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a chance. Everyone isn’t out to hurt you.”
    If everyone in St. Dennis were like the people she’d met that day, she’d concede that he was right. Of course, how kind everyone would be if they knew she was Clifford Chapman’s daughter—well, that would be the test, wouldn’t it?
    Not a test anyone would be subjected to. When she’d told Jesse she wasn’t there to make friends, she wasn’t kidding. Friendship required honesty, trust, and Ellie knew she wasn’t going to go there.
    She’d trusted Jesse because she had to, but she wouldn’t be hanging around St. Dennis long enough to find out who else she could trust. After she’d been burned so badly by the two people who should have most loved her—her father and her fiancé—trust was hard to come by these days.
    Ellie still couldn’t wrap her head around the fact that her father—the same father who’d been her champion all her life and had always seemed to have put her, his only child, above everything else—was worse than a common thief because he didn’t steal out of necessity but out of a greed so out of control there had been no end to it. If he hadn’t been caught, she was certain he’d still be stealing the life savings and pensions of people who trusted him.
    Ellie, too, had trusted him.
    When the charges were first announced, she’d been blindsided. The moment when her father had looked her in the eyes and admitted that he—aided by Henry—was in fact guilty, that he had in fact done everything the FBI and the SEC said he’d done, Ellie had felt her entire world crack and shatter. That both her father and Henry—she’d planned on marrying that man!—had woven the tangled web in which thousands ofpeople lost everything they had, devastated Ellie. Carly had been in Paris but had flown home the second she heard the news, had stood by Ellie while she was grilled six ways to Sunday by one investigator after another. When the interrogations were over and Ellie had been cleared of any involvement, Carly had taken her home, where Ellie fought off the pain and shame for the next three months.
    The entire past year had been totally surreal, had turned Ellie’s world inside out, and made her question everything she knew about herself, her life. What her father and Henry had done went beyond betrayal.
    No, best to bury Ellis Chapman so that Ellie Ryder could get on with her life.

Chapter 3
    C AMERON O’Connor parked his aging Ford pickup at the corner of Old St. Mary’s Church Road and Cedar Lane, then walked the half block to the law offices of Enright & Enright. He didn’t have an appointment, but given the foul mood he was in, he’d muscle his way past Jesse’s elderly receptionist if he had to. He wasn’t a man who was quick to lose his temper, but today he was
this
close.
    He took a deep breath in an attempt to calm himself before he opened the firm’s front door. As usual, Violet Finneran sat like a sentry at her desk to the left of the foyer. Cam was tempted to ignore her and just walk into Jesse’s office, but better judgment prevailed.
    “Miz Finneran?” he said from the foyer.
    Apparently startled, the woman looked up from whatever it was she was reading, then a smile crossed her face.
    “Cameron O’Connor, come in here and let me look at you,” she commanded.
    Anger was no excuse for poor manners. Cam went into the reception area.
    “How have you been, son? It seems like months since I’ve seen you.”
    “Yes, ma’am. I’m fine, thank you. How are you feeling?”
    “I’m doing just fine, too. And your sister? She’s well?”
    “Very well,” he replied. “Thanks for asking about her.”
    “Of course. Please give her my best.” Violet Finneran lowered her glasses and gazed at Cam. “Were you hoping to see Jesse?”
    Cam nodded. “If he has a minute …”
    “Let me check on that for you, dear. Why not have a seat?” She stood and walked across the hall, where she knocked softly on the first door. After a