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Back The Ursulina Save as PDF
Chapters (45)
  1. I know you'll never forgive me...
  2. Part One - Your Father
  3. Chapter One
  4. Chapter Two
  5. Chapter Three
  6. Chapter Four
  7. Chapter Five
  8. Chapter Six
  9. Chapter Seven
  10. Chapter Eight
  11. Chapter Nine
  12. Chapter Ten
  13. Chapter Eleven
  14. Chapter Twelve
  15. Chapter Thirteen
  16. Chapter Fourteen
  17. Chapter Fifteen
  18. Chapter Sixteen
  19. Chapter Seventeen
  20. Chapter Eighteen
  21. Chapter Nineteen
  22. Chapter Twenty
  23. Part Two - Your Mother
  24. Chapter Twenty-One
  25. Chapter Twenty-Two
  26. Chapter Twenty-Three
  27. Chapter Twenty-Four
  28. Chapter Twenty-Five
  29. Chapter Twenty-Six
  30. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  31. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  32. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  33. Chapter Thirty
  34. Chapter Thirty-One
  35. Chapter Thirty-Two
  36. Chapter Thirty-Three
  37. Chapter Thirty-Four
  38. Chapter Thirty-Five
  39. Chapter Thirty-Six
  40. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  41. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  42. Chapter Thirty-Nine
  43. Chapter Forty
  44. Chapter Forty-One
  45. About the Author

However, I’d be the first to admit that I couldn’t do my former job anymore. I was feeling better and getting around pretty well, but that didn’t mean I was anywhere close to the physicality needed to be a deputy. Plus, I was pregnant, so even as my body got stronger, I was already suffering from what the sheriff considered a disqualifying disability. He couldn’t imagine that I wanted to come back to work at all, but I had bills to pay, and so he agreed to take me back in the role I’d had before. Mrs. Mannheim transferred to a job in the county licensing bureau, and I became the office secretary again.

The rest of the deputies treated me better after that, partly because of what I’d been through and partly because I was back in a woman’s job. I missed being out on the road, and working with Darrell, but I didn’t miss the abuse. At that point in my life, I’m not sure I could have handled it.

And the murder investigation? The death of Gordon Brink?

Jerry closed the case. He did it while I was in the hospital and unable to offer any kind of protest. The sheriff interviewed Ben Malloy, who told him about Jay’s confession to the murder before the boy killed himself. Maybe Ben couldn’t hear everything that had been said between me and Jay on the ice—the wind had been howling the whole time—or maybe the sheriff had twisted around Ben’s statement to suit what he really wanted to do, which was put Gordon Brink’s murder to bed. Had anyone asked me, I would have said that Jay made up the story to protect Will, but by the time I was in a condition to say so, nobody cared. Darrell hadn’t objected. Neither had Norm and Will. I suspect Norm had a long talk with Will about it, because as a result of Jay’s false confession, Will went back in the closet. I’m not sure anyone believed it, but most of the town pretended, and Will was able to live his life again without violence. In another year, he’d go away to college. I doubted he would ever make his home in Black Wolf County after that.

So we’d found the killer. He was dead, and that was that. The thick folder that Darrell and I had gathered about the death of Gordon Brink got put away.

I filed it myself.

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