The Perfect Family

My daughter is dead and my son is the prime suspect.

Doubling over, hot tears streak my face, and I want to pull Betsy to my chest and breathe her in. Betsy made me a mother and now she’s gone. It was a senseless accident. A loose rock, a fast fall into the ravine. She was only ten.

Four days later, the deputy sheriff’s at our door. His words destroy what’s left of me in one fell swoop. ‘She didn’t fall. Your daughter was murdered.’

They say it was our adopted son Holden who killed his sister. He had the worst start in life — and it’s not been easy — but I can’t believe he’d hurt her. I won’t believe it.

But if it wasn’t him . . . ? Who would do something like this to our beautiful girl, so full of sunshine?

I have to find out the truth — no matter how bad it is.

They say you can’t pick your family.
But I picked mine.
Did I choose my daughter’s murderer?