Copper Lake Confidential by Marilyn Pappano Page A

o’clock and all’s fine,” she said, and the grandfather clock down the hall chimed a moment later. Good timing.
    “The castle is secured. We’ll leave and you can pull up the drawbridge.”
    She laughed. She tended to think of the house as a mausoleum instead, which made her... Well, she’d rather not think about what lived in mausoleums. But a princess in a castle...she hadn’t felt like that since she and Mark first got engaged.
    “Dinner about six? But you can come over whenever you’re done for the day.”
    He nodded, hesitated, then leaned in and kissed her cheek. Before she could react, he flashed a grin, made coaxing sounds at the dog and left.
    Having her feet knocked out from under her had been a fairly common occurrence since the day Mark died. Having it done in an unexpectedly good way was enough to make her lean against the door for support after she closed it. It had been so long since someone new and interesting had kissed her. So long since she’d been kissed so sweetly. Since she’d given serious thought to wanting more.
    For a time she stood there, just feeling satisfied, until the green light on the alarm console caught her attention. She made sure she’d locked the door—for the first time in months, she couldn’t remember—then reset the alarm. Then she headed down the hall to the kitchen. After the time away, with a cup of coffee, she would have the energy to pack at least a few more boxes tonight before going to bed.
    The coffeemaker hummed as it brewed, and Macy found herself humming softly, too, a silly song about spiders and waterspouts. She’d already decided to leave packing the kitchen for her last job, but she could make a start on the family room. Hundreds of DVDs, even more books, small parts of Mark’s vast collections...
    She stacked the leather sofa with the smallest boxes she’d bought, recommended for books, and began packing without even glancing at titles. Some were old, bound in leather. A few had been published recently, but none of them were popular or fiction. Mark would have been the first to scoff at Stephen’s fantasy novels. Her husband had been as snobbish in his reading materials as everything else, while she thought she’d like to know more about the mysterious man in the mysterious place on Stephen’s cover.
    About its creator, as well.
    She took a break to fix her coffee the way she liked it, then, warming her hands on the hot mug, she strolled down the hall, turning right into the living room and making her way to the big window. The street outside was quiet, lights on in the houses across the street. There was too much room between houses to hear televisions or conversations. The Villains walked a fine line between wanting privacy while also flaunting all they had. Louise was the worst.
    But at least she came by her money honestly. Most of the fortunes in these few square miles had been handed down through generations, like Mark’s, or married into. Like Macy’s.
    Remembering Stephen’s incredulity about Louise’s proposal made Macy smile. Had the women asked for money, too, to fund their glorious memorial? All she had to do was check the contract, right there on the coffee table—
    Her hands trembled, and she barely managed to keep the coffee from sloshing all over the ancient Turkish rug. Her heart thudded so loudly she couldn’t hear the sounds of her own breathing, wasn’t sure she even was breathing until her lungs suddenly choked and she forced out a cough, then sucked in air audibly.
    The only thing on the coffee table was an arrangement of roses. There was no contract.
    “It has to be—” Carefully setting the coffee down, she paced around the couch, went to the chair where she’d sat during Louise’s visit, checked the entire area. Maybe she’d knocked it off when she’d left the room earlier. Maybe she’d set it somewhere besides the coffee table. Maybe—
    Squeezing her eyes shut, hugging herself tightly, she replayed the