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arrived. Those were his words, not the sheriff’s.” Harris hesitated. “Don’t tell me you’ve fallen for this guy. There are too many unanswered questions. He could be a murderer.”
    “Harris, please.”
    A longer hesitation. “Okay, but it seems like you’re jumping from the frying pan into the fire. Minette to Daughtry , and I’m not sure which one is worse. But I’ll see what they have. I was going to anyway. That’s what good reporters do. I just wanted to hear you beg.”
    “Bastard.”
    * * * * *
    D ana had heard people claim they hadn’t slept a wink, but supposedly that wasn’t true. It was for her. She watched the clock tick away, hour after hour, minute after minute. She pictured Reece slumped in the county jail cell, and anger built inside like steam in a pressure cooker until she couldn’t breathe. At five, she abandoned any idea of sleep, showered, dressed, and waited for the time to leave to meet Jeraldine De Bolt at nine in Asheville.
    She drank her coffee in her great room, studying the unfinished fireplace wall. Reece had bordered the opening with flat rectangular stones and built around them, fitting the rocks into one another seamlessly. It reminded her of the different puzzle-like shapes she drew as a child. For her, the doodles had been mindless. Reece’s composition was art.
    When she felt smothered in her own house, she went outside. The sun had already made its appearance over the mountain, bathing the valley in golden light. Birds sang their morning music, a warm breeze rustled the trees. How could life go on the same, look exactly like it did the day before, when her whole world was coming apart?

Chapter Eight
Locked Up

    R eece lay on the hard slab that passed for a bed in the Regal Falls jail. If he had closed his eyes at all, it was because they burned from keeping them open, not because he succumbed to sleep. This couldn’t be happening again. He swallowed his rage because letting it out would only hurt his case.
    What case, and what witness? This time he wasn’t unconscious. He’d gone straight home from Dana’s and never left.
    There were things he hadn’t gotten around to telling her. One of them was his paralyzing fear of being locked up, confined in a small space. He’d endured fifteen years in a pen, and the day he walked out of prison, he promised himself he’d never again be enclosed by four walls and bars and a locked door.
    He’d constructed skylights in every room of his house so he could see the clouds and stars to know the universe existed, and all he had to do to free himself was open a door and walk through. He’d wake soaked in sweat from those nightmares where he was trapped in a dungeon for eternity like Edmond Dantès. Only, unlike the story in his dream, Reece found no escape, and each day intensified the madness until he was quite insane. Yet, here he was in real life, locked in a cell once more, terrified he’d never get out.
    He thought of Dana and what she must have felt when they hauled him out of her house, half naked. She couldn’t see him this way, because then she’d see the tightrope he walked between sanity and madness. Jeraldine knew. If it weren’t for her, he’d still be inside, rotting away. Maybe he’d have been paroled when he was old and gray—he forced a smile, he was half gray now—or maybe not. He wouldn’t have given himself much of a chance. Heinous crime, that was what they said. Yes, it was. No one knew better than he did.

Chapter Nine
Jeraldine

    D ana would have known Jeraldine De Bolt from Reece’s description if the woman had appeared amid the throng at La Guardia. It was a no-brainer in Asheville. Apparently, Dana must have stood out to her too.
    “Hi ya, honey,” Jeraldine said, walking directly to her. “I’d know you anywhere.” She flung her big arms around Dana and pulled her to her very substantial bosom.
    Flustered, Dana asked, “How?”
    Jeraldine looked around. “You see the women here? If my