The gang in River Bend is enjoying an early spring after a January filled with snow. As everyone enjoys life, they hear ominous reports of an impending world-wide pandemic. As most people prepare for and complain about the challenges of lockdown, masking, and hand sanitizing, one fellow, Heath Dawson, sees this as an opportunity to commit a few crimes. In his thinking masking for health will allow him to move through the community unidentified. With a plan in place, he prepares to murder several relatives and ease the way for him to inherit a substantial amount of money.
Lynn and her family diligently prepare for the changes that will occur with the pandemic. Piper learns quickly that not all parents are aware of school closings as she finds several students huddled at the doors of the elementary school the morning of the mandated closing. She learns that those children have parents who must work, even in lockdown - like grocery clerks and CNAs. She starts a secret school for those students until the sheriff directs Dusty to arrest her for violating protocols of lockdown.
Dusty works through Piper's misdemeanor and is next faced with arresting his old friend and former sheriff, Bergy Bergman. Bergy tries to escape from the retirement community where he resides, a community also following health protective directives that almost isolate residents. He wants out and tries to convince his old, retired deputies to help. Mars and Dusty arrive just in time to keep Bergy locked down.
As citizen responses to pandemic life continue in River Bend, Heath Dawson carries out his murderous plan to gain an inheritance. He lost his wife, Alicia to cancer. As her second husband, he became guardian of her three children. Those children were supported through a well-endowed trust fund managed by Alicia's grandmother. Heath soon realizes that he could inherit all the endowed funds if first, the grandmother dies, and then the deaths of the children follow. He slips into River Bend to take advantage of pandemic masking as a way to keep him almost invisible while plotting and committing murder.
Alicia's grandmother Emily Jacobs is no fool. When Heath appears at her home saying he has come to help her through this dangerous health risk and will bring the children once their school closes, she becomes very suspicious. He finds a CNA of dubious skill and moral character to help him drug Emily with pills that would send her to sleep forever. Emily manages to vomit up the killing potion. Heath, thinking she is dead, murders the CNA and moves on preparing to kill the children.
He picks up the children from the airport and takes them to Emily's old family cabin in the forest. He has rigged the cabin so that the children will be locked in. He tells them they will be quarantined for a few days to protect Emily. The kids are suspicious and plan an escape.
Emily awakens from her supposed deep sleep and finds her gardener, Juan, working her yard. She convinces him to help her get away. Juan assists her and together they contact Lynn and Dusty. Once Emily tells her story, Dusty sends investigators out to her home and finds the dead CNA, but no Heath.
Suddenly Emily's suspicions are real and Dusty and his team rush to find the children in the forest cabin. The team arrives and finds the children in the forest just as the cabin explodes. Dusty moves Emily and the children to his house for safe keeping while they try to find the murderer. In the meantime, Heath quietly leaves town confident that he planned five deaths very well. He hides out in a deserted luxury cabin waiting to claim his inheritance, ready to explain that he's been in self-quarantine.
Autorentext
Renee Kumor has lived in North Carolina for over thirty years. The setting for the River Bend Chronicles series reflects her early life in Ohio and her later years in western North Carolina. She was a stay-at-home mom for several years developing a personal ethic of community service. Through the years as her children aged, she became active in the political and non-profit life of the community. She began writing a political opinion column for the local newspaper, but retired from writing when she announced her candidacy for local political office. After eight years as a county commissioner, she returned to non-profit service and began writing a monthly column for the newspaper on non-profit management and service issues. Renee has been married to her husband for forty-four years. They have four children and four grandchildren.