"Oh, I'm so sorry!" Milda laid a comforting hand on Stephanie's arm for a second, her fingers warm from holding the hot mug of tea. "I know how devastated I'd be if anything happened to my sisters."

"Thank you. I was the one who found them. Bethany was supposed to spend the weekend with me, and I went over in the morning to pick her up. They didn't answer the door, but I had a key."

Tears welled up in her eyes suddenly. Milda fetched a box of tissues with a floral needlepoint cover and offered them. Stephanie took one, gratefully, and mopped away the tears that had overspilled. "Sorry. It's been almost twenty years, and it still gets me sometimes. Something was blocking the door. When I managed to shove it open, I found that it was Rowan, my sister. She'd been beaten to death."

The horror of the memory overcame her, and she put her face in her hands, weeping. She had recognized Rowan by the tee shirt she was wearing, a ridiculous thing featuring a chorus line of high kicking iridescent lizards. They had to use fingerprints for the formal identification. She'd been battered so badly that even dental records were useless.

As she told this, Milda silently cut the brownies and brought her one on a china plate. Stephanie almost said something sharp about trying to treat grief with pastry, but stopped short when she saw the sympathetic pain in Milda's soft blue eyes. "I know it sounds silly, " her host said apologetically. "But try that. Chocolate releases endorphin in the brain. Women have sensed that instinctively for ages."

Stephanie nibbled to be polite, then found herself wolfing the brownie down in four bites. It was fantastic, almost dissolving on her tongue. There was a rich spiciness she couldn't identify. What's wrong with me, she wondered. One second I'm crying, the next I'm wanting to get a recipe from a Woodstock refugee. "It's very good." She felt calmer now. "But unusual. There's a spicy taste I can't quite identify."

"Must be the cinnamon and nutmeg. Old family recipe, very secret. You said your sister's husband was killed also?"

Stephanie pulled her mind back to why she'd come. "Yes. The police think he committed suicide after killing Rowan."

"You don't believe that?"

Stephanie shook her head. "Greg could be a creep sometimes, but he loved Rowan. There had been a few fights where things got out of hand. Rowan gave as good as she got, though. She got a black eye once, but he ended up in the emergency room when she pushed him into their closet mirror. But that was years before. After they had Bethany, Greg went for counseling. There hadn't been any physical stuff for over three years, Rowan would have told me."

"Anyway, Greg was in the living room, dead from a single gunshot to the head. They did all sorts of tests. No fingerprints on the gun other than his, powder residue on his hands and around the wound, right angle for self infliction. But Greg wouldn't have done that. He was a rabid Catholic. He wasn't afraid of man nor beast, but he most definitely feared Hell, and he was convinced that anyone who committed suicide was going to spend eternity 'in the flames that burn, but do not consume.' If he had killed Rowan, he'd have either disappeared, or just sat and waited for the police."

"What about the little girl?"

"I ran through the house looking for her. That's what alerted the neighbors, me screaming my head off. I caught hell from the cops for disturbing the scene."

"She'd hidden?"

"Yes. Well, " Stephanie hesitated, then said "Maybe. There was an old broken chest freezer in the pantry. Someone finally thought to look in there." Milda drew her breath in sharply. "No, she was alright. Physically, anyway. The drain plug had been left out, and she'd had enough air. But she was in shock. We never figured out whether she'd hidden there, or whether she'd been put there. The cops figured either Greg wanted to kill her, too, but couldn't bring himself to shoot or hit her, so he left her to suffocate, or he put her in there so she wouldn't witness what happened to her mother. Any way, it was ruled murder/suicide, and I got custody of Bethany."

"So you believe that someone killed your sister and brother-in-law, and you want us to find them? That's a pretty cold trail. I don't believe we could promise results, and the murderer may be dead already."

"He isn't. I do want you to find the killer, but not to bring him in for the murders. I want you to stop him from killing Bethany."