Rizzoli & Isles 8-Book Set

they’d found stashed at the very back of the pantry, hidden behind the sacks of flour and sugar.
    It had to be
her
whiskey, Maura thought, remembering the woman in the photograph with the dull eyes and the blank expression. The pantry was where a woman would hoard a secret supply of liquor, a place where her husband would never bother to explore, not if he considered cooking to be a woman’s job. Maura took a sip,and as the whiskey burned its way down her throat, she wondered what would drive a woman to secret drinking, what misery would make her seek liquor’s numbing solace.
    “Okay,” said Arlo. “I can come up with one logical explanation for where these people went.”
    Elaine refreshed her glass and added only a splash of water.
    “Let’s hear it.”
    “It’s dinnertime. The wife with the bad hairdo puts food on the table, and they’re all about to sit down and say grace, or whatever these people do. And the husband suddenly clutches his chest and says, ‘I’m having a heart attack!’ So they all pile into the car and rush off to the hospital.”
    “Leaving the front door unlocked?”
    “Why bother to lock it? What’s in here that anyone could possibly want to steal?” Arlo waved dismissively at the furniture. “Besides, there’s no one around for miles who’d bother to break in here.” He paused and raised his glass of whiskey in a wry toast. “Present company excepted.”
    “It looks to me like they’ve been gone for days. Why haven’t they come back?”
    “The roads,” said Maura. She pulled out the newspaper that she had bought at Grubb’s Gas Station and General Store earlier that day. A lifetime ago, it seemed. Spreading it flat, she slid it into the firelight so they could read the headline, which she’d noticed when she paid for the newspaper.
    C OLD W EATHER R ETURNS
    After a week of unseasonably warm weather, with temperatures peaking in the high 60s, a blast of wintry weather appears headed our way. Forecasters predict that two to four inches of snow could start falling Tuesday night. A far more powerful winter storm is right on its heels, with the potential of even heavier snowfall on Saturday.
    “Maybe they couldn’t get back here,” said Maura. “Maybe they left before the Tuesday storm, while the road was still clear.”
    “It would explain why the windows were open,” said Doug. “It’s because the weather was still warm when they left. And then the storm came in.” He tipped his head to Maura. “Didn’t I tell you all that she was brilliant? Dr. Isles always comes up with a logical explanation.”
    “It means these people must be planning to return,” said Arlo. “After the road gets cleared.”
    “Unless they change their minds,” said Elaine.
    “They left the house unlocked and all their windows open. They’ve got to come back.”
    “To
this?
No electricity, no neighbors around? What woman in her right mind would put up with it? And where
are
all the neigbors, anyway?”
    “This is a bad place,” said Grace softly. “I wouldn’t come back.”
    They all looked at her. The girl sat by herself, wrapped so tightly in a blanket that she looked like a mummy in the shadows. She had been silent, lost in whatever music was playing on her iPod, but now the ear buds were out and she sat hugging herself, looking around the room with wide eyes.
    “I looked in their closet,” said Grace. “The room where the mom and dad slept. Do you know he has sixteen belts? Sixteen leather belts, each one hanging on its own hook. And there’s rope there, too. Why would you keep rope in your closet?”
    Arlo gave a nervous chuckle. “No G-rated purpose I can think of.” Elaine gave him a light slap.
    “I don’t think he was a nice man.” Grace stared at the darkness lurking beyond the firelight. “Maybe his wife and kids escaped. Maybe they saw a chance and ran.” She paused. “If they were lucky. If he didn’t kill them first.”
    Maura shivered inside her wool blanket. Even the whiskey could not dispel the chill that had suddenly settled over the room.
    Arlo reached for the bottle. “Gee, if we’re going to tell scary stories, we’d better get some sedation on board.”
    “You already have enough on board,” said Elaine.
    “Who else has a scary story for the campfire?” Arlo looked at Maura. “With your job, you must have a ton of them.”
    Maura glanced at Grace, who had retreated into silence. If I’m spooked by the situation, she thought,