Double Take

day.”
    He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her. “I’d take you any day too. I could offer her Savich, but I think he’d hurt me.”
    She kissed his ear.
    Cheney said, “I called my folks, you know, told them about you.”
    “Oh dear, I hadn’t thought of your family yet. You got a big one?”
    “Oh yeah, three brothers, two sisters, a dozen nieces and nephews and my parents, of course, and none of them are very good at minding their own business. But my family will adore you, Julia, fold you right into the mix, whether you want that or not, and begin meddling immediately—career decisions, vacations, where we’ll spend Christmas, where our children should go to school—won’t ever stop, even if we move to Alaska. Once you’re married to me, your privacy is over. Can you live with that?”
    “That sounds wonderful. They don’t know much about me, do they?”
    “No, but when they find out, they’ll cheer you for being such a heroine.”
    Julia saw a couple of tourists in jeans and short-sleeved T-shirts, trying to brave the cold wind, shivering violently. She should tell them the sun would come out, maybe, but instead, she threw back her head and broke into “Tomorrow.” Several more shivering tourists standing some twenty feet away turned and listened. When she finished, they applauded. She gave them a small bow and waved.
    She said, “The district attorney called me today. Are you ready for this, Cheney? Fact is, he apologized. He’s got a truckload of proof against Thomas Pallack, and with Charlotte more than eager to testify against him, I know he meant it.”
    No matter how many apologies the D.A. gave Julia, Cheney would still like to smack him in the chops.
    “I’m big with the paparazzi again, for a short while anyway. They photographed me at my house speaking to one of the insurance people.”
    “So long as they don’t trail you to my condo, we’re safe.”
    She sighed and snuggled in close. The wind died down as the fog thickened, the tops of the bridge towers nearly covered now. She was sorry, but there was no chance of sun today. They both shivered at the sight of two lone sailboats on a broad reach, heeling sharply.
    “There’s no more beautiful place on earth,” she said, “even if you freeze half the summer.”
    He smiled, felt happy enough to burst with it. Not all that long ago he’d gotten himself a date on a Thursday night for the Crab House on Pier 39. He hadn’t gotten his cioppino, he’d gotten Julia.
    Fate was something he marveled at, but accepted. As for the local woo-woo wizards, he imagined it would always be hard not to roll his eyes. He pictured Bevlin Wagner in his slipping towel and grinned.
    He said, “Let’s go brew some coffee and talk about that new house we’re going to find.”

    MAESTRO, VIRGINIA
    It was easy to dig Christie’s grave. Bobby Ray Parker and Lynn Thomas hadn’t used equipment, no need. In the early morning hours beneath a soft steady rain that had begun the previous evening, they’d shoveled deep and deeper still and the earth was still damp and yielding. They spoke of Christie Noble, her kindness, how she’d yelled her head off at her boys’ games, and how sometimes life was just too bitter to bear, and it wasn’t fair, now was it? But at least she’d finally come home.
    Four hours later, Dix stared at that massive wet black mound of rich earth, at the three red roses laid carefully atop it, and felt pain like a gash to his heart.
    He held his boys’ hands, theirs squeezing his hard during Reverend Lindsay’s brief graveside litany, his deep quiet voice somehow reaching to the last person in that crowd of at least five hundred people, all of whom had come directly from the memorial service at the First Presbyterian Church of Maestro to Penhallow Cemetery, to attend Christie Holcombe Noble’s interment next to her mother.
    Dix looked over at Lone Tree Hill, at the single oak, an ancient sentinel, keeping vigil over the rolling hills and the row upon row of graves. Its leaves were greening up nicely. Suddenly the sun came through the clouds, blurring through the gentle rain, and he saw raindrops sparkle fiercely on the oak leaves. He squeezed his boys’ hands and slowly they raised their heads and looked to where he nodded, toward that old oak, at the sunlight coming through the rain. He heard Rob sigh, felt both boys move closer against him.
    Dix felt Savich and Sherlock behind him, Savich solid as a wall, and