The Bone House

Chapter Fourteen

Five years ago, the buzz around Hilary Semper's high school in Highland Park was about the hot new substitute teacher who'd joined the district. The grapevine already had him pegged: six feet tall, buzzed brown hair, a golf pro who'd given up the tour because of an injury. Loud, confident, funny. Married once, divorced quickly, now unattached. In a school where most of the teachers were twenty-something blondes looking for a husband, this was big news.

Hilary herself had no interest. It wasn't that she'd had no relationships in her life. She had fallen in love at least twice, but in both cases she'd realized that she was dating someone who wanted a wife, not a partner. In those days, she had tried to change herself into more of what a man was looking for, but she'd eventually decided that love wasn't worth pretending to be someone else. She knew she intimidated men with her brains. She knew she was outspoken to the point of driving people away. If the man didn't exist who could live with that combination of qualities, so be it.

She was the only one of six Semper siblings who hadn't walked down the aisle. Two had divorced and remarried; three had marriages that had barely survived the arrival of children. They all looked at Hilary at holiday gatherings and asked her in amazement why she wasn't married yet. They weren't amused when she asked them why they were.

In truth, she did want to get married. She wanted to be in love. She wanted kids. If a relationship came, she would throw herself into it. If it never happened, she wasn't going to cry about it or spend time regretting what she hadn't found. She simply went about her life, without wasting her time hunting for a man who might never show up.

Her family, who already looked at her strangely for staying single, hadn't understood her choice to go into teaching, either. She'd graduated from Northwestern summa cum laude with a major in finance. Brokerages and banks in Chicago and New York had dangled six-figure salaries in front of her, and she'd turned them all down. Instead, she did what she'd always said she would do, teach math and dance to high schoolers. It wasn't the road to riches, although her own expenses were low, and she'd invested well. Her loud criticism of everything that was wrong with public schools didn't win her any fans among the school district or the teachers' union, but her students loved her. She loved them, too. She was exactly where she thought she wanted to be in life.

Then Mark Bradley became a substitute teacher in her school.

She'd already prepared herself not to like him. The more the naive young teachers swooned over him, the more she'd steeled herself to meet an egotistical womanizer who was overly impressed with his looks. He worked in the district for six months before she got him as a sub. She did what she did with every sub for her class — meet him in advance to go over lesson plans for an hour and a half, map out what she wanted him to do, and provide him with bios on the strengths and weaknesses of every student. All that for two days while she attended an education conference in New Orleans. Most subs groaned at her thoroughness, and few did what she directed them to do in her classroom. She expected that Mark Bradley — English and art major from the University of Illinois, former pro golfer — would be among the worst, with little interest in what she wanted from her math students. She'd already leaped to the conclusion that he was nothing more than a dumb jock.

She knew — because he told her so later — that she'd been rude and condescending to him. She'd barely looked at him, although even a glance was enough to realize that he really was as attractive as the other teachers had said. If he wanted an opening with her, she wasn't prepared to give him one — and she doubted that an ex-athlete pursued by most of the cute twenty-somethings at school would have much interest in a tall, pushy teacher in her mid-thirties, with a handful of stubborn extra pounds on her frame.

Mark surprised her. He kept his ego and his jokes firmly in check when they met and listened to her instructions and took detailed notes. He had a brain and the same kind of passion for kids that she did. When she returned to school after her two-day conference, she was shocked to discover that Mark had followed her guidelines precisely and kept the classes on pace with her lesson plans. She was less surprised that half her girls had already fallen in love with him and were begging her to bring him back.

Later that week, when she did a post-mortem with him in the cafeteria, he waited until the very end of their conversation before asking her out to dinner.

She had to admit to herself that she was intrigued and a little aroused. Even so, she wasn't stupid, and she had no interest in a date where his only objective was sex. So with her usual bluntness, she'd asked him why he wanted to go out with her. It wasn't exactly a great way to launch a relationship, but it was a great way to cut one off in its tracks. He surprised her again.

'When I golfed, I never liked to play it safe and lay up,' Mark told her. 'I always went for the green. I figured it wasn't worth it to settle for second best.'

If any other man had tried that line with her, she would have written it off as hollow flattery, but she saw something different in Mark Bradley. Sincerity. It was a quality she prized more than just about anything else, and she had been let down by enough people in her life to believe she could recognize it when she saw it. Mark was a man who meant what he said, who didn't pretend to be someone else for the world. That was her own philosophy, too.

She decided that Mark Bradley was worth the risk. One night. No sex. No strings. She didn't expect it to lead to anything deeper, which was her way of managing her expectations. She certainly never expected that not even two years later, she would be married, and she and Mark would be leaving the Chicago area for the kind of idyllic life they both thought they craved. Moving someplace quieter and emptier. Moving someplace where the roads were lonely and tree-lined and the rest of the world was far away. Giving up old dreams for new dreams. Living in isolation.

That was how it had all started. Five years ago.

Now those dreams were dying.

The calendar said winter was over, but no one had told the weather gods in Wisconsin. The wind off the bay was raw. Snow was expect overnight. The only sign of spring was the expanded schedule on the Northport car ferry, which meant that they could now come and go from the island mostly at will. During the three deepest months of winter from January to March, they were forced to spend weekday in a small rental cottage near Fish Creek, and they could only retreat to their real home on the weekends. Hilary would be glad to sleep in their own bed every night.

Mark was silent as they drove along the southwest coast of Washington Island toward their home. It had been a long day, flying into Chicago from Florida and driving north for four hours along the coast of Lake Michigan to Door County. They'd barely made the last island ferry at dusk. They were both exhausted and wanted to do nothing more than sleep.

He drove them along the main road leading through town, which was a generous description of the rural community on Washington Island. There were a handful of shops and restaurants, most of them on the west side, widely separated by farmlands and trees. The island itself was flat as a board, barely thirty-five square miles, with dense forest over most of the land and rough water on all sides. Anything that was sold here had to be shipped over from the mainland, and as a result there wasn't much more than the bare necessities for the residents, particularly in the off season. The prices were high. Most people waited and did their main shopping once a month at the far southern end of the county in Sturgeon Bay, which was the closest thing the peninsula had to a real city, unless you wanted to travel another forty miles to Green Bay.

They drove past the island's old watering hole, Bitters Pub, and Hilary saw the owner of one of the handful of local motels standing next to his pickup truck with a bottle of beer in his hand. She knew him; he knew them. That was the way it was on an island populated by fewer than seven hundred people. He didn't wave or smile. Instead, he watched their Camry pass, and his face was graven with hostility as he tilted the bottle to his lips. She knew that word had already spread among the locals about what had happened in Florida.

When they'd first moved to the island, they had been welcomed politely, if not embraced. You weren't really accepted if you weren't a native, but people were cordial and helpful, even if they didn't invite you into their lives. Hilary and Mark didn't care about that kind of friendship, but at least they hadn't felt like intruders. That all changed when the story about Tresa broke. From that moment, politeness turned to cold distrust. It wasn't easy living in a small town where you were shunned, particularly a community that was cut off by water from the rest of the world.

She worried what would happen next, now that they all knew about Glory. How far do your neighbours go to tell you they don't want you?

Mark saw it too. There was a deadly expression on the face of the man in front of the pub.

'Welcome home,' Mark said to Hilary with a weary smile.

He continued up the north coast of the island and turned down the harbor road at the cemetery, which was scattered with gray headstones among the pines and snow. The gravel road led from the graveyard into the trees, ending at Schoolhouse Beach, one of the most popular gathering spots for tourists during the summer season. During the off season, though, the cove was deserted on most days. The back porch of their house was a hundred yards from the shore, and during the winter, when the trees were bare, they could glimpse the water.

Rather than turn right on the road that led home. Mark continued to the dead end at the beach. He parked and got out and walked down to the shore, which was made up not of sand but of millions of polished rocks. The sheltered harbor created by the half-moon inlet was calmer than the violent lake just beyond the edge of land, but calmness was relative here. He shoved his hands in his pockets and stared at the whitecaps blowing across the water like tiny icebergs.

Hilary joined him. They stood next to each other, not talking. The brutal wind tossed her hair around her face and made her lips white with cold. The entire curving stretch of beach was empty. In the desolation, they could have been the only two people on the island. That was what they'd wanted — seclusion in the midst of nature, the deserted roads, the silence unbroken except for birds and wind. It had never felt ominous before, but for the first time, she felt threatened by their very remoteness.

'You know what's hard?' Mark said. 'I still love it here. This is like the most beautiful place in the world.'

'I feel that way too.'

He turned for her and cupped her neck in his palms and kissed her softly but intensely. There were so many kisses you could have as a married couple, the goodbye kiss, the after-a-fight kiss, the love kiss, the bedroom kiss. His cool lips on hers this time felt new, like a kiss that acknowledged they were both in need of rescue and had to save each other. It was a kiss that said: Hang on to me, because this crossing is going to be rough.

They got back in the car. Their house was half a mile to the north. It was small — a three-bedroom house with matchbox rooms and a screened-in rear wood porch growing soft with age. The pale blue paint needed a fresh coat. The windows let in the drafts. For its size and age, it had been absurdly expensive, but out here, you paid for the land and the view. They'd scraped together a down payment from Hilary's investments and a nest egg left over from Mark's golfing days, but that still left them with a mortgage that was barely within their reach. Their budget had been based on two jobs. Now there was only one.

Even so, when they turned into the dirt driveway, Hilary felt home. She'd never had that sensation anywhere else. That was why she never wanted to leave, no matter how bad it got, no matter what it took to keep it. When she climbed out and smelled the coming of snow, and felt the mushy, molding leaves under her feet, she felt a sudden surge of contentment. When she glanced at Mark's face, she knew he felt the same way. This was their refuge.

Their escape from reality didn't last.

They left their luggage in the trunk and went to the front door, and Hilary stopped on the porch when she saw the door hanging open. Mark peered into the darkness inside. Mud and leaves had drifted into the foyer. A fetid aroma wafted like a toxic cloud into the sweet, cold air.

'Wait here,' he said under his breath.

She watched him go inside. He was tense, his body coiled like a spring. Seconds later, she heard something come from his throat, an exhalation of rage unlike anything she'd heard from her husband before. It was as if his life had been sucked away by whatever he'd found.

'Mark?' she called.

He didn't answer her.

'Is everything OK?' she asked, more urgently.

When he was still silent, she went inside herself. Beyond the hardwood floor of the foyer, she turned into the living room, with its musty carpet and fireplace and furniture gathered from their separate lives before they were married. Mark stood in the center of the room, his face grim with violence. In the gloom of near darkness, she could see the damage. She understood now what was next. She recognized the message that their neighbors were sending.

The house had been violated. That was the only word she could use. Holes had been punched in the Sheetrock with what must have been a baseball bat. Figurines she had collected since childhood lay shattered into shards on the floor. Lamps were overturned and broken. Animal feces had been thrown at the wall and left to sink into vile brown streaks. The cushions of the furniture had been slashed with knives, foam stripped out, littering the floor like cottonwood.

A single word had been spray-painted everywhere. On the walls. On the glass of the windows. On the ceiling. On the floor. It must have been fifty times.

A single word over and over in blood-red paint.

KILLER.

Chapter Fifteen

'I've lived here for twenty years,' Terri Duecker told Hilary, as she took the cigarette out of her mouth and watched the smoke dissipate in the cold air. 'It never ends. You weren't born here, so you'll never be a local. If you have kids, they'll be accepted from day one, but not you.'

The two women sat in the bleachers outside the Fish Creek School. Both of them wore heavy coats, and Hilary had her hands shoved in the fleece pockets. The grass of the football field was white with frost. The sky overhead was a mottled blanket of charcoal. A row of spruce trees lined the far side of the field like spectators, blocking the view of the Green Bay water past the bluff. Behind them, the school parking lot was wet, thanks to the intermittent sleet that had fallen overnight.

'I don't care about that,' Hilary replied. 'We knew that coming in, but it's different now. They're trying to drive us out. Scare us away.'

Terri shrugged. 'Small towns,' she said. 'If they could, they'd build a wall to keep strangers out. It's worse that you're from Chicago, too. People around here need someone to blame because the whole county is changing, and they figure it's because of rich people moving in from Chicago.'

'We're not rich.'

Terri shook her head. 'It doesn't matter. As long as you live here, people will look at you and see a Land of Lincoln license plate on your car. Once a fib, always a fib. I was lucky. Chris and I moved here from Fargo. We're still outsiders, but at least we're not Bears fans. Even so, you won't find any of the natives spilling their secrets to me.'

Hilary glanced at the school behind them. She saw two other high school teachers chatting on the sidewalk outside the glass doors. She could follow their eyes and the way they turned their heads toward them, and she knew that she and Mark were the topic of conversation.

The school itself, two hundred yards away, was a one-story building, long and low, made of vanilla brick. She heard the American flag snapping in the wind and the flagpole rope banging against the metal. It was a place that could have been any other high school in the country. She could easily have been back in Highland Park, except that there weren't expensive suburban Audis and BMWs in the parking lot. She'd always felt comfortable walking through school doors, smelling the cafeteria food, listening to the thunder of shouts and basketballs in the gymnasium. Now, however, going inside meant being watched by a hundred spies. It was ground zero for the gulf between her and Mark and the teachers, administrators, and parents who wanted them gone.

'So why do you stay here if you feel that way?' Hilary asked Terri.

'We're just like you two. We always wanted to live in a place like this. You go north of Sturgeon Bay, and it's like going back in time. No chain stores. No fast food restaurants. The views are amazing, and we've got room to breathe. If it weren't for the tourists in the summer, it would be paradise all year. We all know the tourists pay the bills, but don't expect anyone around here to be happy about that.'

'Can I ask you something?' Hilary asked.

'Sure.'

'Do people around here give you a hard time because we're friends?'

Terri shrugged. 'Yes.'

'Well, thanks for sticking by me.'

'You and Mark remind me of Chris and me when we moved here,' Terri said. 'We outsiders need to have a community too.'

Terri was a handful of years older than Hilary, but they were good friends. She was a slim brunette whose principal vice was her morning cigarette break on the edge of the school grounds. Hilary often joined her. Terri had taught science at the high school for two decades. She and her husband owned a series of guest cottages and condominiums around the Fish Creek area that they rented during the summer, which was their main source of income. Her husband, Chris, managed the properties. During the winter, when most of their units were vacant, they'd allowed Hilary and Mark to rent a cottage from them for little more than the cost of utilities. It was a perfect arrangement. Hilary and Mark could stay near the school and ferry back to their Washington Island home on the weekends.

'What are they saying about us now?' Hilary asked.

'You know exactly what they're saying,' Terri replied. Her eyes were sad but hard. 'It was the first thing out of everyone's mouths at school yesterday morning. Mark killed Glory. It's not a rumor. It's not suspicion. As far as most people are concerned, it's fact.'

'I'm glad I wasn't here.'

'They won't say it to your face, but they'll talk behind your back. You're only innocent until proven guilty in a courtroom, Hilary. Not in real life.'

'They're going to boot me out, aren't they?' she asked. 'I'll never get tenure now.'

Terri shook her head. 'No, you will. You're a star, and everyone knows it. Plus, you're a woman, not a man, that always helps. I think some people actually feel sorry for you too. You'll get tenure, but they'll do everything they can to make you so miserable that you don't want to stay.'

'Great.'

'I'd understand if you and Mark chose to leave,' Terri added, 'but I hope you won't.'

'I get stubborn about other people telling me what to do,' Hilary said.

Terri smiled. 'Me, too.'

'I appreciate your not asking me, by the way.'

'Ask you what?' Terri asked.

'Whether I'm sure. Whether I think Mark did it.'

Terri stubbed out her cigarette on the metal frame of the bleachers. She squinted at the gray horizon. 'You sound like you want me to ask. You sound like you need to say it.'

'Maybe,' Hilary admitted.

'Are you sure?'

'Yes.'

'He didn't do it?'

'No.'

'That's good enough for me,' Terri replied. 'Look, I saw Mark in the classroom. I saw him with the kids. No way he would lift a hand against a teenage girl. He wouldn't sleep with one either, because that man loves you. I'm not saying he wouldn't kill someone who tried to mess with either of you, but an innocent girl? Not Mark. Chris and I talked about it. He feels the same way.'

'Thank you.'

'I wish I spoke for the majority, Hilary, but I don't.'

'I know.'

Terri checked her watch and shivered. The two women climbed down from the bleachers, taking care not to slip on the damp metal steps. The frost-crusted grass crunched under their feet. They walked back toward the school beside Highway 42, the north-south road that stretched along the west coast of the peninsula. The two-lane road was quiet.

'This isn't just about Mark,' Terri confided, speaking louder as the wind roared and covered her voice. 'You understand that, right?'

'What do you mean?'

'I mean, it's about Glory, too. It would be bad with any local girl, but it's worse because it's Glory. We all felt sorry because of what happened to her.'

'What happened?' Hilary said.

Terri stopped. 'You don't know about the fire?'

'No, what are you talking about?'

'Oh, hell.' Terri checked her watch again.

'Tell me,' Hilary said. 'Please.'

'I'll give you the short version. It was six years ago. Glory was ten. You know that Delia has an old place over near Kangaroo Lake, right? Well, she and the kids lived right across the road from a house owned by a man named Harris Bone. Does that name ring a bell?'

Hilary thought about it and shook her head. 'I don't think so.'

'I'm surprised. I figured it would have made the papers, even in Chicago, because it was so horrible.'

'What happened?'

Terri sighed. 'Harris Bone was married to a local girl named Nettie. She was a native from a prominent family, the Hoffmans. They go back decades here in Door County. It was kind of an odd match. Harris was an only child from Sturgeon Bay, lived with his mom above a little liquor store there. Not exactly a catch, but he was a good-looking guy, and I think Nettie wanted a mama's boy she could push around. She was a piece of work. Always treated Harris like crap, but it got ten times worse after she wound up paralyzed in a car accident. She got angry at the world and took it out on Harris. I'd hear their kids talk about what it was like in the house. The arguments. The screaming. Not pretty.'

'What does this have to do with Glory?' Hilary asked.

'Glory stumbled into the middle of it on the wrong night,' Terri replied. 'She found a kitten in the Bone garage and began sneaking out at night to feed it. One of those nights, Harris Bone came home while Glory was hiding in the garage. The son of a bitch doused the entire house in gasoline, inside and out, lit up the place like a torch. Nettie and the boys died. Harris sat there and watched them burn. No shame, no regret, no guilt. I remember Sheriff Reich saying it was like he was in a trance.'

'What about Glory?'

'Glory was in the garage, and the fire almost got her, too. She crawled out through a hole in the wall, but she'd inhaled a lot of smoke. She spent weeks in the hospital. She made it, but that's the kind of thing that does as much damage to the head as it does to the body. People always said the fire made Glory the kind of girl she was. Wild. Reckless. Promiscuous. Like she was running from the past.'

Hilary found it hard to breathe. Terri was right. It would have been bad with any girl, but she understood now what it meant to this community to lose Glory. She remembered what Delia had said in Florida. I almost lost her once, and I thought I got a second chance.

This was the girl that everyone thought Mark had murdered.

'I'm sorry,' Hilary murmured. 'Tresa never mentioned it to us.'

'Well, I'm not surprised. We all treated it like it had never happened. I think the idea was, if you didn't talk about it, it didn't exist. Everyone was trying to spare Glory. Who wants to remember listening to a family burn to death?'

'Did she go through therapy?'

'I hope so, but people aren't big on that around here. It's like a character flaw if you have to see a shrink.'

'It must have been hard on Tresa, too,' Hilary said.

'Sure it was. She became the forgotten sister.'

Hilary shook her head as she considered the wreckage of the Fischers and Bones. People were fragile things. You scratched the surface and found pain everywhere. When something bad happened to someone, it had a ripple effect, washing away other lives as the circles got larger.

The two women continued walking slowly toward the school building. They were already late for the next class.

'So Mark's paying the price for Harris Bone,' Terri told her. 'That's part of what's happening here. People around here are sensitive to the idea of a man getting away with murder. They don't want to see it happening again.'

Hilary stopped and put a hand on Terri's shoulder. 'Getting away with murder? What are you talking about? You said they found Harris Bone at the ruins.'

'They did. Harris was tried, and he got life in prison. A lot of people wished we had the death penalty in Wisconsin. Most of us thought life in prison was too good for him.'

'That's not the same as getting away with it.'

'I know, but Harris escaped,' Terri said. 'He got away as they were taking him to the Supermax facility in Boscobel. He's been on the run ever since. He's out there somewhere, hiding.'

Chapter Sixteen

Amy Leigh's room in Downham Hall at the University of Wisconsin in Green Bay looked out on the remnants of a cornfield from the previous harvest season. Beyond the rows of broken stalks, she could see the line of barren winter trees marking the Cofrin Arboretum that ringed the entire campus, isolating it like an island protected by an enchanted forest. It was late afternoon on Tuesday, but the ashen sky made the day look later than it was. Classes had begun again, and she had psychology books piled on her bed that she needed to read, but she was finding it hard to concentrate. Rather than working, she kept looking outside at the desolate field and thinking about Glory Fischer and Gary Jensen.

She'd thought about nothing else but the two of them since the bus arrived back in Green Bay: the girl who'd been found dead on the beach in Florida and the coach who always seemed to be stripping her naked in his head when he looked at her.

'Gary and his wife went rock-climbing in Utah in December,' Amy murmured, studying the article she'd pulled up on the Internet. She wasn't even aware that she'd spoken aloud until her roommate rolled over on her back on the opposite bed and groaned.

'Are you on about this again?' Katie asked.

Amy took the pen from her mouth. 'His wife died. She lost her grip during the climb and fell more than two hundred feet. There was no one in that area of the park but the two of them. If you wanted to murder someone and get away with it, can you think of a better way to do it? Who knows what really happened out there?'

Katie laid the textbook on her bare stomach. She wore a sports bra and loose-fitting sweatpants. 'I remember you telling me that Gary looked devastated when you saw him on campus in January.'

'People can fake that. What if she found out the kind of man he was?'

'What kind of man is he?'

'He's a pig. He comes on to all the girls.'

'So do half the older men in the world.'

'It was in the papers after she died,' Amy said. 'The police in Utah investigated her death.'

'The police are going to investigate any time somebody falls off a cliff. They didn't charge him with anything, did they?'

'No.'

Katie sat up and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. 'Look, Ames, just because your coach is a jerk doesn't mean he's some kind of serial killer. First he kills his wife and now some girl in Florida he doesn't even know? Does that make any sense?'

'I just wonder if I should tell someone. I mean, I think I saw Gary with Glory Fischer.'

'You think?'

'OK, I'm not sure.' She added, 'This is personal for me now. Because of Hilary.'

'She was your coach. You haven't seen her in years.'

'Yes, but you saw the news,' Amy said. 'They're looking at her husband. He's the prime suspect.'

'Well, he knew the girl, and he had a room right near where she was killed, and he had a grudge against the family. Sounds like he deserves to be a suspect.'

Amy took a strand of her curly blond hair and twisted it between her fingers. She shook her head. 'I remember him. He was a nice guy. Hilary wouldn't marry anyone who could do something like that. She's way too smart.'

'Wow, don't tell me you're that naive,' Katie said. 'If you're going to be a psychologist, you better learn real fast that you can't trust people just by looking at them, you know?'

'Yeah, I know.'

Her roommate got off the bed and grabbed a Green Bay sweatshirt from the top of her laundry basket and shrugged it over her skinny torso. She peeled off her sweatpants and squeezed her bare legs into a tight pair of jeans. Sitting on the bed again, she laced up her sneakers. As she bent over, her glasses skidded down her nose.

'I'm going to dinner,' she told Amy. 'You want to come with me?'

'I'm not hungry.'

'You sure?'

'Yeah. You go.'

'OK, whatever. See you later.'

Katie left Amy alone in the room. Amy got up and paced back and forth between the walls, then tried to clear her mind with a series of yoga positions. It didn't help. She sat down at the desk again and reread the story in the Green Bay paper about the death of Gary Jensen's wife four months earlier. It was the kind of accidental tragedy that happened every day. There was nothing suspicious about it. She was making Gary into a monster in her head for no good reason.

Amy called up the home page of Facebook on her computer. She had almost four hundred friends on the network, including everyone from her high school class and dozens of dancers she'd met from schools across the country. She did a search and found the profile for Hilary Bradley, who was one of her friends, and clicked over to her former coach's home page.

Hilary's profile photo showed her on a bicycle somewhere on a tree-lined road. She had a big smile, her long hair blew behind her, and her blue eyes were hidden behind sunglasses. She looked happy. Amy figured the photo had been taken where she lived now, in the rural lands of Door County. Hilary didn't look as if she had changed much in the three years since Amy had known her in high school in Chicago. She was pretty and blonde, like Amy, and she was tall and full-bodied, which was also like Amy. That was one of the things she'd liked most about Hilary. She wasn't a stick. She didn't make any apologies for her figure. She'd always told Amy that you could be a big girl and still be graceful and sexy.

Amy read Hilary's status on Facebook, which had been posted from a cell phone only a few minutes earlier. Hilary had written: I'm having the same bad dream, and I'd really like to wake up.

She didn't have any trouble understanding what Hilary meant. The previous year, she had followed the trail of events on Hilary's page as her husband faced accusations of having an affair with a student. Now it was deja vu.

Amy clicked on one of the photos on Hilary's profile, which showed Mark Bradley painting on a Door County beach. Amy had barely known Mark in Chicago, but the girls who had had him as a substitute teacher had all fallen for him. He was the kind of teacher who inspired crushes. The strong, sensitive type. Handsome. Creative. He had it all. You wanted romance, but you also wanted someone who would make you feel safe in a dark alley. That was Mark Bradley.

Amy thought about what her roommate had said. You can't judge people just by looking at them. She hated to think that her head was upside down about Glory's death. Gary Jensen might be nothing more than an innocent man whose wife had died in an accident, leaving him alone and bereft. Mark Bradley, solid, sexy, married to Amy's idol, might be the evil one. The killer. That was the obvious answer, and the obvious answer was usually the truth.

You can't trust your instincts. Katie was probably right about that, too. Amy didn't have anything except her instincts to tell her what to think. She knew Hilary. Through her, she felt as if she knew Mark. She knew Gary, too.

Instincts.

Amy thought about sending Hilary a message on Facebook, to let her know that she was thinking about her and Mark. She wondered if she should mention her suspicions, but she didn't. Instead, she closed her computer and picked up her cell phone from the desk. She hesitated before dialing. Her breathing came faster. She felt the way she did before stepping out on to the floor of the arena for a performance.

'Amy, what the hell are you doing?' she asked herself aloud.

Rather than answer herself, she punched the buttons on the phone and waited. When he answered, she heard the slippery charm in his voice, and her skin crawled.

It was Glory Fischer I saw you with. I know it was.

'Gary? It's Amy Leigh.'

Gary Jensen had no problem picturing Amy's face and body when she called. She was one of the girls he most enjoyed watching during her workouts in the gym. He liked it when her face glowed with the sweat of her routines and her legs and arms bulged with strength. She had full breasts, which were usually the enemy of a dancer, and even a tight bra couldn't stop them from swaying seductively. Her blonde hair would grow damp and paste itself to her skin. She was very attractive.

He knew she didn't like him. She'd never made a secret of it. She listened to him and followed his instructions as a coach, but she was cold whenever he talked to her. Most of the girls played the game with him and flirted back at him when he made his advances, but Amy never did. He was surprised and curious to get her call.

'Hello, Amy,' he said. 'What's up?'

'I have some ideas for new moves,' she told him. 'Some really hot stuff. I figure we're going to have to take it up a notch to win next year, right?'

'That's true,' he said, listening to the pitch of her voice. She spoke haltingly, which was unusual for Amy. She was typically among the most confident girls on his team.

'I was thinking, maybe I could talk to you about it,' she went on. 'Maybe we could get together.'

'Of course,' Gary said. 'I'd like that.'

'Could we meet somewhere tomorrow?'

'I wish I could, but tomorrow's not good for me. I have a meeting outside the city. What about Thursday night? I'm going to be reviewing videotapes of the dance performances from the competition. Why don't you come by my house, and we'll look at them together? I'd like your input.'

He heard hesitation on the other end of the line. Then she said, 'Yeah, all right. I'll do that.'

'You know where I live, don't you? It's near the end of Bay Settlement across from the county park.'

'I know it.' He expected her to hang up, but she added after a long pause, 'Hey, Gary, I know I should have asked this before, but how are you?'

'What do you mean?'

'Well, it hasn't been very long since you — you know, since you lost your wife, and I know how hard that was. I felt really bad for you. I just wanted to make sure you're OK.'

'That's kind of you to say, Amy. I wouldn't say I'm OK, but I'm dealing with it.'

'Good.'

'I'll see you on Thursday.'

He hung up the phone. He stroked his chin with two fingers, thinking about the girl's nervous manner and wondering about her real agenda. Part of him was suspicious at the timing, coming so soon after Florida. She'd mentioned his wife, too. He didn't like that.

He was in the master bedroom of his turn-of-the-century house, which he had bought five years ago when he moved to Green Bay. The wallpaper was a heavy pattern of burgundy and gold. The bedroom set, which came with the house, was made of walnut, with imposing four-poster columns on the queen bed and a matching ornate bureau that stood beside the window like a grim soldier. Michelle had nagged him to sell the furniture, so they could redecorate the room and make it lighter and happier. They'd never had the chance.

Gary peered out through the floor-to-ceiling curtains at the empty road beyond the yard.

He still had flashbacks of Michelle falling. He could see the terror in her eyes as she screamed. He'd cried, seeing it happen, watching her die. At that moment, he'd thought about throwing himself after her. There were still days when the pain and loss were almost impossible to bear.

If only there had been another way. If only she hadn't learned the truth.

Gary dialed his phone and watched the road, which grew darker as dusk fell. When he heard the familiar voice, he said, 'It's me. We may have a problem.'

Chapter Seventeen

Mark Bradley wore a white mask as he repaired the damage done to their house by the vandals. He wished the cowards had come while he was home and given him a chance to fight. On Tuesday, while Hilary was back at school, he'd swept up the glass and debris, hauled the broken furniture out to the street, and scraped down the walls. By late Wednesday, he had torn out the carpet and covered the living room in two coats of fresh paint. At least he no longer had the word staring him in the face.

KILLER.

While the paint dried, he grabbed a beer from the refrigerator and took it out to the screened three-season porch at the rear of the house. He sat down in the wrought-iron chaise, which squealed under his weight. Before he drank, he realized he was still wearing the white painter's mask. He peeled it from his face. He tilted the bottle and took a long swallow. His neck was tired and sore, and he rubbed it with his fingers.

That was when he felt the small bump of two scabs on his skin. Scratches.

Mark closed his eyes and felt a cold sweat of fear form on his body. 'Son of a bitch,' he murmured.

He remembered Glory on the beach and felt the girl hanging on to him as she wrapped her hands around his neck. Her long nails drove into his skin, hurting him. Leaving a mark.

He knew what that meant.

The police in Florida had gathered skin cells from inside his mouth with a cotton swab and bagged the sample and labeled it. They would hunt under Glory's dead fingernails and find skin there, and analyze the tissue, and match it. One name would come out: Mark Bradley.

They'd know he had been there. On the beach. With Glory.

Mark put the bottle down. His taste for beer was gone. He stared through the dormant trees at the gray water of the harbor a hundred yards away. In two months, when the leaves unfurled, the beach would be invisible behind the birches. He couldn't help but wonder if he would be here to see it, or if they would have arrested him by then.

They can prove you were there. They can't prove you killed her.

He wasn't convinced the distinction would sway a jury if it came to that. When a teenage girl died, everyone wanted to see someone pay the price.

Mark felt a wave of anger. It was happening to him more and more now. Moments of rage. He was naturally claustrophobic, and when the walls began to close in, he beat on them and tried to fight his way out. If he couldn't find an escape, he wanted to punish the ones who had put him there.

His phone rang on the table beside him. It was Hilary, and he relaxed when he heard her voice. Sometimes she had a sixth sense for when he needed her.

'I'm in Northport waiting for the ferry,' she told him. 'I'll be home in an hour or so.'

'Good.'

'How's it going?' she asked.

'Better. The house is looking better.'

She listened to his voice. He could feel her divining his mood. 'You OK?'

'Not really.'

'What's up?'

'Not on the phone,' he said. He was already paranoid, wondering if the police were listening in on their calls.

'Let's go out for dinner tonight,' she suggested.

'Are you sure? You know what it'll be like.'

He was reluctant to go out anymore in the midst of other people from the island. He was sick of the dark stares and muttered hostility from people around them.

'Screw everybody else,' Hilary told him. 'We can't let them stop us from living our lives.'

He smiled. 'Damn right.'

'See you soon.'

She hung up. He picked up his beer again and continued drinking. He reminded himself, as he did on most days, how lucky he had been to find Hilary Semper. Some men weren't secure enough to marry a woman who was smarter than they were, but he'd had plenty of experience with women who only wanted him to show him off to their friends. He'd even married one when he was twenty-five, a bubbly brunette who had stalked him on the pro tour and seduced him into bed and then into the courthouse. He was young; she was young. She talked a good game about loving all the same things he did, when all she really wanted was a ring and a husband who made her girlfriends jealous.

It had lasted two long years. When he divorced her, he'd sworn to himself: never again.

Not long after the split, he'd had ten beers too many and driven his car into a median on the Kennedy Expressway. Stupid. He could have died. Instead, surgery gave him back his life, but not his career. After rehab, he had ninety per cent range of motion in his left shoulder, but a pro golfer needed about a hundred and ten per cent. A hundred and twenty if you're Tiger. He wasn't going to play professionally again. Golf was dead to him.

What seemed like a curse at the time turned out to be a blessing. He was insanely competitive when he stepped on to a playing field, but he learned that he was something more than a golfer, a competitor, and an athlete. He went back to something he hadn't done since he was a teenager. Painting. He took up reading again and devoured the classics. He found himself attracted to teaching because it was so unlike his prior life and because it gave him time to become someone he liked a lot better than Mark Bradley, pro golfer.

It made him poor, too. That was the downside.

As the money dried up, he assumed the come-ons would vanish, but he discovered that looks were enough for plenty of women of all ages. He could have slept his way to a comfortable lifestyle, but he'd already been through one loveless marriage. He said yes to the occasional fling, but nothing that ever felt serious for either of them. Not until Hilary. Hilary, who was sexy and didn't even have a clue about it. Hilary, who blew him away because everything she said was so damn interesting, and because she didn't seem to care about what anyone else thought about her.

Hilary. It took his breath away sometimes to think that she married him.

That was why the anger kept coming back. It was the fear that he might lose everything he had. He had already lost his job, and now he worried that he would lose his house, his freedom, and the one woman he'd ever really wanted.

All because he took a walk on the beach. All because of Glory Fischer.

Mark went back into the house, where the sickly sweet air freshener covered the stench of the filth that had been thrown against the walls. He decided to take a run to offload his frustrations. For the first time, he took a key with him and locked the front door as he left the house. This was Washington Island. No one locked their doors. There was no one to fear, because the rest of the world was half an hour away across Death's Door.

Not anymore.

He stretched among the dead leaves in their dirt driveway, loosening his muscles. The forest around him was still. As he bent and touched his fingers to his toes, he noticed his Ford Explorer sagging at a queer angle in the clearing among the trees. When he looked closely, he saw that two of the tires were flat. The rubber had been slashed, and the rusty ax that had done the damage lay next to the truck in the weeds.

They were sending him a message. He could cover it up with paint, but no one was going to let him forget. Killer.

Mark picked up the ax, which was heavy and old. He weighed it in his hand. He felt his anger rush back, and he threw the ax at the flaky white trunk of a young birch tree, where it impaled itself, its handle quivering. He dug the ax out and swung it again, making a deep wound in the side of the tree. He did it again and again, wood and bark flying, until he ran out of breath and the immature tree stood on nothing more than a ragged fraction of its trunk. He wrapped his hands around the tree as if it were someone's throat and pushed until the tree groaned and cracked away from its base and toppled into the forest with a crash.

He staggered backward into his driveway. His chest heaved. His face was flushed. The ax dropped from his hand.

He heard a noise from the road and swung round fiercely, expecting to see them coming for him. The vandals. The punks. He was ready to take them on, hand to hand.

It wasn't anyone from the island.

A purple Corvette was parked at the base of his driveway, looking oddly out of place in the island wilderness. He saw a ridiculously tall man in a business suit standing next to the Corvette's door, leaning on it and watching him from behind sunglasses that made no sense on a dark day. He'd been watching as Mark exploded with rage.

It was Cab Bolton.

Cab climbed back into the rented Corvette under Bradley's hostile glare. He had no interest in having a conversation with Mark Bradley right now, but he wanted the man to know he had followed him home. The investigation wasn't over, and if Bradley thought he had escaped with his freedom that easily, he was wrong. Cab also knew, watching Bradley erupt in fury with the ax, that his original opinion of the man had been correct.

Mark Bradley had a temper. Push him hard enough, and he lost control.

Cab did a U-turn and returned to the road that led past Schoolhouse Beach and out to the island's main highway beyond the cemetery. It occurred to him that he'd been in most corners of the world, and he didn't think he had ever felt quite as remote as he did now, on this island at the tip of the Door County peninsula. The entire stretch of land north of Sturgeon Bay felt as if he were driving through a winter ghost town, with shuttered storefronts and long stretches of forest and dormant farmlands. It was beautiful and ominous, like a transplanted corner of New England where someone had posted No Trespassing signs to keep out the rest of the world.

He'd never spent much time in the Midwest. In his head, he'd always thought of it as a place where winter lasted nine months, the cows outnumbered the people, and the land was flat and endless. Nothing he'd seen so far had changed his mind.

On the way back to the ferry port, he found a Western-style saloon in need of paint, immediately adjacent to the road. The sign said Bitters Pub. When he parked in the gravel in front of the bar, his Corvette stood out like a Hot Wheels play car next to the row of dusty pickups and hulking SUVs. He got out and smelled a waft of pine blowing in with the cold lake air. Inside, the odor of stale cigarette smoke choked the bar. He stripped off his sunglasses. He saw a long oak counter with stools on his left, square card tables scattered across a hardwood floor, and two pool tables at the rear. The walls were crowded with knick-knacks like logging saws and skis.

Three men with huge bellies drank beer, played pool, and blew smoke rings. A bored bartender, young and cute, eyed him in his expensive suit with a curious smile. A grizzled fireplug of a man sat at the bar with a mug of coffee in front of him. Cab approached the bar, and the bartender sauntered his way. She had her black hair loose, and she wore a rust wool sweater and frayed jeans.

'Help you?'

'I'm looking for Sheriff Felix Reich,' Cab told her. 'One of his deputies told me I could probably find him here.'

The girl nodded her head at the fireplug seated at the end of the bar. 'Sheriff,' she called, 'somebody's looking for you.'

Sheriff Reich's head swiveled slowly, and he took the measure of Cab from head to toe with the pinched expression of a man biting into a lemon. His eyes started at Cab's spiky blond hair and moved down his long body, taking in his pinstripes, tie, and polished loafers, and then traveled back up again, focusing on Cab's manicured fingernails and gold earring. When he was done, Reich turned away to study the steam rising out of his coffee cup, as if that was more interesting than anything Cab was likely to say.

'What can I do for you?' Reich said. His voice was as gravelly as the back roads on the island.

Cab took a seat two stools from the sheriff, with his back to the bar and his stilt-like legs stretched out into the middle of the hardwood floor. He balanced his elbows on the bar behind him. The white cuffs of his shirt, which were closed with onyx cufflinks, jutted out from the sleeves of his suit coat. He was accustomed to looking like an outsider and immune to the stares and silence when he went somewhere he didn't belong. This place was no different from a hundred others.

'Sheriff, my name is Cab Bolton,' he said. 'I'm a detective with the Naples Police in Florida.'

Reich, who wore a heavy flannel shirt tucked into corduroys, sighed and slid sideways on his stool. He wasn't a big man, but he was packed tightly into his clothes. His face was weathered, as if he had a permanent case of frostbite, and his blue eyes were hard and impassive.

'A detective?' he asked.

'That's right.'

'Well, Detective, if one of my cops came into work wearing an earring, he'd have a choice. He could either yank it out and go home until the hole closed up, or he could quit.'

Cab grinned, but Reich didn't smile back. He could see the old sheriff studying his smile and thinking: Look at how white those teeth are.

'I guess it's a good thing I don't work for you,' Cab told him.

'What did you say your name was?'

'Cab Bolton.'

'Cab? What kind of name is that?'

'I was named after my grandfather;' Cab replied, selecting a new explanation and a new name to go with it. 'Cornelius Abernathy Bolton.'

'Abernathy?'

Cab just smiled.

Reich grunted and reached for his coffee. 'You here because of Glory Fischer?'

'That's right.'

'You planning to arrest Mark Bradley?'

'For now I just want to find out more about him. About Glory, too.'

The bartender wandered closer and gave Cab an interested smile. She was about twenty-five, with no ring on her finger. She had big brown eyes and round cheeks. 'Can I get you a drink?' she asked Cab.

Reich gestured at the line-up of alcohol bottles behind the bar. 'Yeah, what is it you people drink down in Florida? Mojitos?' He pronounced it moh-jee-toes.

'No thanks,' Cab said.

The bartender winked. 'Maybe you want to join the club instead.'

'What club?'

Reich snuck a smile at the fat men playing pool. They drifted closer and the smoke in the bar thickened. 'Detective, you're not just in a pub,' the sheriff explained. 'This is the worldwide headquarters for the Bitters Club.'

'Oh?'

'That's right. It was started on the island by Tom Nelsen back in eighteen ninety-nine. Nelsen was convinced that Angostura bitters were an elixir of health. Sort of like you Florida folks and orange juice. He drank a pint or so a day.'

'A pint of bitters?' Cab asked.

'It's not exactly Guinness, but you get used to the taste. It's right up there with motor oil. You don't have to down a whole pint, though. If you can put back a shot glass of the stuff, you're in the club.'

Cab wasn't going to let this man win his macho game. 'Sure, set me up.'

The bartender smirked and reached under the bar. She placed a shot glass in front of Cab and filled it with a black liquid that did look suspiciously like motor oil. Cab brought the glass under his nose and smelled it. Reich eyed him carefully, and so did the others, watching for his face to screw up with distaste. He didn't react, despite the noxious aroma that would have awakened a coma patient. He figured it was all or nothing. This wasn't brandy you sipped and savored. He swirled the liquid in the glass, tipped it to his lips, and gulped down the bitters in a single swallow. His lips pinched together involuntarily. His throat contracted. The taste reminded him of chewing cigarette butts picked out of the gutter.

'Like it?' Reich asked.

'Great,' Cab croaked.

'Welcome to the club.'

'I'll call my mom,' Cab replied.

Reich relaxed and smiled, as if Cab had passed a Door County test of endurance. 'So give me the dirt, Detective. What exactly do you have on Mark Bradley?'

Cab played with the empty shot glass. His mouth still tasted like weedkiller. 'Honestly? Not much.'

'I'm sorry to hear it,' the sheriff replied. 'I couldn't nail Bradley for sexual assault last year, because Tresa Fischer was so moon-eyed in love with the bastard that she wouldn't say a word against him. You ask me, a teacher poles one of his kids, he ought to be hauled off to a pig farm for castration. We wouldn't have to worry about repeat offenders.'

'You're sure they were having sex?'

'I read the girl's diary. Her imagination's not that good.'

'Can you think of a reason why Bradley would kill Glory Fischer?' Cab asked.

'I can think of lots of reasons. Maybe he tried to rape her, and she fought back. Maybe he just popped his cork and went off on the girl. Take your pick.'

'You may be right,' Cab told Reich, 'but right now, I can't even prove Bradley was on the beach with the girl. We're still running the forensics, and I hope we'll get lucky. Otherwise, we need to find somebody who saw something.'

'So what do you want to get done on my turf, Detective?' Reich asked pointedly. 'You're going to stir up a lot of people who are already hurting because of what happened.'

'I'd like to find out if Bradley had some kind of previous relationship with Glory Fischer. I'd also like to know if there was anything else going on in that girl's life.'

Reich put down his coffee mug on the bar. 'What's that supposed to mean?'

'Glory saw someone she knew in Florida. It scared her. I want to know who it was and whether it had anything to do with her death.'

'Someone she knew?' Reich asked. 'You think it was someone from around here?'

'That's what I'd like to find out.'

Reich's lips crinkled unhappily. 'My advice is to keep your eyes on the ball, Detective. I spent a lot of time with Mark Bradley last year. Having him in the middle of this thing doesn't surprise me at all.'

'No?'

'No. That man is a powder keg.'

'What about Glory?'

'What about her?' Reich asked.

'I hear she had problems. Stealing, drugs, sex. Sounds like she ran pretty fast for a nice country girl.'

Reich shrugged. 'Around here, there's not a lot to do in the quiet season. Kids get into trouble. Glory had her share. People aren't going to take it too well if you start dragging a nice girl's name through the mud. She's the victim here. Don't you forget that.'

'I won't.' 'Delia Fischer is a good woman. She doesn't deserve to see her kids treated like this.'

'You know her well?' Cab asked.

'We're both natives. Those of us who have been around here our whole lives know everybody else, Detective.'

Cab got off the bar stool. 'I've taken up enough of your time, Sheriff. I've got a ferry to catch. I just didn't want to start nosing around your jurisdiction without introducing myself.'

'That was a smart plan,' Reich agreed. 'If my deputies or I can help you nail Bradley, you tell me, OK? There's bad blood for me on this one.'

'I understand.' Cab nodded at the shot glass, which contained a residue of bitters. 'Thanks for the drink. I'm not likely to forget it.'

'I bet not.'

'Tell me something, Sheriff,' Cab added. 'You know pretty much everything that happens around here. Is there anything else I should know about Glory Fischer? Anything that could have led to her death?'

Reich finished his coffee and wiped his mouth. 'Not a damn thing, Detective. You just keep your eyes on Mark Bradley.'

Chapter Eighteen

Hilary spotted the purple Corvette in the boarding line for the last ferry of the day and saw a lanky man in a business suit atop a bench in the park by the harbor. She recognized his gelled blond hair and movie star looks, and her hands tightened around the steering wheel with anxiety. She pulled sharply off the road.

Cab Bolton nodded to her as she climbed out of her car. He held a cell phone high over his head, aimed at the sky. 'Hello, Mrs Bradley,' he said. 'This is a beautiful island, but the cell signal sucks. It's driving me crazy.'

Hilary didn't waste time with small talk. 'I hope you weren't harassing my husband, Detective.'

'God forbid,' Cab replied pleasantly. He climbed off the bench and stood up to his full height. Hilary, who wasn't small, wasn't used to anyone towering over her the way Cab did. He gave her a disarming smile and tugged at the sleeves of his suit coat. 'Is it always so cold here in late March'

'If it's too cold for you, go back to Florida.'

'Oh, I just like complaining.' He glanced around the island at the rocky water beyond the harbor and the thick barrier of evergreens hugging the shoreline. 'This is a barren place to live. Why did you and your husband move up here?'

'Not everyone loves the suburbs,' Hilary replied.

'Were you running away from something?'

'Yes, we were. Smog. Crowds. Traffic. Concrete. Sameness.'

Cab took off his sunglasses and dangled them on his fingers. His eyes were irresistibly blue. 'I did my homework on you, Mrs Bradley.

People in the Chicago schools told me you were one of the best teachers they'd ever had. They hated to lose you.'

'So?'

'So I wonder why you'd give it up to work in a small school in the middle of nowhere.'

'I love teaching. It doesn't matter whether the school is big or small.' She added, 'Mark loved it too, until he got crucified.'

'That must be hard, going to work every morning, knowing people think your husband cheated on you with a student.'

'I don't need your sympathy, Detective.'

'I'm still curious about why the two of you moved out here. Did Mark have a problem with girls in the Chicago schools? You may as well tell me. I'll find out anyway.'

'There's nothing to find,' Hilary snapped. She was tired of having her motives questioned by people who didn't understand them. Cab Bolton wasn't the first, and he wouldn't be the last. Her family. Her colleagues. Her neighbors. They were all the same. They looked at her and Mark and wanted a vote in how they chose to lead their lives.

'You know what my mother said to me, Detective?' she went on. 'When I told her that Mark and I were moving to Door County? She asked me how I could be such an independent woman for so many years and then give up everything in my life for a man.'

'What did you say?' Cab asked.

'I told her the truth. I wasn't giving up anything at all. Mark and I were making a choice about what we wanted. That's it. That's the big secret. I don't care if you understand it.'

'The two of you were just crazy in love,' Cab said, and she heard cynicism in his voice.

'Spare me the sarcasm, Detective. I'm not in the mood to play games with you.'

'I'm not trying to play games. I like you, Mrs Bradley. Really. I think you're smart, and I respect that you're ferociously protective of your husband.'

'But you think I'm a fool.'

'I think people aren't always who we think they are,' Cab told her. 'While you're protecting your husband, you might start protecting yourself, too.'

'If you're trying to make me doubt Mark, you can stop.'

'I think you have doubts, but you won't admit them to yourself.'

'Then you don't understand what it means to have faith in someone,' Hilary said.

'You're right. I don't.'

'If that's true, I feel sorry for you.'

'Don't worry about me.' Cab shoved his hands in his pockets and shrugged his body against the cold. 'Look, let's assume your husband told you he was out on the beach with Glory. I'm not asking you to say yes or no, but if he was there with her, there's a good chance he killed her. You're smart enough to realize that. Maybe he didn't mean to do it. Maybe things got out of control. It doesn't matter.'

'I can see I'm wasting my breath,' Hilary said. 'You're like everyone else around here, assuming Mark is guilty. You've appointed yourself judge and jury.'

'I don't assume he's guilty, but I don't assume he's innocent, either.'

'Good night, Detective.' Hilary pointed at the boat, where one of the deck workers waved to attract Cab's attention. 'You don't want to miss your ferry. I'd hate to think of you trapped overnight in a barren place like this.'

Cab smiled and slid his car keys from his pocket. 'I talked to Sheriff Reich. He's not a fan of your husband.'

'I'm not a fan of the sheriff, either,' Hilary replied. 'He hasn't lifted a finger to stop the locals harassing us.'

'He says Delia Fischer was right. Your husband was having sex with Tresa.'

'Tresa was a sweet, misguided kid. That's all there was.'

'Men are awfully easy to seduce,' Cab reminded her. 'Women usually find a way to get what they want.'

Hilary was good at reading people, and she thought she could see past the armor in the detective's blue eyes. His cynicism wasn't just professional. 'Is this about me or you, Detective?'

'Excuse me?'

'It sounds like there was a woman who messed with you. You loved her, and she hurt you.'

Cab's face darkened. 'Now who's playing games?'

'I'm sorry,' Hilary said, 'but don't take out your past on me and Mark.'

'I'm not doing that.'

'No?'

'No. I already told you I'm not assuming your husband is guilty. If the evidence points to someone else, so be it.'

'If that's true, then tell me something. Did Sheriff Reich mention Glory and the fire?'

'What fire?'

'Glory lived next door to a man who burned down his house with his family in it,' Hilary told him. 'She was there when it happened. She almost died.'

Cab's mouth puckered into a frown. 'I didn't know that.'

'Neither did I until today. Don't you find that interesting? This girl was a witness to a murder six years ago, and now she gets murdered herself. That's a big coincidence.'

She watched Cab working through the implications of this information in his mind. Weighing its significance. Deciding if she was blowing smoke at him.

'Why do you think there's a connection?' he asked. 'I'm not sure how a six-year-old crime, even a horrific one, has any relevance to what happened to Glory in Florida.'

'Only that the killer escaped,' Hilary said. 'He's still on the run.'

'The man who started the fire is at large? Is that true?'

'It's true. His name was Harris Bone. Look it up.' Hilary returned to her Camry and stood outside the driver's door. She was pleased with herself. Looking at Cab Bolton and studying his face, she decided that the man might never be an ally, but he might not be an enemy, either.

'If you can get past your obsession with my husband,' she called to him, 'you should ask yourself the question that I've been asking myself all day, Detective. What if Harris Bone was in Florida? Think about that. What if Glory recognized him? What do you think he would do to her?'

Night fell on the island two hours later. Without daylight, the temperature dropped like a stone, dipping below the freezing mark. Gusts off the bay blasted the land and made the dark trees sway. No one came or went through the canyon-like waves of Death's Door. The ferries were done until early morning, and the private boats that traversed the passage stayed in the shelter of the harbors. The stone outpost of Washington Island was cut off from civilization, isolated and empty.

He drove without headlights. At night, under low clouds, he could barely pick out the headstones of the island cemetery laid in granite rows beside the road. Where the cemetery ended, the road disappeared into the forest, and he slowed to a crawl. The tires of the stolen pickup crept over the gravel as if it was sandpaper. Ahead of him, he spotted the pale break in the trees where the road stopped at Schoolhouse Beach. He turned right on a crossroad less than a hundred yards from the water and navigated blindly round the curves that hugged the shore. He knew where Mark Bradley lived. It wasn't far. When he was a quarter-mile away, he saw house lights glowing out of the black forest like torches. He stopped.

He parked in the driveway of a home that was empty for the winter season. He got out, taking a heavy crowbar with him, nestled in his gloved hand. On the road, he was invisible as he hiked toward the lights. He stayed close to the shoulder, where the birch trees leaned over the gravel and waggled their fingers at him. The wind covered the crunching noise of his boots. Near the house, he veered into the woods, worming his way through spindly branches and mushy ground, until he was barely twenty yards from their windows.

He could see the Bradleys. They were both inside.

Mark Bradley stood by the glass, staring into the darkness directly at him. If it had been daytime, he would have felt exposed, but he knew the window was nothing but a mirror of reflections now. Behind Mark Bradley, he saw the man's wife, holding a near-empty glass of red wine. Hilary Bradley was still dressed for work in a shimmery silver blouse and black slacks that emphasized her long legs. She came up behind her husband and whispered in his ear, but he didn't react.

Hilary finished her wine and squeezed her husband's shoulder, but he remained where he was, a statue. She left the room, and a moment later, light illuminated the small square of the bathroom window down the hall. There were no curtains. In the privacy of the island, there was no one to spy. Except now. He could see her torso framed against the white tile and watched with detached interest as she undressed. She undid the buttons of her blouse and slid it down her arms and hung it on a hanger on the back of the door. Her fingers, which were topped with bright red nails, picked apart the strands of her blond hair, loosening it and letting it fall over her shoulders. She took off and folded her glasses. The effect of the innocent gesture was strangely wanton. With both hands behind her back, she undid the hooks of her bra and lifted it from her chest. Her breasts were pale, full globes. She unzipped her slacks, stepped out of them, and peeled down her panties, bending over so that her breasts hung forward and swayed. She was naked now, but he could see her milky skin only as far as her hips. As he watched, she stepped into a running shower and disappeared.

Mark Bradley was alone.

He made his way toward the rear of the house. His footsteps were soft on the spongy earth. He felt occasional snow flurries melting on his face. He ducked under the eave and crept sideways. The living-room window, which was open two inches, was immediately on his right. He edged his face around the frame to look inside. Mark Bradley was near the fireplace, studying a painting hung on the wall. The canvas was wild with blood-red strokes and strange giant angels. Bradley's back was to him, so he crossed the path of the window with two silent steps. He was near the rear corner of the house now, where a door led inside the screened porch. All he needed to do was lure Bradley outside.

He told himself he was doing the right thing. They couldn't afford to be exposed.

The warped door opened outward from the porch, offering him cover. When Bradley pushed the door open, he could take a step and swing the forked tongue of the crowbar squarely into the back of Bradley's skull. One blow. That was all it would take. He'd done much harder things in his life.

He reached in his pocket and dug out a Fourth of July firecracker that was no bigger than a birthday candle. He lit the fuse of the firecracker with a cigarette lighter and flicked it end over end with his thumb. It flew and landed ten feet in front of the porch door, but the fuse fizzled and burned out without triggering a bang. He pawed inside his pocket for another noisemaker. He only had one left, and it was old and just as likely to blow up in his hand. He touched the fuse to the flame and again flicked it away, watching it arc with a tiny glow. It landed, and he could see the wick burning.

Crack.

It went off with a flash of white light, but the pop was oddly muffled. I He wasn't sure if it was loud enough. There was a long, tense moment of silence, but then the old house shifted with the movement of cautious footsteps on the porch. Mark Bradley was coming closer, investigating the noise.

He cocked the crowbar in his arm.

In front of him, the porch door opened.

Chapter Nineteen

'Mark?'

Hilary saw her husband in the doorway of the porch. He stopped as she called to him and turned back into the house.

'Is everything OK?' she asked.

'I heard something outside.'

He lingered in the door frame. She saw him flexing his hands, as if his protective instincts had been aroused. His tension fed her own anxiety, but when he saw nothing, he let the door bang shut behind him and hooked it closed.

'Anything?' she asked.

'I guess not.'

Hilary breathed easier. There were always occasional moments of fear, living in a remote area. It had been an adjustment, going from the suburbs to the island. In Chicago, there were always people around, and as claustrophobic as it had sometimes seemed to her, she realized there was a certain security about it, too. Here, with only a few hundred people spread across thirty-five square miles, there was no one nearby if something went wrong.

She also didn't know if she could trust anyone who did come to their aid now. She'd begun to see everyone as a potential threat.

Mark sensed her unease and embraced her. His presence was strong and comforting, and a little sensuous, too. He kissed her forehead and slid a fingernail down the damp skin of her chest between the silk folds of her robe. He had graceful hands. That wasn't why she'd fallen in love with him, but it was a bonus.

'You look good,' he said.

She heard the erotic rumble in his voice. 'That's for later. Right now, let's go to dinner.'

'I'm not hungry,' he said.

'Yes, you are. Go take a shower while I get dressed.'

He patted her ass and stripped off his T-shirt as he headed for the bathroom. 'Your hair's still wet,' he called. 'You could join me.'

'Go,' she repeated.

Hilary padded behind him in bare feet to their bedroom, which was a twelve-by-twelve square, painted in burgundy, with cracks in the old walls. The hardwood floor was cold, and the first thing she did was sit on their queen bed and put on socks. She stuck her legs into bikini panties as she stood up, then shrugged off her robe. She caught a glimpse of herself in the full-length mirror on the closet door: topless, panties, black athletic socks.

'Sexy,' she muttered aloud, shaking her head.

By the time she had finished dressing, Mark was out of the shower his hair dripping on the floor. He was naked, just as she'd been earlier. She eyed the bedroom window, where the blinds were up, as they always were. They'd become casual about their seclusion, to the point of not even thinking about other people when they were in their home. For a woman who used to close the bathroom door when she was alone in a hotel room, she'd become unselfconscious in a few short years. She dressed, undressed, showered, peed, and had sex, all in the belief that there was no one to see her.

Oddly, right now, staring at the window, she didn't feel alone. The sensation dogged her like an unsettling dream. Gooseflesh rose on her skin.

'Let's go,' she murmured when Mark was dressed.

They took coats and headed out into the frosty night. She noticed that Mark didn't switch off the house lights and locked the front door behind them. As they drove, steam fogged on the glass, and she found herself shivering in the cold interior. She cupped her hands in front of the vents, waiting for warm air. Mark was silent beside her. She knew the arrival of Cab Bolton had left him shaken.

'You want to talk about it?' she asked.

Mark didn't reply immediately. He flicked on the high beams to light up the twisting stretch of road.

'I think I should tell Bolton I was out on the beach,' he said finally.

Hilary shook her head. 'No way.'

'If the DNA matches where Glory scratched me, Bolton will find out anyway, and he'll think I have something to hide.'

'You remember what Gale told us? There's no case if they can't prove you were on the beach. Period. You can't give up your best legal advantage, Mark. We have to be practical about this. For all we know, they won't be able to recover any DNA because Glory's body was in the water.'

Mark's eyes strayed to the rear-view mirror. 'Glory was talking about fire on the beach,' he told her.

'What do you mean?'

'She was humming that Billy Joel song when I first saw her. "We Didn't Start the Fire." She mentioned the Robert Frost poem, "Fire and Ice", and talked about the world ending in fire. She asked me — she said, why didn't I want to play with fire? It kept coming up.'

'So maybe it's true,' Hilary said. 'Maybe something happened in Florida that was connected to the fire.'

'Harris Bone?'

'It's possible. He's out there somewhere.'

'If I told Bolton what Glory said, maybe he'll realize I'm not the only game in town.'

'I know how you feel, but we can't say anything that might put you at risk. Look, I'll find out whatever I can about the fire. I'll try to get Peter Hoffman to talk to me. Harris Bone was his son-in-law. He may know something that would help us figure out if Bone could have been in Florida. If I find something, I'll give it to Bolton. OK?'

There was no answer from her husband. She realized that his eyes were fixed on the rear-view mirror. Hilary twisted round and realized what Mark had seen behind them. Headlights.

Another vehicle trailed them on the highway.

'That pickup's been back there since we left,' Mark murmured. 'I spotted the lights when we turned at the cemetery.'

'Do you have any idea who it is?'

He shook his head. It was unusual to see other vehicles on the island roads at night during the off season, and there were only a handful of other residents living year-round in the remote lane past Schoolhouse

Beach. He slowed, drawing the truck closer, until the lights were immediately behind them like giant white eyes. The vehicle made no move to pass.

Hilary squinted into the blinding brightness. 'I can't see the driver or the plate.'

Mark tapped the brakes and slowed until the Camry was barely doing twenty miles an hour. The pick-up matched their speed and stayed on their tail, crowding their rear bumper.

'Hold on,' Mark said.

He shoved down the accelerator. The Camry leaped forward, but the engine of the pickup growled too. The road was dead straight in this part of the island, and Mark accelerated to sixty and then seventy miles an hour before the speed felt unsafe. Despite the burst of speed, the pick-up closed on them again, and as it did, the driver switched on his brights, throwing a dazzling light through their rear window. Next to her, Mark blocked his eyes and pushed the mirror aside.

He braked.

The pick-up accelerated. Mark barely had time to shout a warning before Hilary felt a bone-rattling impact as the truck hammered into the rear of the Camry. Her head was thrown back, snapping against the seat. The Camry swerved, fishtailing as Mark struggled to keep control. The car veered from shoulder to shoulder, weaving close to the gullies on both sides. Finally, the Camry slowed, and Mark shunted the car on to the right-side shoulder, kicking up dark clouds of gravel and leaves.

The pickup flew past them. Hilary barely saw the shape of the truck; she couldn't pick out its color or see the driver. Ahead of them, she watched its tail lights grow distant.

Mark breathed fast. His face was beet red, his body knotted up with fury.

'This ends now,' he said.

'Mark, don't.'

— He didn't listen to her. He gunned the engine and chased the pickup. Hilary clung to the door and bit her lip until she thought she tasted blood in her mouth. She saw the red lights of the truck a mile ahead of them, and Mark gained on the other vehicle a tenth of a mile at a time. The chassis of the Camry rattled. The border of the forest was a wavy blur.

'Slow down!' she shouted. 'For God's sake, Mark, you'll get us both killed.'

Mark's hands remained locked around the steering wheel, and his eyes were riveted on the road. The car's engine howled in her ears. Wind sang in the seams of the windows. They were half a mile behind the pickup when the tail lights winked out in a single instant. Mark slowed sharply, but he was still going forty miles an hour as the straightaway ended in a rightward curve. The car yawed left. He yanked down on the wheel. Hilary was afraid they would roll, but the tires grabbed the pavement, and he accelerated safely out of the turn.

That was when she saw a huge dark shape immediately ahead of them. The pickup truck was parked sideways, blocking the road at the end of their headlight beams.

There was no time to stop.

'Oh, no,' she gasped.

Chapter Twenty

Cab drove through the deserted streets of the town of Fish Creek and parked outside the guest house near the harbor. It was a quaint village of candle shops and cafes on the west coast of the peninsula, choked with tourists in August, but quiet on a midweek evening in March. He'd rented a two-story apartment. The smell of the bay was sweet as he got out of his Corvette, but he didn't linger in the freezing air. He let himself inside and climbed the stairs to the main level of the apartment, which had a full kitchen, a fireplace, and a balcony that looked out on the water.

He was paying for it himself. He didn't apologize for the luxuries he'd known his whole life. His money — or his mother's money, to be precise — helped him deal with the ugliness of the world. Sometimes, when he was drunk enough to be honest with himself, he also acknowledged that his money allowed him to build a hiding place wherever he went. A pretty cage.

Cab turned on the oven in the apartment's kitchen. He'd found a restaurant on the north side of town that sold vegetarian quiche, and he'd ordered it to go, along with a bottle of Stags' Leap Chardonnay. He deposited the quiche on foil lining a baking sheet and put it in the oven, then located a corkscrew and opened the wine. He found a glass in a cabinet above the stove and poured the wine almost to the rim. With the Chardonnay in hand, he dimmed the lights in the apartment and switched on the gas fireplace. He settled into the leather sofa, put up his long legs, and drank the wine in gulps as he watched the fire.

He thought about calling his mother. They texted each other several times a month, but he hadn't actually heard her voice in six weeks.

It was the middle of the night in London, so he used his phone to send her a message instead.

Cold as hell here. Lonely but beautiful. See pic. C.

He attached a picture he'd taken with his phone on the crossing from Washington Island, with the angry water against the gray sky and the forested coastline of the peninsula looming ahead of him. His rented Corvette had been the only vehicle on the ferry. Right now, in the empty guest house, he felt like the only man alive in the town of Fish Creek.

He was accustomed to that sense of isolation. He thought of it as being homeless with a roof over his head. If he were back in his condominium in Florida, he would have felt the same way.

His mother had extended an open invitation to join her in London. Neither one of them had anyone else in their lives who really mattered. Even so, he'd resisted moving there, because he didn't know if he was ready to stop running. Whenever he looked back, he saw Vivian Frost chasing him. He still needed to exorcize her ghost. That was something his mother didn't understand, because he'd never told her the truth about Vivian's death.

Cab finished his glass of wine. He got up, checked the quiche in the oven, and poured another glass before sitting down again. He watched the gas fire, which burned in a controlled fashion, never changing. Fire wasn't like that. It was volatile and unpredictable, twisting with the wind, sucking energy out of the air. It was also, he knew, a particularly excruciating way to die. Hilary Bradley may have been blowing smoke his way with her story about Harris Bone, but she was right about one thing. If you were capable of burning up your wife and children, then you were the owner of a cold, dead soul, and you would feel little remorse watching the life flicker out of a girl's eyes on the beach.

Then again, he'd felt no remorse himself watching Vivian die. Not then. Not until later.

Cab got up restlessly and took his wine with him. He walked to the west end of the apartment and pushed open the glass doors that led to the balcony. He went outside, where the wind shrieked and cut at his face. The empty boat docks of the harbor were below him, and street lights glowed in haloes along the waterfront.

He thought about Hilary Bradley and realized he was annoyed with her. He was used to being the smartest person in the room, and he had the sense that she was every bit as smart as he was. He didn't like it that she had put a finger squarely on his vulnerability without knowing anything about him. It also bothered him that he experienced a glimmer of jealousy at the idea that she was so deeply in love with another man. It was an unwelcome reminder that his own life was emotionally and sexually barren. When he did have sex, it was generally the end of a relationship, not the beginning. He'd even gone so far as to pay for sex on a few occasions when he was living overseas, in order to be free of any complications.

'Cab.'

He heard the voice, but he didn't move or look around, because he knew it wasn't real. It was just the echo of a ghost. Vivian had always had this way of wrapping her Spanish-tinged British accent around his name, so that it came from her lips like a prayer. She'd said it that way so many times. When she recognized his voice on the phone. When she was under him and her body was arching with one of her violent orgasms. When she was on her knees on the beach, pleading for her life. Begging him to spare her.

Cab.

That was the last word she'd ever spoken.

She disappeared on a Tuesday.

They had planned to meet for paella and Mahou at a street cafe north of the Diagonal, but Cab sat there alone for an hour, watching the crowds for her face. She never arrived. When he walked to her apartment six blocks away, everything personal to her had been stripped. The kitchens and bathrooms stank of bleach. It was as if she had never existed. She left nothing behind.

The next morning, black smoke poured skyward from the shattered windows of the Estacio-Sants train station. Twenty-seven people died.

The Spanish police needed only four hours to identify the terrorist behind the bombing. Cab knew he'd been played for a fool when he saw the CCTV feed from inside the station. The grainy footage showed Diego Martin, an American fugitive wanted for gang murders in Phoenix, arm in arm with Vivian Frost.

Diego Martin, who had led Cab and the FBI on a chase to Barcelona. Diego Martin, who had used Vivian to spy on Cab.

There had never been any love in Vivian's heart. Only sex and betrayal. Only lies.

That night, Cab drove north. He brought his gun. He knew what no one else did; he knew where they'd gone. A few days earlier, he'd found reservations for a rented house on a secluded beach near the rocky coast of Tossa de Mar. It was the ideal hideaway for two criminals on the run.

Vivian and Diego.

He arrived after midnight on one of the most serene nights imaginable. The gentle breeze off the Mediterranean was warm, the air was scented with flowers, and moonlight flooded the beach. He climbed down the sharp hillside to the sheltered cove and quickly realized that he wasn't alone by the still water. They were there. He could see them on the sand. Entwined. Vivian on top, her back to him, displaying an ivory expanse of naked skin sloping from her neck to the cleft of her buttocks. He heard the guttural noises from her throat, so intimately familiar to him, and even now, after everything, her abandon could arouse him. They were fifty yards away, in the wet sand, close enough for the surf to lap at their bodies.

He lifted his gun as he walked closer. He thought he had the element of surprise, but he was young and out of his head with anger.

Diego's hand moved with the speed of a snake. Cab dove into the surf as bullets screamed past his head. When he spun back with his own gun, Diego already had Vivian in front of him. His gun was at her temple. Diego lurched out of the sand, dragging Vivian with him.

'You want to kill me,' Diego said, 'but you have to kill her first.'

'Do you think that's a problem for me?' Cab asked.

'I know this woman. I know what she does to you.'

'Cab,' Vivian pleaded. 'Cab, I'm sorry. Let us go.'

He stared at her. She was naked, her body lit up by the moonlight, shadows under her breasts. Streaks of sand clung to her damp skin. The natural thing would have been to fold her up in his arms and lower her to the beach and make love to her.

'Drop the gun,' Cab said, 'or I'll kill you both.'

'I don't think you will,' Diego replied calmly. 'You'd let me kill you if it meant saving this wonderful whore.'

Vivian begged. 'Cab, please.'

He kept the gun steady in his long, outstretched arms. 'Viv, you know he's going to kill you, don't you?'

'Cab,' she whispered. 'Just go.'

'Why do you think he brought the gun to the beach, Viv? Just because the police might come? Come on, you're smarter than that. This man travels solo. He was going to let you make love to him one last time, and then he was going to put a bullet in your head.'

Diego began to back up in the sand.

'Once he's safe, you're dead, Viv,' Cab told her.

He could see her blue eyes. They were always the same — smart, cool, and infinitely calculating. She knew he was right. It made him feel good to realize that she'd been betrayed too. Her eyes dipped to the sand, and he understood; she was about to drop out of his arms. Her legs buckled, she fell, and there Diego was, head and torso exposed. Cab fired four times, in his chest, neck, eye, and forehead. What he enjoyed most was the surprise. The disbelief. As if it had never occurred to Diego that this woman could ever betray him.

Diego lay on his back in the water, dead. Vivian sprang to her feet, crying, as if in relief, as if he'd freed her from a monster. 'Oh, God, Cab, thank you, thank you.'

She took a step toward him, her arms wide.

'Stop.'

Vivian froze. 'Cab, what are you doing?'

Cab aimed his gun again, this time at her head. 'Get on your knees,' he told her.

She stood in the sand. 'Cab.'

'Do it!' he shouted.

Vivian's knees sank into the dark sand. She squared her shoulders, as if to show off her breasts to him. She was beautiful, even with her white skin splattered with Diego's blood.

'So what happens now?' she asked him.

'Now I take you to the police. Now you spend the rest of your life in a stinking hole.'

'You can't do that to me.'

'Watch me.'

'I lied to you, Cab,' she admitted. 7 cheated on you. I betrayed you. But the rest? I didn't know. Diego was running from you, but I had no idea what he was planning. I would have told you if I'd known.'

'Twenty-seven people died, Vivian. The police won't care. No one will care.' 'Just let me walk away. You have Diego. He's dead.'

'You can mourn him while you sit in your little box.'

Vivian's face screwed up in anger. 'Is that what this is about? I fucked you, and now you fuck me back?'

'This isn't about you and me.'

'Oh, like hell it's not.' Vivian spread her knees wide, exposing the shadow between her legs. She leaned backward, stretching her torso, balancing on her palms. 'Is this what you want? You want a last ride, like Diego?'

He felt his fury resurfacing. 'Shut up.'

'Come on, Cab. I'm just a whore. I'll do whatever you tell me to do.'

'Stop it. How could you do this to me?'

'I'm sorry. We were both fools.'

T loved you,' Cab shouted. 'I still love you.'

She bowed her head. Her hair fell across her face. 'Then let me go. Don't put me in jail for the rest of my life just because I lied to you.'

'I don't have a choice, Vivian.'

'Cab,' she pleaded again.

He wanted it to be over. He never wanted to see her again. He wanted to begin the process of dismantling her face from his memory. Cab let his arm fall, pointing his gun toward the beach. He hadn't counted on her desperation, her willingness to betray him again. Vivian grabbed Diego's gun from the sand, taking him by surprise. She didn't hesitate. She wasn't sentimental. In a single motion, she swung her bare arm round and fired.

She missed. She was an amateur. The bullet sang by his ear, but Vivian never made the same mistake twice. Her arm shifted, aiming again, and he knew her next shot would be dead square into his brain.

Cab raised his arm and pulled the trigger at the woman he loved. He didn't miss.

Cab's wine glass was empty, and his skin was numb. He turned his back on the harbor and went inside. In the warmth of the apartment, he smelled his quiche burning, and when he opened the oven to a cloud of smoke, he saw that his dinner was charred and inedible. It didn't matter. He wasn't hungry anymore. He poured more wine. More than half the bottle was gone.

His phone rang. He dug it out of his pocket and checked the caller ID and saw that Lala Mosqueda was calling from Florida. He was glad to have a conversation with someone other than Vivian, and the truth was, he missed Lala. He'd felt himself falling for her when they dated. He didn't know if their relationship would have gone anywhere, but he hadn't wanted the risk of leaving himself vulnerable, as he had done once before. That was why he'd pushed her away. As usual.

'Mosquito,' he said automatically, and his face screwed up with self-disgust. He was doing it again. 'Sorry. Lala.'

'Hello, Cab,' she replied. 'I tried you twice. Where are you?'

'The Arctic, I think. I'm pretty sure I saw a polar bear. Anyway, the signal comes and goes around here. Are you still at the office?'

'No, I'm home.'

'Good. You work too hard.'

Lala was slow to reply. He knew she was wondering if he would sting her with a joke. Anything to maintain their distance.

'Yeah, well, home's no treat. The neighbor's yipper dog is barking again, and someone didn't take out their trash this week, and the a/c is broken, so it's like a compost pile in the rainforest in here.'

'Florida,' he said.

'Exactly.'

'You're welcome to stay at my place while I'm gone,' Cab suggested.

Lala was silent.

'It's right on the beach,' he added.

'I know,' she replied coolly.

'I know you know. I'm just saying. The a/c works. You could feed my fish.'

'You have fish?'

'Actually, no.'

'Are you drunk, Cab?' Lala asked.

'A little.'

'So what, is this a game or something?'

'No, I'm serious. If you want to stay there, I have a spare key in my desk. You should do it.'

'Thanks,' she replied, 'but I think I'll pass. We both decided that once was enough when it came to my staying at your place. Remember?'

Cab knew he deserved the reproach. He also knew it was easier to open the door to a woman when he was a thousand miles away. 'Sure.' 'Nothing personal,' she said with an edge.

'No.'

'I called to give you an update on this end,' she told him.

'Go ahead.'

He listened to her quietness on the line. They'd both pushed too far. It had become a sport with them, leaving bruises on the other. He half expected her to apologize, but she didn't, and he didn't want an apology anyway. That would just make him feel sorrier for himself.

'You made the right choice,' Lala said. 'Going to Door County, I mean. So far, things are still pointing that way.'

'You mean Mark Bradley?'

'Yes, but not just him.'

'Then who?'

'The boyfriend. Troy Geier.'

'What about him?' Cab asked.

'I tracked down a girl who was at the hotel pool on Saturday night when Glory and Troy were there. According to this girl, Glory was flirting with other boys at the pool, right in front of Troy. I mean, it sounds like she was groping some of them under the water. Troy flipped. He pulled Glory aside, and the two of them went at it. The girl couldn't hear exactly what they were saying, but she got the gist. When Troy stormed away, she said he looked like he was ready to explode. Those were her words.'

'Troy didn't strike me as having the guts to stand up to anyone,' Cab said.

'Well, what if he woke up in the middle of the night and Glory wasn't back in their room? We know he'd been drinking, and he was already pretty steamed at her.'

'True enough. Any word from the ME? Was there evidence of sexual intercourse?'

'He can't say yes or no,' Lala replied. 'That's the bad news. The Gulf gave her a salt-water douche.'

'What's the good news?'

'The good news is that two of her fingers were buried in enough sand that the water didn't wash away all the organic material. He found some skin cells, enough to run DNA matching. Including the sample we took from Mark Bradley. We'll need to get a swab from the boyfriend, too.'

'I'll work with the sheriff's department up here,' Cab told her. 'Just for the hell of it, see if we can get a sample from the bartender. Ronnie Trask.'

'Already in process. Mr Trask was glad to oblige in order to clear his name.'

'Good. Oh, there's something else you can do for me. It looks like Glory may have been a witness at a murder scene several years ago. Sounds bad — a husband torched his house with his family in it. The guy's still at large. His name is Harris Bone. Come up with everything you can on him and the fire, OK?'

'Sure,' Lala said. 'Is there a chance this guy was in Florida?'

'I don't know. Once we get a profile, let's start comparing it to hotel guests. Glory saw someone she knew, and she got scared. If it was Bone, she had plenty of reason to run.'

'OK.' She added, 'You want more good news?'

'Definitely.'

'I got another call. Another witness.'

'Tell me someone saw Mark Bradley on the beach that night,' Cab said.

'You lead a charmed life,' Lala replied. 'This guy had a room on the Gulf side on the tenth floor. He says he couldn't sleep, so he was out on his balcony in the middle of the night smoking a cigar. He saw a man heading out to the beach from a ground-floor room below him sometime after two thirty.'

'Could he identify him?'

'No, the man's back was to him. But he said the guy was wearing a bright yellow tank top.'

'Did he see Glory, too?' Cab asked.

'Not exactly, but he spotted this same guy down on the beach a while later. He could see the tank top. He couldn't make out everything at that distance, but he's sure the man met up with a girl down there. And get this. He says the two of them were kissing.'

Chapter Twenty-One

The Camry dove into the black side door of the abandoned pickup.

Glass sprayed. The headlights shattered and went dark. The chassis crumpled like an accordion, sucking up the energy of the crash in a loud, tortured twisting of metal. The car swung into a dizzying spin but stayed upright, a mess of folded steel. Ahead of them, hammered by the impact, the pickup rolled bottom over top and spilled into the gully on the far side of the road.

Inside the car, Hilary felt her body snap forward, airborne. In the fraction of a second before the safety belt seized across her chest, the air bag exploded at two hundred miles an hour and began to deflate as she crushed against it. The balloon filled her face, and then she lurched backward, tossed between the seat and the strap like a rag doll. It was over as quickly as it began. The spin slowed. The momentum of the car bled away, and it drifted to a stop at an angle on the highway.

She heard a hiss of steam venting, but otherwise, the aftermath was oddly silent. Her eyes were squeezed shut, and she blinked, opening them but seeing nothing. There was a chemical smell in the car. Pieces of the shattered windshield sprinkled into her lap like popcorn, and cold air blew through the gap and stung the abrasions on her cheek. As her eyes adjusted, she saw the air bag drooped over the dashboard. Outside, over the tented metal of the hood, she saw the outline of evergreens beyond the car and a slice of night sky.

'Hilary.'

It was Mark. His voice was strangled with fear and urgency. Her brain was rattled, and she momentarily forgot how to speak.

'Hil.'

'I'm OK,' she murmured.

'Don't move.'

She heard him struggle with his door, prying it open. When he spilled on to the road, his knees caved, and he grabbed the frame to steady himself. His shoes kicked through metal and glass as he came around the rear of the car. He yanked on her door, and she felt him unlock her belt, and she dissolved limply into his arms. She clung to him as he helped her out of the destroyed chassis. Her legs bent like rubber as they hit the ground.

'You have to sit down,' he said.

She didn't protest. They were near the shoulder, and he kept her upright for several steps until she could sink down on to the dirt. Her legs dangled over the ditch. Her hair was plastered over her face. He slid down next to her and supported her back.

Hilary put a hand to her cheek, and it came back wet. 'I'm bleeding,' she said.

'You have a cut from the glass. That's all I see. How are you?'

She took stock of herself. 'No serious damage, I think. What about you?'

'Same.'

She eyed the remains of the Camry, which was twisted into an unrecognizable heap almost to the windshield. On the other side of the highway, she saw the upside-down wheels of the pickup jutting out of the ditch.

'God, Hil, I'm so sorry,' he told her. 'If I'd lost you—'

'You didn't.' She added, 'Can you walk? We should see if anyone was in the truck.'

'I'll check.'

Mark pushed himself up. Hilary watched him limp past their car and skid down the side of the ditch near the pickup. She could see his head and shoulders as he examined the truck. When he climbed back to the road, he called across to her.

'It's empty.'

He returned to the open driver's door of the Camry and reached down to the floor. She saw the trunk pop with a soft click, as if they were doing nothing but putting groceries inside. He reached into the trunk and extracted a first aid kit and a roadside emergency pack. He dug into the pack, and soon she heard sizzling and saw a fiery red light glowing as he lit a flare to warn oncoming traffic.

He came back and bent down beside her. He'd brought a blanket from the trunk, and he wrapped it around her shoulders. He dabbed at her cheek with a soft cloth, causing her to wince. The cloth came away doused in red.

'Facial cuts really bleed,' he said.

'How bad is it?'

'Not bad. Small.'

She knew she sounded vain, worried about a scar. She wondered if she would be reminded of this moment every time she looked in a mirror. 'I'm still beautiful, right?' she said, cracking a wan smile.

'Gorgeous.' He applied a small pad to her face and covered it with tape. He caressed her other cheek with the back of his hand, and she held it there, savoring his touch. His face flickered along with the light of the flare.

'Did you recognize the truck?' she asked.

'No, I haven't seen it on the roads around here.'

'Where's the driver?'

Mark shook his head. 'I don't know.'

'He could still be close.'

Whoever had driven the pickup and then left it in their path had disappeared into the woods and escaped on foot. Or maybe he was still in the trees, watching them. Mark stood up and made a slow circle, studying the forest. Hilary closed her eyes and listened for noises close by, like the sound of branches snapping underfoot. She heard nothing. The sensation of being watched, which had dogged her at home, was gone.

'I think we're alone,' she said, 'but he was there before.'

'What do you mean?'

'At the house. He was at the house, too. Remember? You heard something outside.'

He nodded. 'Who's doing this to us?'

'I don't know.'

'I'll try to reach nine one one,' Mark said. He dug into his pocket for his phone and checked the signal strength. 'Thank God for Verizon.'

'I love that little guy with the glasses,' Hilary murmured.

She waited and listened to Mark estimating their location for the emergency operator. Her body ached, and she was exhausted and hungry. The blanket didn't stop her from feeling chilled, and her pants were cold where she sat on the ground. She closed her eyes.

'Ten minutes,' she heard Mark say.

She didn't reply. Her head swam. She was conscious of Mark sitting on the road behind her and of his arms gently taking her shoulders and easing her body back on to his chest. He stroked her hair and whispered in her ear. I love you. Thank God you're OK. She tried to say something, to talk, but the signals left her brain and broke into fragments long before they reached her mouth.

She had only one more conscious thought before she drifted away.

Someone was trying to kill them.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Cab found Sheriff Reich behind his desk on Thursday morning in the county administration building in Sturgeon Bay, which was the southernmost town on the peninsula. Sturgeon Bay was where people drove to get a taste of the suburbs in chain stores, big box retailers, and greasy fast food restaurants. North of the city, those things disappeared. The hour-long drive from Sturgeon Bay to the tip of the rock at Northport was a journey past miles of gnarled cherry trees, roadside farmers' markets, and sleepy block-long seaside towns. To Cab, it felt like a ship-in-a-bottle world.

Sheriff Reich sat in a leather chair that was oversized for his compact frame. He wore black reading glasses on the end of his stub nose and a white uniform shirt with silver buttons. His brown sheriff's coat, looking starched and perfect, was hung behind the door. On the walls, Cab noted photos and commendations from the man's service in Vietnam and framed newspaper articles of major Door County events from the past thirty years. There was also a Wanted poster featuring the jailhouse front-and-side photographs of a fit, balding man in his late thirties.

The name on the poster, in bold letters, said Harris Bone.

Reich, who was poring over paperwork, took off his black glasses and eased back in his chair when he saw Cab in the doorway. 'Detective Bolton,' he said.

'Good morning, Sheriff,' Cab said. 'I'm surprised to see you here so early. You have a long commute from the island.'

Reich shrugged. 'Most days I fly my Cessna down here. I keep a place in town for the bad weather. Otherwise, I'm not at my desk much. I don't believe a sheriff makes much of a difference when he's stuck inside.'

'That's a good philosophy.'

'I called your lieutenant about you, Detective,' Reich informed him, as he twiddled his glasses in his fingers.

'That must have been an interesting conversation.'

'It was. He tells me you're smart, but you don't play well with others.'

'That's fair,' Cab agreed.

'He also says you're stubborn, indifferent to authority, and condescending.'

'Guilty.'

'He told me about your mother, too. That explains a lot. I figured you were either rich or on the take. Most cops don't rent Corvettes.'

'They don't own Cessnas, either,' Cab pointed out with a smile.

'I'm not saying having money is a crime,' Reich replied. 'I've got a plane, I've got a boat, a couple of trucks. My family was smart enough to snap up a lot of real estate around here back when it was cheap. I could retire, but I don't want to sit on my ass all day.'

'Then we have something in common,' Cab said.

'That's about the only thing, Detective. What can I do for you?'

'I heard about the accident on the island.'

'You mean the Bradleys?'

'Yes. Are they OK?'

'Bruised but fine.'

'Do you have any idea who was responsible?' Cab asked.

'I'm not sure how that concerns you. This is a local investigation.'

'Mark Bradley is a suspect in my homicide case.'

'Well, it looks like someone almost cut your case short. Some cops wouldn't lose sleep over that.'

'I don't want a vigilante killing a man and his wife on the basis of rumors,' Cab replied. 'If he's guilty, I want to prove it and put him behind bars.'

Reich nodded. 'I agree.'

'Washington Island isn't a big place. No one came or went last night unless they had a big boat, right? With your history around here, I would think you'd already know who did this.'

Reich's frown lines deepened into canyons. 'You can be indifferent to authority and condescending in your own jurisdiction, Detective. Not with me. Not on my turf.'

'Fair enough, you're right. I'm sorry.'

'For your information, the truck used in the accident was stolen from an island farm. We're checking it over now. I can think of a couple dozen hotheads who know Delia Fischer and might have done this, but they're not likely to be stupid enough to admit it to me. Don't worry, I'll get them.'

'I'm sure you will.'

'Is that all you wanted, Detective? Because if so, I'm pretty busy this morning.'

'I promised to keep you up to date on my own investigation,' Cab informed him. 'We've located a couple new witnesses among the people who were at the hotel on Saturday. Apparently Glory had a big argument with her boyfriend, Troy Geier, a few hours before the murder.'

Reich snorted. 'Troy? You're wasting your time.'

'Maybe so, but he wasn't straight with me. I'm going to talk to him again.'

'What else do you have?' Reich asked.

'Another witness saw a man on the beach with a girl in the right location and time frame. They were physically involved. Based on the description, we think it was Mark Bradley. I want to talk to the witness myself, but if it pans out, it's significant. If we can combine it with DNA evidence, we'll be on the way to making a case that hangs together.'

'Excellent. I appreciate the update, Detective. As I said, my men and I are happy to help if we can.'

'There's something else,' Cab told him.

'What?'

'I ran into Hilary Bradley yesterday afternoon. She told me about Glory Fischer and the fire.' Cab nodded at the poster on Reich's wall. 'She told me about Harris Bone, too.' 'So?'

'So I'm surprised you didn't mention it to me, Sheriff,' Cab said. 'I asked if there was anything else I should know about Glory Fischer.'

'I don't see how a six-year-old crime is relevant to your investigation.'

'Harris Bone is still at large. That makes him a suspect.'

Reich shook his head dismissively. 'Harris?' A suspect? You think he just happened to be in Florida and happened to run into Glory Fischer?'

'Strange things happen. Glory saw someone she knew. We have a witness who said she looked scared.'

Reich pushed his leather chair back and got up. He kept a coffee-maker on the credenza on the opposite wall, and he poured himself a cup in an oversized mug from a restaurant called the Viking Grill. It smelled strong. He gestured at Cab with the pot, but Cab shook his head. Reich sat down and sipped his black coffee.

'What makes you think it was Harris?' Reich asked.

'Frankly, I don't believe it was. I don't believe in straw men when I've got a suspect like Mark Bradley who was out on the beach and has ties to the girl's family. However, I also know what reasonable doubt looks like, and I know what a good defense lawyer would do with this information. If I don't look into it, I'll have to explain why on the witness stand.'

'Lawyers,' Reich said, in a voice that sounded as if he was spitting. 'OK, what do you need? What can I tell you?'

'First, I need anything that can help us figure out if Harris Bone was staying at or working in the hotel in Naples under a new identity. Photos"; fingerprints, DNA, background, whatever you have.'

Reich nodded. 'My chief deputy can pull together materials for you from our files. I'll make sure you have it by noon.'

'Thank you. Second, I want to know more about him. What happened that night? What kind of man burns up his family?'

Reich studied the poster of Harris Bone on his wall, and his face darkened. 'I'll be honest with you, Harris is about the last thing in the world I want to talk about. A lot of people here were hoping we'd finally turned the page on the fire. You know what that kind of crime does to a community. The scars linger.'

'I know.'

Reich pointed at a 1960s-era photograph near the Wanted poster that showed two dirty men in uniform, their faces green with camouflage, arms around each other's shoulders. 'That's me and Pete Hoffman. Pete saved my life overseas. More than once, in fact. Harris killed Pete's daughter and two of his grandchildren, and he did it in a horrible way. Pete never got over it. It ruined his life. I don't like to see my best friend having to deal with that grief all over again.'

'I understand. If I can spare him, I will, but I can't make any promises. Right now, the biggest thing standing between me and a case against Mark Bradley is Harris Bone. It may be a distraction, but it's real.'

'I hear you. I know how the game is played.'

Cab got up and examined the photograph of Harris Bone. The man's eyes were devoid of emotion, like a robot's. He was handsome but empty. 'Did you know him well?'

'Who, Harris? Sure, he was a good-looking guy, but mousy and quiet even as a kid. I knew his parents, Lowell and Katherine; they ran a liquor store here in town. Harris took it over when Katherine died, but he didn't have much of a business sense. Pete told Nettie right from the start that the guy was a loser. Nettie didn't listen. Kids never do, right?'

Cab sat down again. 'What about his wife? What was she like?'

'Nettie was a pretty little thing. Kind of a God nut, like Pete. Church every Sunday, always reading the Bible to the three kids, hosting prayer groups at their house. Harris played along. I never knew if he believed it, or if it was just talk. You could never be sure with him. It didn't stop him from running around, either. Nettie told Pete that Harris was cheating on her. Not that I really blame him. Sounds like Nettie didn't have much interest in sex even before the accident.'

'Accident?' Cab said.

Reich nodded. 'Car accident. It was bad. Harris was driving, and Delia Fischer's husband, Arno, was in the passenger seat. The wives were in back. They'd all been out to dinner here in Sturgeon Bay and were heading home. They'd had too much to drink. Harris lost control on a slick curve and drove into a tree, full speed. Arno died. Nettie wound up in a wheelchair. Delia was lucky, just a couple broken bones. Same with Harris. After that, Nettie was even worse. She made life hell for Harris.'

'Wait a minute, are you saying Glory Fischer lost her father in that accident?' Cab asked. 'Harris Bone killed her father?'

'Yeah. Some families get lucky, and some just keep getting hit by lightning. That's Delia. You can understand why I want that woman to get some justice for her daughters.'

'This makes it a hell of a lot harder to do that,' Cab told him. 'The more connections between the Bones and the Fischers, the more a jury might wonder if Glory really did see Harris at the hotel that night. It gives her an extra reason to want to see him captured. And to be afraid of him.'

Reich scoffed. 'These families were neighbors. They lived across the street from one another. Their kids played together. That's all it was. Glory was too young to understand that her father's death had anything to do with Harris. Even Delia didn't blame him. They'd all been drinking.'

Cab wasn't convinced. 'Go on,' he said. 'What about the fire?'

'What do you want to know? You want me to psychoanalyze the son of a bitch? He set the fire and then watched it burn like it was some kind of backyard barbecue. Nettie and the boys died. If it wasn't for Delia, Jen would have died, too.'

'What do you mean?'

'Jen spent the night with the Fischers. Delia knew how bad it was for the girl at home. All the fights. It wasn't just Harris and Nettie, it was the boys, too. They picked up the poison from their mom. Delia took pity on her, and it's a good thing. Pete still sends Delia flowers every year to thank her.'

Cab didn't say anything for a long time. Finally, when he sensed Reich's impatience, he said, 'This is ugly, Sheriff. You know how ugly this is.'

'I do.'

'I came here ninety-five per cent convinced that Mark Bradley killed Glory Fischer.'

'Trust your instincts,' Reich told him.

'That's the problem. My instincts don't like this one little bit. If Glory saw Harris—'

'She didn't.'

'Sometimes you bump into your past at the worst possible time,' Cab pointed out.

'You said you have a witness. Bradley and Glory were kissing on the beach.'

'I still don't like the coincidence.'

The sheriff leaned forward with his elbows on his desk. 'Detective Bolton, I'm not going to tell you how to do your job. This is your case, not mine. My only interest is making sure that Delia Fischer doesn't have to grieve for her daughter without seeing her killer punished. I'd hate to see the ghost of Harris Bone getting in the way of that.'

'So would I.'

Reich turned his head sideways. With his index finger, he pointed to a two-inch jagged line on his skull where the hair didn't grow. 'You see that scar?'

Cab nodded. 'Looks bad. Did you get it in Vietnam?'

'No, I got it in a field about forty miles south of here. That's where Harris Bone cracked my head open with a rock when I let him out of the car for a piss as I was getting ready to dump him in Supermax for the rest of his stinking life. When I woke up, he was long gone. So you know what, Detective? Part of me hopes I'm wrong, and you're right. I hope Glory really did see that son of a bitch in Florida, and I hope you find the rock he's hiding under, and I hope you bring him here and leave me alone with him for five minutes. That's all I want, five minutes. Harris Bone and I have unfinished business.'

Chapter Twenty-Three

Amy Leigh sat on a bench near the trails of the Cofrin Arboretum, unwinding after her run. Beside her, Katie wore sweats and a T-shirt adorned with the school's Phoenix logo. Despite the frigid morning, sweat trickled from her bobbed black hair down the line of her jaw, and her shirt was stained with a triangle of sweat too. Her glasses kept slipping down her nose. Katie lit a cigarette. She always smoked after the two of them jogged, which Amy hated.

Cars came and went on the circular drive around the perimeter of the campus. The school was perched on a bluff a few miles outside downtown Green Bay. The city was gray and industrial, haunted by hard-scrabble, beer-drinking cheeseheads who worshiped at the shrine of Lambeau Field, but the university itself was an enclave of green athletic fields and brick academic buildings ringed by the lushly wooded nature preserve.

The two girls stretched out their legs and relaxed. A bright red cardinal flicked among the bare branches of the trees and sang to them.

'You still going to Gary Jensen's house tonight?' Katie asked.

'Yeah.'

'You want me to go with you?' 'No, I'll be OK.'

'I'm still not sure what you think you're going to accomplish.'

'I just want to see how he reacts,' Amy said.

'What, you're going to blurt out, "Hey, Gary, did you strangle that girl on the beach in Florida?'"

'No, don't be stupid. I want to drop some hints and see what he says. I'll know if he's lying.'

Katie shook her head. 'Some liars are pretty good at it, Ames.'

'We'll see.'

Her roommate shivered as the cold air began to overtake the warmth of the run. 'I did a little poking around on my own.'

'About Gary?'

Katie nodded. 'I had coffee with a secretary in the PhyEd department. I said it was for a follow-up story on the dance competition in Florida, but we did a little gossiping, too. Mainly about Gary's wife.'

'What did she tell you?'

'Well, the rumor is he was having an affair. Hot and heavy.'

'You mean before his wife died?'

'Yep.'

'Who was the other woman?'

Katie shrugged. 'Don't know. It may not even be true.'

'I can't believe no one told the police.'

'People aren't going to call the cops about hunches and suspicions. That's all you've got, you know. I haven't found anything to link Gary to Glory Fischer. You saw him with a girl who may have been Glory, but maybe not.'

'I heard him coming back to his room late, too.'

'Are you sure? My room was a couple doors down, and I didn't hear anything.'

'It was him,' Amy insisted. 'I heard his door open and close.'

'It doesn't prove anything.'

'I know.'

'Did you talk to your old coach about any of this? Hilary Bradley?'

'Not yet. I don't know if I have anything to tell her.'

Katie stood up and tugged her damp shirt away from her chest. She stubbed out her cigarette on the ground. 'Well, don't make an ass of yourself.'

'Yeah.'

'You coming back to the room?'

Amy shook her head. 'I'll do a couple more miles.'

'Jeez, you're extreme. I'll see you later tonight.' 'OK.'

Amy watched Katie head across East Circle Drive toward the dorms. She got up and stretched her legs, which had begun to tighten in the cold morning air, and then she followed the path back into the arboretum. The asphalt was slick, and she walked rather than risk twisting an ankle. Fifty yards later, she came to a T-junction where the path ended at a soft trail made of bark, moss, and dead leaves. The trees grew over her head, and the trail was dim and narrow, as if she were disappearing into a train tunnel. Where the trail curved, she couldn't see round the next bend.

She took a few tentative steps, but she stopped with a strange sense of discomfort. The down on the back of her neck stood up, as if the little hairs were iron filings drawn by a magnet. She felt eyes following her from somewhere in the forest.

'Hello?' she called.

Amy turned round slowly. She was alone, but the trees were big and wide enough here to hide someone. Those were crazy-making thoughts; she was letting herself get paranoid. She inhaled, smelling nothing but mold and the dewish sweat of her body. She didn't hear anything. '

She waited. Everything was still. There's nobody, she told herself.

Amy shook off her fears and jogged. She got into a rhythm as she ran, enough to crowd out other thoughts. Running was pure escape for her, in which she was conscious of nothing but the noise of her breathing and the vibrations as her feet hit the ground. She made two loops round the east section of the arboretum, following the border of the escarpment. It added almost two miles to her route, and when she finished the circle for the second time, she slowed to a walk as she cooled down. Her face was flushed. Her blond curls were frizzed.

She wasn't far from the trail that led back to the perimeter road when she felt it again. Eyes. Like a voyeur watching her.

She was sure she wasn't alone.

'Who's there?'

Behind her, a male voice growled the way a bear would, and Amy spun with a choked scream. Twenty yards away, a student she knew from one of her psychology classes giggled as she fended off animal kisses from a bearded, long-haired boy. They broke apart as they saw Amy and heard her squeal. They were innocent. They were nobody. Amy wanted to laugh in relief, but she was breathing too hard.

'You OK, Amy?' the girl called.

'Oh, yeah, fine. You startled me.'

'Sorry.'

Amy smiled at them, the couple out for a kissy stroll. She wished she had a boyfriend of her own for that kind of hike. It made her think she should find someone to ask out on a date, but there never seemed to be time with classes, work, and dance. She knew that was a crock, though. She just didn't want all the hassles of a relationship.

She left the two of them alone. At the junction, she turned back toward the campus road. It was time to get back to her dorm room. She needed a shower, and she had a class in less than an hour.

Kinesics. Learning to read body language.

Amy was almost at the bench where she'd sat with Katie when she heard a car engine on the shoulder of the road. She emerged from the trees in time to see a Honda Civic hatchback make a fast U-turn off the grass and head toward the Bay Settlement entrance to the campus.

She only caught a glimpse of the side of the driver's face, but she recognized him. It was Gary Jensen. He'd been in the woods with her.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Mark Bradley painted on the bone-white rocks jutting out into Lake Michigan. He'd been standing in front of his canvas for an hour, and his fingers were numb and raw. It was late morning on Thursday under a cold, weak sun. The wind off the lake drowned out every sound except the screech of gulls, which flocked near the beach and dove into the water for fish. When he looked at the sky between brushstrokes, he saw the rusting white tower of the Cana Island lighthouse poking above the tops of the dormant trees.

He didn't mind that Cana was the most over-photographed, over-painted landmark in Door County. What he created never looked much like the original subject. His work was dark, with swirls of primary colors and blurry images of angels against black skies. He wasn't a religious man, unlike Hilary, and he didn't know why his brain told him to paint angels. Even so, he didn't question it.

His family and friends had never understood his art. He was an athlete, and that meant his interests should have ground to a halt at the last page of the daily sports section. One of the qualities that drew him to Hilary was that she didn't put him in a box or maintain a preconceived notion of who he was. She'd never believed he could be one thing and not another.

Mark turned his head, and his neck stabbed with pain. His left shoulder was tender where the seat belt had locked against his torso in the accident. The doctor at the island's medical clinic had suggested that he and Hilary take a day off to recover, but with no serious injuries, they'd both declined. Mark had replaced the tires on his Explorer and taken the two of them across the passage on a mid-morning ferry. Their friend Terri Duecker had offered to lend them a car.

Hilary drove to school in Terri's Taurus. Mark drove to Cana.

He realized he was hungry. He'd packed a lunch in his backpack. He covered up his canvas and carried his materials up the beach to the open lawn surrounding the lighthouse. It was immediately much quieter and warmer in the sun. He sat on a red picnic bench on the far side of the lawn, where he took out a turkey sandwich and a bag of grapes. He put up his canvas near the bench and studied his latest painting as he ate.

His sandwich was almost gone when a shadow fell across the brown grass from the trail that led to the causeway. He turned and saw a teenage girl watching him.

It was Tresa Fischer.

Mark tensed. 'Tresa, you shouldn't be here.'

'I know.'

The girl came closer anyway. The bench faced the lighthouse tower, and she sat down on the same side, inches away from him. She rubbed the red paint on the bench nervously with the pads of her fingers. She wore a loose-fitting purple sweatshirt over her skinny frame, and her wrists looked like matchsticks jutting out of the cuffs. Her shiny red hair covered most of her face in profile.

'No one's around,' she murmured. 'It's just us.'

Mark felt a cloud of mixed emotions. Part of him wanted to get up and leave. Part of him wanted to be angry, but he had no anger against this girl. They'd barely spoken a word to each other since the previous year, when Delia Fischer had forbidden her daughter from seeing him. The most he'd heard from Tresa was an apology by phone, and he'd told her what he felt — that she had no reason to apologize.

He really liked her. So did Hilary. She was a sweet, smart, sensitive, lonely girl. It was just complicated to realize that she'd done so much to destroy his life. She was still toxic to him, still a danger.

'I'm sorry, Tresa, I have to go,' he said.

She turned toward him urgently. Her blue eyes were frantic. She reached out her hands toward him and pulled them back. It was obvious that she was still in love with him, which made it even more important for him to walk away.

'Please. Don't go. I'm not going to cause any trouble for you.'

'What do you want?' he asked her.

Tresa stuttered. 'I don't know. I heard what happened last night. I'm so glad you guys are OK. It made me feel like — I mean, I just needed to see you, you know? With everything going on.'

'I know.'

'I told the police in Florida they were wrong. I said you could never, ever hurt Glory. Not you.'

'Thanks.'

'I'm not sure they believed me. It's like last year. No one believes me.'

'It doesn't matter.'

'You must really hate me,' Tresa said.

'I don't hate you. You shouldn't ever think that, because it's not true.' His instinct was to reach out and touch her, but he didn't. He added, 'How are you? This must be a terrible time. I'm sorry.'

'Yeah, Mom's a wreck. Me, I don't know. Sometimes I cry, and sometimes I get pissed off at Glory.' She ducked her head and changed the subject, as if she couldn't bear to talk about her sister. 'I like coming out to the lighthouse. It's cool when there's nobody around.'

'Me, too.'

'Do you ever wonder what it was like?' Tresa pointed at the home attached to the lighthouse tower. 'The keeper and his wife and their kids all alone out here. I think I would have liked it.'

'It was a hard life.'

'Yeah, but you always said alone could be a good thing.'

'Sometimes, sure.'

'It would have been romantic. Sort of like you and Hilary on the island.'

She was still an idealistic teenager, and Mark liked that about Tresa. He didn't want to tell her the truth. Reality had a way of eroding romance day by day, and if you wanted to keep it, you had to cling to it with your fingernails and put on blinders to the tragedy of life.

'I really need to go,' he said.

Tresa reached out and covered his hand. Her skin was warm. 'Please, not yet.'

He gently took his hand away. 'Tresa.'

'I know.' She twisted strands of her red hair between her fingers and pulled them through her lips. She pointed at his painting. 'I like that one.'

'Thanks.'

'One of the angels, the one near the tower, she looks really, really sad.'

'I think you're right,' he said.

'I wish I could paint like that.'

'You're a writer. I wish I could write like you.'

Her face brightened. 'Really?'

'Yes. You're very talented. You have a great future.'

'Wow. That's really nice.' She stared at the bench and murmured, 'But those things I wrote about us.'

'Let's not talk about it.'

Tresa nodded and didn't look at him. 'Can I ask you something?'

'Sure.'

'You never slept with Glory, did you?'

Mark recoiled. 'No.'

'Good,' she said, looking satisfied. 'I didn't think you would, but I know how she could be. Glory had a way of getting what she wanted. She read my diary, and I thought she'd want you just because I wanted you. I'm glad you didn't.'

He wanted to steer her far away from the subject of her diary. The explicit descriptions were still vivid, erotic, and horrifying in his mind. 'Why did you never tell me about the fire?' he asked.

Tresa cringed. 'The fire? I don't know. I wanted to forget it. We all acted as if it never happened.'

'You can't forget things like that.'

'You can try,' Tresa said. 'Sometimes you just have to put on blinders, you know? Everybody lost things that day, but nobody ever cared what I lost. I know that sounds selfish.'

'What did you lose?' Mark asked.

'You name it. Glory was never the same. Mom kept trying to rescue her, so she forgot about me. Mr Hoffman shipped Jen out to live with his daughter in Minneapolis, so I lost my best friend. I never really had anybody again. Not until you and Hilary showed up here. Then I went and screwed that up too.' Tresa blinked and wiped tears away from her eyes.

'I'm sorry.'

'It's not your fault.'

'It must have been a bad night,' he said.

'Oh, yeah. We didn't know Glory was there until Sheriff Reich came and told us. Mom freaked. Glory was just — well, in the hospital, she was all confused, thinking it was our house that had burned down, wanting to make sure we were all OK. She blocked it out, but my mom never forgot.'

'And your friend Jen lost her family.'

Tresa looked away, as if the pain was fresh. 'Yeah.'

'Did she hate her father?'

'Jen? I think it was harder to lose Mr Bone the way she did. She loved him. I know that sounds crazy, but the boys sided with their mom, and she always sided with her dad.'

'Except if she'd been home, she would have been killed too,' Mark reminded her.

'No, Mr Bone would never hurt Jen,' Tresa insisted. 'He knew she was staying with us that night. He talked to my mom.'

'Harris talked to Delia?' Mark asked.

'Yes, he was over at our place all the time. I think he wanted to get away from home. You don't know what that family was like. You don't know how bad it was in their house.'

'It sounds like you knew him pretty well,' Mark said.

'Yeah, I guess.'

'Did Glory?'

'Sure.'

Mark hesitated. 'Do you think she'd know Harris if she saw him today?'

Tresa cocked her head in confusion. 'What are you saying?' Then she almost leaped across the bench, taking Mark's shoulders. He winced at the pressure. 'Oh, my God, do you think he could have been there?'

Mark watched her hopeful blue eyes. It was as if she was looking for an answer, an explanation, anything to replace the doubt in her brain. He understood. Even Tresa wondered if he'd killed her sister. No matter how much she loved him, or how much she defended him, her heart of hearts told her that he was guilty.

'What would Glory have done if she'd seen him?' he asked.

Tresa bit her lip. 'I'm not sure. Wow, I don't know.'

'Did you see anyone in Florida who might have been Harris Bone?'

'No, no, I would have said something. I hung out by myself a lot. I'm not sure I would have seen anybody at all.' 'OK.'

'I'm going to tell my mom. She's got it in her head that it was you, but you're right. Maybe it was Harris. Maybe he was there.'

'Don't tell Delia you saw me,' Mark advised her. 'That won't help either one of us.'

The girl nodded. 'I understand.'

'You should go, Tresa.'

'Yeah. OK.'

As if swept up by an impulse she couldn't resist, Tresa wrapped her skinny arms around Mark's chest. Her cheek and red hair rested against his face, and her body pressed against him. She held him there longer than she should have, and he had to push her away. Her face glowed with passion.

'I can still taste your lips,' she whispered to him. 'Even after all this time.'

Chapter Twenty-Five

At the end of the school day, Hilary drove north along County Road 42 in the Ford Taurus she'd borrowed from Terri Duecker. She'd popped Advil like candy, but her body still ached. All she wanted to do was take the ferry back to the island and slip into a hot bubble bath and stay there for about three hours.

As she neared the Northport ferry terminal, she remembered that she needed to make one stop before going home. She checked her watch and saw that she still had one more chance to cross the passage that evening if she missed the next ferry. She turned off the highway and backtracked along Port des Morts Drive. At the end of the road, in a turnaround protected by giant evergreens, she parked outside the home of Peter Hoffman.

Hilary wasn't sure if he would talk to her. She knew the rumors about Mark and Glory had made their way through the county grapevine, and Hoffman was close to Delia Fischer. Then again, if there was anyone who had reason to hate Harris Bone and want to see him found, it was the father and grandfather of the people Harris had killed.

She got out of the Taurus and made her way down the muddy driveway. As she approached Hoffman's A-frame home, she saw an older man at work on the wide front porch. She smelled freshly cut wood, and she heard the banging of his hammer. He was on his knees, and he looked up when she reached the steps. He appeared to be nearly seventy years old, although his hair was jet black and appeared even blacker against his pale, deeply lined face. He got up slowly, favoring one leg. He wore a flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up and black cargo pants with years of paint stains on the fabric. His eyes were suspicious.

'Mr Hoffman?' she asked. 'My name is—'

'I know who you are,' he interrupted her. 'What do you want, Mrs Bradley?'

'I'd like to talk to you.'

Hoffman's face tightened with discomfort. He sucked in a breath and straightened his back. He was a tall man. 'About Harris and the fire?'

'That's right.'

'There's nothing I can tell you,' he said.

'That may be true, but I'd really appreciate five minutes.'

Hoffman grunted and laid his hammer on the ledge of the front window. He grabbed a bottle of whiskey from the top of his toolbox and eased himself down on the front steps. Hilary sat down next to him. He unscrewed the top of the flask, and without offering her a drink, he took a long swallow. She could tell from the aroma of whiskey on his breath that he'd already been drinking before she arrived.

'I don't talk about the fire,' he said. 'You're wasting your time.'

'I understand.'

'I heard what happened to you, and I'm sorry about that, but that doesn't mean I'm going to help you.'

Hilary pulled aside the silk flap of her blouse far enough to show Hoffman the edge of the purple bruise discoloring her chest. 'This is from the accident last night. There are people around here who want to give me and my husband the death penalty, Mr Hoffman, even though Mark is guilty of nothing.'

'You believe that, do you?'

'I do.'

Hoffman took another drink. 'Trust is bullshit.'

'I know why you feel that way,' Hilary said.

'You don't know a thing.'

Hilary let her eyes drift around the huge, forested plot of land. The neat square of lawn and the carefully kept house felt like a tiny zone of order beating back chaos. 'Look, Mr Hoffman, I don't mean to bring up awful memories for you. All I want you to do is consider the possibility that my husband didn't kill Glory Fischer. You don't have to believe it the way I do. You don't even have to believe that

Harris Bone was there. But if he was, if Glory saw him, we both know he'd have every incentive to kill her to protect his secret.'

Hoffman squeezed his knees tightly with his hands. 'You're getting me angry, Mrs Bradley.'

'I'm sorry, that's not my intention.'

'I know exactly what your intention is. You're trying to exploit the tragedy that destroyed my family in order to protect your husband, who is most likely a murderer. I won't let you do that.'

Hilary recoiled. 'I don't want to exploit your grief.'

'Don't treat me like an idiot. You don't care about Harris Bone. You don't want to find him. You want him to be a mystery man, so your husband's lawyer can do a dance with a jury and get him off. Don't expect me to be a party to it. I don't need the hope of catching this man dangled in front of my face. You want the truth, Mrs Bradley? The last person I want to see again is Harris Bone. No one here wants to relive what happened six years ago.'

'So he goes free?' Hilary asked.

'I believe in God. Harris Bone will never be free. Not in this lifetime, not in the afterlife. I won't let you compound his crimes by using him to help your husband escape punishment for what he did.'

'Mark didn't kill Glory.'

Hoffman rubbed his jaw with his clenched left fist. He still wore a wedding ring on his finger. When he spoke, his voice was choked with emotion.

'Let me explain something to you,' he told her quietly. 'Relationships run deep in this part of the world. We have roots. I don't know if someone from the city can understand that. The people who grew up here, they look after one another. If it weren't for a good woman like Delia Fischer, the only grandchild I have left would have died in that fire. To me, Delia is an angel. So when she loses her baby girl, it hurts me as much as if Glory were my own daughter. Believe me, I'm not going to let Delia suffer in vain. I'm going to make sure she gets justice.'

'Why are you so quick to believe my husband did this?' Hilary asked in frustration.

'The better question is, why do you believe he's innocent?'

She shook her head and stood up. It had been a mistake to come here. 'Goodbye, Mr Hoffman. I'm sorry to have troubled you.'

'There are no secrets around here,' he called as she retreated down the driveway. 'Felix Reich and I go back for decades. He already told me.'

Hilary stopped. 'Told you what?'

'That detective from Florida, he has a witness. He knows your husband was out on the beach with Glory Fischer.'

'Whether he was or wasn't doesn't mean a thing,' she said.

'They were kissing, Mrs Bradley.'

The words hit her like bullets. 'That's a lie.'

'Call the sheriff if you like.' He added, 'I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this, but you can't live in the dark forever.'

Hilary stalked away from the man without saying another word. She didn't want him to see her face. As she retraced her steps, she kept putting her feet wrong, because she had trouble seeing through the tears that clouded her eyes. Her breathing was fast and loud. She got back inside the Taurus, and her fingers trembled as she clung to the steering wheel. Her faith suddenly felt fragile. She thought she would lose it entirely, like a rock skittering off a cliff.

Instead, she thought about her husband. She knew the kind of man he was. Whatever was going on, whatever this person saw, there was another explanation. He didn't touch her. He didn't kill her. Not Mark.

Even so, something new and unwelcome attached itself to her brain and began feeding like a parasite as she drove for the ferry.

Doubt.

Tresa sat by herself at the end of a dead-end road near Kangaroo Lake. She wasn't ready to go home yet. Her heart was still full of Mark Bradley. She hadn't been so close to him in almost a year, and she wanted to remember his face, the feel of his body, and the sound of his voice while it was all vivid to her. The time away at school in River Falls had done nothing to change how she felt. She loved him.

She wanted to save him.

Tresa held her phone in her cold hand. As the sun sank lower, shadows lengthened on the water. She hesitated about dialing, because she hadn't called in almost two years. That was how life worked. People drifted apart. For all she knew, the number had changed like everything else about her friend.

She dialed it anyway. She listened to the ringing and felt oddly anxious, as if she would be calling a stranger. She thought about hanging up, but then she heard the voice on the other end. It hadn't changed. She felt sad and ashamed. All the old guilt flooded over her. She didn't even know if she could speak.

'Hi,' she said finally.

There was a long silence as she waited for Jen Bone to sift through her memory and unearth a face and a name from her long-ago past. 'Tresa?'

'Yeah, it's me.'

'Oh, my God. How are you?' 'OK.'

it's been forever.'

'I know. I'm sorry. I didn't want to bother you. You know, new life and all. I wasn't sure you even wanted to remember me. I mean, because of everything.'

'Yeah.'

'I ask Mr Hoffman about you all the time,' Tresa said. 'He keeps me posted on what you're doing, sends me the school newspaper sometimes, that kind of thing.'

'I ask him about you, too.'

'Oh, yeah? OK.'

'Listen, I heard about Glory on the news,' Jen said. 'The girls at school were talking about it. I'm really sorry.'

'Thanks.'

'Your mom must be a wreck.'

'Yeah, she is.'

'Are you back at River Falls?'

'No, I'm taking the term off. Mom needs me here.'

'That's good.'

Tresa wondered how to say it. How do you say to a girl who was once your best friend: If anyone knows where your father is, you do. She struggled in silence, until it was awkward between them.

'The papers said the police have a suspect,' Jen continued, when Tresa said nothing, it sounded like you had some kind of relationship with him. Is that true?'

'He didn't do it.'

Tresa heard the hesitation on the line. 'Sure, OK. Whatever you say.' 'It's true.'

'I believe you.' She added, 'What do you want, Tresa? Why are you calling me?'

Tresa began, but she stumbled over her words. 'It's about Glory.'

'What about her?'

'Actually, I guess it's not really about her. Listen, I have to know.'

'What?'

Tresa swallowed hard. 'Have you heard from your father?'

'My father? Are you kidding? Why?'

'I just wondered.'

'No, of course not. He wouldn't contact me. Oh, Jeez, you think he did this, don't you? That's what this is about.'

'Well, I mean, him being missing and all. The police are still looking for him. I thought if Glory saw him in Florida—'

'That's crazy, Tresa.'

'Is it? I don't know.'

'He wouldn't do this.'

'How do you know?'

She could hear her friend breathing and feel her indecision. Even after all these years, they still had a connection. They'd been as close as sisters. 'Look, Tresa, can you keep a secret?'

'You know I can. How can you say that to me?'

'Swear it.'

'I do, I do.'

'Then listen. My father didn't do this. So don't go spreading rumors like he did, OK? Stop it. I mean, maybe you're trying to help your boyfriend, but I don't need this all thrown in my face again. I've spent too much time getting past it. I'm a different girl now.'

'Yeah, but you don't know, do you? I mean, it's possible.'

'It's not. Really. The thing is, I know where my father is. He called me last year. He's living in Mexico. He's safe, and I'm safe. I don't want this thing splashed all over the news again and have someone turn him in. You know? So for me, Tresa, please, let it go. My father didn't kill Glory.'

Chapter Twenty-Six

The bar owned by Troy Geier's father sat at a deserted intersection on County Road T, miles from any of the coastal towns. The low white building needed a fresh coat of paint, as did the two-story farmhouse behind it. Cab parked in the dirt of the highway shoulder and headed for the front of the bar. As he did, he spotted a teenage boy hauling two bulging trash bags through the side door. Troy Geier hiked to the rear of the building, breathing loudly, and Cab followed. He heard the clang of metal as the boy threw the bags into a dumpster, and as Troy barreled back around the corner, he nearly collided with Cab and stopped in surprise.

'Hello, Troy.'

Troy adopted a who-cares attitude, but Cab knew it was fake. 'I heard you were in town,' the boy said.

'Got a minute?'

'Yeah, I guess, but my dad will get pissed if I'm too long.'

'It won't be long.'

Cab wandered into the middle of the empty road with his hands in the pockets of his dress pants. His tie blew over his shoulder. Troy trailed behind him, his feet shuffling. Cracks ran through the asphalt in the county road. There were no cars in any direction.

Troy smelled of frying grease and stale beer. He wore a Woody the Woodpecker T-shirt and blue jeans, and his hands were dirty. His bulging cheeks looked like a squirrel eating nuts.

'What do you do at the bar?' Cab asked.

'Whatever my dad tells me to do.'

Cab nodded. Troy's wavy hair was flat where he'd been wearing a hat, but Cab figured it could have been the giant thumbprint of Troy's dad squashing his boy. Whether it was his father, or Glory, Troy did as he was told.

'I heard you got a witness who can help you nail Mark Bradley,' Troy told him.

'Who told you that?'

'Mrs Fischer talked to the sheriff.'

'Well, we've still got a lot of work to do,' Cab said. 'In the meantime, I need to clear up a few things with you, Troy.'

'Like what?'

'Like the argument you had with Glory on Saturday night.'

Troy moved his jaw as if he was chewing gum. 'I already told you, it was stupid. I wanted Glory to come back to the room with me, and she wouldn't go. So I left.'

'I heard it was more than that,' Cab said.

'What do you mean?'

'I heard Glory was coming on to other boys in the pool.'

'It wasn't like that.'

'No?'

'No, Glory was playing games. She wasn't serious.'

'If my girlfriend was grabbing cocks under the water, I think I'd be pretty mad,' Cab said.

Troy's face reddened. 'She didn't do that!'

'We talked to a girl who said you were so mad you were ready to go off like a bomb.'

'I was just — that's not what happened. I told you, Glory had been acting weird all day. I was frustrated. It was our last day, and she was ruining it.'

'So you left her at the pool with the boys.'

'She wasn't doing anything crazy. She was just being Glory. I was mad at first, but I calmed down.'

'Did you go straight back to the hotel room?'

Troy nodded. 'I watched a movie. I already told you that.'

'Then what happened?'

'I fell asleep. That's it. I got up when Tresa woke me in the morning and said Glory wasn't in the room.'

'What did you think?' Cab asked. 'Did you think she was with another boy? Did you think she'd spent the night with someone?'

'No!'

'Are you sure you didn't wake up overnight and realize Glory was gone?'

Troy shook his head fiercely. 'I didn't.'

'Would you have gone to look for her?'

'I don't know. Maybe. I don't know. That's not what happened.'

'What if you saw her on the beach with Mark Bradley? That would have made you mad, wouldn't it? Particularly if you saw them kissing.'

Troy crumpled the collar of his T-shirt in his fist. 'Glory wouldn't let him touch her.'

'But what if she did? What if you saw her?'

'I didn't! You're trying to make it out like I killed her, and I would never hurt her, never.'

'I hear you, Troy. I do. You can help us prove it.'

'How?'

'Someone from the sheriff's office is going to pay you a little visit and stick a cotton swab in your mouth.'

'What? Why?'

'To get a DNA sample to match against Glory's fingernails. We think she scratched the person who killed her.'

Troy's eyes widened. 'Yeah, but she was my girlfriend. I don't know, what if she scratched me accidentally that day?'

'Did she?'

'I don't think so, but I don't know. I don't remember.'

'Give us a sample. We'll check it and see.'

He hesitated. 'Yeah, I guess. But it doesn't mean—'

'Troy!'

Cab heard a shrill voice from the side door of the bar, which hung open. Delia Fischer stood in the doorway with her hands on her hips. Her face was worn, with suspicion etched in her bloodshot eyes. She shouted again. 'Troy, your dad wants to know where the hell you are.'

'I have to go,' Troy said.

'Sure.'

Troy looked relieved to have an escape. He jogged for the bar and squeezed past Delia, who stepped outside and closed the door behind her. She waited for Cab. Her bottle-blond hair hung limply at her shoulders. She wore a roomy polo shirt with the bar's logo on her breast and an apron tied round black jeans. She looked like a woman who had shrunk over the years and was growing smaller.

'How are you, Mrs Fischer?' Cab asked.

'How do you think I am?'

'I'm sorry, I know how hard this must be.'

'What do you want, Detective? What are you doing here?'

'I'm doing everything I can to find out what happened to Glory,' he told her.

Delia's hands were damp, and she dried them on the apron. 'Why were you talking to Troy?'

'I just had some more questions for him.'

'What kind of questions?'

Cab shrugged. 'It's routine.'

'The person you should be talking to is Mark Bradley,' she snapped.

'Mr Bradley isn't talking.' He added, 'It looks like people around here are trying to take matters into their own hands. Someone tried to kill him and his wife.'

'Am I supposed to feel bad about that?'

'If something happens to Mr Bradley, we'll probably never know the truth about Glory's death.'

'People will do what they do. I don't care. That's the sheriff's problem, not mine.'

Delia wore her bitterness like a shroud around her tense shoulders. He knew there was nothing he could do to change how she felt. Her mind was made up. She'd settled on one explanation for her grief, and that explanation was Mark Bradley. He'd become the symbol of every wrong turn in her life.

'Do you work here?' he asked, nodding his head at the bar.

'Yes.'

'You wait tables?'

'That's right. I wait tables, and at home I sell metal jewelry. I scrape by.' She eyed Cab's expensive suit with disdain. 'I guess you don't know what that's like.'

'You're right, I haven't lived that kind of life, but I respect it.'

'I don't need your respect or your pity. Some Door County natives, they do pretty damn well. They bought up land decades ago when it was cheap. My parents weren't able to do that. I was just lucky that they paid off the mortgage on their house, so I have somewhere to live. Then I lost my husband, and he didn't have any life insurance, so it was just me and the girls. Now it's just me and Tresa.'

'How's Tresa holding up?' he asked her.

'Why? Do you want to interrogate her, too? Do you think she killed her own sister?'

'I just wanted to make sure she's OK.'

'That's my business, Detective, not yours. I wish you'd do your job. Instead, you seem to be looking at everyone except the man we both know is guilty. You're badgering Troy, who wouldn't lift a finger against Glory. You're even chasing ghosts.'

'You mean Harris Bone?'

'Yes.'

'I have no reason to think Harris Bone has anything to do with this case, but I can't ignore the possibility.'

Delia shook her head. 'Listen to yourself. You're doing exactly what Mark Bradley and his wife want you to do. You're playing their game. If Harris was in Florida, someone would have recognized him.'

'Maybe someone did,' Cab said gently.

'You mean Glory? If she saw him, she would have called the police. Or she would have called me.'

Cab cocked his head with curiosity. 'She didn't call you, did she?'

'No.'

'But you knew Harris Bone pretty well, right?'

'Of course.'

'I'm a little surprised that you stayed friends with him after the car accident that killed your husband.'

Delia's mouth tightened, and her lips turned white. 'Harris wasn't to blame for what happened any more than the rest of us. We were stupid. It was a tragedy.'

'Were you surprised by what he did to his family?'

'I was sickened. Wherever Harris is, I hope he sees the faces of his family every time he tries to sleep. I hope he sees Glory's face, too. But that doesn't mean I believe he was in Florida.'

'I understand how you feel,' Cab told her. 'Mark Bradley is the prime suspect, but he's not the only suspect, and if I disregarded other theories of the crime, I'd make it easier for him to get an acquittal at trial. I don't want that to happen.'

Delia pressed the heels of her palms against her forehead, as if she was fighting a migraine that throbbed inside her skull. 'I know how it works, Detective. He'll walk away. The people from the city, the ones with money, they hire lawyers, and they get off.'

'Not if I can help it,' Cab said.

'I've heard it before, Detective,' Delia told him wearily, 'so don't waste your breath trying to convince me it will be different this time. I'm not waiting around for justice. The police don't do anything. The prosecutors don't do anything. The guilty walk free.'

She turned and went back inside the bar and slammed the door.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Peter Hoffman parked at the end of Juice Mill Lane, where a rusting metal gate stretched across the old road that led into the forest. He was on the border of Newport State Park, which sprawled across the eastern edge of the NorDoor and jutted into Lake Michigan like the profile of a monster's chin. He still owned several acres of undeveloped land here that had been passed down from his grandparents to his parents over the course of half a century. He rarely visited now. Coming here carried too many memories of time and people passing away.

He was drunk. He knew he shouldn't have been driving, but no one was around to stop him, and the vacant land was only a few miles south on Timberline Road from his own home on the northern coast. He got out of his car. Around him, he saw nothing but winter fields and the tangle of forest behind the gated road. The sun was almost down. The world was getting darker minute by minute.

Hoffman took his half-empty bottle with him. He squeezed past the gate with its No Trespassing sign and limped down the old logger's road. A ridge of dormant grass made a racing stripe between the tire ruts, but no vehicle had traveled this road in years. There were Private Property signs posted on tree trunks every twenty yards or so. He'd nailed them there himself. He didn't want hikers in the park drifting on to his land and getting curious.

When he reached the trail that led to his grandfather's hunting cabin, he tried to remember when he'd last been here. Three years, at least. The shack was hidden behind an army of hardwood trunks that were green with moss. He'd spent countless nights and early mornings inside, before the walls had rotted and the roof had caved in during a snowy winter. He'd tasted his first beer there. He'd listened to his grandfather rail against Kennedy. He'd smelled the blood of animals they'd killed. He'd toasted dead friends with Felix in the years since the war.

He'd taken Harris and the boys here once for a man's night in the woods. That had been more than a decade ago. He remembered how content he had been with his life then, surrounded by family, with a wife he loved at home, in a beautiful part of the world, where he had history and friends.

It was all gone now.

He stared at the ruins of the cabin in front of him, and it felt like the ruins of his life. The wilderness was reclaiming it year by year. The windows had long ago been punched out by vandals. Its wooden beams were warped and popped, and the frame, which his grandfather had built by hand, would collapse altogether in another season or two. He didn't plan to be around to see its final demise. It was already a haunted place, and he was ready to become one of the ghosts.

Hoffman uncapped the bottle and drank, not noticing the burn in his throat. He had trouble standing. The cold and wind swirled around his body and picked at his skin. Darkness grew deeper, making the forest a nest of shadows and hiding places. He smelled the wood decaying. As he stood in the clearing, memories stormed his brain. There were good ones and terrible ones.

It would have been easy to kill himself right here. Death had no fear or mystery for him. He'd considered bringing a-shotgun and carrying it down inside the musty storm cellar and using his toe to reach the trigger. Eventually, someone would have stumbled upon the ladder in the ground and found him. Eventually, they would all know what had happened.

That was the coward's way. Hoffman had never been a coward. He owed a debt to Delia Fischer and to Glory, and he couldn't run away from it. It was time to face the truth.

The bottle slipped from his numb fingers and landed in the soft ground without breaking, but he didn't pick it up. The amber liquid ran out like a river on to the dirt-covered lid of the storm cellar. He turned, leaving the cabin and all its memories behind. His boots left dents in the earth. He felt at peace for the first time in a long time.

He thought that he would be able to sleep tonight, which was something that usually eluded him.

He hiked back along the rutted road until he could see the metal gate at the dead end fifty yards away. The last flicker of daylight made the hole in the woods bright against the gloomy interior of the forest. Sunlight gleamed against something. A mirror. A window. A pair of binoculars.

Hoffman heard the engine of a vehicle. He didn't see it, but he heard it. It was loud but got quieter as it disappeared down Juice Mill Lane with a roar of thunder on the gravel. When he reached the gate, where his own car was parked, he saw nothing but a trail of dust billowing out of the dirt road. The car had come and gone in the time he'd been inside the woods.

Someone had been watching him. Following him.

It didn't matter. He didn't care about the consequences for himself or anyone else. He knew what he had to do.

It had happened when Delia was sixteen. The same age as Glory.

The boy's name was Palmer Ford. That was the kind of name your parents gave you when money was your birthright, when every school you would attend in your life was private and privileged. He was from Kenilworth, one of those rich Chicago enclaves with the gilded estates and the lakeside lots. He was the same age as Delia. That summer, his parents rented a house on Mansion Row in Fish Creek for the last two weeks of July. Palmer had his own car; he was on his own while his parents shopped for art and antiques.

He did what rich boys do in places like Door County. He went to the local kids to buy drugs. Delia met him at a Friday night party on Clark Lake, where stoned teenagers lashed fishing boats together and lay on their backs and watched the stars. Delia and Palmer wound up next to each other, mixing beer and pot and dangling their feet in the cool water. They talked. They laughed. They kissed.

He was tall and handsome, with tight black curly hair, a hooked nose, and a muscular physique. An athlete. He played high school football, and college scouts were already jotting down his name in their rosters. He dressed well, in Izod shirts, khakis, and boat shoes without socks. He threw money around. It was impossible not to like someone who always picked up the check for everyone else. That was what fibs did; they floated in and out of town, skimming the cream, making friends with kids who wouldn't fit in back home.

After that first night, Palmer and Delia spent every evening together. They played miniature golf. They got ice cream. They kissed more, and she let him inside her blouse, where he rubbed her nipples with chapped hands. Delia wasn't a virgin. She'd done it before with a couple boys, one a year since she was fourteen. Later, the lawyers made it out like she was a slut who threw it around, but that was a lie. Most of her friends went from boy to boy all summer. Not Delia.

Palmer was a gentleman. That was what she thought. He didn't push her; he stopped when she told him to stop, even though she could feel his erection through his pants like steel against her thigh. On the last night, the night before he would leave her forever and go back to Chicago — which was always how those relationships went — she figured she would give in. Spread her legs, give him his prize for all the money he'd spent on her. She didn't have any illusions that he loved her or that he'd invite her back to Mansion Row to meet his parents. She was summer candy. You unwrapped it, you ate it, and it was gone. That was OK. She didn't expect more.

Delia never got the chance to wait until the last night. Palmer ran out of patience with her. Four nights before the end of his vacation, he pulled on to a deserted side road as he was taking her home at one in the morning. He wasn't satisfied with feeling her breasts; he pushed up her T-shirt and exposed them. His fingers went for the buckle on her jeans, then the zipper. It should have felt right, but it was all wrong, and Delia found herself feeling terrified and claustrophobic as the weight of his athlete's body held her down. She told him to stop. He didn't.

Twenty-five years later, she could still close her eyes and feel it. The pressure of his chest, making it hard to breathe. His tight hands locked around her wrists, leaving bruises. Her head wedged sideways between the leather seat and the metal car door, her hair across her face. His panting in her ear. The pain, sweat, blood, saliva, and discharge.

The next day, in hushed tones, she'd told the police every detail about the rape. They'd arrested Palmer. Felix Reich, who was a deputy then, not the sheriff, had sworn to her and her mother that the boy would pay for what he'd done. He was young; he was wrong. Palmer didn't pay; his parents did. They bought a lawyer. They bought the politicians and the county attorney. Delia made it as far as the deposition, in which a middle-aged female attorney asked in a horrifying monotone about her sexual history, her period, her drug use, her grades in school, her preference in birth control devices, her experience in oral sex, and how often she masturbated. By the end of that ninety minutes, she felt as if she had been raped a second time. She had a panic attack leaving the attorney's office. She wound up in the hospital.

Palmer Ford was never charged. She never saw him again. Felix Reich came to their house and apologized to her personally, but she knew it wasn't his fault. You can't fight a system greased with money and power. Rich boys, spoiled athletes, can do what they want. She'd learned a lesson that would be proved again and again in her life.

There was no justice.

Delia thought about Palmer as she stood on the concrete pier that jutted into the rippling waters of Lake Michigan near Cave Point Park. He'd become an attorney, representing victims of sexual harassment in the workplace. That was rich. She wondered what his clients would think if they knew the truth.

She found herself crying. Not for herself, but for Glory. And for Tresa, too. All these years later, it was no different. There was still no justice.

Delia heard footsteps behind her. She turned and saw Troy Geier. She hadn't even heard him arrive in his 1980s-era Grand Am, which was parked next to her car in the huge open lot at the end of Schauer Road. She'd been too caught up in her own thoughts. He came and stood beside her, and she was annoyed by his presence. She'd never thought there was any substance to Troy. He was slow and naive, just as his father said. She'd never believed for a moment that Glory had any serious feelings for him.

They stood silently by the lake. The water was nearly black beyond the land. Close in, by the shore, she saw white seashells and slimy colonies of emerald-green algae. Waves slurped against the rubber tires fastened to the pier. Her eyes fell on the T-shaped boat ties dotting the concrete, which looked like tiny crosses. It made her think of a graveyard. Delia shivered and grew impatient.

'OK, I'm here, Troy,' she snapped. 'What do you want? Why did we have to meet out here?'

Troy glanced nervously behind him, making sure they were alone. 'I just didn't think anyone should see us talking.'

'Oh, for God's sake. We work in the same bar every damn day.'

'I know, but this is different.'

'I'm tired. I want to go home and have a drink, OK? Tell me what's so important.'

Troy shifted on his feet and adjusted himself in his jeans. She felt guilty about treating him badly, but everyone treated Troy badly. He just made you want to yell at him because he was such a pussy.

'I'm sorry, Troy,' she went on. 'I'm just mad at the world. I'm sorry about the things I said in Florida, too. What happened to Glory wasn't your fault.'

'No, you were right,' he said. 'I should have been there for her. I should have protected her.'

'Just tell me what you want, so we can both go home.'

'I've been thinking about things,' Troy murmured. 'Nothing's going right, you know? I don't like this detective. He's acting like I did this, which is nuts.'

'Cops treat everyone like they're guilty,' Delia said, it doesn't mean anything.'

'Yeah, but is he ever going to arrest Mark Bradley? Is that bastard going to pay for what he did?'

Delia thought about Palmer Ford. Harris Bone. People who never paid. 'I have no idea, Troy. There's a different set of rules for people like them and people like us.'

Troy punched his hand with a plump fist. 'Yeah, that's what I'm afraid of. I think he's going to get away with it.'

'I hope you're wrong, but there's nothing we can do but wait and pray,' Delia told him with a sigh. She felt frustrated. Helpless. 'Maybe this time God will come through.'

'There is something we can do,' Troy insisted.

'What?'

'We can take matters into our own hands.'

Delia turned from the lake and stared at the boy, whose round face had a childish violence about it that she'd never seen in him before. Her heart pounded. 'What do you mean by that?'

Troy's eyes darted around the vacant parking lot again. 'All we need is one night where he's alone on the island. I have a buddy who works on the ferry. He'll let me know if Bradley's wife leaves. I can sail over there and take care of it myself. I'd just need an alibi, someone to say I was with them that night.'

Delia thought of all the things she should say to him. You're crazy. This is wrong. Don't ever bring this up again. She knew she had to cut this off now before it went too far. Before everything got out of control. She had to stop this boy before he made a terrible mistake.

The truth was that she didn't want to stop him.

'When you say you'll take care of it,' Delia murmured, 'exactly what do you plan to do?'

Troy opened his jacket and showed her. 'I have a gun,' he said.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

The downtown street past the White Gull Inn in Fish Creek ended at a beach overlooking the waters of Green Bay. Cab bought a sandwich of brie, sprouts, and focaccia bread and found a bench where he could watch the sun set. He'd finally bought a gray wool overcoat that was intended to reach to his ankles, but only draped as low as his knees. He was warm for the first time since he'd arrived.

The beach was nothing like the beaches he knew in Florida or Spain, where sun gods lay topless on towels beside water that was still and clear. Instead of flat sand, the wind created a dune of peaks and valleys. Jagged driftwood littered the shore. The water tussled with itself, and waves landed in angry slaps. The disappearing sun looked impotent here, and when it was gone entirely, there was nothing left but a long stretch of melancholy gray.

He felt his phone buzz as a text arrived. When he flipped it open, he saw that his mother had written to him from London, where it was past midnight. His dark mood brightened, thinking of her.

Hello, darling. In a taxi, thought of you, ha ha. When will I see you? We're overdue. Love, T. P.S. Beautiful place you're in, but does anyone live there?

Tarla always had a way of reading his mind. It was disorienting to imagine himself on one corner of the planet, in this solitary place, and to picture his mother across the ocean in the urban lights and noise of London. She was right. He felt as if no one at all lived here. The loneliness was crushing, maybe because the empty land reflected what he was feeling inside. He'd always assumed that seclusion like this was what he wanted, but he had begun to realize that it wasn't healthy. It spread like a virus. He missed his mother in London. He missed Lala in Florida. He wasn't as much of an island as he'd always believed.

'Hello, Detective.'

Cab looked over his shoulder in surprise and saw someone who did live here. Someone who claimed to thrive on the isolation that he wanted to escape.

'Mrs Bradley,' he said. He checked his watch. 'Shouldn't you be back home by now?'

'I missed the last ferry,' she told him. 'I have a friend with a rental cottage near here. She lets me stay there.'

'How did you find me?'

'I saw you driving through town. Your Corvette is hard to miss. Everyone already knows who you are.'

'So it seems.'

'Welcome to life in a small town.'

'I heard about your accident on the island,' Cab told her.

'It wasn't an accident.'

'I understand. I'm glad to see you're OK.'

'I hurt like hell. I'm staying in bed tomorrow.'

'Good for you. Are you hungry? Would you like half of a vegetarian sandwich?'

'Do I look like I eat girly food?' Hilary asked. 'You should come back when Stillwater's opens for the season and get yourself the world's best cheeseburger.'

'I'll take your word for it.'

Hilary Bradley sat down next to him on top of the bench. She stared at the horizon, where the blue sky deepened into night. She took off her glasses and brushed a wisp of her blond hair from her eyes, a simple gesture that Cab found oddly erotic. He was uncomfortably aware that he found this woman attractive. He knew what Mark Bradley saw in her. Strength. Determination. Depth.

Even so, her face was troubled. Something was bothering her.

'Are you all right?' he asked.

She gave him a look that said: Why do you care?

'I'm fine,' she replied. 'Why do you ask?' 'I assume I would be about the last person on earth you'd want to talk to,' he said.

'Sometimes when you live out here, you just find yourself wanting to talk to someone, no matter who it is.'

'You have a gift for flattery.'

She realized what she'd said. 'Sorry.'

'Don't worry about it.'

Hilary looked as if she was grasping for something innocuous to say. He suspected that was because she didn't want to say whatever was really in her head. 'What do you use in your hair?' she asked.

He was amused, it's a molding gel. My mother sends it to me from London.'

'I like it.'

'Thank you.'

'You're not exactly a typical cop, are you?'

'Not exactly,' Cab acknowledged.

'Speaking of your mother,' Hilary said, 'I didn't realize at first who she was. It took me a while to put together the name. I don't think I've ever seen any of her movies. I go for chick flicks.'

Cab cocked an eyebrow. 'You?'

'No,' Hilary said, smiling. 'I already told you, I'm not the girly type.'

He was almost willing to believe she was flirting with him.

'It's an artificial life, isn't it?' she asked. 'Hollywood, I mean.'

'Very.'

'Is that why you're not in it?'

'Yes.'

'You don't like to talk about yourself, do you?'

'No.'

She nodded. 'Me neither. I apologize for that crack I made on the island. About a woman messing with you. It's none of my business.'

He wondered if she expected him to open up and admit the truth. You were right, he would say. Let me tell you about Vivian Frost. Instead, he didn't say anything at all. He felt it again, the old instinct to shut himself off from women. He wondered, as he had with Lala, if it was worth trying to get past it. If circumstances were different, Hilary Bradley was the kind of woman he would have enjoyed getting to know. But circumstances weren't different. Not for her. Not for him.

'Do you mind if I make a cop-like observation?' he asked her.

'Go ahead.'

'You don't strike me as a woman who misses a ferry.'

She looked uncomfortable. 'It happens all the time.'

'If you say so.'

He gave her a minute of silence. He knew she was tempted to get up and leave. Whatever was bothering her, it made her feel vulnerable, and she was obviously a woman who didn't enjoy that feeling.

'I didn't miss the ferry,' she admitted. 'I decided not to go home tonight.'

'I see.'

Her face was haunted, which only made it prettier. He disliked women who wanted you to take care of them, and that wasn't Hilary Bradley at all. She looked as if she could barely get the words out to admit what was in her head.

'Be honest with me,' she said. 'Do you really have a witness who saw Mark kissing Glory Fischer on the beach?'

Cab understood. The foundation on which she'd built her life suddenly felt weak. Normally, he wouldn't have said a thing about the evidence in the case, but he found himself unable to say nothing. He hedged his words.

'I haven't talked to the witness myself,' he said. 'I'm going to do that tomorrow. I can't tell you exactly what he saw or didn't see.'

'It was dark on the beach. It could still be a case of misidentification.'

'I can't say yes or no.'

'Things aren't always what they seem,' she said forcefully, and he thought she was talking to herself as much as she was talking to him.

'I realize that. For what it's worth, Mrs Bradley, I hope your husband is innocent. I'd like to think there are a few strong relationships left in this world.'

'I thought you only believed in betrayal, Detective.' Her voice was cold again.

'I do, but I'd like to be wrong now and then.'

Hilary got off the bench and squared her shoulders. 'You're wrong now.'

'Maybe so.'

'Here's what I believe,' Hilary told him. 'Your witness didn't see what he thinks he saw. Either it wasn't Mark, or he misinterpreted what was happening between them.'

'Forgive me, Mrs Bradley, but if you really believe that, why did you miss your ferry?'

'Fuck you,' she snapped, surprising him with her venom. She spun on her heel, then stopped in the middle of the clearing. 'I'm sorry. Mark would never kill anyone. That's not the kind of man he is.'

'He may not be, but that doesn't mean anything.'

'Would you kill an innocent girl?' she asked. 'Could you ever do something like that?'

I already did.

'An innocent girl? Of course not.'

'Then why do you think Mark could?'

She didn't wait for an answer, and he wasn't going to give her one. She retreated to her car and drove away toward downtown Fish Creek with an angry roar of her motor. He was alone again with the encroaching night and the violent water of Green Bay below him. He didn't like it, no matter how beautiful it was. It felt deadly. Catch-a- Cab Bolton was ready to be anywhere else but here.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Gary Jensen lived at a hilltop intersection where five roads came together at the end of the developed area of the city. Across from his corner house, the land gave way to grass fields and farmland. Amy pulled into Gary's driveway after dark under the thick cover of giant oaks and sugar maples crowding the house. She switched off the engine. The radio, which had been playing a moody song by Adele called 'Hometown Glory', went silent on the final notes.

She sat in her car and texted Katie. I'm here.

Amy got out of the car. Lights glowed on both stories of the brick house, but the curtains were tightly drawn. Tree branches dangled close enough to scrape the glass on most of the windows. She hiked along the grassy shoulder to the front of the house. A street light threw her shadow down the hill behind her on the road that led to the distant bay. Ahead of her, no more than half a mile away, she heard the whine of car motors on Highway 57, speeding to and from downtown Green Bay. She saw a patch of trees diagonally across from the house, marking Wequiock Falls County Park. She'd hiked there to see the waterfall in each of the seasons, not knowing that Gary lived within shouting distance of the trail.

Her phone jangled with music. Katie had texted back. Don't do anything stupid.

Amy wondered if she already had, just by being here. She threaded through the maze of fat tree trunks to the front door. When she rang the bell, Gary answered immediately. He'd been waiting for her.

'Amy,' he said with a grin. 'Come on in.'

The house had a shut-in smell of dust and age, like an old person's house. It smelled the way her grandmother's house always did. The wallpaper was ornate, and it was worn down to the wall in places. The carpet was a dense, plush chocolate brown. Gary led her into a square living room, where the overhead light from an antique brass fixture was dimmed. She saw a piano pushed against one wall, a paisley sofa, and a claw-foot armchair. The room looked out toward the street, but the heavy drapes had been swept closed.

'It's ghastly, isn't it?' Gary said. 'I think the Addams Family lived here.'

Amy shrugged, it's just old-fashioned.'

'It belonged to an eighty-year-old woman. She lived alone. Probably one of those lifelong virgins who had eighteen cats. The dust was incredible. We bought it cheap because the family was anxious to unload it after she died. My wife figured we'd tear everything out, but we never got the chance.'

'I'm sorry.'

'Sometimes I think about burning the whole house down,' Gary said, 'and starting over.'

He looked at her as if expecting a reaction. She gave him an uneasy smile. 'Guess the insurance company wouldn't like that.'

'I guess" not.' He gestured at the sofa. 'Sit down, make yourself comfortable. I'm really glad you came by.'

Amy sat on the edge of the sofa with her hands in her lap. She thought she looked like a woman at a tea party, with a yardstick up the back of her dress. Relax, she told herself.

Gary sat down in the armchair and crossed his legs. He wore a burgundy button-down shirt, black slacks, and dress shoes. The skin on his mostly bald scalp was suntanned. On his left hand, she noticed the glint of silver where he still wore a wedding ring. He never took his eyes off her. She crossed her arms over her chest when she noticed his gaze drifting to her breasts. It made no difference. She may as well have been stark naked.

'You did really well in Naples,' Gary told her. 'You bring a real athleticism to your routines. It's a pleasure to watch you perform. I mean, let's face it, there's a sensual quality to dance, and the best dancers know how to exploit it.'

'I don't really think about that,' Amy said.

'No, of course not, it comes naturally. I can see it in the grace with which you move your body.'

Amy played with her curls and felt uncomfortable. 'Thanks.'

Gary stood up again. 'I was about to open a bottle of wine. Would you like a glass? Our little secret.'

'Um, sure, I suppose. Not much, though, I still have to drive.'

'I'll be right back,' he told her. 'The TV is inside the big cabinet there. I've got the DVD of the team performances in the machine. Check it out.'

'Yeah, OK.'

Gary retreated from the living room, and she heard his shoes on the hardwood floor of the foyer. She hurried to the doorway. She heard Gary in the kitchen on the other end of the hallway, behind a swinging door. On her left was a wide winding staircase with a wrought-iron banister leading to the second floor. She noticed a roll-top desk in the foyer with envelopes sticking out of cubbyholes, and she pulled out several of the envelopes to see what they were. Most were bills and bank statements. She wanted something, anything, to connect Gary to Glory Fischer, but she didn't know where to look. Quickly, she yanked his Verizon bill out of the open envelope, but before she could review the dialed numbers, she heard the clink of crystal in the kitchen. She stuffed the bill and envelope back into the slot and ran back into the living room. She could feel a flush on her face, and she was breathing heavily.

Gary strolled into the room with two glasses of wine in his hands. 'You didn't turn on the TV?' he asked.

'I couldn't find the remote,' Amy said.

'It's right on top of the cabinet,' he said, smiling.

'Oh, duh. Sure.'

'You OK?' he asked, noticing her jittery demeanor.

'Yeah, I'm fine.'

He opened the walnut doors of the cabinet, revealing a wide-screen television inside. He clicked on the power and pushed the play button on the DVD machine. Amy saw the arena at the Naples hotel and heard the chatter of the crowd in the bleachers. On screen, girls from her Green Bay team were rehearsing before their first event. She recognized herself, doing stretches on the mat, her legs spread apart. Gary's camera seemed to focus on her body.

Gary handed her a glass of wine. 'Here you go.'

'Thanks.'

He clinked her glass. 'To you, Amy.'

She drank a sip. The wine was cold and dry. 'This is great.'

'I'm glad you like it.'

'That was quite the week in Florida,' Amy said.

'I love Naples. Someday I'd love to get a condo down there.'

'Yeah, that would be great.' She drank more wine in a nervous gulp. 'Did you hear about what happened on Saturday night? A Wisconsin girl got killed. Pretty scary.'

Gary sat down in the old armchair again and swirled the wine in his glass. 'I did hear about it. Terrible.'

'She was from Door County. That's not far away.'

'No, it's not.'

'I saw her picture in the paper. I think I saw the girl in the hotel.'

'Really? You saw her?'

'Yeah, what about you? Do you remember her?'

Gary shook his head. 'No.'

'I suppose when you're around a couple hundred teenage girls, they all start to look alike.'

'If she was on one of the other teams, I'm sure I would have noticed her.'

'Yeah, probably. It makes you think, huh? Sounds like she was killed on the beach on Saturday night. I was too keyed up to sleep, so I was just lying in bed. If only I'd been looking out the window, you know? Maybe I would have seen something.'

'Well, you can hardly blame yourself, Amy,' Gary told her.

'Oh, yeah, I know.' She added, 'I never sleep well at the end of a competition. What about you?'

'I'm the same way. I toss and turn.'

'Yeah, my room was next to yours. I thought I heard you coming in late. I figured you couldn't sleep either.'

Gary got an odd little smile on his face. 'You must have heard somebody else. I was in my room all night.'

'Really? I was sure I heard your door open and close.'

'I left to get ice at one point. I forgot about that. That's probably what you heard.'

'Sure.'

Gary's eyes were steady; he stared back at her without blinking. His voice was calm, not speeding up, not getting louder. He didn't show any outward signs of guilt or suspicion. Even so, Amy was convinced he wasn't telling her the truth. His explanations came too quickly and too easily. It was almost as if he'd been anticipating her questions and had been practicing all the right answers to deflect her concerns.

With each sip of wine, she found herself getting a headache. She didn't drink much, and she put the glass down, not wanting to make it worse.

'It was a beautiful hotel,' she continued.

'Gorgeous. Very elegant.'

'I was in the pool so much I thought I was going to grow gills,' she said, giggling. That was a lame joke. Why did she say that?

'Yes, I remember seeing you there. You look pretty damn good in a swimsuit.' He smiled at her. His eyes glittered.

'That was my power bikini,' she said, laughing too loudly. 'Didn't I see you talking to a girl by the pool on Saturday night?'

'I don't recall.'

'It wasn't one of the Green Bay girls, so that's why I noticed.'

'If you say so, Amy,' he told her, still smiling.

'You were wearing your white Phoenix T-shirt.'

'Well, lots of men wear white T-shirts down there.'

'Yeah, I guess.'

Gary's phone began ringing. He glanced at the caller ID. 'I'm sorry, I need to take this call. It could take me a couple minutes, do you mind? Make yourself comfortable.'

Amy waved a hand at him. 'No problemo. It's a great old house. Mind if I look around?'

'Go ahead,' he said. 'Don't look at the dirty underwear on the floor, though.'

He answered his phone as he left the living room. As he had before, he exited through the foyer and headed to the kitchen. Amy followed. She was angry with herself for drinking, because she could feel the wine going to her head. The room spun, and she shook herself in order to focus. She could hear Gary's voice on the other side of the swinging door.

Holding the banister, she ran up the curving steps. She put her foot wrong twice and had to steady herself to keep from falling. At the landing, she swayed. She licked her lips, studying the rooms upstairs. To her left, through an open doorway, she saw a large master bedroom. Like the rest of the house, it had dark, grim decor, with deep red wallpaper and heavy curtains shutting out the light. A Tiffany lamp by the bed cast a pale yellow glow around the room.

Just as Gary said, the room was messy. His clothes were in a pile near the closet. He hadn't unpacked from the trip, and his suitcase was shoved against a wall. It was open. She bent over it and slid to her knees. Her headache was worse. She rubbed her forehead and realized she was sweating. She dug through the items that had been dumped in the suitcase, pushing through dirty clothes. She saw handwritten notes on the dance competition on a yellow pad. Two hardcover books on sports. A camera. A pair of binoculars.

When she lifted up a pair of men's safari shorts, she noticed a fringe of pink lace pushing out of a side pocket. She used the tip of one finger to extract what was inside, and she discovered a pair of thong panties. They were flimsy and sexy. As she dangled them on her finger, she also noticed the white T-shirt that Gary had worn by the pool on Saturday night. She picked up the shirt and put her nose close to it. It smelled of sun block and sweat, but more than that, she also caught a strong briny aroma of salt water.

'Amy?'

It was Gary, downstairs, calling up to her.

'I'll be right there.'

She froze with the clothing in her hands, wondering if she should steal it for the police. Sooner or later, he would wash the shirt. The panties? He'd find them and throw them away. She hung on to the clothes as she tried to decide what to do. The gears in her brain weren't functioning. She felt the room spinning again, and she grew dizzy as she got to her feet.

'You OK, Amy?'

'Uh, yeah,' she called. 'I have to use the bathroom.'

She returned to the hallway and saw an open door on the other side of the stairs that led to a toilet. She went inside and closed the door behind her. She nearly fell against the door as she did, and when she tried to twist the lock, her fingers slipped. She winced as her head throbbed. She spotted a floor-length linen closet, and without thinking, she opened the door and shoved the thong and the T-shirt inside, hidden under a stack of clean towels.

Amy dug in her pocket for her phone.

Hilary sat at the kitchen table of Terri Duecker's condo in Fish Creek, with a mug of blackberry tea steeping in front of her, sending up a warm cloud of steam. She knew the rental cottage well. It was their winter residence on weekdays, when the ferries didn't run late enough to take them home. Right now, it felt empty and too quiet, and she was conscious of being alone. She knew she'd made a mistake. An immature, impetuous mistake.

She'd driven to the ferry after meeting Peter Hoffman, but she'd watched it leave, rather than driving on to the deck. Fifteen minutes later, she'd called and lied to Mark and said she'd missed it. Cab Bolton was right. She never missed a ferry. If she was anything in life, she was organized and efficient about her schedule.

Terri had looked at her strangely when Hilary returned to Fish Creek, but she didn't ask any questions. She'd simply said, 'Sure,' when Hilary asked if she could stay in the condo for the night. Her face full of concern, she'd also asked if Hilary needed anything, and Hilary had lied again and said no. In truth, she needed her faith back. She needed Mark. She needed to know the truth.

He'd called twice, and she'd ignored the call both times. She didn't want to talk to him until she knew what she was going to say. Now, in the silent apartment, with the aroma of her tea wafting through the kitchen, she realized she was ducking the hard path and hiding from what she had to do. She was also making a mistake she'd long ago sworn never to make, by judging Mark based on what someone else said, instead of relying on her own instincts.

She picked up her cell phone, which was lying next to the mug of tea in front of her. She punched the speed dial for their home phone.

'Hey, I've been trying to reach you,' Mark said.

'Yeah. Sorry. I was picking up dinner at a restaurant, and then I was talking to Terri. I couldn't grab the phone.'

'No problem. I miss you here.'

'Me too.'

'Is everything OK? You sound strange.'

'No, I'm fine,' she murmured, but she wasn't fine, and she didn't want him thinking that she was. 'Actually, babes, it was a tough afternoon.'

'How so?'

Hilary steeled herself. Say it. That was how it was supposed to work between them. No secrets, it looks like Cab Bolton has a witness. Someone who saw you on the beach with Glory.'

'Son of a bitch,' Mark said. 'I was afraid of that.'

'There's more.'

'What do you mean?'

'Well, the witness saw you and Glory kissing.'

Mark was silent. She could hear him breathing. Finally, he said, 'That's why you didn't come home. You believe it.'

'I don't know what to believe.'

'Do you need me to deny it? OK, I'll deny it. It didn't happen. I didn't touch her. But if you're not sure, I don't know if it's going to help for me to say so. How can I prove it to you?'

'You don't need to prove anything to me.'

'It sounds like I do.' His voice was cold and disappointed.

'I was wrong to doubt you. I was wrong not to come home. It just knocked me for a loop, coming out of the blue. I needed to get my head together.'

He was slow to reply. When he did, the angry edge was gone. 'Hil, I'm sorry. You've stuck by me in the past year, when most wives would have sent me packing. You've never wavered. I can't blame you for wondering if you've been a fool when you hear a story like that. All I can say is, whoever this witness is, he or she made a mistake. I did not kiss Glory. No way. I told you that she put her arms around my neck and scratched me, because she was drunk. Maybe that's what this person saw. He misinterpreted.'

'That's probably it.'

'It drives me crazy to have this coming between us, because I can never do anything but ask you to trust me.'

'I do.'

'You feel really far away,' he told her.

'I know. I'm sorry.' Hilary heard the beep on her phone that told her another call was coming in. 'Can you hang on? Someone else is calling. Don't hang up. I want to keep talking.'

'I'll be here.'

Hilary pushed the flash button on her phone and said, 'Hello?'

She heard a young voice she hadn't heard in years. 'Hilary? Thank God. It's Amy. Amy Leigh.'

Amy spoke in hushed tones into the phone in Gary's upstairs bathroom. What was she doing? Her voice slurred, and she was afraid that Hilary would think she was drunk and playing games with her. A few sips of wine, and she was drunk. She tried to concentrate on her words, but she found that her brain and her mouth kept missing each other.

'I was at the — that is, I was down on — in Florida. Last week.'

'Yes, I know, Amy, I was there too. You did great. Congratulations.'

Amy tried to think. Tried to figure out what to say. 'I know what's going on with you. I'm really apology. Sorry. I mean, sorry.'

'Amy, are you OK?'

'I don't know.'

'Have you been drinking?'

'I guess. That's — that must be it. My coach.' 'What?'

'My coach. My coach. Do you know him?'

'I've heard of him,' Hilary told her. 'What's his name? Johnson?'

'Jensen. Gary Jensen. Yes. Gary.'

'What about him?'

Amy heard his voice again. He was at the base of the stairs. His voice was suddenly low and suspicious. 'Amy?' he called again. 'Amy, are you up there? What are you doing?'

She heard him climbing the twisting steps. Getting closer to her.

'Florida,' she said into the phone.

'Amy, you're not making any sense,' Hilary told her.

Amy banged her knuckles against her head. The words wouldn't come. She felt as if she would throw up. Her tongue felt thick. 'Gary,' she murmured. And then: 'Glory.'

'What?' Hilary's voice was insistent. 'Amy, did you say Glory? Are you talking about Glory Fischer? What about her?'

Amy couldn't feel her fingers. The phone slipped from her hand and dropped to the tile floor. The plastic back popped off, and the battery skidded away. It was dead. She heard Gary knocking on the closed door. He was inches away from her.

'Amy?' he called.

She backed up. The knob turned; he was coming in. She grabbed the shower curtain, and the rings popped from the rod one by one, and she followed the curtain to the floor. The door opened. He stood there, watching her from the doorway. His face showed no emotion or surprise. He knew; he'd been waiting for this to happen. She had to run. Get up, get past him. Except there was nowhere to go.

Amy crawled two steps, and her knees gave way. She was unconscious as her face struck the floor.