"Doggies."

"Foolish, for sure." She kissed the top of Aubrey's head and gave herself the luxury of a second cup of coffee.

at eight-fifteen gracewas armed with a stack of newspapers and a spray bottle that contained a mix of vinegar and ammonia. Aubrey was entertaining herself on the grass with her Mattel See 'n Say. Every few seconds a cow mooed or a pig oinked. And Aubrey never failed to echo the sound. By the time Aubrey had switched her affections to her building blocks, Grace had finished cleaning and polishing the outside of the windows on the front and side of the cottage and was right on schedule. She would have stayed on schedule if Mrs. West hadn't come out with tall glasses of iced tea and a desire to chat.

"I don't know how to thank you for seeing to this for me, Grace." Mrs. West, the grandmother of many, had brought Aubrey her drink in a bright plastic cup with ducks on the side.

"I'm happy to do it, Mrs. West."

"Just can't do like I used to, with my arthritis. And I do like my windows to shine." She smiled, deepening the wrinkles on her weather-scored face. "And you do make them shine. My granddaughter, Layla, said how she'd wash them for me. But I tell you the truth and shame the devil, Grace, that girl's a scatterbrain. She'd like as not start the job and end up sleeping in the vegetable patch. Don't know what's to become of that girl."

Grace laughed and scrubbed at the next window. "She's only fifteen. Her mind's on boys and clothes and music."

"Tell me." Mrs. West nodded so vigorously that her second chin wobbled with the movement. "Why, at her age I could pick a crab clean faster than you could blink. Earned my keep, and kept my mind on my work till the work was done." She winked. "Then I thought about boys." She let out a hearty laugh before smiling at Aubrey. "That's one pretty little lamb you got yourself there, Grade."

"The light of my life."

"Good as gold, too. Why, my Carly's youngest boy, Luke? He's not still for two minutes running and spends every waking hour looking for trouble. Just last week I caught him climbing up my parlor curtains like a house cat." Still, the memory made her chuckle. "He's a terror, that Luke is."

"Aubrey has her moments, too."

"Can't believe it. Not with that angel face. You're going to have to beat the boys off with a stick to keep them from sniffing around that sweetheart one of these days.

Pretty as a picture. Already seen her holding hands with one." Grace bobbled her spray bottle and looked around quickly to make certain her little girl hadn't grown up while she wasn't looking. "Aubrey?"

Mrs. West laughed again. "Walking on the waterfront with that Quinn boy—the new one."

"Oh, Seth." The sense of relief was so ridiculous, Grace set the bottle down and picked up her glass to drink. "Aubrey's got a crush on him."

"Good-looking boy. My young Matt goes to school with him—told me how Seth came to sock that little bully Robert a few weeks back. Couldn't help but feel it was about time somebody did. How they doing over at the Quinns?"

The question was her main purpose for coming out, but Mrs. West believed in leading up to matters.

"Just fine."

Mrs. West rolled her eyes. This pump needed more priming. "That girl Cam up and married sure is a beauty. She'll have to have quick hands, too, to keep that one in line. Always was wild."

"I think Anna can handle him."

"Went off to some foreign place to honeymoon, didn't they?"

"Rome. Seth showed me a postcard they sent. It's beautiful."

"Always puts me in mind of that movie with Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck—where she's a princess. Don't make movies like that anymore."

"Roman Holiday." Grace smiled wistfully. She had a weakness for the classic and romantic.

"That's the one." Grace looked a bit like Audrey Hepburn, Mrs. West mused. Coloring was wrong, of course, with Grace being blond as a Viking, but she had the big eyes and the cool, pretty face. Lord knew, she was skinny enough.

"Never been anyplace foreign." Which included, in Mrs. West's mind, two-thirds of the United States.

"They coming back soon?"

"A couple days."

"Hmm. Well, that house needs a woman, no question. Can't imagine what it's like over there, four males in one house. Must smell like a gym sock half the time. Don't know a man on this earth who can manage to pee and hit the toilet with the whole stream."

Grace laughed and went back to her windows. "They aren't so bad. The fact is, Cam was keeping the house pretty well before they hired me to take over. But the only one of them who remembers to empty the pockets before tossing his pants at the hamper is Phillip."

"If that's the worst of it, it's not bad. I expect Cam's wife'll take over the house once they get back." Grace's hand tightened on her wad of newspaper as her heart did a quick hitch. "I… She works full-time in Princess Anne."

"Most likely she'll take over," Mrs. West said again. "A woman likes her house kept her way. Best thing for the boy, I expect, having a woman there full-time. Don't know what Ray was thinking of this time around, I swear. A good-hearted man he was, but once Stella passed… shifted his moorings, I'd say. A man his age taking on a boy thataway. No matter what was what. Not that I believe one word of the nasty gossip you hear now and then. Nancy Claremont is the worst, flapping her lips every chance she gets."

Mrs. West waited a beat, hoping that Grace would flap hers. But Grace was frowning intently at the window.

"You know if that insurance inspector's coming around again?"

"No," Grace said quietly, "I don't. I hope not."

"Don't see how it makes a matter where the boy came from as far as the insurance company goes. Even if Ray did suicide himself—and I'm not saying it's so—they can't prove it, can they? Because…" She paused dramatically, as she did whenever she made the argument. "They weren't there!" She said the last on a note of triumph, just as she had when she'd made the same statement to Nancy.

"Professor Quinn wouldn't have killed himself," Grace murmured.

"'Course not." But it did make for such interesting talk. "But the boy—" She broke off, her ears pricking up. "There goes my telephone. You just let yourself in when you want to do the inside, Grace," she said as she hurried off.