We checked every dumpster behind every business in town. We dug through the garbage in the county landfill, but we didn’t find the murder weapon or the killer’s bloody clothes. It’s not like the murderer could have buried them under the frozen ground or thrown them into an ice-covered lake, but as soon as the spring thaw arrived, they’d be gone forever. There’s a lot of land around here where people can make things disappear.

When we’d gathered all the evidence, we still had nothing. We had a body, we had motives, we had dozens of people who would have wanted the victim dead, but we didn’t have a single witness who could place anyone at Gordon Brink’s house on Sunday night. The only person who’d been there with him was Jay, and he still claimed to have not seen a thing.

It was the same situation Darrell had faced with the murders of Kip and Racer. No one really cared if Brink was dead. No one really cared if we put his killer behind bars. The town was ready to forget about this crime, to plow it under the snowdrifts and move on. Only Darrell still cared, because he was the kind of man who couldn’t leave a crossword puzzle unfinished. He had no intention of giving up. But even he knew the case was going nowhere.

By the time a full month had passed after the murder, we’d hit a wall. Evidence dried up. There was nobody left to talk to, no facts left to uncover. It was late January, and as the temperatures sank below zero, the investigation into the death of Gordon Brink turned as cold as the winter.

I assumed the case would stay that way forever. Unsolved.

So I had to face the other side of my life, sweetheart. The side that involved me and Ricky and our future. The beginning of the end for us came on movie night at the 126, and believe me, I’ve thought long and hard about whether to tell you any of this. But this isn’t just my story. It’s yours, and you deserve to know everything.

You see, some very bad things happened to me that January, but the best thing happened, too.

You.

You happened.

*

“Is that what you’re wearing?” Ricky asked me, making it clear he didn’t approve.

I glanced in the bedroom mirror and saw my reflection wearing a bulky striped sweater, jean skirt, and leggings. I’d brushed out my black hair, but that was a losing battle against the tangles. “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”

His mouth puckered as if he were eating a grapefruit. “You look like a high school virgin. Show a little skin.”