Chapter One

**The lake gave up the body on a Thursday morning.

Not all at once.

First came the sound—a sharp crack splitting across the thawing ice, loud enough to make the ground crew stop clearing branches from the resort trail. Then came the dark shape beneath the cloudy surface, caught where the shoreline curved toward the private boat slips.

At first, Hank Bell thought it was a deer.

By the time Sheriff Nolan McCann arrived, no one was saying deer anymore.

Libby Rogers stood behind the yellow tape, one hand closed around her gloves, the other tucked deep into her coat pocket. She had not meant to come this close. She only wanted to make her services available if they were needed.

Halfway to Cedar Creek for a morning session, traffic slowed near the lake road. Then she'd seen the cruisers, the ambulance, and Nolan's dark county SUV parked crooked near the trailhead. She flipped the scanner on.

She should have kept driving, but instead, she pulled over.

Snow melted through the gravel beneath her boots. The air smelled of mud, pine, and sour water. Around her, resort employees whispered in tight little clusters, their matching fleece jackets zipped to their chins. Beyond them, Cedar Glen's glass-fronted lodges, heated walkways, and stone chimneys sent smoke into the pale sky.

Beautiful town... beautiful lake. Beautiful places hide ugly things, Libby thought.

A woman in a resort vest touched Libby's sleeve. "Are you with victim services?"

Libby turned.

The woman flushed when she saw Libby's face fully, as if recalculating. "I'm sorry. I just thought—"

"That's all right." Libby kept her voice even. She had learned a long time ago that making other people comfortable was often easier than asking them not to make assumptions. "I'm a therapist."

"Oh." The woman's gaze flicked toward the lake. "For the family?"

"No." The answer came too quickly.

Libby looked back toward the ice. Just before the police tape, she saw a handful of Cedar Creek personnel.

Small towns, she thought.

As she moved up a bit, she noted the row of donors. The ritzy citizens of Cedar Glen had no power but used their money to control things.

Jonathan Carrington stared out at the lake. He, along with the crowd he hung with, presented as if they were there to support the town and the residents but always found something to complain about. What would they complain about this time?

Nolan stood near the edge of the water with two deputies and the medical examiner. He wore no hat despite the cold; his dark hair was damp from the mist. He was still in that way some people mistook for calm. Libby knew better. Stillness could be discipline. It could also mean restraint.

One deputy shifted, blocking her view. Good. Then the deputy moved, and the body lay partly covered now, but not enough.

Small.

That was the first thought that hit her. Not the blood, though there wasn't much visible from where she stood. Not the details, either. Nolan's people had handled that with care. But the size of the shape beneath the tarp made something deep in Libby's chest pull tight.

A child.

No... older than a child, maybe. A young teen.

The ground crew had gone silent.

Nolan crouched beside the body as the medical examiner said something Libby couldn't hear. His jaw tightened once. Only once.

Then the wind lifted the edge of the tarp, just slightly, and Libby saw a hand. Pale, with the fingers curled slightly inward. Around the wrist was a bracelet made from braided blue and gray cord.

Her breath caught. The world narrowed, and she looked around for something to hold onto.

Blue. Gray. Blue. Gray.

Eli Mercer had made that bracelet in her office ten months ago while refusing to talk about why he'd shoved another boy into a wall at Cedar Creek.

"You don't have to tell me what happened," Libby had said, sitting across from him with a basket of thread between them. "But you do have to sit here until the van comes back."

Eli had glared at her from beneath too-long brown hair. "That's dumb."

"Probably."

He had picked up the blue cord first. Then the gray. His fingers had moved fast, angry and skilled.

"People only look for kids they miss," he'd said, without looking up.

Libby had not answered right away. Some sentences carried too much truth for a quick response. Now the cold air pressed against her throat.

"Ma'am?" someone said.

Libby blinked.

A deputy stood in front of her. Young. Newer. His name was Parker, maybe. He had that careful expression people used when they thought someone might faint.

"I need you to step back."

"I'm behind the tape." She took a step back.

"Yes, ma'am, but Sheriff McCann said no civilians this close."

Libby looked past him.

Nolan had turned. His eyes found hers across the distance. He didn't look surprised to see her. That bothered her more than it should have. She stepped back again. One pace. Then another.

"Do you know who it is?" Parker asked.

Libby forced her cramped fingers to release the grip on her gloves.

"I'm not sure," she said.

It was not a lie. Not completely. A bracelet was not an identification. A memory was not proof, but her body already knew.

Nolan crossed the wet gravel toward her, and people moved aside for him without seeming to notice they were doing it. That was what belonging looked like in Cedar Glen. Doors opened. Voices lowered. Space made itself available.

Libby stood still.

"Libby." His voice was low.

"Nolan."

His gaze moved over her face, quick and assessing. Not invasive.

"You shouldn't be here," he said.

"I was driving by."

"That doesn't answer why you stopped." He shifted his weight.

"No," she said. "It doesn't."

For a moment, neither of them spoke. Behind him, the lake cracked again. A soft, shifting sound this time, like something settling deeper into itself.

Nolan glanced toward the body, then back at her. "You recognize something."

Libby's stomach tightened.

She could say no and protect herself with the uncertainty. She could wait until someone official called, until records were checked, until the dead had been named by people whose job it was to name them. But Eli had once sat in her office and asked whether disappearing mattered if nobody looked.

"The bracelet," she said. "One of my former clients made one like that."

Nolan's expression did not change, but something in him sharpened. "Name?"

She swallowed. "Eli Mercer."

The name landed between them, and Nolan looked back toward the lake.

Libby already knew the next questions. When did you last see him? What was his state of mind? Did he ever mention running away? Was he afraid of anyone? She also knew that the answers would not be enough.

"He was at Cedar Creek," Nolan said.

"Yes."

"Foster placement?" he asked.

"Therapeutic outdoor program," she corrected automatically, then hated that she had. Cedar Creek's brochures used the same language. Healing through structure. Nature-based resilience. Sometimes a holding spot for youth who have no one. A safe place for vulnerable youth.

Safe place.

Nolan noticed the correction. Of course he did.

"When did you last see him?" he asked.

"Almost a year ago."

"Almost?"

"Ten months."

"Why did the treatment stop?"

Libby looked toward the lake again. A paramedic adjusted the tarp more securely. Thank goodness.

"He was transferred out of my care."

"By who?" He asked.

"Cedar Creek administration. Foster services would have signed off."

"Reason?" He leaned in.

Her mouth felt dry. "I was told he needed a higher level of structure."

Nolan's eyes narrowed slightly. "And what did you think?"

There it was. The question beneath the question.Libby tucked her hand back into her pocket so he wouldn't see the tremor in her fingers.

"I thought he needed someone to listen before he got tired of asking."

Nolan held her gaze.

For one strange second, the surrounding noise faded... the radios, the murmuring resort staff, the distant grind of a maintenance truck. There was only the cold and Nolan McCann watching her, as if he had heard more than she meant to say.

Then the medical examiner called his name.

Nolan turned. "Stay available."

"I have clients," she said.

"Cancel them."

Her spine stiffened. "That isn't always simple."

"No," he said, softer. "I imagine it isn't."

That softness almost undid her. She looked away first.

Nolan walked back toward the lake. Libby should have gone to her car. She should have called Cedar Creek. She should have called Evie and reminded her to go straight home after school, even though Evie would hear the fear under the instruction and punish her with silence.

Instead, Libby stood in the cold and watched the medical examiner lean close to Nolan. The woman spoke quietly, but the wind carried pieces.

"Not consistent..."

Nolan said something.

The medical examiner shook her head.

Libby's pulse beat once, hard.

Nolan looked over his shoulder at her. This time, his face gave away nothing, and that frightened her more than if it had. The medical examiner lowered her voice further, but Libby still heard the last sentence.

"This body wasn't under that ice all winter."**