Her fingers slowed as she reached for it, remembering with a start what she’d learned at the newspaper. Widow Laura Beaumont had been murdered twenty-four years ago and she, like the woman in the supposedly fictional murder story, had a young daughter.

A daughter who’d been found drowned in the creek.

The short story had to be about the same woman and her child, didn’t it?

She put the critiqued story installments into her backpack, although she wouldn’t be returning them until the entire story had been finished, turned in and graded.

She didn’t want to stifle their creativity with her comments on the earlier assignments, although her comments were very complimentary of their endeavors. The idea was to encourage her students to write freely. She understood the fear some people had about putting words to paper.

As she zipped up the backpack, she looked down at the murder story on the table where she’d left it. She would hide it in the house for now. She didn’t want to take the chance that someone would find it in the schoolhouse and read it.

The story was becoming more and more like her dark secret and that should have made her even more uneasy than it did, she thought.

As she headed to bed, Jolene realized that the author of the murder story had gotten to her. Not only couldn’t she wait for the next part, but she now felt personally involved in solving the mystery.

Reading Monday’s and Tuesday’s assignments in order, she had looked for some clue as to the writer. Was the writer just someone with an active imagination? Or a local gossip who thought she knew what had happened that summer, if indeed the story was about Laura Beaumont and her daughter, Angel?

There was nothing in the story that would make Jolene believe it had been written by the killer, she assured herself.

So why did the details in the story make her so nervous? Because if she was right, the author had known this woman. Had watched the murdered woman closely. Just as the writer might be watching right now to see Jolene’s reaction, she realized with a chill as she snapped off the light.

Dulcie woke Wednesday morning after sleeping later than she had in years. It surprised her given how much trouble she’d had getting to sleep last night.

She’d told Arlene Evans the truth. She’d had to sleep on it before making a decision as to what to do about the property.

Common sense told her to just list the property with the Realtor she’d met and return to Chicago and start seriously looking for her next business venture.

But even as she thought it, Dulcie knew she couldn’t leave without going into that house. She had to know if she’d been there before.