Prologue

“Do you know Livvy Thatcher?" Jane jeffry asked her best friend Shelley Nowack.

“Let me in out of the cold and I'll tell you," Shelley said.

Shelley had run over to Jane's house from her own, which was next door. She hadn't bothered to put on a coat for such a short jaunt and was already freezing. She stepped into Jane's warm kitchen and shivered dramatically. "I've lived in the Chicago area all my life," Shelley griped, "and every January I ask myself why a sane person would stay here on purpose. It's not a cruel accident of fate. I can laugh off fate. It's a deliberately stupid choice."

“I'm glad you feel that way," Jane said, "because I want to talk about April."

“You didn't invite me over to discuss taxes, did you?" Shelley asked, frowning.

“No! I'd never talk to you about anything to do with the I.R.S. It makes the veins in your forehead bulge, which isn't pretty. So, do you know Livvy Thatcher?"

“Not if I fell over her. Any relation to Margaret?”

Jane poured Shelley a big mug of hot coffee and led the way to the living room where piles of magazines and library books were stacked all over the floor. "Not so you'd notice."

“Good Lord, Jane, it looks like your bookshelves exploded! What is all this stuff? Wedding magazines? You didn't suddenly change your mind about marrying Mel, did you?"

“Nope, we agreed we're better off not even living together. This is to do with Livvy Thatcher. She was at the neighborhood Christmas cookie exchange I had here last month. Another neighbor dragged her along."

“Youngish? Tall? Bland-looking but awfully well made up?" Shelley asked, pulling up her mental inventory of the guests.