October turned out to be cold. The dampness penetrated everywhere, creeping under my jacket, forcing me to wrap myself tighter in an old wool scarf. I was returning from the farmers’ market where I had bought the last apples of the season for jam. My old Chevy, a faithful assistant for fifteen years, hummed with effort on the broken dirt road.
I am Ruby Vance. Fifty-six years old, a widow, a mother, and a retired nurse. In these rural backwoods, I’ve always stood out. With my jet-black hair hardly touched by gray, my dark skin, and my deep eyes, people whispered behind my back. “Bad blood,” they’d say, sometimes with caution, sometimes with disdain. They were referring to my grandmother, Zora, a proud Black woman who married a white man against her family’s will and the town’s prejudices. It was a story passed down like a legend in our family.
The phone in my pocket erupted with a shrill ring. An unfamiliar number flashed on the screen.
“Hello?” I pressed the phone to my ear, slowing down on a bumpy stretch.
“Ruby Vance?” A male voice, out of breath.
“Yes, that’s me.”
“You need to come urgently. The woods behind the old quarry. I’m Sam, a hunter. I found your daughter. She’s in bad shape. Very bad.”
The ground fell out from under my feet. I slammed on the brakes, the car skidding on the wet clay. “What’s wrong with her?”
“Beaten badly. She’s conscious but barely speaking. I called 911, but they’re far out.”
I turned the Chevy around in the middle of the road, heart hammering against my ribs. Olivia. My thirty-two-year-old daughter. Beautiful, smart, stubborn Olivia, who had married Gavin Sterling, the heir to a construction empire, and moved into a golden cage in the state capital.
