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“Malcolm.” I managed to laugh even though I was not remotely amused. “Come on. I’mnotin crisis. I’m glad and grateful to be home. I know I have to…do all the things, but this week I just want to sleep and eat and—” I started to say,play with my dog, but remembered Freyja was gone. I said briskly, talking past the wrench of pain, “And not worry about anything until after the New Year. Okay?”

“Yes, of course.” He looked relieved then and even smiled. “I think that’s an excellent plan.”

Feeling like I had narrowly skirted an unexpected threat, I returned to the business of force-feeding myself. There was nothing wrong with the food. I’m sure it was delicious. It was the ongoing difficulty of finding room in my gut for something besides anger.

Malcolm wasn’t eating much either, though he was drinking, and for a time the only sound in the long elegant dining room was the desultory scrape of forks on porcelain and the tick-tock of the clock on the mantel.

Slowly, though, the unpleasant implications of what Malcolm said sank in. A wave of cold dread washed through me. I put my fork down, said shakily, “Are you saying, you think that’s why Astrid killed herself? Because she thought I was going to…”

My voice gave out.

“No,” Malcolm said quickly. “Yes, Astrid finally came forward because she was afraid for you. She could see the strain you were under. But she killed herself because she couldn’t—I think her pride wouldn’t accept what would happen to her once the truth came out.”

She was proud, yes. It was hard to imagine Astrid incarcerated. But it was also hard picturing her losing her nerve and taking her own life. She had more courage than anyone I’d ever known.

But why else would she kill herself? Something unbearable had driven her to swallow all those sleeping pills. She’d left a letter. It wasn’t an accident. It wasn’t a misunderstanding. As much as she loved me, no way would my sister have confessed to a crime she knew I committed. She had to have killed Tom Peyton.

But I struggled with that, too. The idea that Astrid would commitmurder? I could see her killing in self-defense or to protect someone she loved, but that wasn’t in play here. Supposedly, she’d killed Tom because he had ended their affair.

Therehadbeen an affair. I knew that, too. But it had ended a month earlier. Her little romances never lasted long. And Astrid hadn’t seemed particularly upset about it.

It turned out I hadn’t known my sister any better than I’d known anyone else.

“Are you all right, Casper?” Malcolm asked from a million miles away.

I looked up, stared at him, and realized how humiliating all this had to be for him. He wasn’t just grieving the loss of his wife. He was having to deal with having the intimate details of their marriage being made public.

“Yes.”

I was thinking that I needed to be kinder to Malcolm. More patient with him. For a guy who’d always been uncomfortable with any hint of drama, he had to feel like he was mired in an emotional swampland.

I said, “I appreciate everything you’re trying to do for me. I’ll try not to be more difficult than I have to.”

He gave me a strange look and made a sound that wasn’t quite a laugh. “You were always such a good-natured kid, Caz. You’re probably the only innocent bystander in all this.”

It seemed cryptic. I took it to mean Malcolm, understandably, was also bitter.

We were saved further embarrassing revelations by the arrival of Sammie with dessert. Inevitably, it was another Bredahl classic—and a consistent holiday bestseller: White Christmas Cake. A lavish concoction of white cake layered with white chocolate mousse, slivered almonds, and white chocolate ganache frosting. Tiny silver sugar pearls and baker’s sugar sparkled and glittered within the lavish swirls of snowy frosting.

I managed to choke down a few bites, declined coffee, and thanked Malcolm for everything. A few minutes later I was able to escape into the frosty night.

Once out in the bracing cold, I felt a lot better. The cold nipped at my nose, the chill seeped through my jeans and parka. But it felt good. After being stuck inside four walls for almost eleven months, just being outside at all was heaven. The perspiration dried on my skin. I hadn’t even realized how much I’d been sweating. The little lanterns glittered liked caged stars along the path. The snow shimmered. After a yard or two of crunching through crusty snow, my stomach stopped churning; I could take a full breath again.

More time outside. That’s what I needed. Fresh air. Physical activity.

The snow dampened the impact of my boots, doused all sound, so the rising howl of the hounds in their kennel was all the louder and eerier. Their wails floated through in the night.

Malcolm’s decision confused me. Wouldn’t the dogs be company in that giant empty house?

I came around a pyramid-shaped wall of American pillar and stopped in my snowy tracks.

A tall silhouette stood in the crisp white triangle of the Gingerbread House’s outdoor wall light. At the sound of my footsteps, the silhouette turned and my heart began to thunder in my ears.

Raleigh was waiting for me.

Chapter Four

I had no choice. I had to keep walking toward him. My body began to run through the all-systems check for fight or flight: spiking heart rate and blood pressure, surging adrenaline, accelerated breathing. I balled my mittened hands into fists, squared my shoulders.