Chapter One 

The sight of ruby-hued rose petals, strewn with sensual abandon across sheets of azure satin, always aroused Lillith Munroe.

Yet on this evening, with these sheets bathed in the golden rays of a forlorn, solitary moon, this arousal became tinged with an undeniable sadness. In evenings past, Lillith shared the soft, slick sheets of her Victorian four-poster bed with her husband Gregory. The two tumbled often into the luxurious depths of their bed, prompting Lillith to stare wondrously at the silken pastel canopy that oversaw their nightly trysts.

Although a happily and properly married couple, they never gave up on caressing, flirting, or, if the mood hit, even making love.

During the course of their five-year union, they exchanged their modest college apartment at Port Emerald University for an expansive, two-story, ivory-hued home on nearby Port Emerald Beach. And they traded in their student ID cards for a small business license. Their rec room became a home office for the fastly growing Munroe Marketing Firm. And the multicolored rock’n’roll poster that once adorned their ceiling was replaced with a luminous, two-tiered chandelier.

Even so, the couple never stopped ‘making out’ or ‘sneaking around’—sometimes even venturing into the velvet-upholstered backseat of Gregory’s restored 1945 Rolls Royce. 

Although admittedly the site of some interesting marital memories, Lillith now hoped with fervor that she would never see the car again; though she knew in her heart that the Rolls was not responsible for her husband’s deadly accident.

Six months ago, the actions of a drunken, reckless driver ended Gregory’s life. As a blissfully unaware Lillith lay asleep in the couple’s bed, her husband’s car was pummeled in a violent collision on a dark, rainy road.

That was the last night he lived, thought Lillith. “And the last night I truly slept.”

Even so, it helped sometimes to play the old jazz CDs, pour the glass of crystalline champagne, and coat their sheets with a fresh supply of radiant rose petals in bloom.

“Just so something in this house feels alive,” she thought.