Adam Merkel left a university professorship in Reno to teach middle school in Lovelock seven months before he died. A quiet, seemingly unremarkable man, he connected with just one of his students: Sal Prentiss, a lonely sixth grader who lives with his uncles on a desolate ranch in the hills, and it is Sal who finds Adam’s body half a mile from his uncles’ compound. Nora Wheaton dreamed of a life far from Lovelock only to be dragged back on the eve of her college graduation to care for her disabled father, and she sensed in the new math teacher a kindred spirit. After Adam’s death, she delves into his past for clues to who killed him and finds a dark history she understands all too well, but the truth about his murder may lie closer to home. Sal’s grief seems heavily shaded with fear, and Nora suspects he knows more than he’s telling about how his favorite teacher died. As she tries to earn the wary boy’s trust, she finds he holds not only the key to Adam’s murder, but an unexpected chance at the life she thought she’d lost.
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