He hoped his old man would be proud of his work, but he would probably just criticize his son’s process. He’d complain about how he did the job, then open another bottle of booze.

He hoped his father was burning in hell.

He jumped on the ATV and rode into the night.

2

Liberty Lake
7:30 a.m.

Los Angeles Police Detective Kara Quinn was technically on vacation. Technically, because she was being paid. She hadn’t come up here to Liberty Lake willingly. But the only reason she hadn’t thrown a complete fit with her boss was because she had been wanting to check in on her grandmother anyway. Emily Dorsey had been sick over Christmas and unable to visit Kara in Santa Monica as she’d done every year since Kara moved from Liberty Lake to California. So the mandatory vacation—otherwise known as paid administrative leave—was a good excuse to come up to Washington and visit.

But that didn’t mean Kara was going to sleep in or watch television half the day.

She didn’t relax well; she needed something to do. Anything.

The cold morning air burned in her lungs as she ran along the familiar eight-mile Liberty Lake Trail. She’d already run the loop her second day here, worked out at a gym in nearby Spokane the next day, and was taking the trail again this morning. She much preferred to exercise outdoors than in a gym, no matter how cold it was.

A February storm a few weeks earlier had left behind two feet of snow that was now a slushy mess. While there would likely be at least one more good snowfall before spring officially arrived, right now Kara took advantage of the unseasonably warm weather—if anyone could call the expected fifty-eight degree high warm. She was surprised that she didn’t hate the cold as much as she thought she would after living in LA for the last twelve years. In fact, she found it refreshing. Of course, anything was better than ten degrees in the middle of January, as it had been when she left this place for good at the age of eighteen with a GED in her pocket and the hope of being a cop in her heart.

Eight miles was a good run for Kara. Longer than the five miles she regularly trekked. She liked to push herself. If she didn’t challenge herself, who would?

She stopped at the four-mile marker, drank half her water bottle, and stretched. The morning sun glistened off the water, refreshing and calming. When she first arrived on the trail, a low layer of thin fog had covered the ground, but as the sun rose, the fog evaporated. She almost wished it hadn’t—she loved running in the mist, where she couldn’t see the rest of the world around her, where she felt like she was wrapped in a damp blanket, the only person on the planet. She’d commented about that feeling once to a long-ago boyfriend, and he said he thought it would get lonely. She just smiled and let him think he was right, but truth be told, she liked solitude.