Chapter 1

April Martin sat cross-legged in a large brown leather chair. Her eyes were red from crying; wads of tissue paper were strewn about the desk in front of her. She was a slight girl in her early twenties, with red hair and pale skin. Her face was thin but pretty, dominated by her green eyes. She wore green silk boxers, an oversize white T-shirt, and pink socks.

The walls of the room were lined with bookshelves. The bookshelves held an esoteric mix of books. Her father had read voraciously - the classics, best sellers, science fiction, and history. Late in the evening, he would be in this chair reading. This room had been 'Daddy's room' to everyone in the family except Daddy. He had called it the library.

He, along with April's mother, was now dead, killed last week in a car wreck, their car struck by another and crushed in the collision with a concrete piling. In the back seat without seatbelts, at 100 kilometers per hour, they stood no chance, dying instantly. A Mercedes-Benz sedan couldn't protect them from the forces of the impact. Passenger cars aren't designed to go from 100 to zero kilometers an hour in one meter.

April's grief at their loss, nearly overwhelming, was now compounded by the loss of her brother. Ted had always been her protector. Unlike some brothers and sisters, they had been good friends as they grew up. He was one year older than she was. She was precocious and happily helped him with his homework. He was tall and handsome, he listened to her hopes and fears and scared away boys that he didn't think were good enough for her. They had been a team. He told her the facts of life; she told him which girls wanted to go out with him.

The police said that his death was due to a drug overdose; too much Ecstasy had cooked his brain. Bullshit! He would never take drugs. April didn't like conspiracy stories but someone had killed her family. Why? What could be the motive? Am I next? Could I be in danger?

Without conscious thought, she found herself moving to the locked middle desk drawer of Daddy's desk and then stopped. When she was thirteen, Daddy had made her promise never to look in the drawer. While he was alive, she never had. Now he was dead. She yanked on it, and the antique lock appeared to be a simple latch. It wasn't hard to grab the metal letter opener and jimmy it open. It was empty except for a single envelope. She picked up the letter and jumped as the phone rang. She ignored the phone as she had all morning. She didn't want to talk. She had no really close friends except for Ted and since she had worked for her father, no boss needed to be notified. She was sure the family attorney was trying to call her but she didn't care. He knew what to do, let him do it. Why talk? What could people say that would help her grief?

Her family had been close. She called home or Ted nearly every day but Daddy had been an only child and his parents had died young. Mom too had been an only child. Mom's father was dead and she didn't talk to her mother. I guess I'll never know why, April thought. She was relieved there were no platters of food brought over for gathering relatives; she had no relatives. It would have been depressing. Her closest friends were all email friends, scattered through several countries. Here, she only had acquaintances. The neighbors were 'snow birds.' By May they had already fled Florida's heat heading north towards cooler climes.

The envelope in the drawer was thin, maybe a single page in it. Had this been one of Daddy's jokes? She smiled as she remembered when she was in 3rd grade. He made chocolate covered soap for April Fools' Day. The look on Jimmy Boland's face had been priceless. She had sat in the corner of her classroom for an hour that day, but it had been worth it. Now Daddy was gone, she started to cry again.

She blew her nose and threw another tissue on the desk. Daddy wouldn't have liked the mess. Too bad, I don't like him dying. There was a sticky note on the outside of the envelope, with a handwritten note. She read it as the phone stopped ringing.

'Mary, Ted, or April, if you are reading this, then I am dead. If at any time you suspect your life is in danger, call the number inside immediately and follow all directions. New instructions will be sent to you from time to time. Pass them on to your children as I have done.'

Randall Francis Martin.

Had Daddy expected to be killed? She grabbed the letter opener and tore the top of the envelope. There was a laminated business card sized piece of paper with a phone number on it, and also a regular sized piece of paper with what looked like a list of instructions. The doorbell rang. She put the papers back in the drawer, shut it hurriedly replacing the letter opener before jogging to the front door.

When she looked through the peephole, she saw the same two detectives dressed in the same cheap dark grey suits who had questioned her about Ted. She turned and spoke into the intercom.

"May I help you?"

"Ms. Martin, it's Detective Reagan and Detective Overby. We have a few more questions we would like to ask you. Can we come in?"

Not when I'm dressed like this, she thought. She hadn't liked them when she met them and she liked them less after talking to them. Detective Reagan had spent half the time staring at her boobs. "Alright, just wait a few minutes while I change," she said. She didn't give them a chance to answer, but hurried upstairs to her bedroom. She pulled on some old jeans and a faded green sweatshirt.

When she returned, she opened the door and led them into the kitchen. "Wait here for a moment," she said. She had been more polite the first time they met but they had worn out their welcome. Her brother did not take drugs. She grabbed a box of tissues from the living room and returned to the kitchen to sit across the table from them. It irritated her to see that one of them was looking at the little stack of mail.

"What do you want to know?" April asked.

"Do you know where your brother may have bought the Ecstasy he took?" As before Overby asked the questions and Reagan watched her.

"I already told you, Ted would never have taken drugs. He didn't even like to have more than one drink. There is just no way he bought or taken any."

"Ms Martin, I know these questions are hard, but we have to ask. We don't want any more people dying like this."

"Then treat his death as a murder not a drug overdose. Ted and I were close, very close, we told each other everything." She looked Reagan in the eye. "He told me when he lost his virginity and I told him when I lost mine." She looked back at Overby. "There were no secrets between us. If he had ever taken Ecstasy, he would have told me what it felt like. Hell he never even tried marijuana, I would have known."

"Maybe he was too embarrassed to tell you," Overby said.

April was stunned. Were they that stupid? Were they not listening? "You two are idiots. Get out of the house and don't come back."

"If you won't talk to us here, then you will come down to the station," Overby rose to full height.

"No, I won't unless you arrest me. Even then I won't talk to you. Leave now. I gave you my attorney's number. Call him."

April turned and immediately walked through the living room and opened the front door. Reagan and Overby followed but didn't leave. They stood in the living room, trying to look intimidating but she had grown up with Daddy, they didn't come close to intimidating. A phone was sitting on the small table by the stairs. April walked to the phone and dialed 911.

"This is emergency 911, do you need police, fire department, or ambulance?" A woman's voice calmly asked.

"Police," she said.

Two clicks and another voice came on the line. "What is your emergency?"

"This is April Martin. There are two men in my house who won't leave."

"What is your address?"

"Number 15, North Washington Drive, Sarasota Beach."

"A police car is on the way. What are the men doing?"

"They are standing and staring at me. They are both police officers and they have no warrant. I've told them to get out of my house."

"Would you put one of them on the line please?"

April held the phone out to Overby. "Detective Overby," he spoke into the phone.

Overby grunted into the phone a few times and then spoke a single "Yeah". He hung up the phone and said "Let's go" to Reagan. He didn't look at April as he walked out the door. April locked the door behind them.

The phone began to ring again, and again she ignored it. She sat in a rocking chair near the door. It was a wooden chair with woven seat and back. It had been her great grandmother's. She rocked back and forth, as she had when she was little and the house was filled with friends and neighbors at Christmas or Thanksgiving. She had liked to watch the adults and the children. She would decide who was mean and who was nice and compare her list with Ted's the next day. Too bad the nice ones had long since scattered. Reagan and Overby were definitely in the mean column.

She walked back into Daddy's room. Another tissue went on the desk. She looked critically at the tissues and swept them into the trashcan. The oak desk had two drawers on the left side and she looked in both now. The top drawer held paper, pens, and pencils; Daddy refused to buy a computer. The bottom drawer held a pistol and a key ring. April left the pistol and the keys where they were. She sat back cross-legged in the chair and pulled out the envelope and papers from the middle drawer to read them.

April reread the note on the envelope and then reread the instructions. She called the number. A man answered.

"To whom am I speaking?" He asked.

"April Martin," She replied.

"April, what is your father's name."

"Randall Francis Martin."

"Please hold for a moment."

Within fifteen seconds, a woman came on the line and asked, "April, are you in your father's home?"

"Yes I am. Who are you?"

"Just a moment please, I have a few more things I need to ask you. Where in the house are you?"

"I'm in Daddy's room."

"Please hang up, go to the library, and call me from there."

"That's where I am. We call the library Daddy's room."

"Okay April, behind the desk there are rows of book shelves. Please tell me the title of the first book on the left, on the third shelf from the bottom."

"Wait a moment," she said as she turned the chair and looked for the book. "It's The Left Hand of Darkness."

"Right then," the woman said, "Who in your family is in danger?"

"I guess me. Ted, Mom, and Daddy are dead."

"I'm sorry for your loss. Do you have your instructions?"

"Yes. Who are you?"

"I was hired by a friend of your father to see that you follow the instructions and to make a phone call. You need to leave right now. Will you do that?"

"Why?"

"April your life may be in danger. Your father made these plans, will you follow his wishes?"

April though for a minute, "Yes."

"Good luck," the woman hung up.

It all seemed unreal, but so did all the deaths. Why would Daddy leave these instructions? What is going on? Why? April walked into the kitchen. Blue I5, Blue I5, Blue I5. She didn't exactly follow the instructions; she took a box of tissue with her when she walked to her Black Lexus.

sss

Sarasota is a gorgeous city, a rich city. During the tourist season, it is overflowing with snowbirds, a native term for the Yankees who spent the winters or their vacations here. In May, it is already hot, not bad if you are used to it, but too hot for the snowbirds. The drive through town was uneventful; it gave April time to think.

I must be crazy to do this. I should head back home, but Daddy wouldn't use a pistol as part of a practical joke. He would use his death, he'd think that was funny, but not a pistol. He really didn't like pistols. Did he think his life was in danger? If not, why these preparations? How long had that woman been waiting for someone to call?