Kate stood outside Beth’s graystone, shivering. A wind had blown in from the north that morning and had not let up. The clouds hung low, and a wet smell already filled in the air, foretelling a snowstorm. She knew, though, the cold and the promise of bad weather were not the only things making her shiver.
Her gaze moved to the bright yellow crime scene tape across her daughter’s door; it seemed to scream to passersby that this is where a tragedy had occurred, where she had lost her daughter and a son-in-law she had loved in one horrible, fell swoop. The banner screamed at her: “You are not allowed inside. Even though this family and this tragedy are yours, you are no longer welcome.”
She could see, for just a moment, Mark’s bloody corpse on the floor before her. She blotted out the image
