Erica Spindler by In Silence

He laughed bitterly. “Dad’s played the part of the jovial, small-town cop so long, he wouldn’t recognize an authentic thought or feeling if it shouted his name. Matt’s trying his damnedest to follow in the old man’s footsteps and is so deeply in denial it’s frightening. And Cherry, poor girl, has sacrificed her life to holding the dysfunctional lot together.
    â€œGreat family,” he finished. “As American as apple pie and Prozac.”
    She stared at him, shaking with the force of her anger. “You’re right. I wasn’t here. And I hate myself for it. I would do anything, give anything, to change that. To bring them back. But I can’t. I’ve lost them.”
    She grasped the door handle, fighting not to cry. Determined not to let him know he had won. “I didn’t believe what Cherry told me. That you’d come back just to punish them. I believe it now.”
    He held out a hand. “Avery, I—”
    â€œWhen did you become so cruel, Hunter?” she asked, cutting him off. “What happened to make you so hateful and small?”
    Without waiting for an answer, she let herself out and walked away.

CHAPTER 10
    G wen Lancaster stood at the window of her rented room and peered through the blinds at the gathering darkness. Lights in the buildings around the square began popping on. Gwen kept her own lights off; she preferred the dark. Preferred to watch in anonymity.
    Did they know she was here? she wondered. Did they know who she was? That Tom had been her brother?
    Had they realized yet that she would stop at nothing to find his killer?
    As always, thoughts of her brother brought a lump to her throat. She swung away from the window, crossed to the desk and the Cypress Springs Gazette she had been reading. It lay open to the upcoming calendar of events. She had marked off those she planned to attend. First on the list was tonight’s wake.
    She shifted her gaze to the paper and the black-and-white image of a kindly-looking older man. The caption identified him as Dr. Phillip Chauvin. Survived by his only child, a daughter, Avery Chauvin.
    The entire town would be in attendance tonight. She had heard people talking about it. Had learned that the man had committed suicide. And that he had been one of Cypress Springs’ most beloved brothers.
    Suicide. Her lips twisted. Cypress Springs, it seemed, was just that kind of town.
    Fury rose up in her. They would most probably be there. The bastards who had taken her brother from her.
    Tom had been working toward his doctorate in social psychology from Tulane University. He’d been writing his dissertation on vigilantism in small-town America. A story he’d uncovered in the course of his research had brought him to Cypress Springs.
    A story about a group called The Seven. A group that had operated from the late 1980s to the early 1990s, systematically denying the civil rights of their fellow citizens in the name of law and order.
    After only a matter of weeks in Cypress Springs, Tom had disappeared without a trace.
    Gwen swallowed hard. That wasn’t quite true. His body had disappeared. His car had been found on the side of a deserted stretch of highway in the next parish. It had been in running order. There’d been no sign of a struggle or an accident. The keys had been gone.
    Both the Cypress Springs police and sheriff’s department had investigated. They’d combed her brother’s car and the surrounding area for evidence. They’d searched his rented room, interviewed his fellow boarders, worked to reconstruct the last days of his life. Neither suspect nor motive had emerged.
    They told her they believed he had been the victim of a random act of violence—that Tom had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. They had promised not to close the case until they uncovered what happened to him.
    Gwen had a different theory about his disappearance. She believed