“Loudoun County! After I drop you off, how will I ever get back here? Loudoun County is miles away. There aren’t any buses running to Loudoun County, there isn’t a subway running to Loudoun County, what are you doing living in Loudoun County?”

He sat with his black curls resting against the rear window, his eyes closed in exhaustion, his cast propped in a ridiculous position on the head of the Rottweiler. “You could spend the night,” he smiled dreamily. “It’s lonely in Loudoun County.”

“I’ll pass on the night stuff, but I guess I can drive you home. After all, you did try to help me.”

“Mmmmm.”

Chris glanced at her watch. “I have students waiting for me right now. Would you mind hanging around at the skating rink for a couple hours? I’ll be done at ten-thirty, and then I can make arrangements with one of the other coaches to follow us out and bring me back home.”

“Mmmmm.”

Chris looked at him suspiciously. “Did you hear anything I said?” There was no response. He was asleep.

Chapter 2

Chris dried her skate blades and put the custom Harlicks in her locker. She slipped her feet into her tennis shoes and wondered about the man and dog she’d left slumbering in the parking lot. She’d treated them equally, cracking a window for ventilation and covering them with a blanket from the coaches’ lounge. Toward the end of her last lesson she’d had visions of man and beast perishing-like the little match girl-frozen to death under a mantle of dog-induced frost. She pushed through the heavy lobby door and stared horrified into the parking lot. There was no truck. There was no trace of Ken Callahan. No dog.

Bitsy Schoffit barged through the doors behind her. “Okay, I’m ready to go.”

Chris spread her arms in a gesture of confusion. “He isn’t here. The truck is gone.”

“I thought he couldn’t drive.”

“I dunno. Maybe he called someone to come and get him while I was on the ice.” She clapped her hand to her forehead. “And he’s got my purse. I left it in the truck.”