Chapter 10

A blond-haired, mustached man looked up from what he was doing and smiled. “What brings you to my neck of the woods, Nolan?”

“This young man. His name’s Derek and he has a question for you, Art.”

“Pull up a chair and ask,” Sheriff Thompson said.

Derek hesitated then sat, feeling tongue-tied. When the sheriff cocked an eyebrow, Derek began telling him about the accident. He finished by saying, “I don’t know where we were when it happened—just somewhere in the mountains where the road ran along a cliff.”

“There aren’t too many places around here like that,” the sheriff commented.

“Well, it might not have been too near here. The man who found me lived pretty far from where it happened, he said, and a long way from here.”

“Whereabouts exactly?”

“I don’t know. I mean it’s somewhere in that direction—” Derek pointed “—and there’s nothing around his cabin but trees and mountains.”

“What’s his name? Maybe I know him—or know of him.”