Brazen Virtue

herself.
    The bad guy always tripped up in the end.

    Grace sat on the sofa, silent and staring. For some reason, she couldn’t get beyond that thought. The self-defense mechanism of the mind had turned hysteria into numbing shock so that even her shudders seemed to be pulsing through someone else’s body. A good murder had more punch if the victim left someone behind to be stunned or devastated. It was almost a foolproof device to draw the reader in if done right. She’d always had a talent for painting emotions: grief, fury, heartache. Once she understood her characters, she could feel them too. For hours and days at a time, she could work, feeding off the emotions, reveling in them, delighting in both the light and the dark sides of human nature. Then she could switch them off as carelessly as she switched off her machine, and go on with her own life.
    It was only a story, after all, and justice would win out in the final chapter.
    She recognized the professions of the men who came and went through her sister’s house—the coroner, the forensic team, the police photographer.
    Once, she’d used a police photographer as the protagonist in a novel, painting the stark and gritty details of death with a kind of relish. She knew the procedure, had depicted it again and again without a blink or a shudder. The sights and smells of murder weren’t strangers, not to her imagination. Even now, she almost believed if she squeezed her eyes tight they would all fade and reassemble into characters she could control, characters that were only real in her mind, characters that could be created or destroyed by the press of a button.
    But not her sister. Not Kathy.
    She’d change the plot, Grace told herself as she brought her legs up to curl under her. She’d do rewrites, delete the murder scene, restructure the characters. She’d change it all until everything worked out exactly as she wanted. All she had to do was concentrate. She closed her eyes and, wrapping her arms tight over her breasts, struggled to make it all play.

    “She didn’t go easy,” Ben murmured as he watched the coroner examine the body of Kathleen McCabe Breezewood. “I think we’re going to find that some of the blood belongs to him. We may get some prints off the phone cord.”
    “How long?” Ed noted down the details in his book while he fought to keep his mind off Grace. He couldn’t afford to think of her now. He could miss something, something vital, if he thought of the way she was sitting in the other room like a broken doll.
    The coroner tapped a fist against his chest. The chili and onions he’d had for dinner kept coming back on him. “No more than two hours, probably less.” He took a look at his watch. “At this point, I’d put the time between nine and eleven. Should be able to hone it when I get her in.” He signaled to two men. Even as he rose, the body was being transferred into a thick black plastic bag. Very tidy. Very final.
    “Yeah, thanks.” Ben lit a cigarette as he studied the chalk outline on the rug. “From the looks of the room, he surprised her in here. Back door was forced. Didn’t take much, so I’m not surprised if she didn’t hear.”
    “It’s a quiet neighborhood,” Ed murmured. “You don’t even have to lock your car.”
    “It’s harder when it hits close to home, I know.” Ben waited, but received no response. “We’re going to have to talk to the sister.”
    “Yeah.” Ed tucked his notebook back into his pocket. “You guys want to give me a couple of minutes before you carry that out?” He nodded to the coroner as he started out. He hadn’t been able to prevent Grace from finding the body, but he could prevent her from being a part of what happened now.

    He found her where he’d left her, sitting huddled on the sofa. Her eyes were closed so that he thought, hoped, she was asleep. Then she was looking up at him. Her eyes were huge and completely dry. He recognized the dull sheen of shock too well.
    “I can’t make it play.” Her voice was steady, but so quiet it barely carried beyond her lips. “I keep trying to restructure the scene. I came back early. I didn’t go out at all. Kath decided to tag along for the evening. Nothing works.”
    “Grace, let’s go to the kitchen. We’ll have that tea and talk.”
    She accepted the hand he held out but didn’t rise. “Nothing works because it’s too late to change it.”
    “I’m sorry, Grace. Why don’t you come with me