1. Emerald Flash

Sunlight flashed across her black-rimmed sunglasses and made Kathy Chatsworth blink, stop walking and look down. The light had bounced off a green stone, half hidden in the vines growing in a tangle under a tall cedar hedge.

She reached down to pick it up and gasped. The stone was attached to a dagger – a long dagger, it looked old, like something from a film, she thought, or an overly ornate thing you find at a costume store. But this was no toy. It lay heavy in her hand, eight inches from the wicked point to the carved handle where the green stone glinted. Could it be an emerald?

She saw blood on the blade, wet blood, deep red and sticky, with a small, pale green vine leaf trapped on the edge where it had started to congeal.

Kathy’s own blood pounded in her ears. Someone’s in trouble, she thought as a crimson drop fell from the dagger to the ground. She looked about wildly and saw a break in the hedge and a path to a cottage with a beautiful old oak door. The door stood open to a dark hallway. She stopped for a single beat then ran up the path.

Pausing in the hallway she waited for her eyes to catch up, then stepped through a door to the left to a small living room, almost as dim as the hall, with brocade curtains blocking the sun. A figure was curled on the floor. A woman lying on her side, hands clutched at her chest where a deep terrible stain oozed through her fingers, a ragged red flower blooming around them. Kathy ran to her, the bizarre thought springing to her mind bloodstains are hell to get out of a carpet! She knelt down, heedless of her own pale blue skirt, and cradled the dying woman in her arms.

The face was ashen, but warm brown eyes fluttered open and stared into Kathy’s. Her breath was ragged, her voice no more than a sigh as she stammered “Channel Lane ... Point.” Kathy bent closer, cupping the small face, pressing her ear to the bruised lips. “Channel Lane,” she whispered again. “His secret ...” The short sentence ended abruptly, no more breaths, no more words, but the eyes stayed open, staring at Kathy, silently pleading.