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he’d employed a gardener to tend the thorny bushes.  They added a magnificent view from the dining table.  He remembered the numerous compliments the spectacular scenery had generated from their guests over the years.
    “You don’t look like the rosebush kind.”
    Michelle’s voice interrupted his stroll down memory lane.  She somehow had the uncanny ability to continually bring him back from his past.  He chuckled softly.  “They were Cassie’s, my late wife’s.  She loved roses, especially the red ones, like her flaming hair.  Red was her favorite color.  You might have noticed that from the painting in my study.”
    “How did she die?  Was she sick?”
    Erik tensed with dread and perplexity.  Did she really not know?  The news of Cassie’s death and the ongoing investigation to find her killer had made the headlines for months.  He’d never met anyone who didn’t associate the name LaCrosse with that tragedy.  Well, not until now.
    He didn’t want to talk about it, but since Michelle was now an uninformed member of his household, the question would always be hanging over their heads.  “She was killed by a drunk driver,” he said, wishing to put it to rest.
    “I hope they caught the bastard.”
    “Unfortunately, not yet.”  Erik frowned at her use of the word ‘bastard’ and the disdain with which she said it.
    “How could they not have found him yet?” she asked as if she had a personal stake in his loss.  “Drunks aren’t that hard to find.”  She crossed her arms and stared straight ahead.
    Feeling the tension building around them, Erik ran his fingers through his hair.  He seldom talked about that night.  And he definitely never spoke about it with a stranger.  But something about Michelle Carter made him want to open up his heart to her, tell her the whole truth.  Maybe it’s because of the way she’d handled Precious earlier today.  She seemed to have a gift to make people who were hurting feel better.
    “It was a stolen car that was later abandoned.  We knew it was a drunk because it was littered with empty liquor bottles.  Cassie’s blood, and fabric from her dress was wedged into the front bumper.”  He balled his fists at his sides.  “ He walked away without even a scratch while my wife bled to death in front of me.”
    “You were there?  You saw it happen?”
    How much should he tell this woman who was gently coaxing the most horrifying, most painful experience of his life out of him?  Erik wondered.
    “We’d gone to a birthday party at a friend’s house in Manchester.”  He spoke slowly and cautiously.  “On the way home, we got into an argument.  It was late and Cassie begged me to wait until the morning and she would explain everything to me.  She was like that, you know.  She hated confrontations.  If a fight began brewing between us, she would walk away to cool off and when she returned, we would resolve our difference more calmly.”
    He closed his eyes for an instant.  “But that night, I wasn’t having it.  I wanted answers right then and there.  So she insisted that I stop the car.  We were passing a park, so I pulled over, thinking it would be a safe place for her to cool off for a few minutes.  But just as she opened the door and stepped out, a car came whipping by.”
    “Didn’t you see it coming?”
    “It was dark.  The driver didn’t have his lights on.  It happened so fast.”  Erik pressed his hands against his temples.  His head was throbbing.  At least, she was sensitive enough not to ask what they’d been arguing about.  The only other person who knew about that argument was his ex-best friend, Clayton Monroe.  Nobody else.  Not even his mother.  As hurt and angry as he’d been at the time, he didn’t want people speculating about his wife and what she may or may not have done.  Most importantly, he didn’t want anything to tarnish his daughter’s image of her mother.
    The authorities had