Spiral of Darkness — Lucinda Stein

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.