Delaney’s attention was drawn to Old Mrs. Van Damme hunched over an aluminum walker and teetering toward a deviled egg, her white hair plastered with finger waves just as Delaney remembered. She couldn’t recall the woman’s first name. She didn’t know if she’d ever heard it used. Everyone had always referred to her as Old Mrs. Van Damme. The woman was so ancient now, her back bowed with age and osteoporosis, she was turning into a human fossil.

“Can I help you get something to eat?” Delaney offered, standing a little straighter while counting back to the last time she’d had a glass of milk, or at the very least a calcium-enriched Tums.

Mrs. Van Damme snagged an egg, then handed Delaney her plate. “Some of that and that,” she directed, pointing to several different dishes.

“Would you like salad?”

“Makes me gassy,” Mrs. Van Damme whispered, then pointed at a bowl of ambrosia. “That looks good, and some of those chicken wings, too. They’re hot, but I brought my Pepto.”

For such a frail little thing, Old Mrs. Van Damme ate like a lumberjack. “Are you related to Jean-Claude?” Delaney joked, attempting to interject a little levity in the otherwise somber occasion.

“Who?”

“Jean-Claude Van Damme, the kickboxer.”

“No, I don’t know any Jean-Claude, but maybe they got one living in Emmett. Those Emmett Van Dammes are always in trouble, always kicking up about something or another. Last year Teddy-my late brother’s middle grandchild-got arrested for stealing that big Smokey the Bear they had standing in front of the forest service building. Why’d he want something like that, anyway?”

“Maybe because his name is Teddy.”

“Huh?”

Delaney frowned. “Never mind.” She shouldn’t have tried. She’d forgotten that her sense of humor wasn’t appreciated in redneck towns where men tended to use their shirt pockets for ashtrays. She sat Mrs. Van Damme at a table near the buffet, then she headed for the bar.

She’d often thought the whole after-the-funeral ritual of gathering to eat like hogs and get drunk was a bit odd, but she supposed it existed to give the family comfort. Delaney didn’t feel comforted in the least. She felt on display, but she’d always felt that way living in Truly. She’d grown up as the daughter of the mayor and his very beautiful wife. Delaney had always fallen a little short somehow. She’d never been outgoing or boisterous like Henry, and she’d never been beautiful like Gwen.

She walked into the parlor where Henry’s cronies from the Moose Lodge were holding down the bar and reeking of Johnnie Walker. They paid her little attention as she poured herself a glass of wine and stepped out of the low heels her mother had insisted she borrow.

Even though Delaney knew that she was sometimes compulsive, she really had only one addiction. She was a shoe-aholic. She thought Imelda Marcos got a bad rap. Delaney loved shoes. All shoes. Except little pumps with stubby heels. Too boring. Her tastes leaned toward stilettoes, funky boots, or Hercules sandals. Her clothes weren’t exactly conventional, either. For the last few years she’d worked at Valentina, an upscale salon where customers paid a hundred dollars to get their hair cut and expected to see their stylist in trendsetting clothes. For their money, Delaney’s customers wanted to see short vinyl skirts, leather pants, or sheer blouses with black bras. Not exactly proper funeral attire for the stepdaughter of a man who’d ruled the small town for many years.

Delaney was just about to exit the room when the conversation stopped her.

“Don says he looked like a charcoal briquette by the time they got him out.”

“Hellva way to die.”

The men shook their collective heads and drank their scotch. Delaney knew the fire had occurred in a shed Henry had built across town. According to Gwen, he’d taken a recent interest in breeding Appaloosas, but he hadn’t cared for the smell of manure near his house.

“Henry loved those horses,” said a Moose in a cowboy-cut leisure suit. “I heard tell a spark caught the barn on fire, too. There wasn’t much left of those Appaloosas, just some femur bones and a hoof or two.”

“Do you think it was arson?”

Delaney rolled her eyes. Arson. In a town that had yet to plug into cable television, Truly loved nothing more than listening to gossip and spreading intrigue. They lived for it. Ate it up like a fifth food group.

“The investigators from Boise don’t really think so, but it hasn’t been ruled out.”

There was a pause in the conversation before someone said, “I doubt the fire was intentional. Who would do that to Henry?”

“Maybe Allegrezza.”

“Nick?”

“He hated Henry.”

“So did a lotta people, if the truth be told. Burning a man and his horses is a helluva lotta hate. I don’t know if Allegrezza hated Henry that much.”

“Henry was plenty ticked about those condos Nick is buildin‘ out on Crescent Bay, and the two of them almost got into a fistfight about it down at the Chevron a month or two ago. I don’t know how he got that piece of property from Henry, but he sure as hell did. Then he went and built condos all over the damn place.”

Again they shook their heads and tipped their glasses. Delaney had spent a lot of hours lying on the white sands and swimming in the clear blue water of Crescent Bay. Coveted by most everyone in town, the Bay was a prime piece of real estate located on a large expanse of undeveloped beach. The property had been in Henry’s family for generations, and Delaney wondered how Nick had gotten his hands on it.

“Last I heard, those condos are making Allegrezza a fortune.”

“Yep. They’re being snapped up by Californians. Next thing you know, we’ll be overrun by latte-sippin,‘ dope-smokin’ pantywaists.”

“Or worse-actors.”

“Nothin‘ worse then a do-gooder like Bruce Willis moving in and trying to change everything. He’s the worse thing that ever happened to Hailey. Hell, he moves up there, renovates a few buildings, then thinks he can tell everyone in the whole damn state how to vote.”

The men concurred with a mutual nod and disgruntled scoff. When the conversation turned to movie stars and action films, Delaney walked unnoticed from the room. She moved down the hall to Henry’s study and closed the pocket doors behind her. On the wall behind his massive mahogany desk, Henry’s face stared down at her. Delaney remembered when he’d had the portrait painted. She’d been thirteen, about the time she’d first attempted to exert a little independence. She’d wanted to pierce her ears. Henry had said no. It was neither the first nor certainly the last time he’d exercised his control over her. Henry had always had to have control.

Delaney sat in the huge leather chair and was surprised to see a picture of herself sitting on the desk. She recalled the day Henry had taken the photograph. It was the day her whole life had changed. She’d been seven and her mother had just married Henry. It was the day she’d walked out of a single wide on the outskirts of Las Vegas and, after a short flight, into a three-story Victorian in Truly.

The first time she’d seen the house, with its twin turrets and gabled roof, she’d thought she was moving into a palace, which meant Henry was obviously a king. The mansion was surrounded by forest on three sides, cut back to allow beautifully landscaped lawn while the backyard gently sloped toward the cool waters of Lake Mary.

Within hours, Delaney had departed poverty and landed in a storybook. Her mother was happy and Delaney felt like a princess. And on that day, sitting on the steps in a frilly white dress her mother had forced her to wear, she’d fallen in love with Henry Shaw. He was older than the other men in her mother’s life had been-nicer, too. He didn’t yell at Delaney, and he didn’t make her mother cry. He made her feel safe and secure, something she’d felt all too infrequently in her young life. He’d adopted her and he was the only father she’d ever known. For those reasons, she loved Henry and she always would.

It was also the first time she’d laid eyes on Nick Allegrezza. He’d popped out of the bushes in Henry’s yard, his gray eyes blazing hatred, his cheeks mottled with anger. He’d scared her, yet she’d been fascinated by him at the same time. Nick had been a beautiful boy, black hair, smooth tan skin, and eyes like smoke.

He’d stood in the buckbrush, his arms at his sides, stiff with rage and defiance. All that rebellious Basque and Irish blood raging within his veins. He’d looked at the two of them, then he’d spoken to Henry. Years later Delaney couldn’t remember the exact words, but she would never forget the angry sentiment.

“You make sure you steer clear of him,” Henry had said as they’d watched him turn and leave, his chin up, back straight.

It wouldn’t be the last time he would warn her to stay away from Nick, but years later, it was one warning she wished she’d listened to.


Nick shoved his legs into his Levi’s, then stood to button the fly. He glanced over his shoulder at the woman tangled in motel sheets. Her blond hair fanned about her head. Her eyes were closed, her breathing slow and easy. Gail Oliver was the daughter of a judge and the recently divorced mother of a young son. To celebrate the end of her marriage, she’d had her tummy tucked and her breasts implanted with saline. At Henry’s funeral she’d walked up to him as bold as brass and announced she wanted him to be the first to see her new body. He could tell by the look in her eyes that she’d thought he should feel flattered. He wasn’t. He’d wanted a distraction, and she’d offered it. She’d acted offended when he’d pulled the Harley to a stop in front of the Starlight Motel, but she hadn’t asked him to take her back home.

Nick turned from the woman in bed and moved across green carpet to a sliding glass door that led onto a small deck overlooking Highway 55. He hadn’t planned on attending the old man’s funeral. He still didn’t know exactly how it had happened. One minute he’d been standing on Crescent Beach going over some specs with a subcontractor, then the next thing he knew, he was on his Harley heading for the cemetery. He hadn’t meant to go. He’d known he was persona non grata, but he’d gone anyway. For some reason he didn’t want to examine too closely, he’d had to say good-bye.