Jeff had gotten a broken limb and inched it toward him, telling him to lie down flat and slide toward him. He’d done everything Jeff had told him to do and managed to reach the edge before the ice cracked all across the pond.

He’d gone home with Jeff that day. His savior had dried his clothes in the dryer and made him a cheese sandwich and a cup of hot chocolate. When he was leaving, Jeff had looked at him, and said, “You owe me now, Boomer. Big-time. You do what I say when I say it. I saved your life, so that means I control you now.”

And that was the story of Jeff King.

Maybe it was a mistake to come back to Indigo Valley. Maybe he should have stayed in Pittsburgh.

The dog at his side whined softly. “Yeah, this isn’t the best place in town, Ozzie. We’re both drenched. Something draws me to this place every time I come home. C’mon, boy, let’s get in the car.”

Ozzie climbed into the backseat and stretched out on his blanket, nestling his big head between his paws. Mac smiled as he looked into the rearview mirror. Man and his dog.

He fumbled in the console for a cigarette that he fired up. He hardly ever smoked these days, but refused to give it up entirely. There were times, like now, when he needed something. He leaned back and puffed away, his mind going in all directions.

He’d lied to Pete Danson. He had jumped at the offer to come back. The money had been incidental. His life, as he saw it, was in a holding pattern. How he regretted his decision that day to say nothing about the accident. He wondered if the others felt the same way.

With Cady back in town maybe things would come to a head. The article in tomorrow’s paper would probably start the ball rolling. He could, if he wanted to, reopen the case and follow through. He would have to suck up the consequences. Was he prepared to do that?

The worst-case scenario was everyone’s reputation would be ruined, including his own. Maybe that’s what he needed in order to sleep at night. He was still young…thirty-three. He could start over.

Then he thought about Cady Jordan because Cady was what this was all about.

That first year after the accident had been pure hell. All anyone at school had talked about was Jeff King and little Cady Jordan, who had lost her memory and was partially paralyzed.

He’d cried the night he heard his mother tell his father that Cady was being transferred to some famous hospital in California. Then she’d said, “I never liked Jeff King, and there’s more to this story than anyone knows. I’m just glad our son isn’t involved in all of this.”

But he had been involved in all of this, right up to his eyeballs.

Mac looked down at the street map of Indigo Valley lying on the passenger seat. His finger traced the route he would have to take to drive past Lola Jor Dan’s palatial estate. He was, after all, the new police chief, and as such he needed to acquaint himself with where the citizens of the town lived.