There was a summer thunderstorm making it a noisy night outside the suburban Philadelphia mansion belonging to antiques importer Samuel Becket. Sam wasn’t there, however, having traveled to California with his once fiancée and now fiancée again, movie actor Jolie Sunshine.

He’d invited the three Sunshine sisters, Jolie, Jessica, and Jade, to stay at the mansion as long as they liked, as their family home had been damaged by a suspicious fire shortly after the death of their father. Sam’s sprawling, securely fenced-in estate, complete with a gatehouse manned by the intrepid former professional wrestler Carroll “Bear Man” Yablonski, was now Operations Central for the Sunshine Detective Agency, what was left of it.

And what was left now that Jolie had been forced to return to California were TV cable news journalist Jessica and Philadelphia homicide detective Matt Denby, Jade, and Courtland Becket, Sam’s cousin from Virginia. Court, owner of an almost embarrassing empire of five star hotels, among his other assets, had flown immediately to Philadelphia when he’d heard about the alleged suicide of Teddy Sunshine. He wasn’t going anywhere as long as Jade needed him. Even if she said she didn’t.

Jade closed her cell phone with a snap and looked blankly at her ex-husband as he entered the living room. “I don’t believe it.”

Court, casually elegant in belted, pleated tan slacks and a form-fitting navy pullover too expensive to sport a label, tipped his head to one side inquiringly, and then headed for the bar in the far corner of the large room. “For the sake of harmony, neither do I. Ginger-ale for you, right? Considering the tone of your voice, however, I think I’ll have a beer. Oh, and what don’t I believe?”

“Jessica, of course,” Jade said, thinking about her baby sister, who had left the house not four hours ago, on what she had called a mission. “Poor Matt.”

“Poor Matt? That doesn’t sound good.” Court returned to the conversation area with their drinks and sat himself down on the facing couch. “When we discussed this earlier, I thought the idea was that your sister was going to give him some space. What was it she was going on about? If you love someone, let him go, etc, etc? In which case, might I point out, you obviously adore me.”

“Not now, Court, please,” Jade said, getting to her feet and smoothing down the wrinkled skirt of her simple shirtwaist cotton dress. She was bone weary, and definitely rumpled. Only Court could still look fresh, and heart-crushingly handsome, this late in the day. Or maybe it was a gift bestowed only upon those who were born to generations of money.

Not that she wanted to think about that right now, either. She needed to pace, to work off some of the tense energy that had driven her these past weeks. Not even two weeks, in fact, since she’d come home to find Teddy’s body in his office, the back of his head blown off and his service revolver on the floor beside his desk. And yet sometimes it felt like an eternity. “The bottom line is, Jessica and Matt are together again, how I don’t know.”

“You’re talking Jessica, when you say you don’t know, right? As to that, Sam and I have a theory that might apply here,” Court said, speaking of his absent cousin. “We’ve decided that your baby sister is a witch. The good, G-rated, pretty, blond, nose-twitching kind. But still a witch.”

Jade smiled in spite of herself. “You and Sam might have a point. In any case, they’ve gone off somewhere together. To celebrate before the rest of the world knows anything, which they will, soon, from coast to coast and in several large foreign cable markets — and that’s as close to a direct quote as I think I can get. She won’t say where they’ve gone, but she did say to hold the fort and that they’ll be back tomorrow night sometime.”

Court took a long pull on his beer, and then smiled up at Jade. “Gone? Really? Let’s do roll call, Jade, all right? Sam and Jolie? In California, getting ready to fly to Ireland to shoot your sister’s next movie. Matt and Jessica? Whereabouts unknown, although the words hotel suite with a king size bed and room service seem to be one fairly plausible conclusion. They should have called me and I could have arranged for the penthouse downtown.”

Jade winced inwardly. She remembered that penthouse, very well. She tried to cover her sudden discomfort by saying brightly, “Ah, but then we’d know where they are, and I don’t think Jessica wants anyone to know.”

“Good point. In any case they’re gone, they’re not here. Jessica took our new friend Ernesto home earlier, where he is even now packing to leave for college on Tuesday. Mrs. Archer has the weekend off, although she may have come back by now. Still, her apartment is pretty isolated. Bear Man is in his gatehouse at the end of the drive, most probably standing in front of a mirror as he strikes a few muscle-popping poses. Leaving this very large house — and you and me. For the first time since we got here, Jade, I think I like the odds.”

It was tiring, always fighting Court — fighting herself actually — so Jade gave in. “You forgot Rockne,” she said, smiling as Teddy’s beloved, aging Irish Setter snored in front of the cold fireplace. “He’s my chaperone-slash-bodyguard. Rockne! Sic him, boy!”

Rockne’s left ear twitched a single time, but his eyes didn’t open.

“I suppose you could go see if Mrs. Archer is available. She’s probably deadly with a rolling pin at twenty paces,” Court suggested. “What do you say, Jade? Can we put the cases to one side for one night? Just one?”

Jade returned to the couch and sat down, not to agree with Court, but to reach for the file folders that had been piled on the coffee table. “We’re getting so close, Court. I mean, taking the process of elimination into account, I should be able to wrap this all up in a few days.”

“You’re going to wrap this all up in a few days? Just you? Who solved the case of the disappearing bride?”

“Jolie and Sam,” Jade said, shifting manila folders on the tabletop. “With a lot of help from Teddy, who nearly had the whole thing wrapped up before he … before he was murdered.”

“Steady, Jade,” Court said, leaning across the table to squeeze her fingers. “Let’s move on. And the Fishtown Strangler case?”

“Jessica and Matt. Except that’s not completely solved, not if Herman Longstreet is telling the truth about Tarin White not being one of his victims, remember?” She put a hand to her head. “Sometimes it’s like we’re going in circles, you know?”

“Look, I don’t want to push this, but every day you look more … well, fragile. Your hands look a lot better since the night of the fire, but the burns still have to be tender. You don’t eat enough, I don’t know when you sleep, and when I think maybe you’re taking it easy for a while, I find you in the workout room, running on the treadmill. You’ve got to slow down, Jade. Stop beating yourself up.”

Jade pulled her hand free of his. He was wrong. The burns she’d gotten trying to put out the fire were completely healed now. It was the rest of her that remained wounded. “That’s just crazy, Court. I’m not beating myself up. Why would I beat myself up?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Because you didn’t come home earlier that night, find Teddy while he was still alive and draining that bottle of Irish whiskey, talk him out of what he was going to do …?”

“Teddy did not kill himself!” Jade clasped her hands together in her lap, because her hands were shaking and, otherwise, Court would see. He already saw too much.

“All right. Fine. He didn’t kill himself.” Court rubbed at his own forehead now, and Jade suppressed a guilty wince, knowing that he was as tired as she was. They were all tired.

“I’m sorry, Court. I know what it looked like. I was there, remember? The door to the office closed, Rockne shut outside that door, whining and agitated. The nearly empty bottle of whiskey for liquid courage. Teddy’s body on the other side of that door, slumped back in his chair, the gun fallen to the floor beside him after he’d … after he’d been shot. I know, Court. I know how it looked. I’ll never forget how it looked.”

“And the front door locked, the alarm on, and no signs of forcible entry anywhere,” Court added, his voice tight, as if he didn’t want to say what he was saying, but likewise knew that some things had to be said.

“I don’t remember,” Jade told him. “Honestly, Court, I don’t. Is that it? Have you been thinking that I lied to you all about that? About the alarm being on or off, the door locked or unlocked? Do you think I only said I don’t remember about the security code because otherwise the verdict of suicide is impossible to argue? How long have you thought that I’ve been lying?”

“Not lying, Jade. Not intentionally. But sometimes we do forget what we don’t want to remember.”

“Then I should have been able to forget finding Teddy like that. Holding Rockne back so he couldn’t contaminate the scene when all I wanted to do was go to Teddy, shake him back alive. Calling Jolie and Jess and telling them their father was dead. Living through the hell of the medical examiner and a bunch of cops poking around the house for hours, all of them talking about Teddy, and other cops who couldn’t take civilian life and ate their guns,” Jade said, blinking back tears. “Why can’t I do that, Court? Why can’t I forget any of that? Why can’t I forget that Teddy went to his grave labeled both a murderer and a suicide, disgraced, denied the departmental funeral his long years of service to Philadelphia demanded?”

Court had gotten up from the couch and come to sit beside Jade as she spoke, and now gathered her close against his shoulder. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I’m a jerk for bringing it up at all. I’m so, so sorry.”

“But you’ve been thinking it,” Jade said against his chest even as she put her palm against his shirtfront and pushed herself away from him. She dipped her head forward, allowing a curtain of long golden-brown hair to fall forward and hide her profile. “Sam, too? And Matt?”

“We’ve discussed it. But two things still can’t be explained. One, Teddy didn’t leave a note, and we think he would have done that. And two? You’re right, Jade, Teddy wouldn’t do that to you. He wouldn’t have let you find him. If he were going to kill himself, he wouldn’t have done it where you could see what he’d done. He loved you too much.”

Jade wiped her eyes with the handkerchief Court had passed to her. “Thank you. Unfortunately, those conclusions come from our feelings. The cops worked with what they saw. Just the way they saw Teddy on Melodie Brainard’s front door security cameras, the last visitor the camera picked up on before she was found doing the dead man’s float in the swimming pool.” She made a face. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. Although dead woman’s float doesn’t sound any better.”

“You were around Teddy all the time,” Court reminded her. “Sometimes you sound a lot like him.”

“And that’s a bad thing,” Jade said, sighing, willing herself to be composed, or to just behave as if she were. “Or at least it wasn’t a good thing when I met your friends. Savannah Harper? She was always after me to tell her stories about how to shadow a cheating husband.”

“She would be, considering she’s done some fairly extensive cheating of her own on poor Buzz.”

Jade allowed herself to be diverted. “She got caught?”

“Caught, forgiven, and she’s back at it. Jade, many of the people I associate with are simply social or business acquaintances. Not my friends. You knew that. But I did pretty much toss you into the deep end with their wives, didn’t I? I’m sorry about that.”

Jade moved to return his handkerchief, but then reconsidered, and blew her nose into it. “It’s all right. It was even fun, at first, listening to them, sorting them out. But I wasn’t built to be a society wife, Court. We both know that now. It wasn’t that I couldn’t fit, because I think I could, if I worked on it. I just didn’t want to fit. Country club lunches and charity balls? They’re not my thing.”

“You were bored.”

“No, Court, I was smothering. Melting away, losing myself. There’s a difference.” She looked at him, felt a small catch in her belly, and reached once more toward the stack of files. Those files were the only things she could hold onto right now. Solving the remaining cold cases, praying one of them led to Teddy’s killer.

“I was a jackass, only thinking of my own happiness,” Court said, and she sliced a quick look back at him, seeing the hurt in his face.

Such a handsome man. That’s what had caught her attention at first, his dark good looks, but his innate goodness had been what held that attention. She couldn’t stand to see him hurting.

“I should have told you I was unhappy, that was unfair of me. And we were both pretty stubborn as I remember it. You were always gone on business, Teddy needed help back here until he could replace me. One thing led to another, didn’t it? But that’s all water under the bridge, right?”

“Is it?”

“Court, I —” She dumped several files in Court’s lap. “Let’s do this now, clear off Sam’s priceless antique table, sort out what we need and don’t need. I can’t count on Jessica having her head anywhere near the game for at least a few days, and I think we’re getting too close to slack off while she walks around with stars in her eyes.”

“We’re going to have to talk about this sooner or later, Jade. You do know that. I love you, I’ve never stopped loving you.”

“Court, please,” Jade all but begged him. “Not now.”

“Not now. That’s becoming a familiar refrain.”

“I’m sorry, Court. But I really can’t do this now. Every day that Teddy is believed to be a murderer is one day too many. If we’re — if I’m to have any future, I’ve got to correct the past.”

“Sometimes that isn’t possible, Jade. Sometimes we simply have to close the door and move on.”

“Like we have? Our divorce was final almost a year ago. Have we moved on, either of us? Would you be here now if Teddy hadn’t died? Is it time we gave up, Court, and closed the door on us?”

Court looked at her for a long moment, his deep brown eyes unreadable. “Point taken. Pass me one of those folders.”

Jade handed him one of the files, blindly, as she couldn’t read the words on the tab through the tears in her eyes, and then pulled another file onto her lap. She opened it, staring at nothing, as she felt Court’s assessing gaze on her, burning into her. What was he thinking?

---------

The Becket Philadelphia, Broad Street

It was three days after Christmas. Court sat at the hotel bar with his cousin Sam Becket, watching as the man made a valiant attempt to drown his sorrows with gin and tonic. Clearly not a dedicated drinker, his cousin, or else he’d go for a single malt, neat, and doubled.

“Tell me again why you didn’t just go after her,” Court said, thinking it might be a good idea to keep Sam talking instead of drinking. “You know, fly to the coast, grovel, plead, grovel some more?”

“I told you,” Sam said, lifting his glass and looking into it, frowning. He set it back down. “I don’t even like gin and tonic. Teddy warned me away.”

“Teddy. That’s the father, right? Jolie’s over twenty-one, isn’t she? It wasn’t as if you needed his permission.”

“Jolie’s his daughter. He knows her better than anyone. Obviously better than me, or I wouldn’t have offered her money.”

Court picked up his own glass. Bottled water with a twist of lemon, as he had elected himself designated driver, even though he was staying at the hotel and that meant driving Sam back to his own house in the middle of a snowstorm. But these were the sacrifices one made for family. “I have to hand it to you, Sam, that’s unique. Here’s money — marry me. Yet slightly lacking in romance, I’d say.”

Sam shot his cousin a sharp look. “I offered her money to live on while she waited tables or whatever it is out-of-work actors do to survive while looking for their big break. She threw it back in my face. Literally.” He pushed back on the barstool. “Damn it, Court, I was trying to help.”

“But that help came with a time limit. I remember this part. Go to Hollywood, Jolie, fall flat on your face — but eat well while you’re doing it — and then come home at the end of one year, and marry me. You ought to think about a career in the Diplomatic Corps. Especially since, last I heard, she’s still out there, and you’re still here, kicking yourself in the backside.”

“I’m done kicking myself for that one, Court. I’ve done something else since that fiasco. The dumbest damn thing I’ve ever done.”

“Dumber than the day you pinned a pillowcase to your shoulders and flew off the garage roof?”

Sam smiled at the memory, rubbing the arm he had broken in the fall into some saving shrubberies. “I was seven. I had an excuse. I don’t have an excuse for this one. I know a few people out there in La-La Land and I … I bought Jolie’s way into the worst movie ever released straight to video.”

“Porn?”

“Very funny. No, Court, a horror flick. You know, kids out for a night of necking in the woods, the obligatory masked madman running through those woods, chopping up teenagers with a souped-up Cuisinart or something. She got a few lines and then got some pretty good close-ups where she had to look scared and scream a lot.”

“All right, I think I’m beginning to follow this,” Court said, commandeering a bowl of peanuts from the bartender. When you own the hotel, someone is always watching, ready to supply anything you wanted. “The film bombs, Jolie bombs, and she gives up, comes home to pick out china patterns. So? Tell me about the flaw in this master plan, because obviously there was one.”

Sam ran a hand through his already mussed dark blonde hair. “So this big Hollywood type saw her, said he’d never seen anyone the camera loved more since Julia Roberts, and signed her to a three-picture deal. The first one isn’t out for another month or so, but according to the grapevine, she’s brilliant in it.”

“Ah, hoist with your petard,” Court said, toasting Sam’s debacle with bottled water. “Or something like that. Now what?”

“Now I face the fact that I’ve lost, and I’ve got to learn to live without her, that’s now what. Now I keep doing what I’ve been doing.”

“Burying yourself in work,” Court said, thinking of Sam’s legacy separate from the Becket family inheritance, a large import/export antiques empire that had its beginnings nearly two hundred years ago and, in the past few years, a steady increase in high-end retail antique stores. Court had leased him a large area inside this same hotel, many of his hotels around the world. “How’s that going for you?”

Sam held up his glass. “How does it look like it’s going? But enough of me crying in my gin and tonic. How are things with you? I know you just flew in from somewhere. Where was it this time? London? Paris?”

“Rome. You’ll be happy to know that your share of our latest acquisition to our Becket family portfolio includes an owner’s suite overlooking Vatican City. It’s yours to use whenever you want.”

“Sweet,” Sam said, clinking glasses with Court. “I propose a toast. To Ainsley Becket and his entrepreneurial spirit. Shipbuilding, land, thoroughbred horses, banks, developing industries. He was a man ahead of his time.”

“He was a privateer and pirate, chased out of his own country before he could be hanged,” Court said, smiling. “Come to think of it, so are we. Pirates, that is. We just play more within the rules than he did two centuries ago.”

“Good, because I don’t think getting hanged from some yardarm is on my to-do list for the New Year. How about you? Court? I said, how about you?”

“Hmm?” Court had turned on his bar stool, his interest caught and held by the woman just entering the bar. He watched her steady progress toward him, everyone else in the crowded room fading away, as if a spotlight was shining down on her, moving with her.

She was stunning, from her long, unbelievably straight legs to the artlessly-piled honey-brown hair that made him itch to find the pins that held it in place and slide them out one by one, all those warm-looking curls cascading down over her bared breasts. The clear mental image surprised him. “A couple of days after the fact, but better late than never. Thank you, Santa Claus.”

“Santa Claus? What the hell are you talking — oh, damn it all to Hell. What’s she doing here?”

“You know the lady?” Court asked, dragging his gaze away from the woman who was heading for the second bar stool down from him. A good thing he was civilized, or he’d push the guy next to him to the floor, so she could sit beside him. “Talk to me, cousin. If I’m going to propose marriage to the woman, I probably should know something about her.”

Sam kept his head down, a hand raised to shield his profile. “That’s Jade Sunshine. Jolie’s older sister. She works with Teddy at the Sunshine Detective Agency. She’s a P.I., Court. And you’d have about as much luck trying to tackle a porcupine. Maybe more luck with the porcupine, come to think of it. Trust me. You don’t want any part of that.”

Court was silent for a full three beats. “Really. She’s a private detective? Do you think she’s here on a job, or something? At least she isn’t a high-class call girl, which would have ruined everything. You know, thinking ahead, for when one of our kids asks how I met their mother.”

“Which one of us was drinking tonight? Look, Court, give me your elevator key. I don’t think I should drive tonight, so I’ll crash with you.”

“Oh, I don’t think so. I may have plans for that suite. Believe me, cousin, they don’t include you as a roommate.”

“You’re casting Jade in that role?” Sam peeked out from behind his hand to grin at his cousin. “I’ve got fifty bucks here that says it doesn’t happen.”

“Just go to the front desk and tell them I want you set up in a room, all right? Now, if you’re not going to introduce us, just go away. If you two don’t like each other you won’t be any help anyway.”

Sam slid off the stool, his head still averted. “It’s not a question of dislike. It’s just that I hurt Jolie, or at least that’s how Jade sees it. Stick to first names,” he advised quietly. “She hears Becket, and you can kiss any ideas you’ve got goodbye.”

But Court was barely listening, as he was already tuning in to the conversation going on between the middle-aged man next to him and Jade Sunshine.

“And you’re sure I can’t buy you a drink, honey?” the guy was saying, his back to Court. “Something real. Who comes to a bar to drink ginger ale?”

Jade stirred her soda with the plastic swizzle stick, the ice clinking in the glass. “I like to start slow, and then build from there. In my business, a clear head is a part of the service.”

Court liked her voice. A little bit low, slightly husky. Definitely sexy. And he was pretty sure she knew it. The guy next to him was nearly drooling.

“And what is your business, honey?” the guy asked her.

Jade kept her right hand on the top of the swizzle stick as she gracefully swiveled on the bar stool and carefully crossed those long legs beneath the short, black sheath. Court swore he could hear the silk of her stockings whisper with the movement.

She reached out with her other hand and stroked a finger down the guy’s tie. “I thought I told you, handsome. Service. You see, honey, I serve people. Should I serve you? I’d really like to serve you. What’s your name, honey?”

Court lowered his head and let his breath out slowly, wondering why the ice cubes in his own glass, and in every glass in the bar, hadn’t melted yet.

“I … I’m Harvey,” the poor sap stuttered. “If … if, uh, we’re going to get to know each other … um … better, maybe you should tell me your name?”

“Sure thing, honey,” Jade said, her hand leaving the man’s shirtfront to slide down his thigh, and then onto her own knee. “I’m Lucy. Lucy Lawless.”

“But isn’t that the name of that actress who — oh. Oh, right. I guess, in your line of, uh, of work, names aren’t real. I should have thought of that. But I am Harvey. Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, Harvey, honey,” Jade soothed, inching up the already short skirt of her dress. Her other hand had left the swizzle stick, and now rested on Harvey’s jacket lapel. “It’s a great name, Harvey. What goes with it?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Court saw the bartender moving down the bar, probably to eject the obvious hooker. Court shook his head slightly, warning the guy away.

Harvey’s eyes were all but glued to Jade’s leg as she slid two fingers beneath her hem and slowly headed North. “Hubbard. I’m … I’m Harvey Hubbard. Should you be doing that here? I’ve got a room upstairs and —”

Court caught a mind-blowing glimpse of black lace garter as the blue-cover clad tri-fold appeared from beneath Jade’s hemline. At the same time, her other hand grabbed at and pulled on Harvey’s jacket front, and an instant later the obvious Summons was in his inside jacket pocket.

“Harvey Hubbard — honey — you can now consider yourself served,” Jade said, getting to her feet as she let go of him.

Harvey wasn’t too quick on the up-take, at least in Court’s opinion, but he certainly reacted pretty quickly to what had just happened.

“You bitch, I’ll kill you.” Harvey muttered murderously as Jade turned to walk away. He flew off his bar stool and clapped a hand down on Jade’s shoulder a split second before Court was off his own stool and reaching for him.

Court shouldn’t have bothered. He’d already had a front row seat for the show from where he’d been sitting. In fact, he almost got his nose in the way as Jade rounded neatly on Harvey, her left arm — fingers together, palm rigid — cutting through the air like a whip. Well, like some sort of efficient Judo move, anyway, but who needed particulars?

Harvey sure didn’t. He simply went down like a felled tree. It was, Court had told Sam later, a real thing of beauty to watch. Poetry in motion.

Court raised his left hand slightly and pointed toward the crumpled Harvey, and two bartenders quickly hauled the man up by his underarms and half-carried him out of the dimly-lit bar. Most of the patrons, intent on living their own lives, hadn’t even noticed anything unusual.

Leaving Court and Jade facing each other. She tipped her head to one side, blinked, and then just stared at him as he stared right back at her. She had to feel it. The attraction, the pure, physical pull between them. But she didn’t flinch, didn’t run away. She just lifted her chin slightly, and continued looking at him.

She was tall, but he was taller. Their bodies would fit together like a song, a symphony. Did she hear the same music?

Her eyes sparkled. She was very obviously on a natural high after serving Harvey — or maybe it was taking the guy down that had gotten her blood flowing hot in her veins. She probably needed an outlet for all that pent-up energy, and Court felt it only his duty as a good host to help her out there.

“Hello,” he said at last, pushing back the bar stool recently occupied by Harvey. “I’m Court Becket, the owner of this hotel.”

Her chest was still rising and falling fairly rapidly from her recent exertion. “Good for you. And you want me to leave your hotel.”

“No, I’m pretty sure I want to marry you. Which means we probably should get to know each other a little better. We could do that here, or up in my suite. There’s a fantastic view of the city skyline, including City Hall. Billy Penn’s wearing a Santa hat. You should see it.”

“That’s sacrilege — on all counts — and he is not.”

“How do you know? You haven’t looked. As for the first part, yes, I am. Going to marry you, that is. Would you like me to go down on one knee? I mean, I’m game if you are.”

She didn’t move. She also didn’t look away from him. He imagined she had learned every inch of him and committed it all to memory.

“I saw Sam trying to avoid me. I’ll assume you’re related to him.”

He took a single step forward, not quite invading her space, but close enough to smell her perfume. “His cousin. And you’re Jolie’s sister. Consider us destined, if you want. You. Me. This time. This place. Not Harvey, though.” He lost his smile. “Whatever works for you, Jade Sunshine.”

Something moved through her magnificent sherry-colored eyes. A decision made? A bridge crossed?

Her voice took on a new huskiness. Low, and intimate. “This isn’t a good idea, Court Becket.”

“I’ve had worse.”

“Nothing’s going to happen, you know.”

“You don’t believe that any more than I do,” he said, holding out his arm to her.

She slipped her arm through his. “You saw me take Harvey down.”

“I’ll consider myself warned,” Court said before they walked out of the bar in silence, toward the last elevator on the right side of the lobby, the one that only served the penthouse.

The first hairpin dropped to the carpeted floor of the elevator almost before the doors had whispered shut …