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looked gray, cold, and angry. Foreboding.
    Without turning around, she asked, “Which one?”
    “Which—”
    “Brother.”
    “Danny.”
    Danny, who had called her twice in the last several days. Danny, whose calls she had refused to take.
    Sayre turned to face her assistant, who was regarding her sympathetically. She said gently, “Your brother Danny died earlier today, Sayre. I thought you should be told in person, not over a cell phone.”
    Sayre released a long breath through her mouth. “How?”
    “I think you should speak with this Mr. Merchant.”
    “Julia, please. How did Danny die?”
    Gently she said, “It appears he killed himself. I’m sorry.” Then after a moment, she added, “That’s all the information Mr. Merchant would give me.”
    Sayre then retreated to her private office and closed the door. She heard the phone in the anteroom ring several times, but Julia didn’t put the calls through, realizing that she needed time alone to assimilate the news.
    Had Danny been calling to tell her good-bye? If so, how would she live with the guilt of having refused to speak to him?
    After about an hour, Julia knocked tentatively on the door. “Come in,” Sayre called. When Julia stepped inside, Sayre said, “There’s no point in your staying, Julia. Go home. I’ll be fine.”
    The assistant laid a sheet of paper on her desk. “I’ve still got work to do. Buzz me if you need me. Can I bring you anything?”
    Sayre shook her head no. Julia withdrew and closed the door. On the sheet of paper she’d brought in she’d written down the time and place of the funeral. Tuesday morning, eleven o’clock.
    Sayre hadn’t been surprised that it was scheduled so soon. Huff always acted with dispatch. He and Chris would be impatient to put this behind them, to bury Danny and get on with their lives as soon as possible.
    However, the timeliness of the funeral had probably worked to her advantage, too. It prevented a lengthy internal debate on whether to attend. She couldn’t languish in indecision but had been forced to make up her mind quickly.
    Yesterday morning she’d caught a flight to New Orleans via Dallas–Fort Worth and had arrived in the late afternoon. She’d taken a walk through the French Quarter, eaten dinner at a gumbo shop, then spent the night at the Windsor Court.
    For all the comfort the luxury hotel afforded, she’d had a virtually sleepless night. She did not want to go back to Destiny. She did not. Silly as it was, she feared walking into some kind of snare that would trap her there, keep her in Huff’s clutches forever.
    Daybreak hadn’t lessened her dread. She’d gotten up, dressed for the funeral, and set out for Destiny, planning to arrive just in time for the service and to leave immediately thereafter.
    The church parking lot was already overflowing into the surrounding neighborhood streets. She had to park several blocks away from the picture-book church with the stained-glass windows and tall white steeple. Just as she stepped onto the columned porch, the bell chimed the hour of eleven.
    The vestibule was cool compared to outdoors, but Sayre noticed that many in the sanctuary were waving paper fans to supplement the inadequate air-conditioning. As she slipped into the back row, the choir finished singing the opening hymn and the pastor stepped up to the pulpit.
    While everyone else bowed their heads for prayer, Sayre looked at the casket in front of the chancel rail. It was simple, silver, and sealed. She was glad of that. She didn’t think she could bear her last image of Danny to be his lying like a wax doll in a satin-lined coffin. To prevent thoughts of that, she concentrated on the elegant purity of the arrangement of white calla lilies on top of the casket.
    She couldn’t see either Huff or Chris for the crowd, but she supposed they were seated in the front pew, looking appropriately bereaved. The hypocrisy of it all made her nauseated.
    She was named among the surviving