Which didn’t mean the fire wouldn’t have caused serious damage, but Maddie figured it was pointless and counterproductive to argue, and time to move things along. “What do you recall of the night your parents died?”

Meg looked across the room at the empty television screen. “I remember that it had been hot that day and Mom took Mick and me to the public beach to swim. My dad usually went with us, but he didn’t that day.”

“Do you know why?”

“No. I suspect he was with the waitress.”

Maddie didn’t bother reminding her that the waitress had a name. “After you went to the public beach what happened?”

“We went home and had dinner. Dad wasn’t home, but that wasn’t unusual. I’m sure he was at work. I remember we had ‘whatever night,’ meaning we could have whatever we wanted for dinner. Mick had hot dogs and I had pizza. Later we ate ice cream and watched Donny & Marie. I remember what we watched because Mick was really mad that he had to watch Donny and Marie Osmond. But later he got to watch The Incredible Hulk, so he cheered up. My mom put us to bed, but sometime around midnight, I woke up because I heard her crying. I got out of bed and went into her room, and she was sitting on the side of her bed and she had all her clothes on.”

“Why was she crying?” Maddie leaned forward.

Meg turned to Maddie and said, “Because my father was having another affair.”

“Did she tell you that?”

“Of course not, but I was ten years old. I knew about the affairs.” Meg’s gaze narrowed. “Daddy wouldn’t have left us for her. I know he wouldn’t have really done that.”

“Alice thought he was going to.”

“They all thought that.” Meg laughed without humor. “Ask them. Ask Anna Van Damme, Joan Campbell, Katherine Howard, and Jewel Finley. They all thought he was going to leave my mother for them, but he never did. He never left her and he wouldn’t have left her for the waitress either.”

“Alice Jones.” Maddie had almost felt sorry for Meg, rattling off the names of her father’s lovers.

“Yes.”

“Jewel Finley? Wasn’t she friends with your mother?”

“Yeah,” Meg scoffed. “Some friend.”

“Did something happen that day out of the ordinary?”

“I don’t think so.”

Maddie put her forearms on her knees, leaned forward, and looked into Meg’s eyes. “Usually when you see an otherwise sane woman kill her husband and then herself, there is something that has added stress to the relationship. Usually it’s the belief that the person feeling the most stress feels powerless, like she’s losing everything and therefore she has nothing else to lose. If it wasn’t your father’s infidelity, then it had to be something else.”

“Maybe she just planned to frighten them with the gun. Maybe she wanted to scare them and things got carried away.”

That was usually the excuse, but rarely the case. “Is that what you believe?”

“Yes. Maybe she found them naked together.”

“They were both clothed. Alice was behind the bar and your father was in front of it. They were at least ten feet apart.”

“Oh.” She bit her thumbnail. “I still think she went there to scare Dad and things got out of control.”

“You think that, but you don’t know.”

Meg dropped her hand and stood. “My mother loved my father. I just don’t think she went there with the intention of killing anyone.” She put her purse over her shoulder. “I’ve got to get home.”

Maddie stood. “Well, thanks for your help,” she said and walked Meg to the door. “I appreciate it.”

“If I can clear anything up, give me a call.”

“I will.” After Meg left, Maddie moved into the living room and turned off the tape. She felt sorry for Meg. She truly did. Meg was a victim of the past just like she was, but Meg was older than both Mick and Maddie and recalled more of that horrible night. Meg also recalled more than she was willing to talk about too. More than she wanted Maddie to know, but that was okay-for now. Maddie had written the first chapter of the book but had stopped to work on the timeline. When she got the sequence of-

“Meow.”

Maddie leaned her head back. “For the love of God.” She moved to the door and look down at the kitten on the other side. “Go away.”

“Meow.”

She pulled the cord to her vertical blinds and turned them so that she could no longer see the annoying cat. She moved into the kitchen and made a low-carb dinner. She ate in front of the television with the sound turned way up. After dinner, she took a leisurely bath and scrubbed her skin with a vanilla body scrub. A white jar of Marshmallow Fluff body butter sat on the counter next to a towel. She’d received it in the mail at her house in Boise yesterday and had tossed it into her purse.

Lord, had it only been yesterday that she’d met with Trina, had a bridesmaid fitting, and had sex with Mick? She unplugged the bathtub drain and stood. She’d been a busy girl.

Maddie dried herself, then rubbed the creamy lotion into her skin. She pulled on her striped pajama pants and pink T-shirt, then moved to the living room and picked up the tape recorder from the coffee table where it still sat. A cell phone commercial blared from the televison and she hit the off button on the remote control. She wanted to replay Meg’s recollections of the evening her mother had killed two people and then herself.

“Meow.”

“Damn it!” She pulled the cord to the blinds and there, sitting like a white snowball in the darkening shadows of evening, sat her tormenter. She put her hands on her hips and glared at the kitten through the glass. “You have gotten on my last nerve.”

“Meow.”

How such a racket could come from such a tiny mouth was beyond Maddie. “Go away!” As if it understood, the kitten stood, walked around in a circle, then sat in the same exact spot.

“Meow.”

“I’ve had it.” Maddie went to the laundry room, shoved her arms into a jean jacket, then stomped across the floor to the French doors. She threw them open and scooped up the kitten. The kitten was so small its entire torso fit in one hand. “You probably have fleas or ringworm,” she said.

“Meow.”

She held the kitten out at arm’s length. “The last thing I need is a big-headed inbred cat.”

“Meow.”

“Shh. I’m going to find you a good home.” The dang kitten started to purr like they were going to be friends or something. As quietly as possible, she moved down the steps and tiptoed across the cold grass to the Allegrezzas’ yard. A light in the kitchen burned and through the sliding glass door, she watched Louie make a sandwich. “You’re going to love these people,” she whispered.

“Meow.”

“Really. They have a kid, and kids love kittens. Act cute and you’re in.” She set it on the deck, then ran like hell back to her house. As if she were escaping a demon, she closed the door, locked it, and shut the blinds. She sat on the couch and leaned her head back. Quiet. Thank God. She closed her eyes and told herself she’d just performed a very good deed. She could have chased it off by throwing something at it. Little Pete Allegrezza was a nice kid. He probably wanted a cat and would give it a good home. It obviously hadn’t eaten in a while and Louie would no doubt hear it and feed it a hunk of lunch meat. Maddie was practically a friggin’ saint.

“Meow.”

“Are you shitting me?” She sat up and opened her eyes.

“Meow.”

“Fine. I tried to be nice.” She stormed into her bedroom and shoved her feet into a pair of black flip-flops. “Stupid cat.” She returned to the living room, threw open the back door, and scooped up the kitten. She held it up in front of her face and glared into its spooky eyes. “You’re too stupid to know I found you a good home.”

“Meow.”

This was karma. Bad karma. Definitely a payback for something she’d done. She grabbed her purse with her free hand and flipped on the outside lights by the laundry room door. Once she was outside, the transponder in her purse unlocked the car’s door. “Don’t you even think about scratching this leather,” she said as she set the cat on the passenger seat. It was Sunday night and the animal shelter was closed. So dropping off the cat was not an option. If she drove to the other side of the lake and dumped it on a doorstep over there, the damn thing would not be able to find its way back.

She hit the start button on the gearshift. She wasn’t totally heartless. She wouldn’t dump it somewhere with a big pit bull chained in the yard. She didn’t want that kind of karma.

She put the car into reverse and glanced over at the kitten sitting on her expensive leather seat and staring straight ahead. “Hasta la vista, baby.”

“Meow.”

Mick drove his Dodge into the parking lot of the D-Lite Grocery Store and parked in a slot a few rows from the front doors. Pulling in, he’d seen the black Mercedes parked beneath one of the lot’s bright lights. Although he’d never personally seen the car, everyone in town knew Madeline Dupree drove a black Mercedes like Batman. Within the slightly tinted windows, Mick could just see the outline of her head and face. He walked to the car and knocked on the driver’s-side window. Without a sound, the glass lowered inch by inch. The parking lot light shone into the window and suddenly he was staring into the dark brown eyes of the woman who’d wrung him out the night before.

“Nice car,” he said.

“Thanks.”

“Meow.”

He looked down past her face to a white ball of fur in her lap. “Why, Maddie, you have a pussycat on your-”

“Don’t say it.”

He laughed. “When did you get a cat?”

“It’s not mine. I hate cats.”

“Then why’s it on your…lap?”

“It wouldn’t go away.” She turned and looked ahead; her hands gripped the steering wheel. “I tried to find it a home across the lake. I even had a house all picked out. A nice one with yellow shutters.”