Chapter One

      “Why did you kill that woman, Stephen?” Rosemary March asked, looking across the scarred-up table at her younger brother. “And don’t tell me it was to rob her for drug money. I know that isn’t who you are.”

      Rosemary studied the twenty-eight-year-old man she’d done her best to raise after a small plane crash several years earlier had left them orphans. She tried to pretend there weren’t a dozen pairs of eyes on her, watching through the observation windows around them. It was easier than pretending the Missouri State Penitentiary’s tiny visitation room with its locked steel doors wasn’t making her claustrophobic.

      But it was impossible to ignore the clinking of the chains and cuffs that bound Stephen March’s wrists and ankles together. “You ask me that every time you come to see me, Rosemary.”

      “Because I’m not satisfied with the answers you’ve given me.” She ran her fingers beneath the collar of her floral-print blouse, telling herself it was the heat of the Missouri summer, and not any discomfiting leer from another prisoner or the unsettling mystery of why her brother would kill a woman he didn’t know, that made beads of perspiration gather against her skin. “I hate seeing you in here.”

      “You need to let it go. This is where I deserve to be. Trust me, sis. I was never going to amount to much on the outside.”

      “That’s not true. With your artistic talent you could have—”

      “But I didn’t.” He drummed his scarred fingers together at the edge of the table. For as long as she’d known him, he’d been hyper like that—always moving, always full of energy. Their father had gotten him into running cross-country and track; their mother had put a drawing pencil in his hand. Ultimately, though, neither outlet could compete with the meth addiction that had sent his life spiraling out of control. “Losing Mom and Dad was no excuse for me going off the deep end and not helping out. Especially when your fiancé...” The drumming stopped abruptly. “Just know, I was really there for you when you needed me.”

      “Needed you for what? If you had anything to do with Richard’s murder, please tell me. You know I’ll forgive you. We never used to keep secrets like this from each other. Please help me understand.”

      “I kept you safe. That’s the one thing I got right, the one thing I’m proud of. Even the Colonel would have finally been proud of me,” he added, referring to their father.

      “Dad loved you,” Rosemary insisted.

      “Maybe.