“No. He said he’d come on up here or he’d call. He hasn’t called. I’ll get back to him.”

Russell tried the rainmaker and got his voice mail. He left a message. As he was driving past the Atkinson place, he swung in. John Atkinson owned that property behind Laura Beaumont’s place at the time of the murder. If Russell could find out something for Dulcie, he might be able to help her solve this mystery so she could get back to Chicago and he could get back to work and get her off his mind.

It had nothing to do with getting back into her good graces. She’d just think it was about buying her land and get mad again anyhow.

Dulcie ducked into the newspaper office since she was walking past it anyway. It didn’t take long to find out what year Jolene Stevens had been looking at and deduce which murder the schoolteacher had made copies of. Why would a schoolteacher be interested in Laura Beaumont’s murder?

As Dulcie went through the same stories Jolene had, she noticed something odd. There was no mention of Laura Beaumont’s past. No mention of Angel’s father. No obit with Laura’s maiden name or any background.

Leaving the newspaper, she drove out of town more convinced than before that something was very odd about all of this. Leaves scuttled across the dusty street, propelled by the blistering, dried-out wind. It was early in the morning and yet the temperature was already in the seventies.

She had stopped for gas at Packys on the way out of town, all unpleasant thoughts of Russell Corbett disappearing as she felt the tension growing in the community. It was as if a spark could set off the locals, just as it could ignite the tinder-dry grasses outside.

The talk everywhere was of the need for rain.

Dulcie found herself caught up in it, anxious and nervous and expectant. She watched the sky for any sign of relief and silently prayed for the heavens to open up and douse them all in reviving moisture that would save not only the crops, but also the peace.

The feeling that she was perched on a powder keg about to blow grew stronger as she pulled past her cut barbed-wire gate lying in the dry grass and parked in front of the old farmhouse.

This empathy she felt for the ranch and farm people surprised her. Growing up in Chicago, she couldn’t have been farther from the land and her food source. Here though, she felt as if she were a part of it. Or possibly had been.

You aren’t Angel Beaumont.