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CHAPTER ONE

LIZ SUTTON HAD ALWAYS KNOWN the past would come back and bite her in the butt--she just hadn’t known it was going to happen today

Herher son on the bus to school, then going down the hall to her hoes before stopping for so three of the last five pages She was figuring out who to murder in the first chapter of her new book, not to mention how he or she would be murdered Was decapitation just too predictable? Luckily her assistant knocked on her door, sparing her froy said, frowning slightly as she held out a piece of paper "But I thought you’d want to read this"

Liz took the single sheet It was an e-mail, sent to her Web site There was a link there for fans to get in touch with her Peggy handled most of the e- she didn’t knohat to do with

"A crazed stalker type?" Liz asked, pathetically grateful for the interruption When the writing was slow, even a death threat was ress

"Not exactly She says she’s your niece"

Niece?

Liz scanned the sheet

Dear Aunt Liz,

My name is Melissa Sutton My dad is your brother Roy I’m fourteen years old and o, our dad went to prison His neife, our steped her ht Abby and e My teachers say that all the tione a while now and I’m really scared I haven’t told Abby because she’s still a kid, but I don’t knoe can make it I don’t want to tell Dad what happened because he really liked Bettina and he’ll be sad she didn’t wait for hiht maybe you could help I knoe haven’t met before, but I’ve read all your books and I really like them

Hope to hear fro the computer at the library, so you can’t e-hts are off, the phone still works at ho in your old house in Fool’s Gold

Liz read the e-et the words to make sense Roy was back in Fool’s Gold Or at least he had been, before heading off to prison

She hadn’t seen her brother in nearly eighteen years He was a lot older and had left the suain Apparently he’d hters Girls ere living alone in a house that had been run-down and disgusting twelve years ago She doubted there had been h her brain Questions about her brother and why he’d returned to Fool’s Gold after being gone so long Why he was in prison and what on earth was she supposed to do with two nieces she’d never lanced at her watch It was barely eleven As it was Tyler’s last day before suot the car packed in time, they could leave directly from his school and be in Fool’s Gold in about four hours

"I need to deal with this," Liz told her assistant, as she wrote an address on a piece of paper "Call the electric coet the power turned back on They should take a credit card for payirls and let they asked

"I guess I haven’t seen e, but I can’t let the what else had to be done Her next book wouldn’t be published until the fall, so she didn’t have to worry about publicity and book tours She could work on her new story anywhere she had her laptop At least that was the theory

"I don’t kno long we’ll be gone," she continued "I’ straightened out"