On a surveillance assignment for a child custody case, PI-in-training
Nora Watts finds herself ensconced in a small farming community on a
beautiful hippie island in the Pacific Northwest, a place with a
reputation for being welcoming to outsiders. But when she arrives there,
she discovers her welcome quickly wears thin. Perhaps too quickly.
Salt Spring Island, with a history as a refuge for African Americans
fleeing the bonds of slavery, is not a place of refuge for her--and, she
suspects, may not be for the people who live there, either.
As she investigates, nothing about this remote community seems to add
up. It gets personal as Nora confronts her own complicated feelings
toward her estranged daughter and becomes increasingly concerned about
the child she's been tasked to surveil. She discovers that small,
idyllic communities can hide very big secrets.
Included with this short story is a sneak peek at the next Nora Watts
novel from Sheena Kamal, It All Falls Down