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the windows down and, rather than choking on motor exhaust, inhale the soft air that was perfumed with honeysuckle and magnolia and the seminal scent of the swamp.
    The changes that had come about in the past decade were jarring to her senses and an affront to her memories of the place in which she’d grown up. But then, she supposed that the changes in herself were equally drastic, although perhaps not as apparent.
    The last time she’d driven this road, she’d been traveling in the opposite direction, away from Destiny. That day, the farther she got from home, the lighter she felt, as though she were molting layers of negativity along the way. Today she was returning, and her dread was as heavy as chain mail.
    Homesickness for the area, no matter how acute, would never have brought her back. Only her brother Danny’s death could have compelled her to return. Apparently he had withstood Huff and Chris for as long as he could and had escaped them in the only manner he’d felt was open to him.
    Fittingly, as she approached the outskirts of Destiny, she saw the smokestacks first. They jutted belligerently above the town, large and black and ugly. Smoke billowed from them today as on every other day of the year. It would have been too costly and inefficient to have shut down the furnaces, even in observance of Danny’s demise. Knowing Huff, it probably hadn’t even occurred to him to make this concession to his youngest child.
    The billboard marking the city limit read “Welcome to Destiny, Home of Hoyle Enterprises.” As though that’s something to boast, she thought. Quite the contrary. Iron pipe casting had made Huff rich, but it was a bloodstained wealth.
    She navigated the streets of town which she had first explored on bicycle. Later she’d learned to drive on them. Then as a teen she had cruised them with her friends, looking for action, boys, and whatever amusements they could scare up.
    While still a block away from the First United Methodist Church, she heard the organ music. The pipe organ had been a gift to the church from her mother, Laurel Lynch Hoyle. It bore a brass plaque in her memory. It was the small congregation’s pride and joy, being the only pipe organ in Destiny. None of the Catholic churches had one, and Destiny was predominantly Catholic. Her mother’s gift had been generous and sincere, but it was yet another symbol of how the Hoyles lorded over their town and everyone in it and refused to be outdone.
    How heartbreaking that the organ was playing a dirge for one of Laurel Hoyle’s children, who had died fifty years too soon, and by his own hand.
    Sayre had received the news Sunday afternoon upon returning to her office from a meeting with a client. Ordinarily she wouldn’t have worked on a Sunday, but that was the only day this particular client was free for an appointment. Julia Miller had recently celebrated her fifth year as Sayre’s assistant. She wouldn’t let Sayre work on a weekend without working herself. While Sayre was with the client, Julia had been catching up on paperwork.
    When Sayre returned, Julia passed her a pink memo slip. “This gentleman has called three times, Ms. Lynch. I wouldn’t give him your cell number, although he demanded it.”
    Sayre glanced at the area code, then wadded up the memo and tossed it into the wastepaper basket. “I don’t wish to speak to anyone in my family.”
    “He’s not family. He says he works for the family. It’s imperative that he reach you as soon as possible.”
    “I won’t talk to anybody who works for my family either. Any other messages? By any chance has Mr. Taylor called? He promised those valances by tomorrow.”
    “It’s your brother,” Julia blurted out. “He’s dead.”
    Sayre stopped short of her private office. For a long moment she stared through the wall of windows toward the Golden Gate Bridge. Only the very tops of the orange supports were visible above a solid blanket of fog. The water in the bay