After the SUV and Alicia’s pickup were loaded, Kayleigh turned and looked over the house, as if for the last time.

Leaving home …

She climbed into the driver’s seat of the SUV, Morgan in the passenger for a change, and gunned the engine, then headed down the long drive, Alicia’s truck following.

Expecting to see him, him, in the lot of the park, she rolled fast through the turn onto the road, skidding. Morgan grabbed the handhold and gave a rare smile. Kayleigh glanced around and into the rearview mirror but there were no red cars.

“It’s for the best,” he said.

“I suppose.”

She realized that he was looking at her face closely. “Something happen at the theater?”

“What do you mean?” Kayleigh kept her eyes pointed fiercely straight ahead, avoiding his as if he’d think: Oh, I know. She lured Edwin into that hall to kill him. I recognize that look.

“Just checking to see if everything’s all right,” he said placidly. “You get an odd phone call or run into somebody there?”

“No, everything’s fine.”

Kayleigh reached for the radio but her hand paused then returned to the wheel. They drove all the way to Bishop Towne’s house in complete silence.

She parked in the drive and Morgan helped Alicia carry the boxes, musical equipment and suitcases to the porch, then the guard strode into the night to check out the perimeter. The two women went inside.

The small ground floor might have been an exhibit in a wing of the Grand Ole Opry. There were pictures and reviews and album covers—mostly of Bishop Towne and his band, of course. Some were photos of women singers whom Bishop had had affairs with long ago—and whose albums had been nailed up only after Wives Two through Four appeared. Unlike Margaret, they wouldn’t have known about the earlier indiscretions and would have assumed the women were professional associates only.

But there were also a lot of pictures of Bishop and Margaret. He’d never taken those down, whatever the Later Wives’ jealous concerns might have been.

Mary-Gordon came running up to Kayleigh and flew into her arms. “Aunt Kayleigh! Yay! You’ve gotta come look. We’re doing a puzzle! I rode Freddie today. I wore my helmet, like you always say.”

Kayleigh slipped to her knees for a proper hug, then rose and embraced her sister. Suellyn asked, “How you doing, K?”

The singer thought: Considering I could be in jail for murder, not bad. “Hanging in there.”

Kayleigh introduced her and Mary-Gordon to Alicia, who smiled and shook their hands.

“Wow,” the girl whispered, looking at Alicia’s tattoos. “Those are neat!”

“Uh-oh,” Suellyn said. “I see trouble.” The women laughed.

Kayleigh greeted her father and Sheri, whose voice was still ragged from the smoke. Oddly, she now sounded much like her husband. Her skin seemed pale, though that might have been only because she was wearing none of the makeup she usually applied in swaths.

Kayleigh’s attitude toward her stepmother had changed 180 degrees since the attack, and she regretted her pettiness toward the woman. She now hugged Sheri, in whose eyes tears appeared at the display of affection.