And Olivia. Her great-aunt had died the next day, on the morning of her one hundred and first birthday. The doctor said she just gave out, but Zoe blamed herself, the shock of the news of her father's death. She and Betsy O'Keefe-the entire town-could have conspired to keep her great-aunt from finding out what had happened. They could have tried.

"I know who killed your father. Oh, Zoe, I know…"

The ramblings of a dying woman. Zoe should have realized Olivia was in trouble, but she and Betsy had coaxed her to bed for a nap. She never got up again.

After weeks of trying to find her father's killer, it was Stick Monroe who'd finally pulled Zoe aside and told her she had to ease off. Calm down. Let her colleagues in CID do their jobs. Stick was a retired federal judge and her mentor, her friend, and everyone knew he was the one person she might listen to. He reminded her that her class at the FBI Academy was set to start. All she had to do was drive to Washington, D.C., and get on with her new life.

Instead she withdrew from the academy and took off, ending up as the sole detective in Bluefield, Connecticut, a small town in the northwest part of the state. Nothing much had happened until the past summer, when the governor of Connecticut drowned in his own swimming pool in her town. It wasn't an accident. Then a Texas Ranger and a Texas lawyer showed up, the new governor and her kids were nearly killed, and basically all hell broke loose.

And when it was all over, Zoe was fired. Her chief accused her of letting the Texas Ranger "run amok," which was ridiculous-Sam Temple was a total professional. But the real reason she got the ax was that she'd stopped wearing a gun on duty in the weeks before the governor's death. It was basic U.S. law enforcement. She was supposed to carry a weapon on duty.

After she lost her job, Charlie and Bea Jericho had offered Zoe their son's room now that he'd married the new governor and moved out. She helped Bea can and freeze a ton of fruits and vegetables, and Bea was teaching her how to milk goats and knit.