Faithful Unto Death (29 page)

I looked down into the lit houses that backed onto the levee. There was happiness and heartbreak going on in those houses that I would never know about. It wasn’t on me. And that was good.

Acknowledgments

My family is a family of storytellers. As a child, my parents gave me and my sister Lisa more books than toys, and more cautionary tales than lectures. We were allowed to read anything, age-appropriate or not, if it was well written. I’m grateful for that. I am grateful for the faith my parents shared, and for how they taught me to make my own.

Ten or so years ago, Niti Nguyen told me a remarkable story. I asked her if I could use it if I ever managed to get a book written, and she said I could. A fictionalized version of that story is in
Faithful Unto Death
—I thank her.

Author and editor Sarah Cortez was my first writing mentor—a gentle and encouraging teacher.

Roger Paulding and the entire Houston Writer’s Guild—good readers and good listeners, all of them.

Dr. Mary McIntire conceived of the Rice University Master of Liberal Studies program. Thanks to Dr. John Freeman, I was accepted as a member of their first class. The first version of
Faithful Unto Death
was my capstone project for the program—Drs. Dennis Huston and David Schneider were my mentors, and they couldn’t have been more generous with their time and their helpful, pointed, funny, and frequently snarky comments. Every professor I ever had at Rice University was the best professor I’ve ever had. I am profoundly grateful to my professors and classmates at Rice, who didn’t change just my life, they changed me.

My sister and brother-in-law, Lisa and Michael Nicholls, have believed from the beginning. They have been relentlessly supportive—in addition to the celebrations at each milestone, they bought me my first laptop so I would not have to write in seclusion, they gave me my Rice class ring—engraved “It’s never too late” inside so I would never forget. I never will.

Friends and neighbors Dr. Tim Sitter and Dr. Fae Garden helped me kill Graham Garcia in such a way that I would not forever scar little Jessica Min. They tell me they are keeping the phone messages that begin, “Okay, can you help me out? I want to kill a guy . . .” Thank you.

Michelle and Kathi and Terri and Audrey and Lisa listened to interminable book questions and took them all seriously—unless it was time not to, and then they helped me laugh it off.

Michelle Pinkerton wrote my French for me. Online translators have their limitations. Michelle doesn’t.

In March 2010, Harriette Sackler of Malice Domestic called to say that I had won a William F. Deeck—Malice Domestic Grant for Unpublished Writers. Thanks to Malice Domestic, and the magic train of events they started, I arrived at the convention a year later with a book deal. Harriette Sackler and Arlene Trundy of the grants committee, wise, witty, and wonderful women, have continued to be friends and mentors, and if you are an aspiring mystery writer, you cannot have better.

At the 2010 Malice Domestic Convention, I met the inimitable Janet Reid, of FinePrint Literary Management. She is my fairy godmother who made all my dreams come true when I clicked my heels three . . . no. That’s not right. There was no heel clicking. There was a good deal of rewriting and reworking and very strict instructions to be followed. At a very low period, Janet wrote me a short e-mail that so heartened me, that I would have the entirety of that e-mail tattooed on my body if I weren’t so worried about what my sons would think of their mom. But at the end of the road, there was a book deal, just as Janet had said there would be. She tries to come off sharky (and she can be) but she is true-blue, the right stuff, and thank you, God, for bringing me to her attention. What a gift.

And then Janet brought me to my editor, Shannon Jamieson Vazquez of the Berkley Publishing Group, who is beautiful and very scary and the most careful reader in the entire world, and no, I am not excepting the scrupulous people who compile the
Oxford English Dictionary
. Shannon’s comments, cuts, and changes have made this a richer, deeper book—and also saved me from a timeline error that would have haunted me for as long as the book is read.

Glenn Pinkerton, Winn Carter, and Walter Cicack answered legal questions on a host of topics. (“Did your murderer
bring
the golf club, or find it there?”) I thank them for their advice.

My meticulous copyeditor, Joan Matthews, went out of her way to assist me and provide useful information. Cover designer Judith Lagerman captured Sugar Land for me.

W.J., Evans, and Charlie Cicack, my three sons, answered my questions about current vernacular, and football and architecture and technology and trucks, and high school and murder and the Norman French and . . . who needs Wikipedia. But mostly, they have supplied me with a host of unbelievable-but-true boy stories to use in future books. It was my sons who taught me that if I hadn’t specifically forbidden them to shoot off fireworks in the bathtub, well, then.

The biggest thank-you of all is for my spooky-smart husband, Richard Box. He kept my writing schedule on a spreadsheet, fended off visitors and phone calls, proofed and edited one thousand versions of the novel, brought me flowers and wine and a gold locket like Jo’s. He believed in the book. More important, it was Richard who made me believe. Faithful unto death, Richard.