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the detective said.
    Annie’s mouth dropped open, and she leaned back.
    â€œIt’s business, of course,” he said quickly. “We’ve had a break in the Emily McGlashen case.”
    â€œAnd?” Annie said. “I’ve filed my story about her. I’m not working on it anymore. You know that. And when I wrote about the other murders in Cumberland Creek, you were not forthcoming. So what gives?”
    â€œWell, it turns out that Emily is not who we thought she was.... She, um, had these tattoos.”
    â€œTattoos?” Annie said.
    â€œRune patterns.”
    Vera’s heart leapt to her mouth, DeeAnn dropped her drink on the floor, and Annie gasped. In the rush to clean things up, Vera’s mind ran a mile a minute. The NMO? Again? They were going to lose Annie, Mike, and their boys. Cumberland Creek was going to lose them. Just like they lost Cookie Crandall.

Chapter 9
    Annie stood and gathered up her photos, shoving them into their envelopes, then into her bags.
    â€œAnnie,” Detective Bryant said. “I need your help.”
    â€œI’m the last person whose help you need,” she said, trying to stop her voice from shaking.
    â€œI know what this must feel like, but—”
    â€œYou know?” Annie said with her voice lifted. “I don’t think you do. I don’t think any of you could possibly know what it feels like. It’s like I’ve stepped back in time fifty years or something. There’s a group of neo-Nazi pagans in the hills nobody wants to talk about. There’s my boys in a school system that promotes Bible education. And let’s not forget about the weird, hateful symbols painted on barns and houses around town a while back. And then there’s Cookie.”
    Annie felt herself unraveling there in Sheila’s basement, surrounded by her friends and the ephemera of scrapbooking, such as the paper, the scissors, the glues, the colored pens and pencils. All of it seemed to mock her right now.
    â€œNow, Annie.” Sheila led her to the couch in the corner. “I know you’re upset. You’ve got every right to be. But you need to calm down. Take some deep breaths.”
    â€œYeah, uh, I didn’t know it was going to upset you this much,” Bryant said, looking to the floor, then back up at her. “It’s just that you’ve got these great investigative skills, and I know you’ve been working on this book. I don’t know if there’s a link or not, but I thought you could answer some questions. We are so short of staff right now.”
    Annie took a deep breath as she watched his discomfort. He was admitting he was in over his head—and he was doing that in front of the Cumberland Creek Scrapbook Club. She smiled. Then laughed.
    Sheila shoved a glass of water in her hand. “Drink up, Annie.”
    As Annie drank the cool water, she began to calm down. She looked up and realized the other women were not looking at her anymore. They had gone back to their projects, or at least they wanted it to look that way. She caught Vera looking at her out of the corner of her eye; then she looked back at the paper in front of her.
    Bryant crouched down next to her.
    â€œWhat do you say, Annie? Can you help me out?”
    â€œI don’t know if it’s a good idea,” she said. “Let me think about it, okay?”
    He was too close to her face. She could see the shadow of his whiskers on his face and wanted to reach up and run her hand along his chiseled cheek. No, probably not a good idea.
    Because sometimes you wake up in the middle of the night and realize it’s been three months since you and your husband have made love. Because sometimes you want to scream from the boredom of it all—the house, the kids. Because sometimes all you want to be is a woman. A woman who is nothing more than that. And you want a man who makes you feel that way.
    He stood too close to her. She