“This won’t take long.”

I stop beside a rusty Toyota pickup, and watch him disappear inside. I look around the deserted parking lot, too pissed to notice the cold or the clouds gathering in the west.

“Starkey was right,” I mutter as I start toward the door. “He’s an asshole.”

CHAPTER 21

Corina Srinvassen couldn’t wait to get on the ice. She’d fantasized about it all through her eighth-grade history class. Through literature class, health class with Mr. Trump where they learned about STDs, lunch with Lori Jones and study hall beneath the watchful eye of Mrs. Filloon aka Scary Bitch.

When the three-twenty bell rang, Cori hit the door running. She planned her routine on the long bus ride home. She was going to try the double twist today. She was alone, after all; no one to laugh at her if she fell on her butt. By four-fifteen she’d changed clothes and slipped out the door before her mother could stop her.

The sky hovered heavy and low as she trudged through the woods toward the pond. The ice would be rough today. That happened when snow fell, melted and refroze. There was no way around Mother Nature’s quirks. One of these days Cori was going to have the money to go to an indoor skating rink in some fancy mall. The kind that was surrounded by swanky shops and the Zamboni kept the ice as smooth as glass.

Slinging her skates over her shoulder, Cori crested the hill and Miller’s Pond loomed before her like a big tarnished nickel. She ran down the embankment toward the lacing stump and kicked off her boots. Cold snaked through all three pairs of socks, and by the time she’d laced up, she was shivering. Pulling on her mittens, Cori wobbled down the bank, stepped onto the ice and pushed off. The rough surface didn’t slow her down. In that instant she was Michelle Kwan. The winter-dead cattails were adoring fans brought to their feet by the grace and beauty of the young skater from Painters Mill, Ohio.

A pang of excitement went through Cori with that first, heady rush of speed. Closing her eyes, she raised her arms like a ballet dancer and took flight. She was one with the ice. A bird in an endless sky, spinning and dipping and free-falling to her heart’s delight. She wasn’t sure how long she skated. When Cori looked around, the sky had darkened even more. Snow, she thought as her skates bumped along the frozen shore. She was trying to find the best spot to try her double twist when the low rumble of an engine interrupted. Curious, she skated to the north end of the pond and trudged up the earthen dam. A short distance away, she caught a glimpse of a snowmobile disappearing into the woods. Weird, she thought, and wondered why someone would drive all the way out here and then leave so quickly.

She was about to resume skating when something in the snow drew her eye. A garbage bag, she realized. The snowmobile guy had dumped a bag of trash. Stupid litterbug. Then she remembered her friend Jenny telling her about people dumping kittens. She hated animal abusers even more than litterbugs.