CHAPTER ONE
May Moore headed out of the Fairshore police department, feeling as if she was in a dream. Her legs were still wobbly with shock. She couldn't believe what had just happened. She couldn't take it in.
In the last ten minutes she’d spent at work, it felt as if her life had done a complete turnaround.
She hurried over to her white Chevy pickup, in need of a wash, which was in the first bay of the staff parking. Quickly, she dumped her laptop bag on the passenger seat, and got inside.
As she climbed in, she glanced at her reflection in the mirror for a moment. Blue eyes, still wide with surprise. Sandy-blonde hair, now starting to escape from the neat ponytail she'd tied it in that morning.
May pulled her hair out of the ponytail and ran her fingers through it. Her hands were literally shaking from the news she'd just received.
Then she started the truck and headed on the road to her parents' place. They would be the first to hear what she had to say. May looked forward to seeing their faces when she told them.
It was a five-minute drive to where her parents lived. That wasn't unusual. In the small town of Fairshore, on the shores of Eagle Lake, in Tamarack County, Minnesota, it was a five-minute drive to everywhere.
May had been working hard at the police department. It had been a particularly busy week so far, not just because of her usual work, but also because the Fairshore Spring Festival had taken place over the weekend. She had coordinated the police presence for the event, involving a lot of extra hours both at the department and at the various festival sites. The festival had gone without a hitch, smoothly run, with no crime incidents. That was most definitely a sign of good policing.
Because of her workload, she’d had to postpone dinner on Sunday, which was her usual night for visiting her parents, and reschedule for tonight. Even now she was half an hour late, but she had a good reason for it.
She shook her head. She'd still not taken in this news herself.
May pulled up outside the yellow-painted house, with its neat front yard, where her parents lived and where she had grown up.
She jumped out of the pickup and headed up the paved path to the front door. For once, she didn't feel her usual anxiety on arriving here. Instead, she felt as if she was about to burst with what she had to share.
The front door opened as she rushed up the path, and her father peered out.
"You're here at last! I thought I heard your pickup. You might want to get that exhaust pipe checked out, honey."
He peered out at her truck, an uncharacteristic frown on his broad, pleasant face.
"I will."
At the sound of May's voice, her mother appeared from the kitchen. In contrast to her easygoing father, Mrs. Moore was a slim, energetic woman with curly blonde hair, who couldn't bear to sit still for a moment.
"May! I was beginning to think you weren't coming," she said, rushing up to hug her. The house smelled delicious, of roasting beef and rich gravy. May already knew the dining room table would be perfectly set, and the house as neat as a pin.
"Sorry! I know I'm half an hour late, but I had an unexpected meeting at work," she said.
Memories flashed into her mind. She was still walking on air after that meeting.
Her mother, a retired schoolteacher, was a perfectionist in everything she did. From the time May had been very young, she’d had it drilled into her head that nothing less than excellence was acceptable. With those high standards to strive for, May felt as if she’d let her mother down frequently in her life. There had been many times when her mother had used the examples of her sisters’ grades and achievements to try and spur May on, even though May had found this tactic discouraging, often resulting in miserable jealousy.
Now, at last, was her chance to make her proud.
She hugged her parents and kissed them both.
"Let's go into the kitchen and I'll tell you the good news."
"Oh, you've heard it?" her mother asked. "We were going to tell you!"
May stared at her, surprised.
"What do you mean? You couldn't have known," she said, feeling incredulous. How had her mother known when May, herself, had only been told half an hour ago?
"Perhaps we're speaking at cross-purposes," her mother decided. "You tell us your news and then we'll tell you ours."
Her mother walked through to the cozy lounge and sat down on one of the two plaid sofas, moving a perfectly plumped cushion aside as she patted the seat next to her automatically.
Disappointment, and a sense of inadequacy, filled her again.
Her parents hadn't gotten how important her promotion was. They were still fixated on how she'd failed when she'd applied to join the FBI a few years ago. Although she’d aced the physical exam, she’d let herself down on the academic tests. It had been a very strong field of applicants, and in her anxiousness, she’d frozen up, gone too slow, and had missed the cut by just one point.
Now, her parents were still looking at her failures, instead of her successes. The fact that she’d missed the cut. The fact she was divorced after an unwise marriage at the age of twenty-one. The fact she hadn’t earned academic gold at school. And then, things got even worse.
"Look what we have to show you!" Her mother produced a courier bag. From it, she took a glossy magazine.
It was the latest issue of Vanity Fair, May saw, feeling confused as her mother paged proudly through.