If Rolling Stone ever made a biopic of my life, this week would need its own soundtrack. And it wouldn't be anything upbeat.

I shuffled toward the coffee pot, still wearing yesterday's clothes and fighting the urge to crawl back under her warm quilts on Brenda’s bed. The morning light filtering through the windows had that flat, gray quality that promised another miserable day. April in Minnesota was a cruel joke. One day, you'd think winter was finally loosening its grip, the next you'd wake up to ice and the kind of cold that made you question why anyone chose to live this far north.

The coffee pot was nearly empty, which meant Brenda had been up for hours. I found her note propped against the sugar bowl, written in her careful handwriting.

 

Tony - Gone in early for the Monday morning rush. Left you some coffee. Drive carefully - the roads looked awful before I left. See you tonight? - B

P.S. - We really should stay at your place more often. You could just walk downstairs to open the shop instead of driving across the country in this weather!

 

I smiled despite the gray morning. She wasn't wrong. My apartment sat right above B-Sharp Records on Monroe Street, which meant on days like this, I could literally roll out of bed, stumble down a flight of stairs, and be at work. Instead, I'd chosen to spend the night here at her rental out in the country, which meant facing icy roads and a twenty-minute drive through the kind of weather that made your bones ache.

But waking up next to Brenda Welch had become one of the few things that made the transition from military life to civilian life bearable. We'd been dancing around each other for a few years now, ever since I'd moved back to Flat Rock and opened the record shop. She owned the Bear Claw Bakery downtown with her partner Stacy, and somehow, between her early morning baking schedules and my late nights sorting through vinyl, we'd found a rhythm that worked.

Most of the time, anyway.

I poured the leftover coffee into a mug and stuck it in the microwave, watching it spin while I thought about the day ahead. Ten years with the Military Police in the Army had taught me to appreciate routine, structure, and the comfort of knowing what came next. Civilian life was messier, less predictable. But it was mine in a way that military life never had been.

The record shop had been a gamble when I'd first opened it. Flat Rock wasn't exactly a hotbed of vinyl collectors, but there were enough music lovers in the area to keep me afloat, and the online sales helped fill the gaps. Plus, I'd been lucky enough to find Jeremiah Olander, a gruff local with an encyclopedic knowledge of classic rock and metal who'd become my first and only full-time employee. He knew more about rare pressings and bootlegs than anyone had a right to, and customers trusted his recommendations more often than mine.

Speaking of Jeremiah, my phone had been buzzing with text messages since last night. I pulled it out and scrolled through them:

 

7:23 PM: You need to come in early tomorrow 7:25 PM: I'm serious. Before we open 7:31 PM: Just got a donation yesterday after you left you're gonna want to see 10:42 PM: Don't ignore me, DeLucca

 

That last one made me grin. Jeremiah only used my last name when he was either really excited or really annoyed, and given the context, I was betting on both. Rare finds were what kept a small-town record shop alive, and Jeremiah had a nose for discovering gems in the most unlikely places.

The microwave beeped, and I took my coffee to the window overlooking Brenda's backyard. Ice coated everything. The bare trees, the fence posts, even the bird feeder that hung from the old oak tree. The April thaw over the weekend had given everyone hope that winter was finally retreating, but Mother Nature apparently had other ideas.

I checked the time on my phone: 7:42 AM. Early, even for me, but if Jeremiah was this worked up about something, it was probably worth going in early for. Besides, Monday was officially my day off, which meant I could afford to take my time getting there. The shop didn't open until nine, giving us plenty of time to go through whatever had gotten him so excited.

I finished my coffee, rinsed out my cup, and shrugged on my parka, preparing to head out into the cold. Brenda rented this two-bedroom house in the country from a local farmer. It had been his mother's place before she passed away, and he'd kept it up as a rental rather than tearing it down.

The temperature outside hit me like a physical force as soon as my feet touched the front steps. My breath came out in white puffs, and the bitter air cut right through my jacket. My pickup started reluctantly, the engine complaining about the cold before finally turning over. I let it warm up for a few minutes while I scraped the ice off the windshield, my hands already numb despite my gloves.

The roads were worse than I'd expected. The county maintenance crews were clearly behind schedule, and what should have been a straightforward drive into town became a careful navigation of icy patches and frozen slush. I kept my speed down, taking the curves slow and easy, the kind of defensive driving that had kept me alive on patrol in places a lot more dangerous than rural Minnesota.

That was the thing about military training: it never really left you. The situational awareness, the constant evaluation of potential threats, and the ingrained habit of thinking three steps ahead. Most of the time, it felt like overkill in a place like Flat Rock, but occasionally it proved helpful. For instance, right now, the difference between cautious driving and overconfident driving could mean the difference between arriving at work safely and ending up in a ditch.

I crested the hill that marked the halfway point to town and passed the Iverson place. The old farmhouse sat quiet and dark, its windows reflecting the gray sky like empty eyes. Shirley Iverson wouldn't be dealing with this weather today. Her plans probably consisted of sitting on a beach in Florida, sipping something tropical while the rest of us suffered through another stubborn Midwest winter. She had left last weekend for her annual visit to her sister Trudy in Sarasota, a tradition that had become as reliable as the changing seasons.

Lucky her.

That's when I saw it. A flash of red caught my eye in the snowbank across from her driveway.

At first, I almost dismissed it. It was probably just a piece of trash that had blown out of someone's truck, or maybe a lost mitten. But something about it made me slow down. The color was too vibrant, too specific. And the shape...

It looked like a hat. I recognized that hat. Shirley Iverson had one just like it. A thick, hand-knitted red beanie that she'd worn every winter for as long as I could remember. She was practically famous for it around town, the kind of distinctive piece that made her instantly recognizable even from a distance.

I frowned, easing the truck to a stop on the shoulder. Could she have dropped it before leaving for Florida? That didn't make sense. If it had been lying in the snow all weekend, it wouldn't still be sitting on top of the surface like that. The wind and weather would have buried it or blown it away by now.

I threw the truck into park and stepped out into the bitter morning air. I picked my way carefully across the icy road, avoiding the worst of the frozen puddles, and approached the snowbank where the red hat lay partially buried.

Up close, it definitely looked like Shirley's hat. Same thick wool, same distinctive pattern, same color that stood out like a beacon against the white snow.

I grabbed hold of the edge and tugged gently. It didn't budge. The snow had frozen around it, locking it in place. I adjusted my grip, working my fingers into the thick wool fibers, and gave it a harder pull.

This time, it came free.

And with it, something else moved beneath the snow.

A shape.

A curl of gray hair.

A pale patch of skin.

I stumbled backward, my breath catching in my throat. The hat dangled from my fingers, but I barely noticed it. My brain scrambled to process what I was seeing, to make sense of what couldn't possibly be real.

This wasn't just a lost hat.

Because I had just pulled it off a frozen head.

 

-End of Chapter 1-

 

 

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