His heart did a little Texas two-step at just the sight of her. “How are you?”

“Fine.” The lie seemed to freeze on her lips. “There’s something I need to tell you. Angel Beaumont isn’t dead.”

He listened in shock as she told him about Jolene Stevens and handed him what she said was a copy of a short story the teacher believed the killer had been writing for her.

“You need to take this to my brother at the sheriff’s department,” he said when he finished reading it.

“No. And neither can you. I promised Jolene. Shane knows about Angel. He’s getting DNA tests run for us.”

“Do you realize how dangerous this is, not just for you, but for your sister?” He saw her expression and quickly backed off. “All right. But you need help.”

She smiled. “That’s why I called you. I know you haven’t been here long, but you know more people than I do. I have to find the killer before Monday morning. Will you help me?”

He’d move heaven and earth for this woman if possible. “Do you have something in mind?”

“We need to know who was in Laura Beaumont’s life.”

He noticed that she hadn’t said “her mother’s life.” “Okay.”

“The problem is no one will talk to me about it.”

He wasn’t sure anyone would talk to him either, but he couldn’t let her down. He started the pickup and headed toward downtown Whitehorse.

Jolene sat down with the murder story, but she couldn’t concentrate and finally put it away and walked to the window to stare out at the landscape. The late afternoon sun hung at the edge of the horizon, gilding the dry grasses with its golden light.

The rolling prairie, with the Little Rockies dark and constant against the horizon, had brought her a sense of peace. How was that possible, given the horror of what she must have seen when she’d lived here?

And why hadn’t she started remembering? Was the truth buried so deep that even coming back here hadn’t triggered it?

She shook her head, reminding herself that she didn’t believe she was Angel Beaumont. Or did she?

Dulcie believed it and so did the killer, apparently. But why the story? Was he afraid she would remember someday and, upon hearing about the writing assignment, had decided to tell her his side of the story?

Was it possible that for twenty-four years the members of this community had lived with a murderer in their midst? Had they protected the killer the same way they’d protected her years ago? Who, she wondered, had saved her that day? Not just saved her, but found a couple willing to adopt her—illegally.

Her parents had explained to her that they couldn’t adopt through normal channels because of their advanced ages.