"The subject was *Acquiring the Advocate,'" Dylan said.

I vaguely recalled a heading like that, but all sorts of syndicates and news services and heaven knew what else were sent to me all the time and usually involved some sort of product for sale, including websites and even p.o.r.n. I deleted them immediately, fearing that there were viruses attached.

"I never read it," I admitted. "I'm not sure what you're talking about. What do you mean by *acquiring'?"

"I'll explain." Dylan Platte sounded condescending, as if he were talking to the Alpine Idiot. "My wife, Kelsey, and her brother, Graham, inherited their father's newspaper chain when he was killed a few years ago. For a time, they both left the business up to..."

I lost track of what Dylan was saying. Kelsey. Graham. Tom Cavanaugh's daughter and son. The stepchildren I'd almost acquired-there was that word again-by marrying Tom. My son, Adam's half brother and half sister. I'd met them only once at Tom's funeral Ma.s.s in San Francisco. Adam and my brother, Ben, had gone with me, but we'd skipped the reception that followed because I simply couldn't handle mingling with so many people I didn't know-including Graham and Kelsey. I worried that they might blame me in part for what had happened to their father. I'd been so numb with grief that I'd barely been able to say more than a mumbled h.e.l.lo. They were only a blur in my mind's eye.

In trying to recall what they looked like, I conjured up only the vaguest of impressions-in their twenties, muddling through mismatched mates and equally incompatible careers. I suddenly realized that the Cavanaugh offspring must be thirty-something by now, and apparently had settled down to take life seriously. The searing wound I'd felt when Tom died had never quite healed, and now I felt as if it had been reopened and was bleeding all over again.

I couldn't speak.

"...Graham has inherited his father's business skills," Dylan was saying. "He understands the predicament of newspapers in general these days, but also knows that some of the solutions lie in mergers and acquisitions. My background is in advertising, Kelsey is the creative type, and Graham's wife, Sophia, is a very fine writer. It's an ideal situation for all of us, not to mention that living in the Bay Area isn't what it used to be. We a.s.sume you're getting close to retirement, and we're prepared to make a very tempting offer. So what would be a good time this evening or tomorrow?"

I marshaled my strength to reply. "I'm not interested, and I won't be in town past four o'clock. I've already made plans with a friend who lives in Seattle."

"Oh?" Dylan paused, but only for a moment. "You enjoy the city, I take it?"

"Of course," I said. "I was raised there."

Here came that chuckle again. "So I imagine you'll move back after you sell the paper. Especially," he added a trifle slyly, "if your friend lives there."

I tried to picture Rolf in my mind's eye. I couldn't. All I saw was Tom-smiling, talking, thinking, sleeping, looking into my eyes. I pressed my free hand against my forehead, willing myself to behave like a mature middle-aged human being.

"I'm sorry," I finally said. "I'm not contemplating a sale of the Advocate in the near future. I have to go now. Good luck on your move to Alpine."

"Hardball," Dylan murmured. "I understand. You realize, of course, that Kelsey's father intended to buy the Advocate before he died."

"What?" I was so startled that I shrieked the word.

"He left a letter-a memo, I should say-about his intentions," Dylan explained, as though he was talking about a request Tom might have made to purchase a filing cabinet. "According to Kelsey, he made that fatal trip to Alpine to negotiate with you in person. My father-in-law was interested in getting a foothold for his newspaper chain in western Washington. Since he knew you, he felt that the Advocate would make a good starting point. Kelsey and Graham are simply carrying out what Tom Cavanaugh wanted to do."

I glanced up as the front door opened. Mayor Fuzzy Baugh entered and offered me his best election-year smile. I tried to smile back, but my effort was puny. I spoke quietly into the receiver: "I have to hang up. Someone's here to see me. I'll call you back in an hour. What's your number, or should I contact the motel?"

"I'm not at the motel," Dylan replied. "I'll call you." He broke the connection.

I must have looked stricken. For once, the town's longtime leader dropped his hail-voter-well-met expression and stopped smiling. "What's wrong, Emma?" he asked with a trace of his native New Orleans. "Has something...happened?"

I didn't consider Fuzzy Baugh a confidant. "Well...not really," I said, trying to regroup. "It was just one of those strange phone calls newspapers get once in a while."

Fuzzy leaned on the counter that separated us. "A threat?"

"No." I wasn't sure I could stand up. "Just...an unusual request." I kept my unsteady hands in my lap. "What can I do for you?"

"I was looking for that new youngun of yours-Curtis, isn't it?"

I nodded. "He went to lunch."

"Ah." Fuzzy looked at his watch. "My, my. Where does the time go?" He shook his head. The thinning curls were dyed a pumpkin orange, an unfortunate choice for a man in his mid-seventies. "I'm expecting Winn Caldwell-the wood-carving fella-to deliver my porcupine this afternoon. I thought Curtis would want another photo for the paper."

"Oh. Yes." I nodded several times, probably looking like a bobble-head doll.

Fortunately, Fuzzy had reverted to his usual obliviousness. "You'll tell Curtis? Winn's coming around three."

"Yes." I managed to stop nodding. "I'll write him a note. Thanks."

Fuzzy tipped an imaginary hat and strolled out of the front office. I took some deep breaths, scribbled the message for Curtis, and managed to stand up. Back in the newsroom, I leaned on my reporter's desk and tried to collect my wits.

Dylan was lying. Or he'd been deceived by Kelsey and Graham Cavanaugh. Tom had loved me. He'd loved me for years and years, as I had loved him, even though I'd tried to bury that love when he'd abandoned me after I got pregnant with Adam. Tom had faults-I knew them well-but wooing a woman, any woman, to get his hands on a small weekly newspaper wasn't his style. The Cavanaugh offspring were trying to unhinge me. Maybe it was a business tactic, maybe it was a personal motive. After their mother, Sandra, had died from an overdose of one of her many mind-and mood-altering drugs, Kelsey and Graham had found out that there was another woman in their father's life. I'd had contact via the phone with them because Tom had died in Alpine, and arrangements had to be made to send his body back to San Francisco. Tom and I had been about to get married when he was killed. His children must have known what was going on between us. Or did they?

I glanced at my watch. It was twenty past twelve. I'd lost my appet.i.te. I wanted to talk to my brother, but Ben was attending a conference for Catholic families in Baltimore, where he was one of the priests lecturing on prayer and meditation. For all I knew, he was in the middle of a heated discourse over whether or not teenagers should listen to rap music while saying the rosary.

Adam. My son had to find out what was going on with the half siblings he never knew. But he had followed in the footsteps of his uncle Ben and had become a priest. Adam was living in a remote part of Alaska, ministering mainly to the native community of Catholics in his far-flung parish of St. Mary's Igloo. He had been in Alpine for Easter, but I hadn't spoken with him since. Phone conversations were awkward and frustrating, coming through on a radio transmission delay, so our communication was accomplished via frequent e-mails. I considered going into my cubbyhole and sending off a missive describing what had just happened to his poor mother. Then I thought better of it. I didn't have all the facts, and, being a conscientious journalist, I wasn't going to reveal anything until I had more data.

I was still wandering around the newsroom at twelve-thirty, when Leo came through the door. He took one look at me and stopped in his tracks.

"What's wrong?" he asked in the voice that had endured too many cigarettes. "Are you sick?"

"Yes." I did an uncharacteristic thing, rushing to him and throwing myself against his chest. "Oh, Leo! Tom's kids want to buy the Advocate!"

"Jesus!" He spoke softly, putting his arms around me in a clumsy gesture. "Hey," he said after a moment or two, "let's go into your office. Or would you rather hit the bar at the Venison Inn?"

I forced myself to stop acting like an emotional twit. "No." I slowly disengaged myself from his embrace. "I mean, not the bar. My office is fine."

Despite my attempt at stability, I walked so unsteadily that I ricocheted off the doorframe, hit the other side, and almost fell flat on my face.

"Whoa!" Leo cried, grabbing my arm. "Let me get you into your chair." He gently guided me behind the desk. "There. How many of me do you see?"

I tried to smile. "Only one. I'm not very graceful, even at my best."

"True enough," Leo said, moving to one of my visitors' chairs. He took out his cigarettes and offered me one. I didn't skip a beat, grabbing it and letting him light it for me.

"Thanks," I said. "I'm still in shock, so I'll go on pretending I don't know what I'm doing."

Leo chuckled softly. "Tom's kids-the last time I saw them they were in junior high or whatever they called it then in the Bay Area."

"I hardly remember them," I admitted. "They're all grown up and running Tom's newspaper chain."

"Not into the ground, I hope?"

I shrugged. "Have you heard anything about them taking over?"

Leo shook his head. "When I cut my ties with Tom's papers way back when, before you rescued me from the bottom of a barrel of booze, I didn't want to hear how my more sober replacements were doing. Of course Tom kept track of me-he was that kind of guy. But after he died"-Leo didn't look me in the eye-"I never paid attention to what was going on with his empire. I guess I a.s.sumed the kids would sell the papers off." He flicked ash into the clamsh.e.l.l I kept on hand for smokers-and for me. "Now I realize that, if they'd sold out, that's the kind of thing I would've heard on the grapevine without asking."

"I'd have heard about it, too," I said. "My answer is no. But this Dylan doesn't seem to understand the meaning of the word."

Leo's weathered face wore a thoughtful expression. "Are you meeting with him?"

"The answer to that is also no." Out of habit, I blew smoke away from Leo. Maybe I was blowing smoke in another way. Maybe I didn't want to admit to any curiosity about the stepchildren I'd almost acquired. "Besides," I went on, "I'm going to Seattle for the weekend. Dylan is leaving before I get back."

"Ah." Leo nodded twice. "The intriguing Mr. Fisher."

"And sometimes aggravating," I said, perhaps to make up for the touch of guilt I felt after having rejected Leo's tentative advances early on in our working relationship. "Anyway, Dylan and Kelsey are buying Ed's house."

Leo burst out laughing. "No! They must be real suckers! That place is a white elephant."

"I know," I said, putting out my cigarette. "I can't understand why they'd consider buying the house before they bought the newspaper. It should be the other way around. Why else move here?"

"Good point," Leo agreed. "I'd like to hear what's been going on with Kelsey and Graham. You want me to talk to this Dylan...what's his last name?"

"Platte," I said. "He's staying at the Tall Timber, but he wasn't going to be in this afternoon."

Leo glanced at his watch. "Quarter to one. Maybe I'll wander over there and see if I can track him down."

"Go ahead. Let me know what you find out about the arrogant Mr. Platte."

"You know," he said in a musing voice, "this may be a good thing. Outsiders are never welcome in small towns. You start writing or talking about those Californians barging in on Alpine with their Golden State mentality, and the next thing you see is local support for the paper, with more subscribers and maybe even more ad revenue."

My smile was genuine. "You're a treasure," I declared. "I hadn't thought about that."

He shrugged and stood up, brushing cigarette ash off his well-worn blue sport coat. "Think of me as your in-house opportunist. As for talking to Platte, I can claim my former decadent advertising stint with Tom's papers as an entree." He c.o.c.ked his head to one side. "You okay now?"

I nodded. "I was an idiot to get so upset. All I have to do is say no."

Leo grinned. "You already said that."

"So I did. But I also said that Dylan Platte doesn't take no for an answer."

In light of the tragedies that had already been set in motion, maybe I should have said no to Tom Cavanaugh some thirty-odd years ago.

THREE.

"THE NERVE!" VIDA SHRIEKED AFTER I TOLD HER ABOUT Dylan Platte's phone call. "What did I say about this younger generation? No manners-and no sense! I hope Leo puts a flea in his ear!"

"He will," I a.s.sured her. "Anybody who can talk Alpine's tightfisted merchants into buying ads knows how to make a point."

Vida drummed her fingers on her desk. "I must say that I'm curious about this Cavanaugh bunch. I wish Leo had waited so that I could've gone with him." When I didn't say anything, she shot me a sharp look. "Well? Aren't you?"

I sighed and leaned against Leo's desk. "I suppose I should be. But I never knew them when Tom was alive. Maybe I don't want any reminders of what might have been."

"Perhaps." Vida stared off into s.p.a.ce. "I think I'll go over to the Tall Timber Motel."

"Don't," I said. "Let Leo handle this."

Vida's expression was indignant. "I don't intend to interfere. I merely want to observe."

I knew better, of course. But I also knew that I couldn't stop Vida. Before I could say anything, Curtis came into the newsroom. Vida left while I was relaying Mayor Baugh's message about the wood carving.

"Three o'clock, huh?" Curtis said, looking not at his watch but at the screen on his tiny cell phone. "Got it."

I retreated to my cubbyhole, trying hard to put the aggressive buyout effort out of my head. It wasn't easy, but I had more immediate problems to solve, including how I was going to pay for the Advocate's upkeep. On several occasions, Rick Erlandson had advised me to open a line of credit at the bank. I'd hesitated, seeing in my mind's eye a figure that escalated every second. I didn't need a big personal debt. My little log house was paid for with the money from the bungalow Adam and I had shared in Portland when I was working for The Oregonian. I'd bought the Advocate with an unexpected windfall from an ex-fiance who had forgotten to remove my name from his Boeing Company life insurance policy after we broke up. My five-year-old Honda Accord was also paid for in full. The cost of living was far cheaper in Alpine than in either Seattle or Portland, but I was hardly getting rich, and inflation creeps into even the most remote of mountain aeries.

Ginny, whose pregnancy was beginning to show under the loose cotton blouse she was wearing, came into my office carrying a small parcel wrapped in brown paper.

"Marlowe Whipp dropped this off just now," she said. "He'd forgotten to deliver it when he brought the mail this morning."

Marlowe wasn't the USPO's most diligent mailman, but he was all we had in most parts of Alpine. I thanked her. "Are you feeling better?"

She nodded. "I think I've put the heaves behind me. With our first two, I stopped being nauseated after three months." There was a slight frown on her plain, serious face. "Do you suppose that means it's another boy?"

I smiled at Ginny. "It probably is-unless it's a girl. I don't believe all those old wives' tales about how you can discern a baby's s.e.x. Only the ultrasound usually tells whether it's a boy or a girl."

"I'm not sure I want to know," Ginny replied. "Rick told me it was my decision. If I find out it's a boy, I'll be...disappointed. And if it's a girl, I'll worry that she's not okay."

I recalled how Ginny had moped her way through the previous pregnancies. Never a high-spirited young woman, she had fussed and fretted for what seemed like far longer than the average gestation period. I'd hoped that we could avoid that problem the third time around, but it appeared this wasn't going to be a charm. Ginny was Ginny, and as she was a diligent and decent employee, I was willing to put up with her long face and doleful obsessions.

"What does Doc Dewey say?" I asked, picking up a pair of scissors to cut open the package she'd given me.

Ginny shrugged. "You know Doc. He says it's up to me."

I certainly knew Doc, who'd joined his father's practice long before I arrived in Alpine. Gerald Dewey was a general pract.i.tioner, and while he wasn't able to be quite as hands-on as his late father had been, he had a compa.s.sionate, practical bedside manner.

"Doc's right," I said. And frowned. "There's no return address on this package. It's postmarked Alpine, though."

"It's not very heavy," Ginny pointed out.

I read the address, which had been printed with a black marker pen: Emma Lord

507 Front Street

Alpine WA 98289