Gaetha Pace

I Taught Myself Denial Gaetha Pace

Following an attack by a superior officer, Special Agent Esther Richards leaves her work in the Army Criminal Investigative Command to return to the sandhills of western Nebraska to bury her father and investigate the disappearance of her brother and his friend ten years earlier, something her devastated parents asked her not to do. The sheriff at the time of Eddie and Melissa's disappearance and the death of four of their friends on the same night, failed to resolve the case citing lack of evidence, motive or other leads. Sheriff Jack Pedersen was elected and vowed to finally find out what happened. He, too, has failed. No one's talking. Esther's parents remained silent as did their friends. The beautiful Agatha Packer, a teenager out with the others that night, is sticking to her story that she had broken up with Eddie and gone home. She still lives with her parents and has a new baby. Hulda Aiken, artist friend to Esther's family and nurse to Jack's dying wife Madge, urges caution. Then one frigid, snowy day in February, almost three years after Esther's return, Jack receives a call from the neighboring county law enforcement that there may be a body at a remote abandoned ranch owned by the region's largest landowners, Bridget and Lefty McElwee. He learns that Lefty, too, has disappeared after possibly being involved in criminal activities. Jack sends deputies Esther and Mike to investigate. Newly elected County Prosecutor and Coroner Neil Sanderson joins them and they find Melissa's body under the stairs of the root cellar. The town's secrets begin to unravel.