In an idyllic Colorado town, a young girl goes missing--and the trail leads into the heart and mind of a vicious killer.
It's the heat of late summer in Echo Valley, Colorado, the lush greenery turning tinder dry with the slightest autumn reds bleeding into the landscape. But the leaves aren't the only thing dying in this seemingly placid town. A young girl mysteriously vanishes, and her body is eventually recovered in an abandoned mine near the Columbine River.
Of the two Flores girls, Marisa was the one people pegged for trouble. Her younger sister, Lena, was the quiet daughter, dutiful and diligent--right until the moment she vanished. Detective Jo Wyatt is convinced the eleven-year-old girl didn't run away, and that a more sinister reason lurks behind her disappearance . For Jo, the case is personal, reaching far back into her past. But as she mines Lena's fractured family life, she unearths a cache of dark secrets that paints a far more complex picture.
As the evidence mounts, so do the suspects, and when a witness steps forward with a shocking new revelation, Jo is forced to confront her doubts, and her worst fears. Now, it's just a matter of time before the truth is revealed--or the killer makes his next deadly move. Retired police captain M.E. Browning writes the Jo Wyatt Mysteries and the Agatha-nominated Mer Cavallo Mysteries (as Micki Browning) in addition to short stories and nonfiction. Her work has appeared in dive magazines, anthologies, mystery magazines, and textbooks. She lives in South Florida with her husband and a vast array of scuba equipment she uses for "research."
