The ambulance lights were circling, making the scene around us turn red, then white, then red, then white. I found myself mesmerized by how the colors moved on the nearby trees. Funny, that green leaves could look so very non-green when lit by a red beam. I frowned, trying to put a name to the temporary coloration. Brown? Amber? Something else? Maybe it was a color without a name. Or maybe—

“Ms. Hamilton?”

I sighed and turned to face the sheriff’s deputy, whom I’d never met until now. For a very short while, I’d dated Deputy Ash Wolverson and had known ninety percent of the employees in the sheriff’s office. But that had been a year ago, and while Ash and I were still good friends, my insider knowledge of the sheriff’s staff had reduced significantly. People retired or left for new opportunities, and those taking their places were unknowns in terms of personalities, habits, and senses of humor. “Sorry. What was the question?”

Deputy Nowlin was looking at me. “Are you all right, ma’am?”

Of course I wasn’t. I’d almost run someone over with the weight of twenty-three thousand pounds, done my best to save the life of that still-unknown someone, and failed miserably. My throat ached with the tension of not giving in to tears, my heart was sore, and now my feet were tired from standing around for an hour. Julia had already done the interview thing and was waiting for me inside the bookmobile. The only thing I really wanted to do was go home and snuggle with my fiancé and my cat. And now this young and overly polite law enforcement officer was calling me “ma’am.” It wasn’t to be borne.

“Minnie,” I reminded him. “Please call me Minnie.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Deputy Nowlin said. “You came upon the victim.” He tipped his head, indicating the exact location.

Since we were standing in front of the ambulance, which was in front of the bookmobile, there was no way I’d be able to see the poor man’s body, but still I avoided looking.

The deputy was still talking. “After stopping, Ms. Beaton called central dispatch. You checked for signs of life. Seeing none, you performed CPR until the EMTs arrived.”

“That’s correct.” I heard my lapse into report-speak. “I mean, that sounds right.”

The deputy nodded and slid his notebook in his shirt pocket. “The victim is wearing bicycling clothing. When you approached him, was he wearing a helmet? Did you take it off to perform first aid?”