Unbreathed Memories

Acknowledgements I owe special thanks to many people who generously helped in the writing of this book. All mistakes are mine alone and should not be attributed to any of the wonderful folks mentioned below. To my husband, Barry, for his unqualified love and support. To my daughters, Laura Geyer and Sarah Glass, for making me laugh whenever I’m in danger of taking myself too seriously. To Carolyn, Pauline, Katherine, and especially to Gretchen, for their candor and courage. To my editor, advocate, and friend, Jackie Cantor, and to the amazing Abby Zidle, who can do anything. To my creative and indefatigable agent, Jimmy Vines. To my writers’ groups — Sujata Massey, John Mann, Janice McLane, and Karen Diegmueller in Baltimore, and Christiane Carlson-Thies, Janet Benrey, Trish Marshall, Mary Ellen Hughes, Sherriel Mattingly, and Ray Flynt in Annapolis — I couldn’t have done it without you! To Malice Domestic, Ltd., for the grant that opened the door, and to the members of Chesapeake Chapter of Sisters in Crime, for all they do to support newly published authors. To Thomas Tracey, M.D., Shirley Aronson, and Donna Yates, for medical advice and background information. To Barbara Parker, feng shui consultant and Web maven extraordinaire (h***:://hometown.aol.com/mardtal/homepage.htm). To Linda Sprenkle, location scout, intrepid guide, and dear friend. To Vicki Cone, former Assistant Librarian at St. John’s College, for an insider’s tour of the renovated library and its special collections. To Rear Admiral Robert McNitt and his wife, Pat, who invited me to dinner at Ginger Cove, little suspecting where it would lead. To Ed and Donna Hudgins, who helped invent All Hallows Church, which might have been more Episcopally-correct, had it not been for all the wine. To Kate Charles and Deborah Crombie, partners in crime and best of friends — Long live “Plot Fest”! — and to Ken and Angela Pritchard at Pickford House, Beckington, Somerset, for the British hospitality that made it possible. And to Carol Chase, best of best friends, for her cyber-hugs and sympathetic ear, for St. Hilda’s and Edington and everything else. Hard-handed men, that work in Athens here, Which never labour’d in their minds till now; And now have toil’d their unbreathed memories With this same play, against your nuptial. William Shakespeare A Midsummer Night’s Dream Act 5, Scene i