Cold Ridge

But North wasn't going to coddle him. Ma

"I'm not going there with you."

"Then what about Carine?"

"She doesn't know the police have their eye on me. When she finds out-"

"She'll want to spring you."

Carine had always liked Ma

He also had the skills and worldwide co

Except he had a fourteen-year-old son with severe asthma and allergies at the prep school just outside the picturesque village of Cold Ridge.

"What do you want me to do?" Ty asked.

"Make sure Carine doesn't pursue this thing. She knew Louis Sanborn. She liked him. She found him dead. Plus," Ma

"She's a Winter, Ma

"Five minutes sooner, she'd have walked in on a murder. Anything could have happened. For all I know, it still could. Just keep an eye on her, North. That's all I'm asking."

Ty was silent a moment. "You're not telling me everything."

Ma

As if there was a question. "If Gus doesn't let all the air out of my tires before I can get there. If Carine doesn't kill me when I do. I haven't seen her since I left her at the altar." North sighed heavily, feeling the fatigue from his long day. He hadn't quite left her at the altar. At least he'd come to his senses and called off their wedding a full week in advance. It could have been worse, not that anyone else saw it that way. "Ma

"Looks like Carine and I are shit magnets these days. Jesus. Look, Ty. She found a dead man this afternoon. I should have made sure that didn't happen. I didn't, so now I'm asking you to do what you can to make it right." He groaned to himself. "Ah, screw it. You're on a need-to-know basis. It's the best I can do. Just get down here."

"I'll be there tonight."

Ma

"Eric wasn't involved. He's only a freshman. These guys are seniors."

"Geniuses, from the sounds of it."

"Ivy League material. They've got their applications in. Watch. They'll all be ru

"Scary thought. Ty-"

"Forget it. It's okay."

But Ma

Three

After throwing up for a third time, Carine staggered into her kitchen. She hoped that was the last of it. Nerves, she thought. Fear, disgust, grief, horror. Poor Louis. Dead. Murdered. Why?

She found the little bag of oyster crackers the Boston Police Department detective had given her when she'd almost passed out on him. He'd said she looked green. At least she hadn't thrown up then. She'd given her statement, read it, signed it and, when told she could leave, got a cab and came straight back to her apartment. She didn't know what else to do. The Rancourts were with the police. Ma

Her hands trembled, and she couldn't get a good hold on the package of crackers to pull it open. Finally, she grabbed a fork from the strainer and stabbed the cellophane, and little round crackers popped out all over her counter and floor.

"Damn it!"

She picked one up off the floor and nibbled on it, making herself fill her kettle with water and set it on the stove for tea. It wasn't much of a stove-it wasn't much of an apartment. It was a one-bedroom unit on a narrow, crooked street off Inman Square in Cambridge, an eclectic neighborhood of working-class families, students and professionals. She'd painted the walls and her flea-market furnishings with a mix of mango, lime green, raspberry, various shades of blue and violet, whatever she thought would be cheerful and not remind her of the rich, woodsy colors of her log cabin in Cold Ridge.

The tiny cracker didn't sit well in her stomach. Her mouth was dry. She was wrung out. She'd cried, she'd screamed, she'd barfed. Yep. What a rock she was. But she didn't care. She wasn't embarrassed by her reaction-she didn't ever want to get used to coming upon a murder.

Ma

"Think of it," he'd said in the minutes before the police got there, "if you'd married North, you could be in flea-infested military housing right now."

"Ma

"Carine, something you need to keep in mind."

He hesitated, but she prodded him. "What?"

"Louis Sanborn wasn't a nice man."

He didn't have a chance to elaborate, and she'd repeated his words to the detective when he asked her what she and Ma

Louis Sanborn wasn't a nice man.

Ma

She switched off her kettle. Even tea wasn't going to stay down. She wished she hadn't called Gus. Talking to him was comforting on one level, because he was unconditionally on her side, but, on another level, it added to her tension-because he'd wanted to head to Boston. It'd been a near thing to keep him up north. She'd called him for moral support. She needed time to pull herself together. Gus would hover. He'd scowl at her living accommodations. He'd tell her she didn't belong in the city.

He'd make her soup. He'd listen to her for as long as she wanted to talk.

Her doorbell rang, the noise sprouting an instant headache. Carine knew she was dehydrated, her reserves exhausted, but her first-floor apartment didn't have an intercom or buzzer, which meant she had to stagger out to the front hall. Her old tenement building had three floors, with two apartments on each floor and a main door that creaked and stuck half the time, making it easy for people to just walk in.

Her sister gave her an encouraging smile and wave through the smudged glass panel. When Carine pulled open the heavy door, Antonia grimaced and shook her head. "Good God, you look awful."

"Is that what you say to all your ER patients? I've been throwing up."

Antonia felt her sister's forehead, then grabbed her wrist. "No fever. Your pulse is a bit fast. Are you keeping anything down?"