Spiral of Darkness

Grace Garnett, an attractive Denver child psychologist, is drawn to a sleepy mountain town in Colorado after her father's death. Not much happens in Placid Valley unless you count the secrets of its inhabitants. Why was her father obsessed with building a three-story castle in back of his cabin? Then there's the Marlboro cowboy lookalike, Jake Donner—only the handsome rancher knows the location of his wife's unmarked grave. The local school principal, Claire Matthews, lends a hand with funeral arrangements for Grace's father though Claire harbors her own well-kept secrets. When Claire enlists Grace's help with a troubled student, a suspected victim of child abuse, the young boy leads the women to a cult that threatens not only the little boy's safety but Grace's life as well. But Grace is not without her own secrets—someone from her past may be lurking in the woods outside her father's cabin. Worst of all, her father's accidental death is beginning to look like murder.