Whispers Read Free Page B

still lost in thought. His youngest daughter, Tessa, was and always had been the maverick in the family. Blond and blue-eyed with a figure that, at twelve, had been obscenely curvaceous, Tessa had forever been the wild card in the deck that was the Holland family. Whereas Miranda had tried to please, and Claire had faded into the woodwork, Tessa had brazenly and willfully defied Dutch whenever she could. Knowing she was his favorite, she’d rebelled at every turn. Trouble—that’s what Tessa had been, but Dutch couldn’t believe, wouldn’t, that she was a killer.
    â€œDamn it all to hell,” he muttered as he chewed on the end of his cigar. If only he’d been fortunate enough to have sired sons. Things would have been different. Far different. God had played a cruel trick on him with these girls.
    Daughters always gave a man grief.
    Easing off the accelerator at the crooked pine tree, the one he’d planted a lifetime ago, when he’d bought this place for Dominique, he guided the car into the private lane leading to the estate. He’d been a lovesick fool at the time he’d set that little pine into the ground, but the years had changed him, worn that love so thin it had shattered like crystal hurled against stone.
    He unlocked the gates and drove along the cracked asphalt of the once-tended drive. The silvery waters of the lake winked seductively through the trees. How he’d loved this place.
    Nostalgia tugged at his heart as he rounded a final bend and saw the house, a rambling old hunting lodge that, nestled in a stand of oak and fir, rose three stories to look upon the lake.
    Home.
    A place of triumph and heartache.
    Thinking his wife would love it as much as he did, he’d bought the vast tree-covered acres for Dominique. From the moment she saw the rough timbers and open beams, she’d hated everything there was about their new home. Her appraising eyes had studied the steep angle of the roof, the cedar walls, plank floors, and pitched ceiling. She touched the wooden railing of the stairs, with its hand-carved banister and posts decorated with handcrafted Northwest creatures, and her nostrils had flared as if she’d suddenly come across a bad smell. “You bought this for me?” she’d asked, incredulous and bitterly disappointed. Her voice had echoed through the cavernous foyer. “This . . . this monstrosity?”
    Miranda, barely four, the spitting image of her mother, had eyed the old house solemnly as if she’d expected all manner of ghosts, goblins, and monsters to appear at any given second.
    â€œI suppose this”—Dominique pointed a long finger at the salmon carved into the lowest post—“is considered art?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œFor the love of God, Benedict, why? What possessed you to buy it?”
    Dutch had felt the first premonition of dread steal through his heart. He spread his hands. “It’s for you and the girls.”
    â€œFor us? Out here? In the middle of nowhere?” High heels clicked indignantly as she walked through the foyer and into the living room, with its vaulted ceilings and three chandeliers created by nesting dozens of deer antlers together. “Away from my friends?”
    â€œIt’s good for children to grow up—”
    â€œIn the city, Benedict, where they can meet other children their age, in a house that does them justice, where they’ll be exposed to culture and the right people.” She sighed, then, spying Claire toddling through open French doors where the back of the house flanked the lake, Dominique started running, heels clipping ever faster. “This is going to be a nightmare.” Snagging Claire from the covered porch before she was anywhere near the shoreline, Dominique turned and glared at her husband. “Living here won’t work.”
    â€œOf course it will. I’ll build tennis courts and a pool with its own house. You can have