The county fairgrounds in Willow Creek always felt too loud, too sticky,

too big for someone as quiet and small as Lily Parker.

Eight years old and wrapped in silence, Lily hadn’t spoken a word since last November

—the day her mother, Officer Hannah Parker, was lost in the line of duty. Since then,

her world had changed completely. Words stopped making sense. But one thing still did: Max.

Max was Hannah’s loyal police dog, a German shepherd trained to follow commands,

sniff out danger, and protect. After Hannah was gone, Max was kept behind the old station.

Every night, Lily would sneak out to sit near his fence and whisper into the dark.

Max never replied, but he always listened. And that was enough.

One morning, Lily quietly gathered the mason jar she’d been filling with coins since she was little

—birthday dimes, lemonade quarters, silver dollars her mom once gave her for being brave.

She counted fifty-two dollars and sixteen cents. Then she waited by the door.

Rachel, her mom’s wife and Lily’s stepmother, tried gently to change her mind.

“You don’t have to go to that auction,” she said. “Let’s have pancakes, sweetheart.

” But Lily shook her head. She had a promise to keep.