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express such an emotion. He dipped his head. She felt the touch of his lips against her throat, a butterfly caress that threatened to melt the icy core that had enabled her to survive the past two years. For a moment, she imagined that he had been as lonely as she.
    â€œNo,” she said again, stronger this time. “I can’t go back. I’m not that person anymore.” Whirling, she faced him. “I don’t believe in us anymore.”
    Silence so deep, so filled with despair she thought she would weep, echoed around them. His features shifted slightly, becoming as unreadable as stone. He dropped his hands and stepped back.
    She retreated to the small office off her bedroom and turned on the computer. Her hands shook. By sheer willpower, she forced her thoughts to the task at hand. She had a job to do. She had to support herself and Sara. She wouldn’t depend on anyone else. She couldn’t go back.
    Bending her head over her notes, she began the task of checking actual library inventory against what the files said they were supposed to have. The inventory and updating of the files for the whole county library system had provided a much needed job and distraction from Kyle’s disappearance when she had firstarrived in Whitehorn. She worked twenty hours a week on a schedule that suited her.
    She was building a life here. She didn’t need anything else, or anyone other than her child.
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    A short while later Kyle appeared in the doorway. His face was devoid of expression other than the sternly disciplined remoteness he assumed when working on a case. “Rafe Rawlings and Shane McBride are here. You want to join us?”
    She nodded, saved her data on the computer and followed him out to the kitchen. The two men were at the table, coffee mugs in hand. Kyle had made a fresh pot.
    Make yourself at home. She sent the thought to her errant husband and couldn’t decide if she was angry or not, or if she should be or not. A husband who wasn’t a husband was a very confusing proposition. She avoided meeting his eyes. Therein lay danger, but she couldn’t say what kind.
    â€œGood morning, gentlemen. Please, keep your seats,” she said, putting on her best hostess smile.
    She flicked on the oven and prepared a pan of frozen cinnamon rolls, which would bake in ten minutes. She joined the men at the table in the meantime.
    â€œStart at the beginning,” Kyle requested of the men.
    Shane McBride told Kyle about the day Angela had come to interview for a teacher’s position and had been roughed up in the parking lot outside the school. Sara and Jenny had taken a shortcut through there on their way to rehearsal for the Christmas pageant and had witnessed the incident and started screaming. Oneof the men had chased after them and grabbed Sara, who, as the girls often did, had exchanged coats with Jenny McCallum. Jenny’s name was sewn into her jacket and the two men believed they had the heiress to the Kincaid fortune.
    â€œThat’s why they thought they could get a million dollars in ransom,” Shane added.
    â€œThe McCallums got the money together to pay the ransom even though it wasn’t their daughter,” Danielle said. “I’ll never forget that.”
    â€œNo,” Kyle agreed.
    Their eyes met. They shared a second of complete accord that warmed some part of Danielle that had been cold for a long time. She looked away, remembering that her friends had been there for her while her husband had been working on the case that had demanded all his time and attention.
    â€œWhy were the kidnappers after the woman in the parking lot?” Kyle asked the detective.
    â€œWell, it could have something to do with Angela’s first husband. He was killed in an auto accident, but there were bad feelings between him and his partner, who disappeared after that. The business went bankrupt and Angela was left nearly penniless. And