Author: Alicia Beckman

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and moved into one of the cabins. Nothing could be done about the attack—too long ago, the assailant now dead. But Leo had given her the department’s official apology, and she’d accepted it. Sarah had gone with her to order a stone for her mother’s grave, which wasn’t far from Anja’s, and they’d visited both.

Holly hadn’t decided yet whether to accept Becca Smalley Kolsrud’s job offer. Right now, she was busy cataloguing the letters, journals, and other ephemera they’d found in the carriage house. Caro’s trunk was just the beginning. One day, one project at a time, the sisters were rebuilding their trust in each other.

Nic had gone back to Billings, taking, Sarah was sure, those rusty needle-nose pliers with her. Once school was out, she and Kim would return with Tempe for a week or two.

They were all friends again, forever. And there had been no more nightmares.

Renee Taunton Harper had been right when she predicted that no lawyer in western Montana would want to touch her case. The state public defender’s office had ended up assigning one of its brightest stars, a woman with a killer record, who would do everything possible to ensure that she got a fair trial. Good. She deserved that. Everyone did, but being cheated, ignored, and humiliated most of her life was no excuse for murder. It had been Renee whose presence Sarah had sensed in the woods and at the soccer field, Renee who’d cut the landline, and Renee who’d blatantly hinted to George Hoyt that he wasn’t being told the truth about the deal for Porcupine Ridge.

Vonda Brown Garrett had returned to San Diego knowing the truth about her brother’s death. They’d talked about a visit, with her husband and sons, later in the summer. Sarah, Holly, and Janine were tending Michael’s roadside memorial.

And so, in varying ways, justice was being done, with Whitetail Lodge at the heart. The lodge Ellen Lacey had built and Caro McCaskill had made into a home. The lodge now entrusted to her. What the lodge wanted most, it seemed, was justice. And a woman to tend it.

A shadow fluttered near her cheek. A copper butterfly, its iridescent wings shimmering in the sunlight glinting off the lake. She smiled and stepped out of her flip-flops, then crossed the colored cobble into the water.

Readers, it’s a thrill to hear from you. Drop me a line at Alicia@AliciaBeckman.com, connect with me on Facebook at LeslieBudewitzAuthor, or join my seasonal mailing list for book news and more. (Sign up on my website, www.AliciaBeckman.com or www.LeslieBudewitz.com.) Reader reviews and recommendations are a big boost to authors; if you’ve enjoyed my books, please tell your friends, in person and online. A book is but marks on paper until you read these pages and make the story yours.

Thank you.

ALSO AVAILABLE BY ALICIA BECKMAN

(Written as Leslie Budewitz)

Food Lovers’ Village Mysteries

As the Christmas Cookie Crumbles

Treble at the Jam Fest

Butter Off Dead

Crime Rib

Death Al Dente

Spice Shop Mysteries

The Solace of Bay Leaves

Chai Another Day

Killing Thyme

Guilty as Cinnamon

Assault and Pepper

Nonfiction

Books, Crooks and Counselors: How to Write Accurately About Criminal Law and Courtroom Procedure

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Alicia Beckman delighted in living in Seattle as a college student and young lawyer, but is happiest back home in her native Montana, where she lives with her husband, a musician and doctor of natural medicine, and their full-figured gray tuxedo cat. As Leslie Budewitz, she’s the bestselling author of the Seattle Spice Shop and Food Lovers’ Village mysteries. A three-time Agatha Award winner, for Best Short Story (2018), Best First Novel (2013), and Best Nonfiction (2011), she is a past president of Sisters in Crime and a current board member of Mystery Writers of America.

This is a work of fiction. All of the names, characters, organizations, places, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real or actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Published in the United States by Crooked Lane Books, an imprint of The Quick Brown Fox & Company LLC.

Crooked Lane Books and its logo are trademarks of The Quick Brown Fox & Company LLC.

Library of Congress Catalog-in-Publication data available upon request.

ISBN (hardcover): 978-1-64385-580-6

ISBN (ebook): 978-1-64385-581-3

Cover design by Nicole Lecht

Map by Francesca Droll/Abacus Graphics, LLC

Printed in the United States.

www.crookedlanebooks.com

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