He turned the knob, and when it opened under his hand, a dread suspicion grew in his gut. He pulled the sidearm out, telling himself he was going to feel awfully stupid when he scared Beth Morris in the shower.

Stupid and scarred for life.

He was turning the corner into her kitchen when he smelled it. Rich, coppery death.

Yeah, scarred for life.

Every death left a scar. But violent death was worse.

And two within two days…in his town.

Something very wrong was going on.

Very wrong.

Beth lay on the floor, her head crushed in. The weapon was most likely the heavy glazed urn that was lying on the thick, pile carpet under his feet. Kneeling, he touched his fingers to her throat.

Her body was just now starting to cool.

Her murderer had gotten away no more than an hour ago.

“What in the holy hell is going on?” he murmured.

Then he stood and reached for the radio at his belt.

Well, at least this victim didn’t have such a good reason for Darci to want her dead. While Darci didn’t like Beth, Beth hadn’t made it her life’s mission to make Darci’s life hell.

Kellan worked through the interview gently, aware that Darci was more than a little shell-shocked.

Britt said quietly, “You know she didn’t do it, Kellan,” after Darci just sighed when Kellan went through the round of questions one more time. She rubbed soothing circles on Darci’s back, feeling the tension mounting as Darci breathed in and out in harsh, shaking motions. “Her time is alibied, most of it with you.”

Kellan gave Brittany a narrow look. That didn’t matter. What mattered was that he had a murderer in his town, and he had to find the bastard.

But yeah, he knew she didn’t do it.

Didn’t change what he had to do, though. He sighed as he studied the river outside Darci’s window. “It wouldn’t be a bad idea for you to hang around tonight,” he said to Brittany.

He was planning on driving by a few times himself.

Britt arched a brow and said, “Already taken care of, my friend. Why else would I be here this late?”

Darci mumbled from the circle of her arms, “Would you two stop talking as though I’m not here? And I don’t need a babysitter.”

The words sounded loud in the silence of the brightly lit kitchen. What was it about the midnight hour? When words were spoken at such a late time, it just made everything seem so much more vivid, so much louder.

By the time he had finished at the crime scene, it had been after eleven. After taking care of notifying the family and dealing with the paperwork, he had started home.

But then he’d turned, driving past Darci’s house and he had seen lights blazing, and Britt’s car. So he had stopped.

Maybe it had been more to unravel this knot of worry in his gut, though. Not police business. Technically, he should have done this interview at the station, not in her house. She had given him permission to do it, as well as record it-although he suspected she really wasn’t too connected right now. She was in shock, plain and simple. The pupils of her eyes were dilated and she kept rocking back and forth, holding herself.

He had been scared, coming here, worried he might find something he wasn’t ready to handle. He knew, deep in his gut, that these killings had something to do with Darci.

Somehow.

Once Darci had opened the door, and he had seen her weary, shell-shocked face, he had felt…better.

Still battered, still enraged, but better.

“Do you have any idea who would have done this?” he finally asked, pulling his glasses off and tucking them inside his jacket.

Darci looked up at him, resting her cheek on her arm. “I don’t understand hatred, Sheriff. You’re probably asking the wrong person. Whoever did this had a lot of hatred. I think we kind of discussed that about Carrie. This takes more hatred than I’d give anybody.” She lifted a shoulder in a weak shrug. “I’m lazy. I don’t want to give anybody that kind of energy. I get angry fast, I’ve got a short fuse, but it burns itself out pretty quickly. Just don’t like to waste my time with it for too long. I just don’t understand hatred. It’s too…violent. Too dark.”

“You don’t strike me as being somebody who’d be afraid of violence,” Kellan said, quirking a brow as he lifted a cup and sipped at his steaming coffee. He was remembering how she’d batted Beth’s hand away, that angry threat in her eyes, in her voice.

“Just because I’ll use force to defend myself doesn’t mean I like violence,” Darci said, resting her chin on her hands, staring straight ahead. “And understanding hatred and not being afraid of violence are too different things.”

“Point taken,” he said, inclining his head. “So you’ve never hated anybody? An old boyfriend? Ex-husband? The cheerleader in school who stole everybody’s guy?”

A tiny smile tugged at her lips. “No. I don’t think I’ve ever expended the energy to hate. I might hold grudges, and I hold them well. But old boyfriends weren’t worth the time, otherwise, they’d not be old boyfriends. They’d still be in the present. And there are no ex-husbands. As to the cheerleaders, well, I was one, but I didn’t need to steal boyfriends.”

He grinned. “I bet they probably flocked to your door,” he said, a grin cocking up the corners of his mouth.

She shook her head. “No. I was the tomboy cheerleader. Boys weren’t worth my time back then,” she said. “So there was no reason to hate the cheerleaders who did steal the boys.”

“Okay. So you don’t have a clue who might have done this,” Kellan said, blowing out a sigh. “Maybe there’s a lady who believes some of the rumors that she’s heard about you. Thinks you might have been sleeping with a man she’s involved with.”

“So she kills two women just to try to get me in trouble? It would make more sense if she just came after me.”

“Murderers don’t always understand logic,” Kellan said, shrugging. “I’m just trying to understand why I have two women dead-and one of them is somebody who has a history of causing you a lot of grief.”

Darci shot Britt a look. Britt shrugged, her lips pursed.

Spreading her hands wide, Darci said, “I just don’t know… I just don’t know,” she repeated, closing her eyes and burying her face in her hands.

She was so tired.

Achingly tired.

But she couldn’t sleep.

Rolling onto her side, she stared through the floor to ceiling windows just inches away from her bed. The river was no more than a hundred yards away-usually watching it roll by made her feel a little more peaceful than she felt now.

There was no peace inside her tonight.

What was going on?

Darci closed her burning eyes.

There were no answers in the river. No answers inside her throbbing head either.

Two women dead.

And her last words spoken to both of them had been in anger.

It was with a heavy heart that she finally fell asleep, hours later.

Restlessness plagued the small town of Vevey, Indiana over the following weeks.

Carrie was laid to rest, and then Beth, two days later. Carrie’s house was sitting empty, but already people from the State Registry were in town making noises about trying to get Beth’s house.

Darci couldn’t quite believe it. The lady hadn’t even been resting a week when the first call came, from what she could tell.

Now they had people in town, all but ambushing anybody who so much as walked by. But Kellan had finally put a stop to it when he strode up to the small group of people who had practically camped in front of it. Britt had gone into great detail about it, her eyes sparkling with laughter.

“Well, sir, you see, we’re from the Historical Society and this house is of great interest to us-”