Dangerous Women

The attorney was not named.

But she had told the attorney she was using now who her previous attorney had been.

The cops had had a busy morning. They’d found the house, her body, her car. They’d found her blood on the turned-over mattress. They’d found his fingerprints.

They led him away.

As he stepped onto the sidewalk, the tastes, scents, thrills of their first kiss waited in ambush. They crashed so hard over him that he stumbled, and because he was handcuffed and could not reach out to hold anything, he fell.

SNEAKER WAVE by ANNE PERRY

Tonia was driving and Kate was in the front seat beside her, talking about the route, which left Susa

It was spring 1922, and they had seen little of each other in the last few years since the war. Of course, America had been involved in it only toward the end, but it had still brought tremendous changes into their lives. Even as far west as the Oregon coast they had felt the reverberations of the conflict in Europe. Society could never be the same again with the return of peace.

Was “peace” the right word? Susa

“We can’t expect this perfect weather to last,” Kate said, turning in her seat to stare out to sea. The coastline was dazzling, cliffs and rocky promontories jagged, waves crashing in and white surf shining in the sun.

“Of course not,” Tonia agreed, her voice edged with emotion. “Nothing ever does.”

Kate kept her face turned away. “Then we’d better make the best of it while we can. A little rain won’t hurt-it’s only the endless gray days I really mind. I don’t even care if there’s a storm-they can be magnificent.”

“You wouldn’t,” Tonia replied, taking her hand off the wheel for a moment to push her hair back. She had it aggressively short in the new fashion. It was dark, and beautiful, emphasizing the strength of her features.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Kate said suspiciously.

“That you like storms, of course,” Tonia answered with a tiny smile. “Thunder, lightning and the closeness of danger. Don’t you? The electricity in the air?”

“I like the wind and the sea,” Kate said, as if she were measuring her words, sensing that she needed to be careful.

Tonia smiled, a secret expression, knowing more than she was saying.

“I wonder if we’ll see any whales,” Susa

“If you are prepared to stand and watch long enough, I daresay you will,” Tonia answered her. “You were always good at watching.” She seemed about to add something, then changed her mind.

It left Susa

But that had been years ago. Now Ralph was dead, and neither Kate nor Susa

They were nearly there. The beach house had belonged to the family for years. Before the war their parents had come here often. It was full of memories, most of them happy. After their deaths the sisters had come less often, but only because other aspects of life had taken up too much time.

Tonia swerved the car off the road onto the track and five minutes later they pulled up in front of the small wooden house, less than a hundred yards from the edge of the shingle, and then the long slope down to the hard sand. There were a few trees close by, single, wind-bent pines, brave enough to stand alone against the winter. Farther up the slope were rhododendrons in scarlet and amethyst profusion right into the shade of the forest canopy. They were wild now, but someone had planted them once.

“Don’t sit there, Susa

Susa

They carried the boxes in, unpacked and put away, made up the beds and lit the fire in the sitting room and the potbellied iron stove in the kitchen, for cooking and hot water. Fuel had never been a problem, there was driftwood enough to last a lifetime. Carrying it in and sawing it to manageable lengths was really a man’s job, but as many people had discovered since the war, women could do most things, if they had to.

“I’d like to go along the beach before we eat,” Kate said, standing at the big window in the sitting room and staring across the rough grass to the shore. She could see the curve of the point to the south, and the long sweep of the bay to the north, and the calm water of an inland lagoon, where a small river emptied out into a natural basin before finding its way to the sea. That was motionless now, and two blue herons made an elegant, sweeping pattern across the pale sky before landing somewhere out of sight.

“Good idea,” Susa

Tonia gathered her coat in silent agreement, and the three of them set out, walking abreast over the grass then picking their way with care down the drop to the stones, through the washed-up driftwood, and then at last to the sand. The tide was out and there was plenty of room to walk. The wind was soft, and the fall of the waves had a steady, comforting boom and roar.

Kate lifted her face to the wind, her dark auburn hair blowing off her face, showing the lines of her cheek and brow clear, and yet oddly vulnerable, as if she had known too much pain, and still carried it with her.