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from, Audrey Melbourne?”
    She shrugged. “What do any of us run from?”
    “The law and husbands,” Jim said. Davey Ahearn
    glanced down the bar, not saying a word, but Jim knew
    his friend’s suspicions were on full alert.
    “No, sir, I don’t believe that’s the case at all.” Audrey
    Melbourne slid off her stool, looking even smaller.
    “Mostly we run from ourselves.”
    She walked over to the coatrack and put on her new
    parka, hat and gloves as if they might have been a space
    suit. She left without looking back.
    Davey breathed out a long sigh. “Sure. I hope she
    comes back real soon. That pretty little number is trouble.”
    One of the firefighters snorted. “All women are
    trouble.”
    Two female Tufts graduate students took exception
    to this comment, and the argument was on. Jim didn’t
    intervene. The Bruins and the Celtics were having a
    lousy year, the Patriots hadn’t made the playoffs, and
    pitchers and catchers didn’t report for weeks yet. Peo-
    ple needed something to do. Maybe he needed to won-

    64
    Carla Neggers
    der about a redheaded Texan coming into his bar. It
    happened now and again, a stranger popping in for a
    drink. He doubted Audrey Melbourne would be back.
    An icy gust bit at Alice Parker’s face as she climbed
    over a blackened, frozen, eighteen-inch snowbank to get
    to her car. The Texas tags were a dead giveaway, but
    what the hell—so was her Texas accent. She’d arrived
    in Boston in the middle of a damn blizzard, and now it
    was so cold her cheeks ached and her eyeballs felt as if
    they were frozen in their sockets. Her chest hurt from
    breathing in the dry, frigid air.
    “I should have bought the damn Everest parka,” she
    muttered, picking her way over an ice patch. Even
    sanded, it was slippery. She supposed she’d need new
    boots if she ended up staying more than a few days.
    Damned if she’d move up here on a permanent basis.
    She’d rather sit in prison.
    She did not understand why Susanna Galway was
    living here on an old, crowded street in a working-class
    neighborhood, with the salt and sand and soot making
    everything even uglier. She had a nice house in San An-
    tonio. A Texas Ranger husband. What the hell was
    wrong with her?
    Alice tried fishing her keys out of her pocket with
    a gloved hand, decided that wouldn’t work and peeled
    off the glove. Winter was complicated. She couldn’t
    believe she’d driven a couple thousand miles in her
    crappy car to track down Susanna, just so Beau could
    think she still had the tape. Not that he was biting—
    he kept telling her she could go to hell and threaten-

    The Cabin
    65
    ing to turn her in for blackmail and extortion. She was
    calling his bluff. He’d pay her to steal the tape and
    hush up about it. She knew he would. Things worked
    on his nerves. He was paranoid and dramatic. She’d
    made that one little remark about Rachel smothering
    him in his sleep, and less than a day later, her friend
    was dead.
    Alice was confident he’d come around. He deserved
    to pay for something.
    Of course, he could decide to shoot her in the back
    and go after the tape himself, but that was extreme.
    Even Beau couldn’t think he’d get away with two mur-
    ders. He’d let her do his dirty work for him. And pay her.
    If he did end up shooting her, Jack Galway and Sam
    Temple could catch him. At least he’d go to prison for
    her murder, if not Rachel’s.
    An old woman pushed open the porch door to the
    stucco house just up the street. She had on pants stuffed
    into fur-trimmed ankle boots, a dark wool car coat, a red
    scarf, a red knit hat and red knit gloves.
    It had to be Iris Dunning. Susanna’s grandmother.
    Alice had found out from Beau that Susanna Galway
    was living up north with her daughters and grandmother.
    He’d obviously expected this information would make
    Alice give up on her plan. She’d thought about it. It was
    kind of nuts, traveling two thousand miles, taking the
    risk of breaking into