Coming Home
They say you can't go home again. But really that all depends on the you, the home, and circumstances of the again. A sister's murder with strong echoes of the murder/suicide of your parents tends to make a big difference:
"Emotions gripped her heart as tightly and as painfully as the barbed wire wrapped around her ankles. Grey's Hollow had caught her in its grip, and it would never let her go."
The Baby Brother
Bree makes the phone call to 911 that brings the police to the house too late to keep a marital spat from turning to tragedy. Her baby sister Erin was old enough to remember what was going on. But there was also a baby brother in the house that fateful night. How young is too young to be traumatized?
"He'd been an infant when their parents had died. He couldn't possibly remember. Right? But holy hell, darkness was a part of him so heavy she sometimes wondered how he shouldered the weight."
Not the Husband
When a wife is found murdered who do the police immediately latch onto as the initial suspect? The husband, regardless of the marital state. Because, well, it's just easier, okay! But there is another man in the victim's life. And since he's not the husband, but merely the father of the kids, it takes a cop who is also a sister to consider him a viable suspect:
"Erin had been in full avoidance mode as far as Craig was concerned. He had been her drug, and like an addict, she couldn't be around the source of her addiction without risking a relapse."
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Eleven refers to the actual chapter, not bankruptcy. Chapter Eleven diverges from the perspective of Bree briefly to step inside the mind of the person who murdered her sister. The killer is not identified except by virtue of the use of the pronoun "he." And what may be a vital clue: his emotional state.
"The anger in him had diminished, but it never went away. It simmered in his chest like a pilot light waiting to ignite a larger flame."
A Cop and a Sister
Bree is a homicide detective out of Philly. Which is good for investigating a murder. But she's also a sister investigating the murder of a sibling. Which is maybe not such a good thing. Especially if that relationship has produced some blind spots:
"The thought of her sister committing a crime was ludicrous. Erin was as Goody Two-shoes as a person could be. But something had happened."
