The first book in the Black Falls series, 2008

Special thanks to Lieutenant Jocelyn Stohl of the Vermont State Police and to Susan Bayley and Kenneth Thibodeaux of the White River Junction (Vermont) Veterans Affairs Medical Center for your help, as well as for the remarkable work you do. Once again I want to thank Paul Hudson-judge, scholar, friend and a Vermonter with deep roots in this incredibly beautiful part of our country.

And, as always, many thanks to Joe, Kate, Conor and Zack. We do have fun together!

Drew Cameron slipped and went down on one knee in the heavy, wet spring snow, but he forced himself back up again, propelled by a sense of urgency he had never known before.

Not Elijah.

Please, God. Not my son…

Drew took another step, then another, pushing against the fierce wind. Sleet cut into his face and pelted onto the snow-covered trees and juts of granite on the steep terrain. The mid-April storm was worse than was forecasted. In the valley, daffodils were starting to pop up out of the ground. It was mud season in Vermont. If anything, he’d worried about causing more erosion on the trails, still wet from the melting winter snows.

He hadn’t bothered strapping a pair of snowshoes onto his pack in case conditions warranted-a mistake, he realized now.

But he refused to turn back.

He had gone off the main trail hours ago, but he knew every inch of Cameron Mountain. By now, the snow would have covered any footprints he’d left. If anything happened to him, he’d be lucky if searchers found his body for his family to bury.