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Death of the Party
A Death on Demand Mystery

Chapter One

The room wasn't moving. Britt Barlow held to that reality, no matter her dizziness. Yet the words in the letter blurred before her eyes.

Britt remembered a long-ago day in a small third-floor apartment in Mexico City, the rumble of wrenched walls, the swaying floor, the sweep of gut-sickening terror. She'd survived that earthquake, just as she'd survived divorce and loss and sadness and, once, a fury that had threatened to capsize her world.

Britt waited for that first shock to pass. She would survive. No matter what happened, she had always been a survivor. Earthquake, fire, flood, pestilence ... Damn the world. She would fight this new threat as she'd always fought, with steely determination, with craft and guile, with a devil-be-damned smile.

The words in the letter came back into focus. "... I saw you that morning ... understand the estate is settled ... perhaps we could have a little talk about financial matters... ."

Britt felt hot and sick. She glanced at the mirror above the fireplace. Other than the bright flush on her narrow cheeks, she looked much as she had when she finished dressing this morning, the vermilion sweater a vivid contrast to cream wool slacks. She stared at her image as if appraising a stranger: glossy black curls, clover green eyes, a restless look of expectancy. With a twisting pang of incipient loss, she remembered Loomis's words to her just before he left the island last week. "I love your face, Britt. You have" -- he'd paused, searched for his thought, brought it out with a triumphant grin -- "the face of adventure. That's the kind of woman I've always written about. I made you up long before I met you. I didn't think you existed. Now I know you do. It has to be us, Britt. The two of us together." He'd kissed her, a kiss that held a promise of indescribable joy. "I'll be back. Count on it." Loomis was the late love of a life that had known so much loss. She'd never again expected to thrill when a man walked into her room. She loved the way he looked, the way he walked, the way he talked, his brilliance, his wry humor, his innate kindness.

She crumpled the letter, shoved it into the pocket of her slacks, folded her arms, began to pace. All right. The truth was going to come out. Jeremiah Addison had been murdered. Until now she'd pushed away all memory of that moment when she'd stood at the top of the staircase and looked down at the crumpled body lying at the base of the white marble steps, blood slowly pooling beneath his battered head. The downstairs hallway light had illumined death in a pool of brightness. She'd stared for a long moment, poised to hurry down if there was any sign of life. But death was obvious in the rag doll limpness of his limbs, the awkward crook of his neck. Jeremiah Addison had not survived his plunge down the steep stone steps. It would have been a miracle had he survived that headfirst fall. He'd always considered himself a miracle man, but his luck had finally run out.

She'd pulled her gaze away, knowing that no one could help Jeremiah now. She'd looked instead at the taut shiny wire stretched ankle high from the wall to a baluster. Why hadn't he glimpsed the wire? The answer was easy and such a commentary on the man. Jeremiah expected the world and everything in it to give way before him. He always strode forward at top speed, his long legs moving fast. He was Jeremiah Addison and the world waited on him. He didn't look down. He always looked ahead, focused on the next encounter, the next objective, the next triumph. He'd plunged fast down the steps and the wire had snagged him, flung him headfirst to his death.

Britt felt the wad of the crumpled letter in her pocket. Jeremiah had been dead for a year and a half. Now she had to remember everything that had happened and accept the fact that she'd been observed that silent summer morning. She continued to pace, though her breath came quickly and her chest ached.

She could have made a different choice when she stood there at the top of the stairs. If she'd screamed, some of the staff downstairs would have come running. The truth would have been there to see, Jeremiah dead and the means of his death apparent.

Murder. The word was harsh but no harsher than the reality. An investigation would have been launched. Everyone on the island, the very private and isolated South Carolina sea island of Golden Silk, would have been caught up in a homicide investigation. Oh, there were plenty of suspects, each with a burning reason to do away with rich, powerful, arrogant Jeremiah Addison.

Including herself, of course. Everyone knew she hated Jeremiah. He'd barely tolerated her presence on the island even though she was a great help with Cissy.

She could have screamed when she found him dead. She had not. Instead, with scarcely a moment's pause, she'd drawn a deep, steadying breath and whirled to run down the hallway to a bathroom. She'd grabbed a washcloth, raced lightly back to the stairway, listening all the while for a door to open, footsteps, a cry of horror, but the hallway remained silent.

Silent as a grave.

She'd worked fast in the early morning stillness, pulling out the nail from the wall, unfastening the thin but formidable strand from the baluster, checking to see if the telltale hole was obvious, grateful when the speck in the wall was easily covered by a fleck of lint from the carpet. She'd mashed the wire into a lump, put the coil and the nail in the pocket of her robe, and fled down the hall to her room. She'd waited there until a maid's shout brought them all tumbling from their rooms.

Everyone said, "What a terrible accident."

Death of the Party
A Death on Demand Mystery. Copyright © by Carolyn Hart. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.