“A twenty-four-year-old murder? The killer’s gone free all this time? Seems kind of stupid for him to try to run you off the road and give himself away when you don’t have any evidence against him, right?”

He did have a point.

“Not yet,” she admitted.

“Yeah, that’s the part that makes me nervous,” he said. “What exactly are you thinking of doing to find this evidence?”

“Just doing a little more digging.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You think that’s a good idea?”

“Someone is trying to scare me off. That means there is something to find and I don’t scare off easily.”

“I’m beginning to see why my brother is so taken with you—and why he’s equally as worried.”

“He’s taken with me?” she asked with a grin.

“You tell him I said that and I’ll deny it. Seriously, we’re a small sheriff’s department. There’s no way we can protect you.”

“But you could help me,” Dulcie said. “You could let me see the file on Laura Beaumont’s murder.”

She ran blind from her mother’s bedroom, leaving bloody footprints. The killer raced after her, calling her name, as she ran down the stairs and burst out the front door.

She could hear the killer behind her as they both disappeared into the darkness. It wasn’t until she reached the road that she realized she’d run the wrong way.

Had she run toward the creek, she could have hidden in the trees. Or called her friend for help. He would’ve saved her.

But instead she’d run to the road.

She looked back, hearing the killer coming behind her, knowing now that she didn’t stand a chance of getting away. The killer was almost to the open gate. On the road the killer would have no trouble catching her.

Lights came over the small hill, blinding her. She closed her eyes at the screech of brakes and thrown gravel as the vehicle skidded to a stop. She was caught in the headlights like a deer about to be slaughtered.

The door opened. “Angel? My God, Angel, is that blood on you? Where’s your mama? Tell me where your mama is, girl. Stop your crying and pulling away, I’m not hurting you. Tell me what’s happened. Stop it and tell me what your mama has done now.”

It rained the day of Angel Beaumont’s funeral. She was buried on the hill overlooking Old Town Whitehorse. The whole county turned out, huddled under a sea of black umbrellas, as Titus Cavanaugh read from the Bible and prayed over the poor helpless child.