Goodbye, She Lied

Reluctant amateur detective Esbeth Walters, in her seventies, must face one of her greatest fears when she goes after con artists who are fleecing residents of rest homes. Stir in law enforcers who hope she stumbles, a death that looks anything like the suicide it was ruled, and the presence of a couple of hit men hired out to the mob and you have a stew that makes the tiny Texas town of Fearing a hotter place than usual for her. But she isn’t about to say goodbye just yet . . . or is she?

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The only light that came into the room did so around the outside edges of the closed Venetian blinds, and from a bright bar of yellow that ran along the bottom of the door to the hallway. At first Esbeth heard nothing. Then she heard the soft rasp of shoes on carpet. She snapped off her penlight. A black shadow started to move along the bottom edge of doorway light, then stopped, as if listening. Esbeth thought her pounding heart would climb right up inside her chest and try to get out—just first-time burglar nerves. Then the door handle rattled.