Free Secret Star by Nora Roberts Page B

Grace.”
    â€œYou don’t.”
    â€œNo, because I know her. And I know she’s dealt with perceptions and opinions just like yours most of her life. And her way of dealing with it isto do as she chooses, because whatever she does, those perceptions and opinions rarely change. Right now, she’s with her aunt, I imagine, and taking the usual emotional beating.”
    Her voice heated, became rushed, as emotions swarmed. “Tonight, there’ll be a memorial service for Melissa, and the relatives will hammer at her, the way they always do.”
    â€œWhy should they?”
    â€œBecause that’s what they do best.” Running out of steam she turned her head, looked down at the Three Stars. Love, knowledge, generosity, she thought. Why did it seem there was so little of it in the world? “Maybe you should take another look, Lieutenant Buchanan.”
    He’d already taken too many, he decided. And he was wasting time. “She certainly inspires loyalty in her friends,” he commented. “I’m going to look for those lists.”
    â€œYou know the way.” Dismissing him, Bailey picked up the stones to carry them back to the vault.
    Â 
    Grace was dressed in black, and had never felt less like grieving. It was six in the evening, and a light rain was beginning to fall. It promised to turn the city into a massive steam room instead of cooling it off. The headache that had been slyly brewing for hours snarled at the aspirin she’d already taken and leaped into full, vicious life.
    She had an hour before the wake, one she had arranged quickly and alone, because her aunt demanded it. Helen Fontaine was handling grief in her own way—as she did everything else. In this case, it was by meeting Grace with a cold, damning and dry eye. Cutting off any offer of support or sympathy. And demanding that services take place immediately, and at Grace’s expense and instigation.
    They would be coming from all points, Grace thought as she wandered the large, empty room, with its banks of flowers, thick red drapes, deep pile carpeting. Because such things were expected, such things were reported in the press. And the Fontaines would never give the public media a bone to pick.
    Except, of course, for Grace herself.
    It hadn’t been difficult to arrange for the funeral home, the music, the flowers, the tasteful canapés. Only phone calls and the invocation of the Fontaine name were required. Helen had brought the photograph herself, the large color print in a shining silver frame that now decorated a polished mahogany table and was flanked with red roses in heavy silver vases that Melissa had favored.
    There would be no body to view.
    Grace had arranged for Melissa’s body to be released from the morgue, had already written the check for the cremation and the urn her aunt had chosen.
    There had been no thanks, no acknowledgment. None had been expected.
    It had been the same from the moment Helen became her legal guardian. She’d been given the necessities of life—Fontaine-style. Gorgeous homes in several countries to live in, perfectly prepared food, tasteful clothing, an excellent education.
    And she’d been told, endlessly, how to eat, how to dress, how to behave, who could be selected as a friend and who could not. Reminded, incessantly, of her good fortune—unearned—in having such a family behind her. Tormented, ruthlessly, by the cousin she was there tonight to mourn, for being orphaned, dependent.
    For being Grace.
    She’d rebelled against all of it, every aspect, every expectation and demand. She’d refused to be malleable, biddable, predictable. The ache for her parents had eventually dimmed, and with it the child’s desperate need for love and acceptance.
    She’d given the press plenty to report. Wild parties, unwise affairs, unrestricted spending.
    When that didn’t ease the hurt, she’d foundsomething else. Something