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Sophie the richness of adventure, but in the end it had been irresponsible. It wasn’t until they landed in San Francisco for a while that she realized her darling daughter was a freaking genius when it came to math. At the age of thirteen she was working on college-level stuff, and Rachel had always despised math.
    But in a sheltered academic community like Silver Falls, there’d be the right kind of program, the individual study, and having a professor for a stepfather would ensure Sophie got everything she needed.
    And she was happy—Rachel was sure of it. Sure enough that she wasn’t about to give even the slightest hint that she was having second thoughts. Because she wasn’t. She’d made her choice, the best for Sophie, and she’d happily live with it. Regret was for idiots.
    Of course, she’d assumed San Francisco was a safe haven as well. There would never be a murder in David’s world—he was much too organized to let that happen. She would bring Sophie into that world and give them both time to heal.
    She told herself it was just really bad timing. If David’s brother had appeared even six months later she’d be all settled into her normal, constricting new life and his stupid dark hints wouldn’thave bothered her. They would have rolled off her back like all this fucking rain.
    And she’d promised to stop saying fuck. David hated that word, hated to hear it coming from anyone, particularly his new wife. All her arguments about the expressiveness of good old Anglo-Saxon went over his head, and he’d even gone so far as to suggest a jar where she stuck a dollar every time she used the word.
    One look at her face and he’d backed down at that idea, but he still fussed, and she remained hamstrung. The first few months in this tiny college town, in her new life, had been easy, the novelty of it enough to keep her going. But as time passed the elegant prairie-style house had begun to feel like a prison, and the word fuck had come up with increasing frequency.
    But Sophie said she liked it here. She liked the school, even though she sniffed at the uniforms. And she loved her friends, particularly Kristen Bannister. And she was thriving with the specialized math program, though that was no surprise. Sophie had always been infinitely adaptable, equally at home in Africa or Kansas.
    No, Rachel thought, so long as Sophie was okay she could grin and bear it. David was a kind man, an honest man, and she’d learned long ago that sex wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be. FortunatelyDavid performed his husbandly duties with increasing infrequency, even going so far as to suggest they have separate bedrooms since she tended to thrash about in her sleep.
    No, everything was absolutely fine in her young marriage. It was just a normal time of adjustment, and the horrifying murder the result of a lover’s quarrel, nothing to do with her. She and David were fine. But they certainly didn’t need Caleb Middleton reappearing to make things worse.
    She pulled into the driveway and stared up at the house. When she’d first seen it she’d been charmed—it was a Frank Lloyd Wright knockoff, all angles and planes and soothing to the eyes. There was a wing to the right that held her studio and the family room, and one to the left for the five bedrooms, one of which had been turned into David’s office. It was a house for a large, rambunctious family. Unfortunately it had never held one. And all those stained-glass windows kept the occasional ray of sunshine from penetrating, and the empty halls echoed. Even her studio seemed haunted.
    She sat for a long moment, the car still running. Maggie said Sophie was already asleep, but she could drive over there, pick her up and head straight out of town, never looking back. In a few days they could be continents away from this place, in the sun, free from this prison of rain and sorrow.
    She turned off the