What would it take, she wondered, to gather all the pieces of the past and put them in order?

Fear shuddered through her, but she ignored it. She wouldn’t give in to terror like a child locked in a dark closet. The light of truth was what she needed to dispel the horror of her nightmares.

She would start in her grandfather’s quarters. Soon. Next week. She would start next week.

It was a promise to the child who lived in the dreams that troubled her.

K yle Herriot held the door for his mother, closed and locked it, then set the alarm to go off if the door was opened again during the night. His mother’d had the security system installed fifteen years ago…shortly after his father’s death.

“I’m glad that’s over,” she said, setting her purse on the marble-topped foyer table. “There’s only the Windom girl left. When she marries, the name will be gone.”

“Unless she chooses to stick with her maiden name.” He followed his mother into the study. After pouring her a cordial of Riesling late harvest, he splashed an inch of brandy into a snifter and gazed out the windows that lined the western wall of the house.

The French doors opened onto a covered patio that looked out upon the mirror-smooth lake. One by one, the lights clicked off in the Windom mansion. He watched as headlights came on and the last vehicle in the circular drive sped away into the night.

Through the reflection in the glass, he saw his mother sit in her favorite chair, her eyes also drawn to the night scene beyond the windows.

“I’ve hated looking at that house,” she said in musing tones. “For fifteen years. Since your father died.”

He remembered the day as if it were yesterday. He’d been eleven, determined to go sailing with his dad, although he was on restriction due to some infraction of the rules. However, someone else had been with his father when he’d arrived at the boathouse on the lake.

Hearing an odd sound, he’d sneaked around the corner of the building and heard a woman crying. Sensing it would be unwise to butt in, he’d returned home, resentful that his plans had been interrupted due to adult problems.

“I wish I knew what happened that day,” Joan Herriot continued, a thread of bitterness in her tone as always when discussing her husband’s death.

“It was a long time ago.”

She sighed. “I know.”

They sat in silence for a while. Kyle saw the last light in the Windom house go off. Megan’s bedroom, he assumed, from which she’d watched her father weep over the loss of the wife who had died with another man.

He resisted a stirring of pity for her, shaking his head slightly, denying the emotion. Like his mother, he had no sympathy for the Windoms.

His grandfather had hated them. He’d called Megan’s grandfather an autocratic tyrant with an uncontrollable temper, a man who’d ruled the 5000-acre Windraven Ranch with an iron hand and little patience.

All that had changed after the old man’s stroke, of course. It turned out the ranch had been in trouble. The three cousins had pooled their resources and saved the family homestead. He had to admire them for that.

Megan actually owned the house due to some convoluted inheritance from her grandmother—the woman Patrick Windom had married three months after Mary Sloan ran away from him and married Sonny Herriot, thus becoming his grandmother.

Now there was a tangled web, indeed. As far as he knew, no one had ever really known what had caused her flight.

“Are you all packed?” he asked his mother, trying to change the direction of his own thoughts.

“Yes,” she said in a happier tone. “I’m not sure whether I’m growing more excited as the trip draws closer or more apprehensive. I keep thinking of a million things I should do here before I leave in the morning.”

He laughed. “You’ve left a list of to-do’s that will keep me busy for the next two years. Enjoy your vacation. You’ve earned it.”

She finished her nightcap and stood. “I can’t wait to see all the plays I’ve read about. I need to get to bed if I’m going to be fresh in the morning for the trip.”

After she kissed him on the cheek and left, Kyle turned back to the house across the lake, his mood dark and thoughtful. Perhaps while his mother was on the month-long New York trip with a friend he would unravel some of the mystery surrounding his father’s death.

With old man Windom’s death back in March, there’d be no one to object if he nosed around on their side of the lake. Since he would have some time to himself, without having to worry about his mother’s feelings, this would be the perfect opportunity to check out the sailing yacht that had never been brought to the surface.