"You can't go out there. Best case, you never find him in the middle of all this. Worst, it's a trap."

Outcomes Reed had already considered and dismissed, his faith placed in the inky black K-9 partner by his side. "Even a ghost leaves a scent."

Months into the new hybrid role that was created for Detective Reed Mattox and his K-9 partner Billie, things have returned to some semblance of normalcy. A summer spent working the graveyard shift out of the 8th Precinct with the Columbus Police Department and only the occasional side job for the state Bureau of Criminal Investigations. A stretch allowing them to put the chaos of the spring behind them and to largely avoid any interaction with the governor who selected them for the role.

Their moment of peace ends abruptly with a call to the small town of Piketon in the middle of the night. A request for outside presence to oversee an investigation into the sudden and inexplicable death of seventeen-year-old Bridger Van Cott. The star quarterback of the local high school team was found dead behind the wheel of his Trans Am six days before the season opener, the vehicle festooned in the colors of the team's rival and first opponent.

For a community still reeling from a tragedy of national proportions just a few years prior, the newest incident has the potential to become volatile. Reed and Billie's first task is to tamp the simmering tensions and avoid. a collision brewing between neighboring communities,

Their second, to determine what happened to the young man who was already awarded a full scholarship to play major college football next year. Someone with no known enemies or medical conditions and a crime scene containing no signs of a break in or struggle.