Craig opened his hand and studied the small metallic device he’d been holding.

“What is that?” Beverly asked.

“This,” he said, picking it out of his palm with two fingers and holding it up between them, “is the niftiest little gadget. I’ve ordered them before, but this is a new model.”

Hesitantly, as though afraid to ask, Beverly said, “What does it do?”

“It’s a little tracking device. You plant it on . . . whatever . . . and see where it goes.”

Beverly closed her binder and reached down for her purse. She clutched it close to her chest. “Well, you can just hang onto it.”

He gave her another hideous grin. “Who knows. Maybe I dropped one in your purse last week.”

She put the binder on the chair so she could use both hands to open and inspect her handbag.

Craig laughed. “I’m just having some fun with you. I didn’t do that.”

Beverly looked at him, searched his deformed face, trying to determine the truth.

“Or did I?” he added.

Beverly snatched up the binder and opened the door. Before she slipped out into the hall she said, “I don’t . . . I think I’ll be assigning your case to someone else. You won’t be seeing me again.”

“You never know,” Craig said. “We might run into each other sometime.”

Twenty-Four

TWENTY-FOUR

“I hope we made the right decision,” Gloria Pilford said, glass in hand. She had switched to red wine.

“Is there anything left in the cellar?” Madeline Plimpton asked, perched on a stool at the kitchen island.

“Where’s Bob?” Gloria asked.

“Have you gone deaf?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You haven’t heard all the racket? The power saw and the drilling.”

“Oh,” said Gloria. “That.”

“He got a piece of plywood over where the glass was broken. Can’t leave it wide open until the pane’s replaced.”

“No, I suppose not.”

“And I think he was making some phone calls, too,” Madeline said.

“Do you think we did the right thing? Letting Jeremy go off with a total stranger?”

“Weaver’s a good man,” her aunt said. “I checked him out.”

“I talked to him a little, the two of us. Do you know what happened to his wife and his son?”

Madeline told her how they had both been murdered, several years ago. Gloria was quiet for several seconds, then said, “I’m sorry about earlier.”

“Which part?” Madeline asked.

Gloria’s eyes narrowed. “About Grant.”

Madeline sighed. “It doesn’t matter.”

“I remember,” Gloria said.

“You remember what?”

“I remember him from years ago. When he first started practicing. It was here in Promise Falls, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” her aunt said.

“Was that when the affair started? Or was it before you took me in?”

Madeline glowered at her niece. “Before.”

“But then at some point it ended,” Gloria said.