She’d never thought she’d walk in voluntarily.224Please respect copyright.PENANA6DekxeLRqK
224Please respect copyright.PENANA7yAaTXhGEb
She’d never thought she’d come back to Clear Springs at all.224Please respect copyright.PENANAFqsaU5VkH7
224Please respect copyright.PENANAObs2ikiHgW
She sighed. There was no help for it—either she needed to turn the car around, drive back to Missoula, and catch the next flight out to Virginia, or she needed to stop trying to talk herself out of this and walk in there and offer her services.224Please respect copyright.PENANACqzk57Rhh0
224Please respect copyright.PENANAsiW96WFus2
I don’t want to go back. Please don’t make me.224Please respect copyright.PENANAimR7rkI9Ma
224Please respect copyright.PENANAQyc9RKRU9U
It was the cry of a child in the dark. She’d worked very, very hard to leave that child behind, but the little-girl voice had the nasty habit of popping up at the worst times. Eden had known coming back to Clear Springs for the first time in a decade would rouse all sorts of inner demons she’d been so determined to forget. It didn’t make it any easier to bear.224Please respect copyright.PENANAA5z6qawCuL
224Please respect copyright.PENANAjt0f2ZQr2Z
“This is stupid. Get out of the car. Get out of the car right now.”224Please respect copyright.PENANA8srhjLCkOm
224Please respect copyright.PENANAxDwRYQNERG
She threw her body into motion, half-afraid that if she didn’t force herself to move, she’d sit there until someone decided to report her for being creepy. Who am I kidding? The people in this place are just as likely to knock on the window and ask me if I need any help.224Please respect copyright.PENANANzXdUvLTue
224Please respect copyright.PENANA3KUsXmDAeX
The fall air had a little bite to it, and she closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. Home.224Please respect copyright.PENANAR4UJ0RTwDC
224Please respect copyright.PENANAQ0fJKxJhK8
No. It’s not home. It’ll never be home again.224Please respect copyright.PENANA8PBHkUr0p5
224Please respect copyright.PENANA6OI1jumRF9
She’d made a life for herself in the FBI, and if she didn’t have much in the way of roots . . . well, she’d left the possibility of roots behind when she left Clear Springs. Most days it didn’t even bother her that much. She was doing good in the world, using her nontraditional childhood to give her an edge that had helped her make a name for herself over the last six years in the cult division. She was Eden Collins, FBI agent. She wasn’t that scared little girl. Not anymore.224Please respect copyright.PENANApnrIJigUAl
224Please respect copyright.PENANAgh488jykcw
One step at a time, she made her way into the police station. She’d half expected it to be a whirl of motion, with people rushing here and there, trying to come to terms with the fact that death had touched their small town. But there was no one in the room except a man sitting behind the desk in the corner, glaring at the phone on his desk.224Please respect copyright.PENANAuWDxCDggqy
224Please respect copyright.PENANAGkLlWSCgL5
224Please respect copyright.PENANA4LwBD84MGJ