Ronda laughed. “Ben hated Laura because she was encouraging me to leave him. I was the one leaving Ben—until he found out I was pregnant. He didn’t give a damn about me, but he wanted his kid.” Bitterness rimmed her voice. “Tinker thought Ben threw me down the stairs to get rid of the baby because he wanted to be with Laura. He’d seen Ben coming from Laura’s house. He didn’t know that Ben had gone over there to threaten Laura to stay away from me and quit putting fool ideas into my head.”

“How could you stay with a man who threw you down a flight of stairs?” Dulcie asked.

Ronda shook her head, anger and bitterness burning in her eyes. “I threw myself down the stairs. I knew if I had that baby, I’d never be free of Ben. Laura was my best friend. She promised to help me leave him.”

Dulcie felt her blood turn to ice. This woman was crazy. Or maybe worse, completely sane and evil. “But you stayed with him.”

“He was blackmailing me! He knew Tinker killed Laura. He was going to the sheriff unless I stayed with him. He said I owed him a baby.”

Mace. Mace had been the baby she owed Ben? “Why would you make a bargain like that?” Dulcie demanded, horrified. “You had to know that one day it would come out. That Jolene would remember...” The rest of her words died away as she realized that Ronda was the one who’d gotten Jolene back to Whitehorse.

Russell came to in the dark to the sound of driving rain. At first he thought he must be dreaming, it had been so long since he’d heard rain like that.

His head ached and he felt confused. He touched his temple and came away with blood on his fingers. It took a moment for him to remember what had happened.

He sat up with a start, his head swimming. Dulcie! He’d left her at Jolene’s house but, knowing her, she wouldn’t have stayed there long. She would have come looking for him. She would have—

He shoved away the thought as he remembered Jolene standing in the schoolhouse, a bloody knife in her hand.

Rain pounded the tin roof overhead. He realized that he must be in the garden shed next to the schoolhouse because he’d seen the lawnmower and some garden tools in the flash of lightning.

Staggering to his feet, he tried the door, not surprised to find it locked from the outside. He felt around in the dark shed until he found a hoe and using it as a lever was able to force it between the shed door and the wall.