on a silver tray, then swung around to face Danjermond again. "For the same reason he made certain I found these."

The idea shook her to the core. A murderer, a psychopath had singled her out to send his trophies to. Why? To taunt, to challenge? She didn't want the challenge. She hadn't come here to be sucked into something twisted and sinister. The thought that someone was trying to do that made her want to cut and run as far as she could go, as fast as she could get there.

Danjermond pulled a slim gold pen out of his jacket pocket and poked at the items like a scientist, frowning. Ke

He shouldered Danjermond aside and bent to stare at the evidence Laurel Chandler had been carrying around in her handbag. "That was A

"Why would I?" Laurel snapped back. "I found it in an envelope on the seat of my car. Why would I have assumed a serial killer had sent it to me? Why would I think you would do anything about it but laugh in my face?"

"Where'd you find the earring?" he demanded, knowing in his gut it belonged to another victim. The killer had kept a souvenir from each.

"I found it on the hall table. Sava