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  away from the farm. When Kate inherited the place

  after his death and came down to await little Jake’s

  birth, she had needed all her persuasive charm to bring

  Lacy around. He had approved of Rob, though, and

  so adored his infant great-nephew that he continued

  to live in the room he’d been born in, even after Kate

  and Rob were married.

  “We’re going to fix up Lacy’s room and hire a live-

  in nanny,” Kate said. “Mary Pat’s trustees have already

  agreed to kick in with part of the cost.”

  “Great!” I said. “But does this mean that we have to

  find another place for Cal after school?”

  She shook her head and gave me a mischievous smile.

  “Nope. It does mean that I’m going to bill you and

  Dwight for a prorated share of her salary, though.”

  “Deal,” I said.

  We solemnly shook hands on it, then carried the pie

  and coffee out to the living room.

  Cal went to bed soon after we got home, but before

  Dwight and I called it a night, we let Bandit out for a

  run and walked outside ourselves to admire what we’d

  accomplished that weekend.

  The night breeze lacked the bone chilling edge it had

  carried only two days ago, yet the cool air still required

  jackets and gloves. A quarter moon gave enough light

  125

  MARGARET MARON

  to see where we were putting our feet and I could al-

  most smell spring in the air.

  In one of our few quiet moments the day before,

  Dwight had explained why he was so late getting back

  Friday night.

  “I can’t believe we’ve had this whole weekend with-

  out somebody finding another body part,” I said. “I

  was sure you were going to get called out for the miss-

  ing head.”

  “I just hope the ME’s preliminary report’s on my

  desk tomorrow morning and that it says they’ve found

  a tattoo or a prominent scar or anything that’ll help us

  make a positive ID. The only thing halfway unique to

  this guy is that an X-ray of his right arm shows that he

  broke the ulna about ten years ago. I bet at least twenty

  percent of the guys in this country have broken a right

  arm sometime in their lives.”

  He told me that the Alzheimer patient’s family had

  been notified and yeah, he’d heard that they’d re-

  tained Zack Young to file a civil suit against the nursing

  home.

  I told him that Kate and Rob were going to hire a

  live-in nanny and that we’d need to share the cost. “It’ll

  still be cheaper than putting Cal in formal after-school

  care. Better for him, too.”

  “You ever gonna say what yesterday morning was all

  about?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “C’mon, Deb’rah. I may not have been a full-time

  dad after Jonna and I divorced, but I got up there at

  least twice a month and I know my son well enough to

  know he wouldn’t pass up a Canes game on his own.”

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  HARD ROW

  I was silent.

  “He’s not giving you a hard time, is he? Talking back

  when I’m not around? Disobeying?”

  “Nothing like that. Honest. It was just a little bump

  in the road and we agreed that this is the way to smooth

  it out. If it was something serious, I’d certainly tell you,

  but I gave him my word and I don’t want to go back

  on it, okay?”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  He looked down at me with a rueful smile. “Got more

  than you bargained for, didn’t you, shug?”

  “I’m sorry Jonna’s dead,” I said honestly. “And I’m

  sorry for the way this happened, but Portland and I had

  already planned on getting the custody arrangement

  amended so that you could have Cal here for holidays

  and summers.”

  He shook his head. “Poor Jonna. She wouldn’t have

  stood a chance with you two.” Then his smile faded.

  “I’m just glad we didn’t have to put Cal through a court

  battle, glad he didn’t have to choose between us.”

  I squeezed his hand and we walked down the drive

  to where the young crepe myrtles began. In this silvery

  light, they were a double row of pale slender sticks and

  leafless twigs.

  “I’ll probably be sore tomorrow from all the work we

  did today, but they’re going to be beautiful,” I said.

  Dwight turned and looked back toward the house.

  “I was thinking we could put more pecans on the south

  side. They’ll shade both bedrooms in the summer, but

  they won’t interfere with the solar panels or the power

  lines.”

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  MARGARET MARON

  I smiled.

  “What?” he said with an answering smile.

  “I was just thinking how old we’d be before any trees

  get tall enough to interfere with the wires.”

  “Less than fifteen years if we keep them watered and

  fertilized.” He gave a contented sigh. “We really are

  married, aren’t we?”

  I laughed out loud. “It takes trees to convince you?”

  He stopped and I turned to look up into his face.

  What I saw there made my heart turn over.

  “Dwight? Sweetheart?”

  He put his arms around me and his voice had a sud-

  den rough huskiness. “I used to try and imagine what

  it would be like if hell froze solid and I actually got you

  to marry me.”

  “And?”

  “And this is better than I ever imagined.”

  Our lips met in the moonlight.

  “Much better,” he said and kissed me again.

  Despite the cool night air, I began to feel warm all

  over.

  Dwight never needed to have a diagram drawn for

  him. “Why don’t we take this inside?” he murmured

  and whistled for the dog.

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  C H A P T E R

  15

  We must take things as we find them, making a choice of

  such as seem to us, by the use of our best judgment, to con-

  tain the most good and the fewest evils.

  —Profitable Farming in the Southern States, 1890

  Flame Smith

  Monday Morning, March 6

  % Flame Smith was tired, angry, and fighting a dull

  headache, the direct result of driving east with the

  morning sun in her eyes for three hours. All weekend

  she had waited at Buck Harris’s mountain lodge, willing

  him to pull up in the drive and honk the horn exuber-

  antly upon seeing her car there.

  It never happened and she was now so furious with

  Buck that had she met him as she drove down the wind-

  ing private road, she would have rammed her Jeep into his

  BMW hard enough that the hood would be smashed all

  the way back to the steering wheel in such neat little even

  pleats that he would be playing it like an accordion.

  The image gave her a sour pleasure. So did the image

  of chasing him back down the mountain with the .357

  Magnum she kept in the console beside her.


  129

  MARGARET MARON

  In her forty-odd years, she had been chased by many

  men. Had even let a few catch her. Usually on her terms.

  Wasn’t that why God had given her a mane of fiery red

  curls, flawless skin with a light dusting of freckles across

  an upturned nose in the middle of a lovely face, a nicely

  proportioned body with a twenty-inch waist, and a low

  sexy laugh that men wanted to hear again and again?

  She had passed forty with every asset still intact, so

  why was she chasing around the state of North Carolina

  looking for this particular man? Yes, he had money

  and yes, she was tired of worrying about how she was

  going to pay the mortgage on Jackson House, her B&B

  down in Wilmington; but he was not the first man with

  money to want to put a ring on her finger and another

  one through her nose. He was not classically handsome,

  he needed to lose at least twenty pounds, he could be

  crude and rough, and like many self-made men she had

  known, he seemed to have the ethics of a polecat. But

  he was hung like a prize bull, he was surprisingly unself-

  ish in bed, and he made her laugh.

  The older she got, the more important that was

  becoming.

  All the same, if he thought she was going to sit around

  cooling her heels while he took his sweet time to let her

  know why he’d broken both their date and his word, he

  had another thought coming, she told herself. It could

  have been fun for both of them, but c’est la damn vie.

  Enough was enough.

  She stopped for gas on the east side of Raleigh and

  bought a Coke for caffeine and a BC powder for her

  headache. To hell with Buck Harris. She would go back

  to Wilmington, make sure things continued to run

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  HARD ROW

  smoothly at Jackson House, and then maybe she would

  give ol’ what’s-his-name a call. The guy who had de-

  veloped one of the first planned communities along the

  river. The one who kept sending her orchids and roses.

  What the devil was his name? He wasn’t as rowdy as

  Buck, but what the hell? Maybe solid and dependable

  would wear better in the long run.

  As I-40 veered southeast through Colleton County,

  her headache eased off and she flipped on the radio,

  turning the dial to an amusing local country station.

  Solemn organ music played softly beneath a somber

  voice that enunciated proper names, followed by the

  name of a funeral home.

  Flame had to laugh. Just what she needed—the local

  obituaries. “Add Mr. Effin’ Buck Harris to your list,”

  she told the announcer. “From now on that SOB is

  dead to me.”

  Obituaries were followed by the latest county news:

  the weekend had produced four car wrecks and a motor-

  cycle accident for a total of three deaths. Several com-

  puters had been stolen from a Dobbs middle school. An

  employee with the county’s planning board had been

  charged with embezzling almost four thousand dollars.

  Stupid cow, thought Flame. Wreck your life for a pal-

  try four thousand?

  Still no identification for the dismembered body

  of a muscular Caucasian male. The Colleton County

  Sheriff ’s Department again urged the public to report

  any missing man between the age of thirty and sixty.

  Eighteen dogs had been confiscated in Black Creek and

  their owner charged with felony dog fighting and ani-

  mal cruelty, while—

  131

  MARGARET MARON

  “Wait a damn minute here!” Flame exclaimed. She

  was almost past the Dobbs exit, but she flashed her turn

  signal, yanked on her steering wheel and slid in front of

  a van that was trying to make its own sedate exit. The

  van honked angrily and veered to avoid rear-ending the

  Jeep, but Flame barely heard.

  It was crazy, but what if that bitch was even less will-

  ing than Buck to share what they had built?

  “Major Bryant?”

  Dwight looked up to see one of the departmental

  clerks standing in his doorway.

  “Mr. Stephenson’s here with a client and they’d like

  to speak to you if you have a minute?”

  “Sure,” he said, laying aside the ME’s report on the

  torso, a report which confirmed that it really was part

  and parcel of the other appendages they’d collected. If

  there had been scars, tattoos, or anything else unique

  to this body, they were obliterated by animal depreda-

  tions or by the heavy blade that had dismembered it.

  Said blade, incidentally, appeared to be approximately

  six inches wide with a slight curvature of the cutting

  edge, all consistent with an ordinary axe.

  Nevertheless, in addition to the broken right ulna ear-

  lier X-rays had discovered, the torso did carry two mark-

  ers that might help distinguish this body from another.

  First, there was a small mole just below the navel.

  Second was what the ME described as “a protrusive

  umbilicus.”

  “Thanks for seeing us, Major Bryant,” Reid Stephenson

  said formally as he held the door open for a very attrac-

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  HARD ROW

  tive redhead. A handsome six-footer himself, Reid was

  well-known for his penchant for knockout redheads,

  but this one was even more gorgeous than usual.

  Where the hell did he keep finding them? Dwight

  wondered as he stood and shook hands with Deborah’s

  cousin and former law partner.

  “This is Ms. Smith,” Reid said. “Flame Smith, from

  Wilmington.”

  “Major Bryant,” she said, offering a firm handshake.

  Up close, she was still gorgeous, if not quite as young

  as her flowing hair, slender figure and tight jeans implied

  at first glance. There were laugh lines around her wide

  mouth and small crinkles radiated from eyes as green

  as the snug sweater she wore beneath a beige leather

  jacket.

  “What can I do for y’all?” he asked when they were

  seated.

  Reid leaned forward. “That man, the one with his

  legs in one place and his body in another—has he been

  identified yet?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Because my client has been missing for over a week

  now and he fits the general description that’s been re-

  leased to the media.”

  Dwight frowned. “I thought you said Ms. Smith here

  is your client.”

  “Actually, I’m his client’s girlfriend,” said the redhead

  in a smoky voice that seemed to have Reid enthralled.

  “We were supposed to meet here in Dobbs this week

  for his divorce settlement, but he never showed up and

  I can’t find anyone who’s seen him lately. It’s weird to

  think it might be Buck you’ve found, but if it is—”

  133

  MARGARET MARON

  “I see,” said Dwight. “Does he have any identifying

  marks that you know of?”

  “Identifying marks?”
>
  “Like a tattoo or scars or something?” Reid said help-

  fully.

  Flame Smith shook her head.

  “Wait a minute!” said Reid. “Isn’t he missing the tip

  of one of his fingers?”

  “That’s right!” She held up a beautifully manicured

  finger. Her long nails were painted a soft coral. “His

  right index finger. It got caught in a piece of farm equip-

  ment when he was a teenager.”

  They looked at Dwight expectantly. The big deputy

  frowned as he leafed through the file on the body. “The

  right hand we found is missing the tip of the index fin-

  ger, but it’s also missing some other joints.”

  Flame Smith winced, but she did not go dramatic on

  them. Dwight had the impression that this was a woman

  who could, when necessary keep her emotions in check,

  but he was willing to bet she could also take advantage

  of a redhead’s reputation for a blazing tongue and tem-

  per if it suited her.

  “You say no one’s seen him,” he said. “Who have you

  actually asked?”

  “Well, first I tried everybody around here I could

  think of. I even drove over to the main office in New

  Bern thinking something might have come up, but no

  one’s seen him there since week before last. His wife’s

  been living at their New Bern place since they split and

  he’s been staying here.”

  “Here?”

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  HARD ROW

  “At the old farmhouse he got from his granddaddy. It

  was their first tomato farm.”

  “Oh yes,” said Dwight. “I remember now. It be-

  longed to his mother’s people, didn’t it? The old Buckley

  place?”

  “I guess. That’s his middle name. Judson Buckley

  Harris, but everybody calls him Buck.” She pushed a

  tress of hair away from her eyes. “I tried there first thing

  on Wednesday and again on Friday. No sign of him and

  the housekeeper says she hasn’t heard anything in over

  a week either. But in court Wednesday, I heard his wife

  say he might be holed up in the mountains.”

  “Deborah’s doing the Harris ED,” Reid murmured

  in an aside.

  “Deborah?” asked Flame. “Judge Knott? You know

  her?”

  With a repressive glance at Reid, Dwight nodded.

  “So then you—?”

  “—drove up to his lodge in the mountains?” she

  asked, finishing his question. “Yes. But he wasn’t there

  and when I finally caught up with the caretaker Sunday

  afternoon, he said he hadn’t heard from Buck in at least

  three weeks.”