CHAPTER ONE

      IN THE silent night Livia heard the low rumble of a car approaching on the country road. There wasn’t much traffic around here, so a car was something you noticed, especially at eleven at night. A cool spring breeze sweet with the scent of lilacs blew in through the open living-room window. She closed it and drew the old-fashioned curtains.

      Dressed in a white cotton nightgown, she wandered through the quiet house, examining, for the umpteenth time, the contents—the old furniture, the antique clock, the dusty knick-knacks on the shelves—wondering if she had made a mistake coming here to spend the night by herself. The house seemed filled with ghosts, strange noises and musty smells. More so now that darkness had fallen over the empty countryside.

      Well, it was not empty, really. There were cows and sheep and horses and probably rabbits, and frogs in the pond of course, and maybe spirits roaming the fields. But there were no houses containing living primates of the human variety for miles around. However, there would be one or more in the car coming down the road, she reminded herself. She wasn’t sure if this was a reassuring thought or not.

      The old house stood alone on a hill with a view of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and it was hers. Livia grinned at herself, feeling a sense of great excitement. It was a beauty, this old colonial country house, albeit that it was slightly ramshackle and needed a lot of work. But once she was done with it…She could feel her hands itch for hammer and saw and paintbrush.

      Ever since the closing this morning she’d been sorting and packing books and small items to go to the country auction-house. She’d felt distinctly indiscreet looking through drawers and cabinets and closets, examining all the private things that had once belonged to someone else, an old woman who had recently died and whom she had never known. She had bought the house with all its contents, because there had been no relatives to claim them and she had fallen in love with some of the furniture, some lovely old things, possibly antiques. But most of it was not of much value, just the ordinary slightly worn and shabby furniture of someone who had lived in the same place all her life, someone who’d grown comfortable with her own things and saw no need for replacement when upholstery grew thin or styles changed.

      This morning she’d put her sleeping-bag, pillow and overnight bag in one of the upstairs’s bedrooms. She unrolled the sleeping-bag and put it on top of the old quilted bedspread of one of the beds. Tomorrow morning Jack would be here and they’d go over the renovation plans and start clearing out the rooms. She couldn’t wait to get started and her whole body was keyed ups as it always was when she started a new project. Once the rooms were empty, they’d start breaking down walls. She loved breaking down walls, creating light and space.

      She heard the car coming closer. Pushing aside the faded flowered curtains, Livia looked out into the night, seeing the headlights approaching on the curving road, illuminating the tall evergreens and the blooming dogwoods, which looked white and lovely as brides. The car was going very fast, or maybe it just looked that way, and then it began to slow down.

      It slowed down until it was barely going at all, and then it turned into the long, curving driveway that climbed up to the house.

      Her heart slammed against her ribs. No one knew she was here. Why would anyone come here so late at night? It was almost eleven and no decent person would call on someone else at this time uninvited.

      Maybe this was not a decent person. The world was full of people with evil intentions. All you had to do was read the papers and turn on the television.

      Oh, stop it, she said to herself. Maybe there was a perfectly simple, innocent reason for someone to come to the house. There had to be. She was basically a cheerful person, and believing in happiness, joy and love was so much more satisfying than being forever worried about evil and disaster. Maybe the driver was lost and had seen the lights, the only lights for quite a distance. This was rural Virginia, hours and hours away from Washington DC, where the day was not complete without a murder and a couple of other assorted crimes.

      Nothing