Excerpt from Deadly Relations,
by Rhonda D. Herb

When the pistol shot rang out, the peacock screamed.

Such an annoying sound, the man thought with disgust. Such annoying birds. But Amanda Carter, protector of the environment, liked everything feathered and furry. No matter that the peacock sounded like it was the murdered party. Fortunately, there was no one around to hear that dreadful cry. No one, at least, but the hawks and owls and remnants of the eagle population that inhabited this remote place.

Killing the man was the only tricky part of the operation. The rest, the act of covering up the murder, was child's play, for it had been carefully planned and even rehearsed over a 12-month period.

Pistol. . . smudged with the dead man's prints, arranged artfully next to his body.

Brandy glasses. . . washed, returned to the tray.

Suicide note. . . painstakingly planned word for word. It had taken some effort to get Richard Carter to write the message he had dictated, but faced with the barrel of the gun, the old man had complied.

No need to hurry; no risk remained. He took his time surveying the room to assure himself that no detail had been missed. The girl wouldn't return for another hour, he knew, checking his watch one more time. After all the months of careful planning and the last few weeks of quiet maneuvering, the operation was concluding to perfection.

All that remained was the method of dealing with Amanda Carter.

Amanda Carter. That golden child, her father's pet. He had worked hard over the years to conceal his contempt for her, and he had been successful. Even now, she was smiling down at him from the portrait that hung over her father's desk. In the painting, her cheeks were bright, her eyes greenish-gold and too big for her oval face. It was in Amanda's hands now; she could accept his offer or reject it. If she rejected it... well, he would enjoy drawing blood from that pale skin.

The hall clock struck 10 p.m. With a gloved hand, he fished in his pocket for his car keys and headed towards the back door for a quiet exit.

Amanda's good fortune was about to run out.

*****

Amanda pushed her foot harder on the accelerator. She felt the car spin too quickly around the corner, but the car's lane-keeping feature auto-corrected. She tried to quiet her breathing, tried to talk herself out of the panic she was experiencing.

It's all wrong, Amanda thought, without knowing what she meant, where the thought came from, or why she had felt this inexplicable need to walk out on the Los Angeles Philharmonic during the first concert of the season.

She'd made it through Dvorak's ominous first movement, but when the English horn started its plaintive solo, she'd imagined she could hear, between the cascading notes of the music, her father calling her name. Amanda. Mandy. A fading, anguished sound, the -yyyy of her name sinking into oblivion. Then. . . nothing.

She'd texted her father surreptitiously, and when he didn't respond, she'd excused herself to her friend, slid down the aisle, and called her dad from the lobby. Still nothing. No response. Why didn't he answer his cell phone?

As she pulled to the left to pass an aging Ford Fusion, a picture of her father sprang into her mind. At home right now he would be sitting alone in his study, the Wall Street Journal spread across his knee. He was one of the few people she knew who insisted on reading print copies of his favorite newspapers. He would check his watch, anticipating her return. Since her mother's death, she knew there wasn't a night that he didn't worry about her returning home safely.

I should never have left him alone tonight, Amanda berated herself. I should have insisted he join me at the concert. After all these years, her father hadn't stopped grieving for her mother.

But tonight was especially difficult. Tonight was the tenth anniversary of her mother's death.

Closer now to the top of the hill, Amanda floored the accelerator and pushed her Tesla around an aging RV heading into one of the campsites in the national forest. One more mile to the turnoff that led to the ranch. She pulled in a deep breath and counted to 50, willing her heart to slow down. If I don't handle this car better, she chastised herself, he'll be grieving for me, as well.

Even so, she wasn't prepared for what awaited her.

The house sat half a mile from the road, at the end of a long driveway lined with ancient eucalyptus trees. All was still. A solar floodlight beamed from above the front entrance. Amanda parked the car in the driveway and ran up the porch steps. Her legs couldn't carry her fast enough. The door was locked, as it should be. Inside, the hall light was burning, as it should be. There was a soft LED glow leaking out from under the doorway to her father's study. All this was normal. But her heart was banging against her ribs; her breath came in splinters. What was it? What was she so afraid of tonight?

"Father?" she called out softly. Her voice sounded husky, fractured with fear.

She put her hand on the doorknob of her father's study.

"Daddy? Are you in there?"

How many times had she entered this house, this room, all alone? She had never been afraid before. Wilder Canyon was a place of sanctuary. Nothing bad had ever happened here.

No one greeted her. There was no response. Hadn't he promised he would be sitting up, waiting for her? He always stayed up until she returned home. Amanda tried to call out again, but her voice was a whisper lost in her throat.

This study was her father's favorite room. It combined the home's antique heritage with the wonderfully new: her father's massive oak desk, the sleek touchscreen computer he used to connect with his pharmacy branches across Southern California. There was his leather chair behind his desk. Everything seemed in place. The LA Times perched across a corner of the desk. A Tiffany lamp burned beside the computer. The computer glowed with a pale blue light. So he had been working late. But where was he now?

Amanda's eyes swept the room once more. One thing was wrong, totally out of place. One of the armchairs had fallen on its side. There was no reason the chair would have turned over. Everything else was in order.

And then it hit her, like a blast of hot air from a Santa Ana wind. She dropped to her knees and inched along the carpet. A gun lay in her path, her father's own Smith and Wesson, the one he kept locked in his bottom desk drawer. She flinched from the gun but kept going. Something was twisted between the upended chair and the game table. First, she saw one leather shoe, then part of a leg. Dots spattered her father's trousers. The carpet all around his head was dark, in an asymmetrical pattern that spread a foot in all directions.

Her eyes focused on what they didn't want to see. Her stomach tightened, then gave a hitch, and she looked down at the figure that had been her father. She couldn't look away. The picture would be forever stamped upon her brain.

His eyes were wide open but empty. They stared right at her, dark and sightless as the night. His bangs fell across his forehead. His skin looked smooth, cold as stone, except where the bullet had punched a hole in his temple.

Oh, God, no. Please, no. Please, Daddy, she thought, not this. I know you were sad, but not this. Why would you do this? Why would you leave me?

He was so still, so unnatural. That motionless, sightless body couldn't be her father, the gentle man who loved children and animals and birds. Just this morning, he had pointed out a barn owl that was circling the wooden box they had installed in the meadow north of the house. How could she reconcile that pleasurable activity with this abomination?

Nothing was right. Nothing would ever be right again.

Stifling the sobs back in her throat, Amanda forced herself to crawl to her purse, locate her cell phone, and dial 911.