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Driving on a country road a few miles from town, Carrie adjusted her grip on the steering wheel.

I need to do this. Dr. Bernay said I could handle it.

Taking a breath, she first thought of other things, like the pictures Pearl had sent from Honolulu. Sailing for Suva, Fiji. Hope all is good there. Hug the baby, Vern and Luke , Pearl wrote with a photo of her toasting the sunset on the Pacific.

Missing her aunt, Carrie wished they could be together. Especially because of where I’m going today , she thought as she navigated her almost-new, low-mileage, blue Ford SUV.

She and Luke had used the money from selling their second car in LA, and some from the sale of their house, to buy it. Her father and Randy Ringo helped with plates and registration. Carrie had had it about a week now and liked that the new-car smell lingered. She looked into the baby back-seat mirror they’d installed, seeing Emily buckled into her rear-facing seat, content and humming to herself.

Carrie was grateful to have the second car; it gave her freedom to run errands and do what she needed to do.

Her destination was coming up, pulling her attention back to what lay ahead. Repositioning her hands, she slowed down, turning at the mouth of a narrow paved road.

She traveled through an open wrought-iron gate, passing under its ornate iron arch that bore the words: Oak Rock Cemetery.

Over ten acres of well-kept lawns bordered by precision-cut hedges and shaded by oak and pine trees. Carrie knew that Oak Rock was the county’s oldest cemetery. Her history teacher once brought her class here to see the weatherworn crosses and markers of people killed at the time of the Civil War.

Driving slowly along one of the twisting roadways lacing the grounds, Carrie reached the section where her mother was buried. She stopped, shut the engine off and got Emily into her stroller. Moving along the soft grass, she was pierced with a sliver of apprehension.

It’s okay , she told herself, glancing around.

Nobody had followed her. No one was in the immediate area. She had pepper spray in her purse. And the groundskeeper she saw in the distance would hear her if she needed help.

It’s okay.

Arriving at her mother’s grave, Carrie stared at the granite headstone for a moment before kneeling at it. She traced her fingers over its letters, summoning memories, feeling them coming gently with images and the beginnings of music and…

Her mother, at the sink, the radio going with a song. She’s excited, calling, “Vern, get in here!” Her mother and father dancing like a dream to Solomon Burke’s “Cry to Me.”

Now here was Carrie much younger, going with her mom down to Reddick’s pecan orchard and roadside stand. Carrie helping her in the kitchen. Her mom made the best pecan pies in Clear River County but declined to try for a ribbon at the fair. “Oh, no, I’d never win, sweetie.”

Then her mom’s joy at getting her real estate license. Watching her father lift her mom in a victory hug, taking them all out to celebrate for a steak dinner at Braddson’s Sunset Grill.

And when her mother worked, she dressed so fine, her hair and makeup perfect, her perfume fragrant. Always going out, showing properties. Then came the dark times, when through the closed bedroom door, Carrie heard the late-night muffled arguments between her mom and dad. He’d grown jealous of her always going out, making connections, always having meetings and drinks with men, some of them rich. “It’s my job. What about your job, Vern? You’re out at all hours, and you could get killed.” Doors slamming, Carrie running down the stairs, her father leaving. Carrie seeing her mother and the crumpled edges of the tissue she squeezed in her fist.

Over the years, their arguments subsided, her parents adjusting, or maybe resigned, to things as they were, until that day Carrie’s dad stood in Principal Taylor’s office holding his hat, the earth shaking under Carrie’s feet. Her screams. The numbness of the nightmare that followed, kissing her mother for the last time as she lay in her casket, her skin as cold and hard as stone. Carrie’s tears falling on her mother’s face. Watching them lower her into the ground, feeling so raw, as if a claw had raked its talons across her heart.

Emily cooed, pulling Carrie back to the moment. She kissed her daughter, reached under the stroller’s seat into the basket for the collection of flowers she’d brought: white lilies, daisies and baby’s breath. She placed them at the base of the headstone.

“I miss you, Mom,” Carrie said aloud. “This is Emily, your granddaughter. I wish you had the chance to hold her. I’m sorry for not visiting as much as I should have. There were things I had to deal with. But we’re back now, all together with Dad…and…time’s working against us.”

Carrie paused.

“Mom, if you can hear me, please help me find the truth.”

She patted her mother’s stone, stood and braced for what was coming.

Carrie pushed the stroller from her mother’s section, across the curve of roadway to the next section. Threading grave sites, she came to one. The headstone was blue pearl granite. The name was Abigail Elissa Hall, and the stone bore the dates of her birth and death with her portrait etched in the center over the words:

Our Daughter. Taken Suddenly. Always In Our Hearts.

A minute of silence passed as Carrie stared at Abby’s grave. Then she reached into the stroller’s basket for a single pink rose. She placed it at the base of the headstone, then made her way to the next grave site she needed to see.

The stone was a granite silver cloud, bearing the name Erin Lee Eddowes; the birth date showed she was the same age as Abby. The same date of death. And a color photo of her smiling, looking radiant. The inscription:

Gone Too Soon. Eternally Loved.

Carrie gazed upon the stone for about a minute before placing a pink rose on its base. A breeze lifted her hair and she corralled the loose strands, thinking hard, thinking how…

…it’s been thirteen years since Abby and Erin were murdered…but I survived. Why?

Carrie looked across the cemetery toward Abby’s stone.

Why did we go in the woods that day?

You were never my friends.