Copper Lake Confidential. Marilyn Pappano

the house looming ahead. She could already feel its weight—its memories of Mark—settling on her shoulders. Her steps were already slowing. But following the advice from all those months of treatment, she forced herself to keep moving, one step at a time.

       Chapter 4

      It was amazing how, on the north side of the brick arches, the pavement was smooth and the air was, well, simply air, but on the south side, Macy felt as if she were slogging through an invisible barrier, as if her feet were sinking into the concrete with each step. The dread trickling down her spine intensified when the hum of a well-tuned engine penetrated the buzzing in her ears.

      Ahead a sleek white Mercedes glided to a stop at the end of her driveway. Though she didn’t recognize the car, her stomach knotted, and with good reason: Louise Wetherby was sitting behind the wheel.

      Macy groaned silently. Of all the people she’d wanted to avoid in Copper Lake, Louise headed the list. She was the biggest snob in town, with more money than anyone besides the Howard and the Calloway families and a stronger notion of her own self-worth than all of them. She thinks highly of herself for a butcher’s granddaughter, Mark’s grandmother had often said disdainfully.

      Had Willa Howard still thought so highly of herself after finding out her esteemed husband and her beloved grandson were murderers? Good breeding obviously didn’t equal decent human being.

      Neither did a boatload of money, she added as Louise climbed out of the car.

      Her silver hair was simply styled, her suit summer-white, her nails icy pink, her gaze glacial. She would have been an attractive woman if she hadn’t looked perpetually dissatisfied with the life she’d been dealt. “So you’ve finally come back.”

      Hello to you, too. I’m fine. How about you? Macy forced a deep breath and a polite smile that was as phony as Mark had been. “Hello, Louise.”

      “Are you planning to stay, and if not, are you putting the house on the market? It’s not good for the neighbors to have an abandoned house next door.”

      Macy glanced at the house, then the neighbors’. There was absolutely nothing to suggest her house had been empty all those months. If anything, her house and the yard were in better condition than the others. But before she could respond, Louise went on.

      “You’ve disconnected your home phone, and your cell phone isn’t listed in the Woodhaven directory, so I was going to leave this in your mailbox if you weren’t home.” She held up a creamy-hued envelope but didn’t offer it. “Let me just grab the paperwork and we’ll go inside out of this terrible heat.”

      Macy automatically took a few steps up the driveway before good sense stopped her. She waited until Louise reappeared from the car’s interior, a folder in hand, before asking, “Paperwork for what?”

      Instead of answering, Louise gestured toward the house. “Inside. It’s steaming out here.”

      She should have accepted Stephen’s offer of a ride home. Then she would have already been inside when Louise arrived, she would have checked the peephole when the doorbell rang and she would have gone about her work, leaving Louise no choice but to drop off the letter and go home.

      She should have stayed at Stephen’s, so she really wouldn’t have been home.

      Louise set off for the door, and ingrained manners overtook Macy. Gritting her teeth, she followed in the woman’s trail of Chanel, then unlocked the door. When she caught sight of the boxes stacked in the hallway, she wished she’d moved them to the garage instead, or that she had the backbone to tell Louise to come back at a more convenient time. As if there were