They’d had no record before, and even though they’d all chosen to get high, they had no way to know the drug had been laced with some extra chemicals. They were all in this induced psychotic state, according to the testimony. So the judge didn’t seem to think they were totally to blame. Anyway, apparently the sentence came down about a month ago. It was a long trial, and God knows I’d been following it-so was everyone in the family. And Camille called when the sentence came down, but that was it. She was upset, we knew that. But that was the last time she contacted anyone, as far as I know.” Violet grabbed her gloves, obviously too agitated to stand still and talk any longer.

“Bring her home, damn it,” Pete said.

“That’s what I’m going to do. Drive there, pack up her stuff, bring her home.”

“If she won’t come, you call me. I’ll drive there and help.”

“According to her neighbor, I’ll be lucky if she lets me in. But I figure I can always ask Daisy if I really need help.”

Pete didn’t follow. “Isn’t your other sister still living in France?”

“Yeah, but she’d fly over in two seconds if I called. She flew home when Camille was first attacked and in the hospital. So did Mom and Dad, of course. But for this problem-I just want to see what’s what for myself before I call in the cavalry.” Violet opened the front door. More fistfuls of snow howled in, but she turned back to him, appearing not to notice. “Daisy is kind of like the calvary. She’s just a take-charge, bossy kind of person-”

Pete knew Daisy. He also knew that once Violet got chatty, she was hard to shut down, so he tried to get her back on track. She gave him keys to the house and greenhouse, then proceeded to flibber and flabber on about security and temperatures and the fragility of her lavender strains and the cat and the trickiness of the furnace if the temperature dropped below zero and how the back door stuck.

By the time she left, an inch of snow had accumulated in the front hall. He closed the door and watched out the side window as Violet backed her flower-decaled van out of the driveway, bouncing through snowdrifts, not looking in either direction. He wasn’t sure if either the driveway or the mailbox was going to survive her driving-but truthfully, his mind wasn’t really on the middle Campbell sister, but the baby in the family.