None of the names latched in her memory, yet somehow she remembered other things. A woman with big hair and a white ruffled dress passed by her, nodding a polite hello. An old gentleman snoozed in a white rocker outside a storefront. A couple of giggling girls, sucking on popsicles, window-shopped across the street.

She knew this town. It smelled and tasted and looked like home, even if she hadn’t been back since she was eight, even if she couldn’t imagine living here ever again. She’d given herself exactly eight weeks…to solve a twenty-year-old crime.

Complicating that problem-just a wee bit-was that no one twenty years ago believed there was a crime. Not the police. Not even her sisters. No one.

She’d plotted and planned this trip for almost two years, but back in Virginia the idea had made such sense. She needed to do this. She’d needed to forever. Now that she was here, trudging through this blazing, baking sun, she fully realized that everything about the plan was complete and total lunacy.

A red truck, older than her, stopped at the corner to yield the right of way. The next block echoed the last one. The storefronts were different, but the sleepy, Southern town mood was the same. First up was an old-fashioned pharmacy, then a crafty-type jewelry store-she had to gallop past that one, shielding her eyes, knowing how readily she could sucker into a new pair of earrings. Right now, she’d likely sucker into any conceivable sales pitch to postpone her visit to the sheriff’s office.

Lily figured that if a woman was determined to be stupid, there was no point in hanging out half a flag. Might as well go for it all the way. Still, she knew darn well that walking into that old brick building was going to be traumatic times ten.