Dalton Reed was a former sheriff’s deputy. Even after retirement, he’d been a volunteer deputy. He could make a guitar sing. Clancey still had his precious guitar. She’d hidden it while Morris lived at home, for fear that he’d sell it. After all, he’d made frequent allusions to its value. He’d also been covetous of her grandfather’s antique Colt .45 in its equally antique hand-tooled holster. Odd thing, the gun and gun belt had vanished along with her grandfather. She’d thought at first that Morris might have sold them. But they were collectibles, and a lot of people in San Antonio—including many policemen and sheriff’s deputies—knew about them. Perhaps Morris had been too cautious to put them on the market.

Clancey had loved her grandfather. He was the only good in her miserable home life. Her stepfather, Ben, had coddled Morris, his son from a previous marriage, as if he’d invented bread. He protected the boy, got him out of trouble all the time, refused to believe his own son had ever done anything bad. Tad had never gotten the attention from Ben that Morris had. The child got his affection from his half sister, Clancey, who’d loved him from the day he was born. After the death of her mother, Diane, not long after Tad’s birth, Clancey and her grandfather had been Tad’s protectors, until her grandfather’s disappearance.

Tad had only been three at the time when her grandfather didn’t come home. But a few days before that, Morris had viciously attacked Tad for crying during his video game. The little boy was screaming as Morris slapped him around. When Clancey had come running at the sound of the child’s screams, she saw Morris, cursing, grab up a metal scoop that was used in the open fireplace. As she yelled, horrified, he swung it at the child and knocked him off the couch. Clancey ran to defend the little boy, and Morris swung the heavy scoop at her, breaking two ribs and bruising her as he swung it over and over again.

It had been a brutal act that still kindled nightmares. She’d had bruises and cuts on her face and arms, in addition to the broken ribs, and her back had suffered a torn muscle. There was a worse complication that sent her to the emergency room. Ben had come home from work just after the incident. He grimaced at Clancey’s condition and reluctantly called an ambulance, recognizing that her injuries might be life-threatening. She begged Ben to let Tad go, too, but Ben refused. The kid would be all right, he said sarcastically. He was just bruised. Morris had told him, drugged up and wild-eyed, that the child and Clancey had been tussling and both fell off the sofa. Ben believed him.