Secrets to the Grave

Also by Tami Hoag

Deeper Than the Dead

The Alibi Man

Prior Bad Acts

Kill the Messenger

Dark Horse

Dust to Dust

Ashes to Ashes

A Thin Dark Line

Guilty as Sin

Night Sins

Dark Paradise

Cry Wolf

Still Waters

Lucky’s Lady

Sarah’s Sin

Magic

Copyright © 2011 by Indelible Ink, Inc.

All rights reserved

With thanks and appreciation to Brian Tart, Ben Sevier, and all the team at Dutton.

Thanks for understanding what I do and how I do it.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

1986. Ronald Reagan was in his second term as president. On January 28, the space shuttle Challenger disintegrated seventy-three seconds after its launch, killing all seven astronauts aboard, including teacher Christa McAuliffe. Out of Africa won the Oscar for best picture. A mishandled safety test at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the Ukranian SSR, Soviet Union, killed more than 4,000 people and caused 350,000 to be forcibly resettled away from the area. The New York Mets won the World Series, defeating the Boston Red Sox in seven games. The Bangles had a number one worldwide hit with “Walk Like an Egyptian.”

It was a year of big hair, big shoulder pads, and spandex.

In 1986, DNA science was still in its infancy with regards to law enforcement and had yet to be presented as evidence in a court of law. Investigators with foresight were holding on to evidence obtained at crime scenes and from crime victims, waiting for the science to advance enough to help them convict killers and rapists.

In 1986, California’s organization for Court Appointed Special Advocates—CalCASA—was still a year away. Local CASA programs (which provide advocates for children to assist them in dealing with the courts and foster care system) existed but were still relatively few and far between.

In 1986, AIDS was only just becoming widely known as a killer of near epidemic proportions worldwide, and the gay community was under fire. In 1986, it was still considered scandalous for single women to become pregnant and to raise the child on their own. My, how times have changed.

At the end of 1986, I made the decision to put my best effort into becoming a published author the following year. My first book would be published in 1988, and I would purchase my first desktop computer—with black-and- white monitor—with my advance from that book.

When I sat down to the first book of this series, Deeper Than the Dead, it never occurred to me that I would be transporting readers to a simpler time. Nineteen eighty-five didn’t seem all that long ago to me. Then, one night at work an infomercial came on my television—for Greatest Hits of the Eighties. As I listened to the sampling of songs, smiling at the memories they evoked, I suddenly came to a shocking realization: Oh, my God, I’ve become nostalgic! I’m old!!

Once I finally accepted that stunning truth, I embraced my trip back in time while also gaining a renewed appreciation for the technology available to law enforcement—and to the rest of us—today.

1

November 1986

The house stood by itself back off the road in a field of dried golden grass, half hidden by spreading oaks. An amalgam of styles—part Spanish, part ranch—the once-white stucco building was weathered in a way that made it seem a part of the natural surroundings, as if it had grown up out of the earth and belonged there as much as any of the hundred-year-old trees.

The scene was a plein air painting, soft and impressionistic: the golden grass, the dark trees, bruise-purple