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Stacking the spiral notebooks, he added her journal and placed her mother’s letter carefully on top

“What do you want that for?” she asked

He frowned as he got up “I’m not sure I’d like to take a closer look, if that’s okay”

She felt strangely protective of that note But she was paying him to ferret out the truth and needed to provide whatever he ht need “Sure Are you ready for the police files, too?” she asked as she stood She had to get to work, or the next issue of The Stillwater Independent would be nothing but a collection of articles pulled froenerally used AP to fill in on the national news front, but she always included a good selection of local stories

“Not yet I was hoping you could take me out to the farm”

She was planning have a shower “Now?”

“Why not?”

She considered letting him march up to Clay’s front door on his own and immediately rejected the possibility “Clay’s not really someone you want to approach too boldly,” she said

“Why not?”

“He’s had to fight for everything he has, and he’s been the target of a lot of suspicion and doubt”

“So what are you trying to say? He’s dangerous?”

“No! He’s just not very welcoers”

“He won’t talk to me?”

She contemplated the work still to be done at the paper and concluded that the next issue would be very short “I’”

While Madeline showered in the e and read her mother’s journals

Another day Lee working over at the church, counseling sohts and my child I look into Maddy’s eyes and pray that soive her a better life than I’ve known This rasp at such hope If only for the money, the chance

I’et away That’s the only answer I’ve known it all along, ever since then But how and when? Satan will follow me He’ll come for me I hear my name He comes for me now

This entry made Eliza sound almost normal But some of the others They were so cryptic—especially the poems and journal entries that had survived Eliza’s penchant for burning It was al in riddles

What wasfor? And that part about having to leave Was she talking about leaving the world? If not for her subsequent suicide, Hunter would’ve interpreted that line as leaving her husband In light of the note Madeline had found in the secret compartment of her jewelry box, he still wondered

I’ve known it all along, ever since then…

Since when?

He turned a few es