The men had been lifelong best friends. Different jobs, different family backgrounds. As adults they’d remained friends, and the women they’d married, Lucinda, Deidre and Harlowe, had been best friends their entire lives as well. They’d attended school together, parties, vacations, and they’d all married the same summer—only days between their weddings.

  So strange that the men would abruptly disappear together and the women would know nothing of the reason. Not one had ever remarried. Not one had ever spoken against the other.

  Reyna walked back into her room, closed the French doors to the balcony and decided she would drive around a bit and get the lay of the land.

  Tonight she would call Eudora and tell her all that she’d seen. The woman couldn’t wait to hear everything.

  Eudora was such a good storyteller in her own right that developing her narrative would be incredibly easy. Reyna had videoed their sessions using her phone’s camera, as she did with all clients, and then she would use those to help bring their voices to life.

  The sun was shining and the temperature was perfect for a leisurely stroll, but Reyna wanted to drive to a number of locations first thing, so she opted to head out to the Land Rover. She’d grab some lunch somewhere before returning to the Jewel.

  Excitement had her belly tingling as she descended the staircase. To tell the truth, she hadn’t felt this much enthusiasm for an endeavor since her own book. She enjoyed all her work, but this was the first time she had felt so drawn toward a project. She wanted to find the answers that no one else had. When she’d written her novel, a mystery loosely based on an actual event, she had loved the research aspect. The digging into the dirty details in search of previously unearthed facts.

  Perhaps that was what had put the fire in her blood this time. Her goal was to find the answer to a thirty-year-old mystery. Had the young husbands taken off for parts unknown in search of wealth or new love? Had they met with untimely deaths from someone to whom they had been in some sort of debt?

  Or were the Widows actually murderers who had decided for whatever reasons that their husbands had to die?

  The Widows of Whispering Winds. The perfect book or movie title. For the first five or so years after the disappearance of the Three—no remains had ever been found—there had been lots written on the Widows and the long-lost husbands. But the story had eventually fizzled as they all did. Once in a great while a retired cop or private investigator or investigative reporter would come to town and dig around. But no one had ever found an answer.

  Reyna refused to allow that reality to dampen her spirit. In all such unsolved cases, there were no answers until someone found one. It was only a matter of time and interest. And maybe luck.

  She had the time and the interest. Just maybe she would get lucky.

  The idea that this could be more than the memoir for Eudora dared to flirt with her thoughts. This could be Reyna’s next book.

  Eudora herself had suggested as much.

  “Don’t get ahead of yourself, girl.”

  Reyna started her Land Rover and prepared to back out of the parking lot. A knot tightened in her stomach. She wasn’t getting her hopes up about anything more than what was. She would write the memoir and dig as deep into this mystery as necessary to find answers for her client.

  Nothing more...for now.

  If more developed...well, that would be incredible. For now, all her focus needed to be on finding answers.

  The knot loosened, and Reyna eased the Land Rover out onto Main Street. She surveyed the lovely shops and the happy-looking pedestrians. It was all picture-perfect. Like a Norman Rockwell painting. The quintessential little village filled with the best of what life had to offer.

  But there was something unpleasant or perhaps evil hidden here.

  All Reyna had to do was find it.

  Copyright © 2024 by Debra Webb

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  ISBN-13: 9780369744043

  Big Sky Deception

  Copyright © 2024 by Barbara Heinlein

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