[chapter 1]

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The pale glow of the parking lot’s fluorescent light poles grew in the distance as Russell Wilson approached. Their brightness overpowered the dim trail markers that had illuminated his way through the golf course’s carefully maintained copse of aspen. The lot’s empty spaces, each traced with care by crisp white lines, spoke with their vacancy as if to say, “not what you’re looking for, not here.” Russ scanned the area, looking for any sign of his wife and daughter. They couldn’t have driven off without me. As if waiting for his thought, a car alarm sounded from the parking lot entry driveway, and silenced itself again just as abruptly. A lone vehicle stood idling, facing the wrong direction, in the access lane. The yellow blinking of it’s hazard lights cut across wisps of snow that worked their way back and forth across the asphalt. As he approached, Russ was able to make out the shape of the vehicle a little better. It was a groundskeeper’s truck, white and sporting a single, unlit red cherry work light on the roof. The driver’s side door panel depicted an outline of the course, with the logo of The Country Club at Dove Valley prominently displayed in the center. A tangle of misty breath and cigarette smoke joined the windswept snow from the door held ajar on the passenger’s side.

“Hey! Hello?” The QB called out to the open door.

The springs of the seat cushion creaked as the weight of it’s passenger shifted. An overly large, bearded gardener leaned himself out of the cab of the truck and waved. With a cough, he replied, “You a golfer? What’re you doing here so early?”

“Late, for me anyway. I’m looking for my family. Did you see them come by here? My wife and daughter.” Russ came around the bed of the truck to face the gardener. His work clothes weren’t dissimilar from the janitor’s, but they were stained green in places from where he’d been kneeling in freshly cut grass. “Another guy told me they had headed this way not long ago.”

The gardener put out his cigarette on the curb. “Ah, yeah, I saw a couple of ladies come walking down, same way you came from. They got in their car and pulled out of the lot.” He absent-mindedly pulled another cigarette from the pack on the dashboard and lit it with a noisy lighter he held in his off hand. “Black SUV, novelty plates that said ‘LETSRIDE’ or something like that.”

The QB sighed in a mixture of relief and confusion. “That’s my car, yeah. Why would they leave me here?” An uncomfortable moment passed for Russ as the large man worked his way through his next cigarette. “I hate to ask you this, but could you give me a ride?”

The gardener released a plume of smoke from his lips. “Yeah, sure, I’m on break anyway. Not like you’ll get an Uber this early in the morning.” He pushed his weight across the bench seat, over to the driver’s side of the cabin. He motioned for the QB to climb aboard while flicking the half-finished cigarette out the window. “Where to?”

Russ coughed reflexively as he hopped into the smoky cabin, clicked his seatbelt into its receiver and gave his address. The truck rumbled to life and the gardener pulled out onto the road from the entry driveway of the club. It wasn’t too far of a drive; or, it wouldn’t have been. Russ’ daughter, Sienna, attended an elementary school that sat midway between their home and the country club. As they passed it, the QB spotted his SUV double-parked outside the school. “Wait, wait. Pull in here please.” The gardener obliged, balancing another cigarette between his lips while his hands were busy negotiating the wheel through the awkward turn. The pair descended into the parking lot of the school and peered through the windshield to see if they could spot anyone sitting in the other vehicle. It sat empty, crookedly positioned between several parking spaces. Before the truck came to a stop, the QB hopped out of the passenger’s seat and felt the side of the SUV. “Still warm. There’s no reason for them to be here.”

The large man in the white truck leaned over and shut his passenger door. “I trust you’re good from here, then?” As he asked the question, he depressed the brakes and spilled a ruby red light onto the cold asphalt’s thin blanket of snow.

“Yeah, I’ll take a look around. Worst case, it’s a short walk to the house from here. Thanks for the ri-” before Russ could finish, the gardener gave a curt wave and drove back the way they’d come. “-de. So much for being friendly I guess.” The QB turned from the black, illegally parked SUV and made his way toward the front entryway of the school.