"Good morning," I snapped, trying to peer around her. I didn't hear any barking. Surely there'd be barking from those huge dogs.

What the h.e.l.l was going on?

"I need to talk," I said.

"Sure." She escorted me into the kitchen.

No sign of dogs.

She invited me to sit at her breakfast bar and poured a cup of coffee.

No sign of dogs. Or kids, for that matter. The kids, I might guess were still sleeping. But the dogs ... ?

She asked, "What do you want to talk about?"

"What I saw last night, for starters. And then what I found this morning."

Her lip twitched, but otherwise she remained as cool and collected as usual. "What did you see last night?"

"You. Outside. At roughly midnight. Playing with some ... dogs?"

"That couldn't have been me. I was sleeping. And I don't have any dogs. After I came home from the party, I took a Xanax and had some wine... ." She slumped onto the stool next to me. "Okay, I'll admit, I don't remember anything about last night. All I recall is going to bed and waking up this morning." Staring down at the counter, Samantha clasped her hands in her lap. "My feet were a little muddy."

"Did you black out?"

Samantha nodded. "I guess so, if you're sure it was me you saw."

I wasn't one hundred percent certain. "Are you taking more than Xanax? And Valium?"

"Sometimes."

"Do you have a drug problem?"

She shot to her feet, hurried to the sink, and began scrubbing an empty, presumably dirty, pot.

I didn't like what I was seeing. Not one bit. Maybe Samantha had seemed a little too perfect at first. And maybe I hadn't trusted her because of that. But seeing her like this, the perfect, flawless veneer cracking wide open, I wanted to help her. If she'd let me. "Do you need help?"

"No, I'm fine." Her lips curled up. As if a wilted smile would convince me she was telling the truth.

"Samantha-"

"I don't want to be rude, but I have a lot to do before the twins get up. Was there something else you needed to talk about? You mentioned something about this morning."

"Yes. You'll never guess what I found this morning, lying on my kitchen floor. Right where Mich.e.l.le died."

"No clue."

"A dog cable." Weighing Samantha's nonresponse, I added, "Do you think it's a coincidence?"

"I don't know. Did you ask Jonathan about it?"

"Not yet."

"Why not?"

"I didn't have a chance." I wasn't going to tell her we slept in separate rooms.

"I don't think it's anything to-" A crash upstairs cut Samantha off. She gave me another semi-wilted smile. "The monsters have risen."

Taking the hint, I stood. "I'll head home." I reluctantly left.

CHAPTER 10.

I scuttled back home and cautiously entered the house, listening for sounds of a would-be killer. Silence. Feeling slightly tense, I went into the kitchen. The cable was gone. I wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Or maybe neither.

I headed upstairs.

Josh was gone-hopefully at school.

The bed in the guest room was made. I guessed Jon had gone to work. No good-bye. As usual. After checking every room in the house for an unwanted visitor, I showered, dressed, then headed down to the girl-cave. Flipped on the lights. As I headed toward my drawing desk, there was a loud buzz and a zap and then everything went black.

Standing in the middle of the room, I blinked, frozen in place, instantly terrified. Was this a trap? Or merely a short circuit? My heart thumped against my breastbone. My ears strained, listening. Nothing. Just silence.

One second pa.s.sed. Another. n.o.body grabbed me. n.o.body clobbered me over the head.

A short circuit. That was all it was.

Slowly, gradually, I started breathing again. My heart rate settled into a more normal pace. Already becoming disorientated in the blackness-I couldn't see my hand in front of my face, literally-I turned around, extended my arms, and took one, two, three baby steps. I hoped I was heading in the right direction! I took a few more, expecting to feel the wall enclosing the side of the staircase any time now ... any time ...

Crack.

Crash.

Instinctively I dove forward, away from the earsplitting noise. Something had fallen. Something huge. Finally, my hands smacked into a wall. I flattened my body against it and caught my breath again.

Dust choked me.

I was feeling closed in, suffocated, trapped. Using the wall to support me, I sidestepped five, ten paces. Hit another wall. I groped. It was the cubbie wall. d.a.m.n, I'd gone the wrong way! I was cowering in the far back corner of the room. Which meant the thing that crashed was probably blocking the exit. This was not going to be fun.

I reversed directions, walking carefully until I couldn't go any farther. Something big and wooden was lying in a heap on the floor, directly in front of the staircase. Fortunately I discovered-after feeling my way around like a blind woman-I could climb over it. When I stepped foot on the staircase, I gave a little shout of victory.

I threw the door open and squinted against the bright light. All it took was one quick glance in the kitchen to see the power hadn't gone out in the whole house. Just the bas.e.m.e.nt. Lucky me. I looked down the steep staircase. The light spilling from the floor above illuminated part of the rubble at the bottom. Looked like one whole section of the cubbie wall had fallen. I was d.a.m.ned lucky I hadn't been standing there when it had given way. I might have.... I could have been....

If I'd been standing just a few feet over, I very well would have been the second woman to die in this house.

Another coincidence?

Feeling a little sick, I flopped onto a bar stool and let my head fall. It landed on the cool granite countertop.

I'd almost died.

Was it an accident? Or not?

I sat there, stunned, staring at the back of my eyelids for who knew how long. A knock at the front door brought me out of my stupor.

I opened my front door to discover I was having guests for an early lunch. Samantha, Lindsay, and Erica were standing on my porch, each of them holding a covered dish.

"I brought a salad," Lindsay said. "That's one thing that not even I can burn."

"Pasta from Juliano's Restaurant," Erica said.

"And I brought dessert," said Samantha, following the other two ladies into the house. "I hope you don't mind our little surprise visit."

"No, I don't mind at all." I shut the door and followed them in the kitchen.

Finally, one of them clued in on my dazed condition. "Christine, are you okay?"

"Um, I'm not sure. Something just happened. Downstairs." I pointed and all three of them looked toward the bas.e.m.e.nt.

"What happened?" Lindsay asked, plunking the salad bowl on the counter. "You look absolutely petrified."

"I think I almost died."

"What?" Lindsay rushed to me, eyes flying over me, probably looking for injuries.

"I went downstairs to work and the light went out. It's freaking dark down there when there are no lights. And then I was trying to get back upstairs but there was a crash, and, and ..." I swallowed but my mouth and throat were stone-dry. Lindsay rushed to the refrigerator, grabbed a water bottle, and handed it to me. After thanking her, I continued, "The built-in shelf fell, right in front of the stairs. If I'd gone the right way, instead of back-I got a little turned around-it would have landed on me."

All three women gaped at me. Then two of them looked at Erica.

Quietly, she said, "Adam built those shelves."

"We didn't think about him," Lindsay said.

"Mich.e.l.le would let him into the house without a second thought," Samantha said, softly.

We all looked at Erica.

Erica shook her head. "No, it couldn't be Adam."

"Were you home with him that day?" Samantha asked.

"No, I wasn't." Erica fiddled with her hair.

"Then you can't know that for sure. Right?" Lindsay asked.

"I know he wasn't home," Erica repeated, sounding absolutely certain. We all waited for her to tell us why she was so sure. She sighed. "I came home early that day. His car was gone."

"Maybe he drove it around the block and parked it?" Lindsay reasoned.

"No, he didn't do that."

Everyone, including me, gave Erica a pitying look.

"Dammit, don't look at me like that. I'm not fooling myself. I know for a fact that Adam wasn't home because I sent him and the kids to my parents for a long weekend. I wanted some time to myself."

Okay, that made sense. But why had it seemed so difficult for Erica to spit it out? She was acting guilty, like she was hiding something.

"That was the weekend I found out Matt was cheating on me for the first time... ." Lindsay said softly. She seemed to be talking to herself, not to anyone in particular.

Now I understood why Erica had tried to avoid telling us she'd been home alone.

Lindsay lifted her gaze to Erica but didn't say a word. I think she understood, too.

"We should eat before everything gets cold." I jumped to my feet. After setting out all the essentials and pouring drinks, I sat down at the dining table with my three friends. Over heaping plates of pasta, we talked about the case. Turned out the doctor was a dead end. Erica had been able to sweet-talk Theresa into checking his schedule that day. He'd delivered not one, not two, but three healthy baby boys that day. He didn't leave the hospital until after five P.M. And that could be confirmed.

The doctor wasn't the killer.

Which left ... the three women sitting around me and ... ?

Josh skulked into the kitchen just as I was about to say something. He looked ... strange. Tense. His eyes snapped to mine. They were dark. Cold. Empty.

That was one person we'd never considered.

"Josh ... ?" I said.

He knew the victim.

He had access to the victim.

But two years ago he would have been just a child. Much too young to do anything so horrid.

A sick feeling swept through me.

"No school?" I asked.

"I'm sick." Josh jerked his gaze away and left the room. A chill skittered through my body.

Could it be Josh?

"I don't know what the problem is with Josh lately," I grumbled, not really expecting anyone to respond. "I thought we were getting along okay, but the last few days, he's been so ... tense."

"What if it was Joshua?" Lindsay whispered as if she'd read my mind.