Jolee wailed, a muffled cry that wouldn’t have been heard over the pounding bass of Ted Nugent through the car’s speakers even if they’d been stopped in traffic somewhere, but they were far from civilization. She knew where they were. Not exactly, but they’d driven a long way on this back, bumpy, winding road and there was no doubt in her mind they were in the middle of nowhere, deep into the wild, far from the logging camps, but still on the thousands of acres of land Carlos’s father had left him.

That was where Carlos buried the bodies.

Jolee thought of her husband, the way he sucked on a Wintergreen Lifesaver and tied his tie in their dresser mirror every morning as if he was going off like any other man to a regular job living a regular life, the way he ruffled her hair and called her “chickie” and kissed her cheek before he left. How could that man be the same man who had ordered her kidnapped and killed?

As much as she wanted to deny it, she knew it was the truth. Her husband killed people.

No, he had people killed. If they got in his way, if they threatened him or his little empire, Carlos had the money, the power and the influence to simply make them disappear. She hadn’t wanted to believe it, for years she had suppressed her intuition. But when proof had arrived in her mailbox, when she had confronted Carlos with the information and he had petted and placated and pacified her, she had still denied it, hadn’t she? She’d believed his lies. Because she wanted to? Because she had to? What woman wanted to believe her husband would have her father killed?