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hands around my teacup. I felt as if I'd barely survived an earthquake.
    "Well?" Libby asked.
    "I called a lawyer." My teeth rattled against the rim of the teacup, so I put it down again. "Emma's in a lot of trouble."
    We both sat, thinking about our little sister.
    We had tried. Libby and I had both talked to her in recent weeks, to try making her see that drinking wasn't an answer to her pain. But Emma hadn't slowed her headlong downhill plunge long enough to listen to a single word. Mind you, we'd all three lost husbands. Libby had even buried two. It was the curse of Blackbird women. But in the two years since her husband had been killed in a car accident, Emma had tried every way she could think of to forget the man who'd been her soul mate. Lately, she'd taken to alcohol.
    The only thing clear in Emma's mind was that she didn't want anyone's help—not from her sisters or the various men who followed her around like fraternity boys on the trail of the campus bad girl.
    "Oh, stop," she had ordered me with disdain when I broached the subject. "I'm in control."
    She wasn't even close.
    And with history having a tendency to repeat itself, I was terrified of losing my sister as well as my own husband.
    Drinking tea, I tried to imagine how we were going to get through the next few days. I needed an expert strategist to think it through.
    "One of Mr. Abruzzo's lawyers?" Libby asked.
    "What?"
    "You called one of Mr. Abruzzo's mob lawyers?"
    "He's not— Yes, as a matter of fact. He's going to the hospital now. He'll make sure Emma is protected."
    The waitress brought our food, the sight of which made my stomach sour.
    Libby began tearing apart her quesadilla. "One weird thing."
    "Yes?"
    "There was a big white envelope in Rush's hand."
    I stared at her. "What?"
    Libby ravenously bit the corner off a wedge of cheese-packed tortilla. "While the paramedics checked you out, I looked at Rush. He was in the straw, just like Emma, except there was— Well, he was a mess, let me tell you. Normally, I have a tender stomach for gore, but Placida must have been with me. They hadn't moved the body yet, and I saw it—a white envelope. Kinda squished, but I noticed it." She licked melted cheese from her thumb.
    I tried to understand what she was telling me. "What kind of envelope? You mean like the invitation? Or a Christmas card? A utility bill?"
    She took a more ladylike nibble. "No, more of an oversized envelope, maybe eight-by-ten, like a smallish manila envelope, only it wasn't manila. It was white. I noticed it because it was an unusual thing to see in a horse barn. I mean, there was Rush, dressed for fox hunting, except he had this nice white—"
    "Had he gone hunting?" I asked. "Could you tell if he'd been riding?"
    Libby frowned. She was an artist, and I trusted her to remember visual details. At last she shook her head. "No. He was wearing his riding clothes, but they were clean. And he was still wearing his street shoes."
    Fox hunters, we knew, rarely drove their cars wearing their best riding boots.
    Emma, I recalled, hadn't changed into her formal riding habit. She'd been wearing jeans.
    I said, "Was it Rush's blood all over Emma? Or was she cut anywhere?"
    Libby shook her head. "Just her mouth and a little around her eye—not enough to cause all that blood. That doesn't mean it was Rush's. Don't think negatively, Nora. It's bad karma."
    "But it's logical. What about her riding crop? Did you see it in the straw?"
    "Yes. Nobody touched it until the police came. They took it immediately."
    I didn't want to think about what Emma's riding crop had been used for. "Does Emma even know Rush? Were they friends?"
    Libby slid her eyes sideways at me. "Are you asking me if she was sleeping with him?"
    "Oh, for God's sake, Lib—"
    "Emma has a gazillion boyfriends. It's not out of the question that she and Rush—"
    "He's married. She wouldn't date a married man."
    "She hasn't been herself lately. In a lot of ways."
    I pierced a tiny bite