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PROLOGUE

RICK GRAYSON stared into the casket as it sat atop the raised dais in the funeral parlor Mourners milled around the room, stopped by the casket, whispered their condolences to him and then moved off, uncertain, hesitant in the face of his silence

Everyone mourned the lovely, vivacious Sienna Grayson, except her husband and the friend she had betrayed

She was as beautiful now as she had ever been, perhapsdark brown hair curled around her shoulders, contrasting with surprising warainst the white dress her fah eternity

Her brown eyes were closed, long lashes feathering against her cheeks The makeup artist the funeral home employed had done an excellent job Her skin wasn’t death-white, but instead had been given a warlow The bullet that had exited the front of her neck and torn off half her face was nowhere in sight There was not so e that had been done to her

The dae he had done

He stared at her His cheating, lying wife The woman who had sold out her friends, her fas For the thrill, the high, God only knehat other reasons she had had

How could he have not known?

He stared at her now, realizing that all the clues had been there, and he had overlooked them

He had known soents sent to Alpine, Texas, to track down a hoinated fro it for years, but he had never known the extent of it

His wife and his deputy had betrayed him

How had he lived with such evil and not known it? he wondered How had so in a chair in the corner of the room? Their son, Kent

Rick glanced over at hi the peace on the boy’s face, and realized, not for the first time, that his mother’s death had barely affected him

He turned back to his wife Sienna Lovely, lying, murderous Sienna The county mourned her now as they would have a fallen hero The truth about her death, and the kidnapping of another woman, had been hidden so deeply that even he wondered exactly what had happened at times