My Sister's Grave (Tracy Crosswhite, #1)(74)

She punched him lightly and laid her chin on his shoulder. After a comfortable silence, she said, “Life has a way of throwing us curves, doesn’t it? When you lived here, did you ever think you’d marry someone from the East Coast and live in Boston?”

“No,” he said. “And when I lived in Boston, I never thought I’d be back in Cedar Grove sleeping with Tracy Crosswhite in my parents’ bedroom.”

“Kind of creepy when you put it like that, Dan.” She ran her fingers over his chest. “Sarah used to say she was going to live with me. When I asked what she would do when I got married, she’d say we would live next door to each other, teach our kids to shoot, and take them to competitions just like we did with my dad.”

“Would you ever consider coming back?” Her fingers stopped. He moaned and visibly cringed. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have asked that.”

After a moment, she said, “It’s hard separating the good memories from the bad.”

“What was I?”

She tilted her head to look into his eyes. “You were definitely one of the good memories, Dan, and getting better and better.”

“You hungry?”

“Famous bacon cheeseburgers?”

“Carbonara. Another of my specialties.”

“Are all your specialties fattening?”

“Those are the best kind.”

“Then I’ll jump in the shower,” she said.

He kissed her and slid out of bed. “I’ll have it on the table awaiting your arrival.”

“You’re going to spoil me, Dan.”

“I’m trying.”

He bent and kissed her again, and she was tempted to pull him back down to the bed, but he slipped away to descend the stairs. Tracy fell back, hugging a pillow to her chest, listening to Dan rummaging about the kitchen, drawers opening and closing, and pots and pans clanging. She’d been happy once in Cedar Grove. Could she be happy here again? Maybe all she needed was someone like Dan, someone to make Cedar Grove feel like home again. But even as she thought it, she knew the answer to her question. There was a reason for adages like “you can never go home again,” just as there was a reason for stereotypes—because they were usually true. She groaned and threw the pillow aside, getting up. Now was not the time to consider the future. She had enough to worry about in the present.

She would be on the stand first thing in the morning.





[page]CHAPTER 46





The storm did not hit Cedar Grove. For once, the weathermen had got it right. That was not to say the weather had improved. The morning temperature had plunged to eight degrees, one of the colder days on record in Cascade County. Still, it did not deter the spectators from filing into the courtroom for day three of the hearing. Tracy wore her black skirt and jacket, what she referred to as her trial suit. She’d brought heels in her briefcase, and once inside the courtroom, she removed her snow boots and slipped them on.

With reports that the predicted storm still continued to bear down on the region, Judge Meyers seemed more determined than ever to get the proceedings moving. His seat had barely hit his chair when he said, “Mr. O’Leary, call your next witness.”

“The defense calls Tracy Crosswhite,” Dan said.

Tracy felt Edmund House’s gaze fix on her as she stepped through the gate and walked to the witness stand to take the oath to tell the truth. It made her sick, knowing she was House’s best chance at freedom. She thought of what Dan had told her about his conversation with George Bovine, shortly after Annabelle’s father had visited Dan’s office to warn him about Edmund House. Bovine had said that prison was the only place for someone like Edmund House. Tracy didn’t doubt it, but they were beyond that point.

Dan eased her into her testimony and Judge Meyers, perhaps sensitive to the emotional subject matter, did not rush him. After preliminary background matters had been dispensed with, Dan asked, “She was called your shadow, was she not?”

“Seemed she was always by my side.”

O’Leary strolled close to the windows. Dark tendrils of clouds reached down from an ominous sky, from which a light snow had started to fall again. “Would you describe the physical location of your bedrooms growing up?”

Clark rose. He was objecting more to Dan’s direct examination of Tracy than he’d objected during any other witness, clearly trying to disrupt the flow of Tracy’s testimony and seemingly more concerned that Dan was going to try to slip in something inadmissible. “Objection, Your Honor. It’s irrelevant.”

“It’s for foundational purposes,” Dan said.

“I’ll allow it, but let’s move this forward, Counselor.”

“Sarah’s bedroom was just down the hall from mine, but it really didn’t matter. She spent most nights in my bed. She was afraid of the dark.”

“Did you share a bathroom?”

“Yes, between our bedrooms.”

“And as sisters, did you borrow each other’s things?”

“Sometimes more than I would have liked,” Tracy said, trying to muster a smile. “Sarah and I were about the same size. We had similar tastes.”

“Did that include the same taste in jewelry?”

“Yes.”