One day, as she was working in the garden while her mother rested from a headache, she wandered into the rose patch—a special section filled with different varieties of roses: pinks and reds, whites, and even one that looked purple. She and her mother could never quite figure out how one particular rose bush looked so violet in the sunlight.

Madame Sue Soderburg stopped, her face drawn, a cigarette burning in between her fingers despite the early hour. “They’re framing me for Roberta’s murder.”

On the mantle, a photograph in a tarnished frame showed a stern man, two children, and a woman with a hauntingly blank stare.

The little girl giggled and patted Needle’s trunk. “I think the tree heard me.”

Up and up and up the butterfly went, until it reached the very tippy tops of the trees.

The canyon stretched before them under a half-moon. Cattle shuffled along the dusty trail below. Someone was stealing her livestock again.