For my sister, for years of cookies and laughter

With each passing year, I grow more appreciative of the remarkable people who have touched my life. As always, I am endlessly grateful to my writer’s group: K. J. Erickson, Ellen Hart, Mary Logue, and Pete Hautman. Many, many thanks to my editor, Michelle Vega, for her perceptive insights and her understanding during a difficult time. The staff at Berkley Prime Crime are the best of the best. A special thanks to the third Saturday potluck group for decades of friendship and fun. And, of course, my love and gratitude to my father and Marilyn, my sister, and my husband.

Olivia Greyson flicked a droplet of sweat off her forehead before it could dribble into her eyebrow. At six a.m. and already eighty-eight degrees, she hadn’t expected to look out her bedroom window and find her front lawn covered in white. Browned dead grass maybe, but not crinkly white balls.

Perhaps she shouldn’t have stayed up so late the previous night, Saturday or not. She and Maddie had brainstormed dozens of themed cookie cutter events for The Gingerbread House, enough for months to come. Maddie Briggs, best friend since childhood and now Olivia’s business partner, had been in fine creative form, bubbling up ideas like a red-haired volcano. The effort had required a plate of decorated cookies and a generous amount of merlot. Very generous, judging from the empty bottles Olivia had rinsed and stowed in the recycling bin. In her own defense, one of the bottles had already been opened and used for cooking and salad dressing.

As Olivia stared at her lawn, a memory from high school popped into her mind.