Written in Blood by Diane Fanning Read Free Book Online

anyway.
    Cleaning, Candace knew, was the only answer. She looked under the kitchen sink and in the laundry area for supplies. She emerged with a bucket of water, a can of Ajax, a bottle of spray cleaner, rags and paper towels.
    As Candace tackled the cleaning, Lori sat in the living room with Clayton. “Poor Margaret and Martha—losing both of their mothers,” Clayton said.
    Lori sighed and shook her head.
    â€œYou know how their first mother died?” Clayton asked.
    â€œNo.”
    â€œShe fell down the stairs, too.”
    Lori fought back an attack of nausea. It was the first time she had heard about Liz Ratliff’s death. Clayton’s words echoed in her mind, pounding out a painful dirge of doom.
    In the stairwell, Candace sprayed a piece of the landing and wiped. All she did was smear the blood. She moved to the woodwork and tried there. More smears—there was just so much blood.
    She wiped in the lower corner, but working there made her feel uncomfortable, trapped, surrounded by blood. At last, she decided on a logical method. She would start at the top and work her way down. She pointed the spray bottle at the wall at the end of the landing. She pushed in the button and got cleaner on the wall and on the print of
“Toulouse-Lautrec’s Chat Noir — Black Cat —hanging there. She wiped across the cat picture and a stream of cleaner mixed with blood formed a trail down her arm. She looked at it in horror. Her sister’s blood. Trailing down her arm. She couldn’t take it. Not tonight. She’d worry about it tomorrow. She had to get out of this house. Out of the house that stole her sister’s life. She had to get out now.
    She fled the stairway and stuffed the used rags and paper towels deep into the waste can—burying them under other trash so that no one else would have to see them. She grabbed Lori and rushed out of the house. They took refuge at the Washington Duke Inn. They will never forget the warmth and solicitousness of the staff. The hotel became their shelter from the storm.
    Someone stayed up all night at 1810 Cedar Street. He sat at Michael’s computer deleting files, emails and Web pages. It would take experts to retrieve the data buried deep in the hard drive.
    In the morning, Candace went to the Howerton-Bryan Funeral Home with Kathleen’s clothing, jewelry and identification. She handed Kathleen’s passport to the director. She clung to a desperate hope that it was all a mistake. A misunderstanding. She asked him to make sure it really was her sister. With a sorrowful nod, the director dashed that hope on the rocks of Candace’s broken heart.
    Next, Candace dragged herself over to Maplewood Cemetery, an old, peaceful graveyard only a short distance from 1810 Cedar. A staff member drove her
around and pointed out the single plots available. With listless dread, she selected a $700 plot on a hillside and agreed to purchase it. The spot she selected had room for a footplate, but could not accommodate a headstone.
    Candace sat down in front of Michael’s computer and opened Microsoft Word to type the obituary notices to send to the newspapers. While she worked, Michael wandered in and out of the room. At one point, he stood by the French doors and looked out on the patio. He said something Candace could not comprehend. She got up and stood beside him and looked out at the swimming pool. She noticed that there was no furniture around it. She thought that was odd. It bothered her in a way she did not understand. She tried to put the puzzle pieces together, but a coherent image did not develop. She returned to the computer and finished Kathleen’s obituary.
    That same day, a search warrant was served at the funeral home. Because of the discovery of a discarded, used condom in the master bedroom, the investigators needed to conduct a search on Kathleen’s body. They obtained samples of her head hair, pubic hair and bodily