Ham Bones

Bones To Pick

Hallowed Bones

Crossed Bones

Splintered Bones

Buried Bones

Them Bones

Summer of the Redeemers

Touched

Fever Moon

Penumbra

Judas Burning

My Mother's Witness:
The Peggy Morgan Stoiy

Carolyn Haines

KENSINGTON BOOKS
http://www.kensingtonbooks.com

KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by Kensington Publishing Corp. 850 Third Avenue New York, NY 10022 Copyright (c) 2007 by Carolyn Haines All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the Publisher and neither the Author nor the Publisher has received any payment for this "stripped book" All Kensington titles, imprints, and distributed lines are available at special quantity discounts for bulk purchases for sales promotion, premiums, fund-raising, educational, or institutional use.

Special book excerpts or customized printings can also be created to fit specific needs. For details, write or phone the office of the Kensington Special Sales Manager: Attn: Special Sales Department. Kensington Publishing Corp., 850 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10022. Phone: 1-800221-2647.

Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off. ISBN-13: 978-0-7582-1093-7 ISBN-10: 0-7582-1093-0 First Kensington Hardcover Printing: July 2007 First Kensington Mass Market Paperback Printing: June 2008 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America

For Sarah Bewley, my partner in crime.

So many people are invested in the Bones books and
offer advice, ideas, and suggestions, but for this one, I
have to credit one of my most loyal readers, Londa Pybus
of Midlothian, Virginia, for the fabulous title. It was truly
inspired.

Thanks go, yet again, to the Deep South Writers Salon:
Gary and Shannon Walker, Susan Tanner, Stephanie Chisholm, Aleta Boudreaux, Alice Jackson, and Renee Paul.
Over the sixteen years we've met as a critique group,
we've read a lot of pages. Thank you for the constant care
and hard work on behalf of my stories.

Special thanks to Dr. Fred Wells, who has a mind for
fictional murder and a love of the Mississippi Delta.

My agent Marian Young is top-drawer. No writer could
have a better advocate. Thanks also to Audrey LaFehr and
the entire Kensington staff, especially the art department.

hen the cold January wind blows across the empty
cotton fields, it's hard to remember the lush summer heat. Dahlia House has weathered more than a hundred and fifty winters, standing against wind and rain and
war. Sitting on the porch, bundled in the new, red, polar
fleece jacket that was one of my love's many Christmas
gifts, I try not to let the fading daylight leave me blue.
The holidays have come and gone, another season slipped
away, a new year begun.

My resolution this year is to leave the past behind.
Since the death of my parents, I've dragged my guilt behind me like a ball and chain. No more. Coleman Peters,
the sheriff of Sunflower County, is recuperating from a
gunshot wound to his chest and has filed for divorce from
his psycho wife. By springtime he'll be a free man. I, too,
must shed the things that bind me to a time and place that
no longer exist. Divorce, a mere legal maneuver, is easy
compared to severing memories.

Looking out on the brown fields that meet the gray sky on a distant horizon, I find it impossible not to think of
the past. Only a year before I was in the Big Apple learning that my Big Dream wasn't going to happen. I would
never tread the boards of Broadway as a leading lady.
While my talent was a blinding star in Mississippi, I was
barely a fizzle in New York City. I'd come home in defeat.

"I do declare, if there's one word that won't be allowed
on the premises of Dahlia House, it's de-feat!"

I didn't have to turn around to realize who was speaking. Jitty, the resident haint of Dahlia House, had come to
devil me in the broadest Southern accent I'd ever heard. It
wasn't bad enough that I was suffering from SAD; now I
was afflicted with SMG, sassy-mouthed ghost.

"Jitty, I'm not in the mood for your cornpone rendition
of Scarlett. Can't you see I'm sinking into a perfectly
good funk?" I swiveled to take a gander at her. She had
the annoying habit of skipping through the decades for her
wardrobe. When last I'd seen her she was all Marie An-
toinetteish. My jaw dropped several inches as I took in the
layers and layers of pale pink tulle that swung on hooped
petticoats. The dress was perfectly fitted to her nineteeninch waist. With her wide-brimmed hat she looked like
the unthinkable-an antebellum belle.

"Honey chile, you keep sittin' out here on the gallery
mopin' about the past, you gone put the funk in dysfunctional." She snapped a fan open and laughed beguilingly
behind it.

I rose to my feet. "Jitty, I've put up with hot pants and
flapper fringe, poodle skirts and Trekkie suits. I've even
been through French Revolution garb, but I draw the line
at this"-I pointed at her dress-"mockery of my heritage!"

"You're the one who can't let the past go "" She sashayed around the porch, her hoop skirts swinging to reveal ruffled pantaloons.

I was saved from a response by the sound of a tooting
horn. Tinkie's new Cadillac cruised down the driveway.
When I turned back to Jitty, she was gone.

The Cadillac stopped and Tinkie sprang from behind
the wheel, her gaze sweeping over the drying garlands of
cedar and magnolia leaves I'd used to decorate the porch.

"Christmas is over, Sarah Booth. It's bad luck to leave
those decorations up "" She snatched an end of a garland
and pulled. Since her visit to Dr. Larry Martin had revealed that the pecan-sized lump in her breast was completely gone-vanished!-Tinkie had been a ball of fire.

"I'll help you with this," she said as she tore the greenery free of the house, "but then you'll have to help me"

"Help you what?" I was wary of Tinkie's deals.

She dropped the garland at her feet, her face alive with
pleasure. "Finish the preparations for the cast"

"No!" I wanted no part of it. "When I left New York, I
gave up all ambitions of hanging out with actors. I don't
even like actors"

Her bottom lip protruded slightly in a pout that brought
grown men to their knees. "Don't be that way, Sarah
Booth. This is going to be wonderful. A New York production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is the biggest thing
that's ever happened in Zinnia."

"And it wouldn't be happening now if a hurricane hadn't
destroyed the entire Gulf Coast" It was true. The production had been booked into the Beau Rivage Casino and a
category-five hurricane had devastated the coastline of
Mississippi.

"I hate to benefit from someone else's misfortune."
She pulled another garland free of the balustrade. "They had to go somewhere, though, and we're fortunate that
The Club had a stage and auditorium."

"Yes, what would the debutantes in town do without
the facilities of The Club?" I rolled up the garlands she
was destroying. Inside the door was a garbage bag for just
this purpose, and I grabbed it and began stuffing. Tinkie
was half-finished pulling down what had taken me two
days to put up.

"You're just upset about Graf Milieu." She yanked a
garland with such force that the tacks I'd used to secure it
scattered over the porch.

"Graf is nothing to me " If I said it often enough, it
would be true. In fact, I had no romantic feelings left for
him, but I did have shame. He'd seen me defeated, running home from New York with my tail between my legs
because I wasn't talented enough.