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There's an unpleasant surprise waiting outside Wyoming college professor Sally Alder's office on a cold blustery afternoon: a female student, Charlie Preston, recently and brutally battered. Since Charlie refuses to call the cops, tell her family, or see a doctor, Sally has no other recourse but to give the damaged girl the coat off her back, the cash in her wallet, and to wish her good luck.

But two weeks after Charlie vanishes, the body of her estranged father is found, beaten to death in ...