Smoke in Mirrors

narrowed his eyes. “No? You’re sure of that?”
    “Oh, yes. Very sure. Lord knows, Meredith had her faults, but doing drugs was not one of them. Her mother killed herself with them, you see.”

    “Huh.”
    Thomas said nothing more. Just looked thoughtful. Wrench looked bored.
    “Traffic accidents happen all the time.” She wondered if she was trying to convince him or herself. “And there’s no motive for murder.”
    “I wouldn’t say that. One-point-five mil is a lot of money. Let’s assume for the sake of argument that Meredith did have a partner. Someone who didn’t want to split the profits.”
    She felt as if she was falling down the rabbit hole. This was getting worse and worse.
    “For the last time, I wasn’t Meredith’s partner,” she said tightly. “I knew nothing about this scam you claim she was running at Eubanks College.”
    “Prove it. Help me find the money she embezzled.”
    “You’re threatening me. I really hate that.”
    “I’ve also offered a hefty finder’s fee,” he reminded her. “Think of it as the carrot-and-stick approach.”
    “If you don’t mind,” she said icily, “I’ve got to finish packing up Meredith’s things.”
    “Which reminds me. I’ve got a question about that.”
    “What question?”
    “Why are you the one who came here today? Why is it your job to clean out the apartment and deal with the final details of Meredith Spooner’s life?”
    Leonora looked around at the unadorned walls and the impersonal furnishings. It was difficult to imagine Meredith, always so vivid and exciting, spending the last few days of her life in this plain, dull space.
    A great sadness welled up inside Leonora. Meredith had been complicated and frequently maddening. Whenever she had appeared, trouble had followed. But the world would certainly be a less colorful place without her.
    “There was no one else to do it,” Leonora said.

Chapter Two
    Perpetual night infused the interior of Deke’s house. The curtains were drawn closed on all the windows even though the low, gray clouds of the cold November afternoon offered no real threat of sunlight. The gloom was relieved only by the eerie glow of the computer screen. It reflected off the lenses of Deke’s gold-rimmed glasses and bathed his face and untrimmed beard in an unhealthy light.
    Thomas sat in the leather armchair on the other side of the desk, a cup of coffee beside him, Wrench sprawled at his feet, and felt depressed. Whatever progress he had made in the struggle to drag Deke out of the netherworld inside his computer had been lost when the news of Meredith Spooner’s death had reached them. Deke had immediately plunged back through the looking glass, searching for connections and patterns to support his theory that Bethany had been murdered.
    “Leonora Hutton showed up at the apartment?” Dekeasked. His eagerness was so painfully obvious that it hurt to look at him. “Just like you thought she would?”
    “She showed. Said she’d come to pack up Meredith’s things.”
    “Well? What happened? Will she help us?”
    “I don’t know,” Thomas said.
    “What do you mean? You told me that she was our only real lead.”
    “I know.” He hesitated. “But she’s not quite what I expected.”
    “How’s that?”
    Thomas thought about his impressions of Leonora. He was still trying to sort them out. He’d spent most of the time on the trip back to Wing Cove yesterday and a lot of last night on the task, but he hadn’t made much headway. No matter how he approached the problem she refused to be stuffed into a neat category.
    “She’s nothing like Meredith,” he said. “Complete opposites, in fact. Reverse images. Day and night.”
    If Meredith, with a voice that hinted of honey and Texas, golden blond hair and eyes the color of a summer sky, had been the day, Leonora was the night.
    “Good twin, bad twin?” Deke suggested.
    “Trust me, those two were never twins.”
    A memory of that first glimpse of Leonora yesterday when she had turned away from the dresser to confront him hovered in his head. The image haunted him like the remnants of a dream he could not shake.
    He saw her again now in his mind and tried to employ a measure of objectivity. She had been dressed in a pair of dark green trousers and a green pullover. Her dark hair had been caught up in a French twist. Stylish, black-rimmed glasses emphasized her green eyes and the striking planes and angles of an intelligent face that had