CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
By the early hours of that afternoon, Riley was driving west into the Appalachian Mountains. Her apprehension mounted with every passing mile. As the landscape climbed around her, she felt as if she were driving deep into the darkness of the past.
She remembered that her father used to hang out at a VFW post in Milladore, a little town not far from his cabin. During one of her rare visits to his cabin some years ago, he’d complained that he’d gotten kicked out and banned from the post.
“Why?” Riley had asked him.
“Why do you think?” he’d growled.
She could think of a thousand good reasons why he’d gotten himself kicked out. Still, she’d felt sorry for him. She knew that his membership in the Veterans of Foreign Wars had meant a lot to him.
He’d earned it, after a
