Prologue

      The truth shall set Elliott free.

      Maggie Reeves, formerly Maggie Corgan, had always been cursed with an insatiable curiosity. The slightest hint of a mystery could set her off. Which was why she was out here, in the middle of Live Oak Ranch—a ranch that belonged to her ex-husband’s family, a local ranching dynasty—following a map that she had propped up beside her on the passenger seat, when she should have been back in town, getting ready for her sister’s wedding.

      Granted, the wedding was tomorrow and logically, there was plenty of time for her to get ready, even if she moved in slow motion. That was the argument Maggie had used on herself to assuage her conscience when she couldn’t seem to tamp down her curiosity.

      The wind was picking up. She pushed her blond hair out of her eyes and focused again on the road ahead. So many questions filled her head, it was hard keeping them straight.

      Why would her ex-husband’s late father leave her anything in his will? Yet according to her attorney, Adam Corgan had addressed the envelope to her, saying it was to be sent to her upon his death. When Maggie opened it, she had no idea what to expect, but it certainly wasn’t a map of his property highlighting “the tallest live oak” with an X.

      There was a note included with the map. She had read and reread the note a dozen times. As written, it was simplicity itself.

      She just didn’t understand it.

       The truth shall set Elliott free.

      What was that supposed to mean? What truth?

      She knew who Elliott was. Everyone knew who Elliott was. Elliott Corgan was Adam’s disgraced older brother. He had suddenly disappeared years ago, his location a secret that his family guarded closely. No one within the family spoke about him, but over the years, there had been rumors.

      It was the stuff that local legends were made of, some of it possibly true, some of it obviously not. It all depended on what a person believed and who was telling the story at the time.

      After her divorce, Maggie didn’t give Elliott Corgan any thought at all.

      Until the letter had arrived.

      But just what was this “truth” and how would finding it—whatever “it” was—set Elliott free?

      Free in the biblical sense or actually free? And free from what? Why would the man she had never met need to be set free? She didn’t understand any of it.

      An even-bigger mystery, in her opinion, was why had her ex-father-in-law sent this to her after his death? They hadn’t been particularly close when she was married to James. They certainly were less than that once she had divorced his son.

      And yet, Adam Corgan had left specific instructions that this be sent to her after he died.

       Why?

      “One mystery at a time, Mags,” she murmured, glancing over toward the map again.

      According to the directions, the tree that Adam wanted her to closely examine was located smack in the middle of some pretty rough terrain. Her vehicle was not equipped with four-wheel drive. There were times she felt it barely had front-wheel drive. The only way she was going to be able to reach the tree was to walk the rest of the way across the field.

      Maggie sighed. She supposed that was why she had worn boots, in case this sort of thing came up. If she had any real sense in her head, she would just turn around and go back. But unfortunately, her curiosity trumped sense each and every time.

      She got out of the car. The wind was really picking up, she caught herself thinking as she leaned into the passenger side and pulled out the map. Folding it so that it was more compact and manageable, Maggie began to make her way toward the tree.

      She assumed that “setting Everett free” was probably going to require some digging. Well, she could do that when she returned after the wedding. For now, all she wanted to do was find the right spot.

      Once she satisfied her curiosity—or at least as much of it as she was able to satisfy—she’d come back later on in the week. At that point she would do whatever needed to be done in order to discover this so-called “truth” that Adam Corgan had entrusted her with finding from beyond the grave.

      “All very creepy if you ask me,” Maggie stated out loud, even though there wasn’t a soul around for what seemed like miles.

      “Speaking of creepy,” Maggie murmured, reacting to the wind, which was making a really mournful, increasingly loud noise now.

      Feeling uneasy, she looked around several times to assure herself that it was the wind and not someone, or worse, something that was howling like that. It almost sounded like a wounded animal.

      But it wasn’t.

      Finding out that it was the wind that was making such a racket and blowing so hard didn’t really comfort her as much as it should have.

      By the time she came close to her destination, Maggie realized that the world around her, which had been fairly bright earlier, had suddenly turned dark and foreboding, as if a giant switch had been flipped.

      Maggie stopped trudging over the rocky terrain about a foot shy of the tree her ex-father-in-law had marked and looked up at the sky.

      The Texas sun had totally disappeared and the sky was beyond gray, almost black. The wind continued to pick up and was now making a really fierce noise.

      That was when she suddenly remembered hearing something about a hurricane prediction. She had initially discounted it because half the time the weather bureau was completely wrong in its forecasts. Another 25 percent of the time, it was still off its