Chapter One

March 2008

KEITH

He woke up too early and shuffled down the dead black hallway to the steps. By touch he scuffed downstairs into the front hall. From there, little lights guided him: amber, green, red. Nearly every electronic device and appliance had lit-up dots or numbers. So did the security system. He glanced at it for the first of probably a dozen times that day. It was armed. Good. Blue numbers on the stove’s clock read four fifty-seven a.m. It was a long time until daylight.

He started a pot of coffee, a full one rather than his usual half. His daughter Kinley would want some when she woke up. Years of disappointment hadn’t shaken his wife’s hope that their girl, a grown woman now, would come home for a good, long visit. Ironic. Kinley had slept upstairs for weeks now, but Brenda hadn’t been here to enjoy it because Kinley had come home to watch her mother die. Keith grabbed a mug and interrupted the coffee’s flow.

He wandered into his studio, a sun porch originally, just off the kitchen, and inhaled the scents of oils and turpentine. His fingers clawed themselves into the right position for holding a brush. Not yet. He hadn’t painted at all while cancer devoured Brenda. It was the least he could give her. And the most. Even now he couldn’t allow himself to paint as freely as before her death. He must be vigilant. He was always careful, but now he must be more cautious than ever. Brenda’s death might rip a hole in the secrets he’d worked hard to conceal. 

Like it was any other day, he followed his routine and walked down the long driveway to the locked gate where he found the newspaper. He read it while drinking more coffee and eating the oatmeal Brenda said was good for him. He halfway expected to hear his wife stirring upstairs, getting ready for work. The silence was suffocating. A tremendous aching filled his body and mind. He couldn’t give into it. Not yet. He rinsed his dishes and went to the basement to work out and do a mile and a half on the treadmill. He showered. He was already tired.

Finally Kinley came downstairs and headed straight for the coffeepot. “I’d forgotten how gray it is in Cincinnati,” she said. “When was the last time there was sun?” She filled a mug.

Keith shrugged like he didn’t know, but he did. It had been three days ago, the day Brenda died. The light had been exquisite.

“Seems like it would make it tough for you, Dad.” Kinley sat across from him at the kitchen table. Her long hair, darker than her natural color, he thought, was caught up into a wide barrette. “You ought to paint in Colorado where it’s sunny most o