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the Fischer family homestead. The house, which had been built in the 1920s by her grandfather, stood nestled in an enclave of bronze-leaved magnolias, towering oaks and a tangle of rhododendrons and dogwoods. The lawns were neatly trimmed, courtesy of a mowing service, but the fields, now empty of cattle, and the For Sale signs that had already sprouted along the roadside, gave the property a derelict air.
    Suppressing the raw ache that crept up on her every time she drove to the house and had to facethe reality that her father was gone, she unlocked the door and stepped inside.
    The proportions of the house were nice: a wide hall, large, spacious rooms, two bedrooms on the ground floor, four above and an attic. In a wild moment, just after the funeral six weeks ago, she had considered keeping it, but the house was just too far out of Shreveport. As pretty as the drive was into town, the daily commute to the library would add an extra hour onto her working day.
    Besides that, much as she loved the history and connection of the house, it had been a family home. Her father had rattled around in it by himself, and so would she. It was designed for a large rambunctious family, and that was something she couldn’t see herself ever having. At thirty-four, with a short list of unsatisfactory and, quite frankly, disappointing relationships behind her—and no man in sight for the grand total of three years—clinging to the house was nothing short of pathetic.
    The sun slanted through the sitting room, capturing the motes of dust she stirred up as she crossed the large, empty space. The furniture had gone already; there was just the piano left, which she was keeping. It wouldn’t fit comfortably inher apartment, so it would have to go into storage until she moved somewhere bigger, but that didn’t matter. She loved the piano and the memories that went with it: lazy summer days spent listening to her mother play classical pieces and jazz, hours spent in this room after school working her way through music books until she’d gone to college.
    Reaching out, she lifted the keyboard cover and ran her fingers over the keys. The notes resonated through the empty house, clear and rich but definitely out of tune. Closing the cover, she continued up the stairs, opening windows in the empty bedrooms to let the heat out and stopping to check all the cupboards and wardrobes to make sure no personal items had been left behind.
    She had already emptied the main rooms of the house, selling the furniture, taking trunkloads of her father’s clothes and kitchen equipment to the charity shops, and storing anything of a personal nature until she was ready to sort through the last fragments of Ben Fischer’s life, and face the unpalatable fact that, without his cheerful, no-nonsense presence, she was now utterly alone in the world. The only room left was the attic, and the urgencyto clear that out had been spurred by a story that had been printed in the local newspaper.
    The reporter had somehow gotten hold of photos of both Ben and his brother Todd when they had first joined the Navy. The article described the old scandal of Todd’s disappearance and the fact that, unwilling to believe that Todd was missing without a trace, Ben Fischer had gone down to Costa Rica to personally search for his brother. The story, apparently supplied by a source in Shreveport—which she read to mean one of her father’s old naval cronies—had gone on to rehash the subsequent dishonorable discharge of Todd’s naval team and the recent discovery of the mass grave in Juarez, Colombia.
    The fact that Todd had finally been vindicated had stopped Sara from becoming too upset over the story. The investigation, which had resulted in the discovery of the mass grave, was now a matter of public record. What concerned her was that the story claimed her father had brought personal items back from Costa Rica.
    She remembered him making the