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after a long day. Preoccupied with thoughts of Justine and worried about why Laney isn’t answering her phone.
    “Heart’s just great,” Ross answered, wishing he could roll back time to those days, only a few months earlier, when Fleming would have pumped him for information about one of any number of gorgeous women seen on Ross’s arm.Amused by the irony of his reputation as a ladies’ man, Ross had never volunteered the information that all of the women were members of his vast network of relations.
    And that the one woman he’d actually been sleeping with refused to be seen with him.
    Still, it was a hell of a lot easier on a man’s ego to be looked up to than pitied. For a moment, Ross considered inviting Kenneth to join his morning workouts, but there was no way Fleming could keep up with the pace Ross had been setting these last few weeks as he steadily rebuilt his stamina.
    “Why don’t you go home and get some rest now.” Kenneth gestured magnanimously toward the door. Through its glass, security lights strove vainly to keep the night at bay. “I’ll hold over for you. Cover the first half of your shift tomorrow.”
    “I’ll take you up on that, Ken. Just don’t expect me to cover any more of your screwups in return.”
    At his car, Ross stripped off his lab coat and pulled on a denim jacket against the evening chill. Late or not, he meant to track down Laney.
    He started out by driving to Aunt Ava’s, where Laney had been living, the last he’d heard. Though not nearly as grand as Ross’s mother’s home, the handsome Craftsman bungalow belonging to her twin sister was located in the historic area near downtown’s antique and gift shops. When he pulled up at the curb, Ross found the gray-and-white house dark. The gas lamppost was unlit, too, though it normally burned all night.
    With both his aunt and mother out of town, Ross made a mental note to check the lamp on his day off. Hitting one of the speed-dial numbers on his cell phone, he climbed out of the old convertible. “Come on, Laney,” he muttered as he opened the painted iron gate and let himself into the yard. But the phone in his aunt’s house went unanswered.
    Surely, in a town as small as Dogwood, the news of Caleb LeJeune’s death had quickly reached her. But the questionwas, had Laney barricaded herself inside to weep over the loss of the band she’d referred to as “her life” or gone to one of her sisters’, cousins’, or friends’ houses so as not to be alone?
    Ross puffed out a breath, frustrated by the thought of a long night spent tracking her down—not to mention the anthill he’d be kicking by alarming his drama-prone relations. Please be inside, Laney, he thought as he climbed the porch’s stairs and knocked at the front door.
    No one answered, but through the lace sheer covering the sidelight window, he spotted a sight that made his heart jerk painfully in his chest…
    Silhouetted by a dim light shining from the rear of the house, a rope dangled in the kitchen doorway. Suspended above one of his aunt’s dining chairs, the hangman’s noose gaped like an empty socket, waiting for its neck.

Chapter Three
Southern trees bear a strange fruit, Blood on the leaves and blood at the root…
    —From “Strange Fruit,” Abel Meeropol,
in a poem later set to music and
performed by Billie Holliday
    “Laney,” Ross shouted, praying he could stop her as he fumbled for the key Aunt Ava had given him. It took him three tries to fit it into the lock and turn it, an interval he measured in the wild gallop of his own pulse, the shallow burn of his breath.
    The front door swung open and he rushed inside, his hand flipping on a light switch as he repeated his cousin’s name.
    Sound came at him from two opposite directions: an incongruously raucous burst of song—accordion and fiddle with a washboard scrape of rhythm—tumbling down the hallway, along with the quieter but unmistakable creeeeak-click of the back screen door