Secret Remains

Twelve years ago, Sandi Parkman was dropped off at home by a schoolmate and never seen again. That schoolmate, Nick Larson, is now the sheriff of Freeport, Michigan. When a construction crew turns up Sandi's bones — buried with Nick's letterman jacket and a strand of his hair — he becomes the obvious suspect in her murder.

Emily Hartford, the medical examiner's daughter and Freeport's reluctant forensic conscience, is called in on the case. It is not a case she can be objective about: Nick was her high-school love, and every piece of evidence she processes either exonerates him or damns him.

Other suspects surface — Nick's old jock friends, Sandi's sister Tiffany, and a trust-fund son newly returned to town — and Freeport, a place where everybody knows everybody's business, closes ranks. Secret Remains is the second Coroner's Daughter mystery, written by a real coroner's daughter with a forensic specialist's eye for what bones can and cannot say.