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Dedication

For my mother, Gail Davis, who always offers me an ear when I need to vent, a shoulder when I need to cry and a hug when I crave the comfort of her unconditional love.

Acknowledgments

This book wouldn’t be in print if it weren’t for the hard work and enthusiasm of my agent, Ashley Kraas. I also want to thank my editor, Margaret O’Neill Marbury, for all of her guidance and support.

Kathy Vizas allowed me to pick her brain and benefit from her years of experience as a lawyer. Her insights proved to be indispensable for the plotting of this novel. The same could be said of the help I received from Lieutenant John Weiss who patiently answered my countless questions and actively assisted me with my research. Detective Sergeant Donna Lind was a fountain of information as well. I hope they will all forgive me for occasionally taking a bit of poetic license with the facts they so generously supplied me with.

Last but absolutely not least I need to thank my stepbrother Chris Sullivan for watching my son while I struggled to meet my deadlines, and my mother for all the free childcare she provided and for her willingness to be my brutally honest and marvelously detail-oriented volunteer proofreader.

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

PROLOGUE

I arranged some Pacificos in an ice bucket and slipped Sarah McLachlan into the CD player in anticipation of Leah’s visit. My sister and I love Sarah. She may be the only thing we agree on. At first glance people always assume our differences fall into the good girl-black sheep categories, with me playing the role of the rebellious farm animal, but in reality it’s much more complicated than that.

First off, although in humid weather my shoulder-length hair can resemble a ball of fluffy fleece, thanks to the genes of our now deceased African-American father and our very much alive Latvian-Jewish mother, my skin tone is much more bronze than black and Leah’s is a bit on the olive side.

The difference between us lies in our approach to life. My motto is: Always be true to yourself. It’s why I became a writer. Writing’s one of the few careers in which I can be paid for being a nonconformist.

Leah, on the other hand, has made it her life’s ambition to be someone else, specifically Martha Stewart (without all that messy felonious stuff). She’s not very good at being Martha; her ethnicity makes that whole WASPy look hard to pull off (despite all the relaxers), she’s not all that creative and she’d rather die than see her name stamped across any item that would ever be carried at Kmart. Yet she keeps trying, and she’s certain that once she achieves her metamorphosis she’ll have found true inner peace. So it wasn’t a big surprise when she announced her engagement to Bob Miller. Bob’s as average as his name. He’s Caucasian of the mutt variety, of medium build, moderately intelligent and, when in social settings, reasonably polite if not out-and-out friendly…or personable…or enjoyable to be with in any way. But as far as Leah’s concerned Bob is Town and Country’s version of Prince Charming.