I shook his hand. "That sounds like Aunt Gert. Thanks again."

I must have sat there sweltering in the broiling heat with the car windows rolled up for ten minutes before I turned the key to start the engine as well as the air conditioner. I actually shivered when the icy cold air rushed over all the sweat on my arms and face.

It was only five minutes from the bank to Aunt Gert's house on Broadway Street. Her parents had built the two-story house somewhere around 1910, right after statehood, and back then it was one of the more prosperous homes in the area. But in the sixties things started falling apart, and she ignored them. For fifty years very little maintenance had been done on the place, and it showed.

I parked in the gravel driveway and stared blankly at my new home. For a minute I almost wished the helicopter bearing those boys in the white jackets would appear on Gert's overgrown lawn. A padded cell, whether in a state-run facility or a private one, was looking better by the minute. I left all the paperwork I'd been given that day lying on the car seat and opened the door to a blast of summer heat. If the end of May felt like this, then what would July and August be like with no air-conditioning?

I marched stoically across the unkempt yard and had barely reached the porch when everything began to look like the special effects in a movie running in slow motion. I'd fainted one time in my life, back when I was first pregnant with my daughter, so I recognized the symptoms. I eased down onto the porch steps and put my head between my legs. It was midafternoon, and I hadn't eaten since breakfast. I'd gotten rid of the coffee, soft drinks, and my ignorance in the ladies' room at the church.

When I raised my head, Billy Lee Tucker was sitting beside me.

"Still moving in here sometime in the future?"

"I'm moving in right now, and I hope she's got a can of soup in the pantry, because I'm hungry."

"When are the movers bringing your things?"

"No movers. I've got a purse and a bunch of papers in the car, and that's it."

He raised an eyebrow and held out his hand. "Here's keys to the place and her car. I was going to bring them out to your house this evening, but I saw you drive up, so I came on over. You all right? You're as white as a ghost"

"I'm just hungry. Thanks for bringing over the keys. This house is a mess, isn't it?"

"It is right now, but it won't be for long. I've been hired to redo the house from top to bottom if you decide to move into it, so I suppose we'll be working together real soon," he said.

"Who hired you?" I asked.

"Gert. Gave me an envelope I was to open only after she died. She said I was to remodel this place if you moved in. If you didn't, then I could count on getting what was inside as my inheritance for being her favorite neighbor."

"Well, thank you" I found enough strength to get up and cross the front porch. I had to keep my body and soul together long enough to spit in Drew's eye and get even with my two cousins.

He followed me to the door. "Foundation is good. House was built right in the beginning. It's got the potential to be a real beauty" - -- -- - -- --- -- - - - -

Inviting him inside would be stretching my depleted supply of manners entirely too far. Being nice had netted me misery beyond description. Besides, I'd already been nice enough to leave my cousins alive that day. Plus the prissy little bimbo down at the bank still had all her blond hair and not a mark on her face. That was enough "nice" for one day.

I stopped at the door. "I'm glad to hear it, Billy Lee. Come around in a few days, when I've had a chance to think, and we'll talk about it."

He nodded. "My phone number is on the refrigerator. Let me know when you want me to go to work. I'll outline what I've got in mind for the exterior. I think we can make this look like it did in its heyday. I'm glad to have you for a neighbor, Trudy"

He whistled as he left. I wanted to slap him. No one should be happy when my world was in shambles.

Not one thing had changed since the last time I'd walked through the front door of Aunt Gert's house. Every square inch of the place was covered in mismatched furniture and cheap collectibles. Every table sported a lamp sitting on a crocheted doily. None of the lamps were plugged in, because there were very few electrical outlets. Ceramic ducks, cows, and lots and lots of birds surrounded the lamps. Chairs and sofas had mismatched hand towels pinned to the backs and washcloths on the arms.

I walked right past it all without even a shudder. Whoever said that a person, especially an overweight one, could live for weeks with no food had rocks for brains. I was about to join the ranks of the recently departed if I didn't find something to put into my mouth. When I reached the kitchen, I was amazed at the contents of the refrigerator. Milk, still inside the expiration date. Lunch meat. A whole loaf of bread. Lettuce. Tomatoes. Cheese. Real mayonnaise that was even my favorite brand.

I made a sandwich, devoured it, and made another. I finished the second one and had a tall glass of milk before I went out to the car to get the paperwork. I carried it to the house and wondered why Aunt Gert had let things go to rot and ruin with all that money in the bank.

I climbed the stairs and laid the papers on the bed in the guest room where I planned to sleep that night. The second floor had three bedrooms and a bathroom. When the house had been built, the bathroom was down the back path toward the rear of the lot. According to Momma, the family modernized the place after her grandfather died. The heat was oppressive, so I opened a window and begged for a breeze, but there wasn't a bit of wind between me and the Gulf of Mexico.

The sweat pouring off me had as much to do with nerves as the weather. A cool shower might keep me from melting into a puddle of lard on the floor. I opened the bathroom door and almost cried. The wall-hung sink was listing to the front. The toilet was crazed and cracked. The tub was as old as God and pitted. There was no shower above it. This would definitely be the first place I started when Billy Lee and I sat down to talk about remodeling.

When I finished bathing, I wrapped a towel around my body and wandered through the other rooms. Aunt Gert's bedroom was cluttered with more stuff than the rest of the house. Knickknacks and old pictures. The guest room where I'd left my paperwork was clean but smelled unused and slightly musty. Then there was Uncle Lonnie's room, with a padlock on the outside.

I didn't remember there being a lock on the door the last time I was in the house, but then, that was probably back when Lonnie was still alive. Why had Aunt Gert closed up the room, and how long had it been locked?

Aunt Gert was a few inches taller than I, but her elasticwaist jeans and shirts fit me fairly well. The nightgowns in her dresser drawer looked inviting, but it wasn't time for bed. I had a lot of reading to do to understand what all Aunt Gert had left behind.

I dressed in a pair of Aunt Gert's pants and a faded T-shirt, made a pot of coffee, and sat down at the kitchen table to read through all of the paperwork. But the lock on that bedroom door kept bugging me. Why had she put a padlock on the outside of a bedroom? What was in there that she needed to protect?

I sighed and tried to mentally rehearse what I would say to Drew when he got back to town, but my curiosity got the better of me. I went to the foyer table where I'd tossed the keys Billy Lee had given me. Sure enough, there was a padlock key on the ring.