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undertones.
    Isabella hurt for their sadness.   It was evident in every aspect of their expressions and posture.   How sad to want a child so desperately and yet be unable to make it happen.   Even sadder were the children who were born to people who didn’t care.   It didn’t make sense.   Why didn’t God just five babies to people who wanted them and let the people who were unfit to be parents be the ones who were barren?   But she knew her thoughts were fanciful.   Nothing in life was fair.   She thought of her father dying so suddenly and leaving not only family, but waiting patients behind.
    The staff at White Mountain Fertility Clinic was well-trained and able to continue without her father’s presence.   In the past few years he’d even talked about the time when he would retire and leave the creation of life to those younger than himself.   Besides her father, Uncle David and Uncle Jasper still held active roles in the clinic, even though they took fewer and fewer new patients with each passing year.
    Without thinking, her gaze automatically slid to the portrait above the staircase, unaware that the gentleness in the woman’s dark brown eyes mirrored her own.   Her wandering thoughts stopped abruptly when the phone rang.   Making herself concentrate on the present, she lifted her chin and picked up the phone.
    “Abbott House.”
    “This is Detective Mike Butoli with the Brighton Beach police.   I need to speak to Samuel Abbot.”
    Isabella’s breath caught as a quick film of tears blurred her vision.   It was the first time this had happened since her father’s death, but she knew it wouldn’t be the last.   She cleared her throat and make herself answer.
    “I’m sorry, Detective, but Samuel Abbot recently passed away.   I’m his daughter, Isabella Abbott.   Maybe I can Help.”
    Mike Butoli frowned.   He hated this part of his job more than spinach—and only God and his mother knew how much he hated spinach.
    “Did you know a man named Franklin Walton?”
    His use of the past tense made Isabella’s heart drop.
    “Uncle Frank?   What’s happened to him?   Has he been injured?   Is he all right?”
    Butoli sighed.   Damn.   As many times as he’d done this, it never got easier.
    “I’m very sorry to tell you, Miss Abbott, but Mr. Walton was found murdered in an alley a few days ago.”
    The wail that came out of her mouth was a mixture of disbelief and despair.
    “Nooo,” she cried, and staggered backward into a chair.
    John Michaels and Rufus Toombs, two of the men she called uncles, were just coming off the elevator from their third-floor apartments when they heard her cry.   Without hesitation, they rushed forward.
    “Isabella…darling what’s wrong?”
    She recognized the voices but couldn’t focus on the faces.   Everything around her was fast going black.   Before she could answer, she slid out of the chair onto the floor in a faint.
    Rufus quickly knelt at her side, while John went for the phone dangling from her hand.
    “Hello?   Hello?   Who’s there, please?”
    Butoli knew the woman had not received the news well.
    “This is Detective Butoli with the Brighton Beach P.D.”
    “What did you say to Isabella?   What has happened?” John cried.
    “Are you her family?” Butoli asked.
    “Yes, yes,” John muttered.   “What has happened?”
    “We just identified a murder victim as Franklin Walton, of Braden, Montana.   The address on his credit card listed Abbott House as his home.   Is this correct?”
    John Michaels’s heart sank.   Now it made sense.   Now they knew why Frank had never called home.
    “Yes,” he whispered.   “Yes, that is correct.”
    “I’m sorry to ask, but someone must come and identify the body.   Just to make sure.   You understand.”
    John’s fingers were trembling and he wanted to cry, but he made himself focus as he picked up a pen.
    “Yes, I understand.   Just tell me where we must go.”
    As he wrote,