Cole’s POV

The temperature dropped to four degrees above zero by four in the morning.

The snow on the narrow dirt logging trail leading up to Miller’s Pond was deep, unplowed, and slick with black ice. My truck bounced violently over the frozen ruts, the headlights cutting narrow shafts of bright yellow through the pitch-black pine forest.

My mind was a chaotic war zone. I couldn't stop thinking about the look on my mother’s face yesterday morning when she held that printed picture in her trembling hands—the ghost of my dead sister’s sport threatening to pull our lives apart all over again.

When I reached the clearing near the lake,...