Hiding my research from Jack implied I shouldn't be doing it. So I called him in. When his gaze went straight to the laptop, I braced myself.

"Looking stuff up?" he asked.

I explained.

"Good idea."

A soft exhale as I realized I'd been holding my breath. While I inwardly railed at the suggestion I needed Jack's approval, I did, if only to gauge whether I was slipping into obsession.

He offered to continue digging for me while I hosted the bonfire.

"I'm not late, am I?" A watch check before he could answer. "No, I have another half hour."

"Yeah. But those brothers? Getting a little eager. Started looking for the axe."

I leapt to my feet. "Why didn't you say so?"

A laconic shrug. "Got insurance, don't you?"

I glowered at him and raced out the door.

"Got some kind of message," Jack said when I returned after the bonfire. "Popped up on your screen. From 'back-doorman.' "

"Oh, that's – "

"Quinn. Yeah. Figured that out."

Last fall, in coming up with online names, that's what Quinn had picked – a private joke. I didn't think Jack had been paying attention, but I guessed I should have known better. Nothing escaped him.

"Did you, uh, respond…"

"Didn't know how."

Which was probably a good thing. Jack may have invited Quinn on the job last year, but only because he needed his contacts. Jack thought Quinn was too brash, too fervent, too open. Quinn found exactly the opposite faults with Jack – too somber, too cold, too secretive. The only thing they agreed on was that the other could be trusted and was good at his job… as long as he did that job someplace else, with someone else.

"So you gonna tell me? About that job?"

"Job? Oh right, the Toronto one I did with him. Give me a minute and we'll go outside. I just want to pop him a note."

I motioned for him to sit on the bed as I checked my e-mail. There was one from Quinn. I started a brief response. Then my messenger pinged. Quinn, noticing I was still online and trying again. I answered, planning to say I had to run, but he asked if I'd seen the latest on the "rapist killer" case and I said I hadn't and… the conversation snowballed from there. After about five minutes, Jack stood and cleared his throat.

"I'll be outside," he said.

"Hold on. I just – "

"No rush."

The door closed behind him.

Jack's online search had gone better than mine. He'd substituted missing for homicide, looking for cases of young women who'd disappeared with their babies. He'd had to wade through lots of custody disputes and suspected homicides, where the infant had likely been killed, intentionally or through abuse, then the body hidden and never recovered. Once the chaff was removed, he was left with three cases.

I took the names and searched. One case ended tragically, with a newspaper article revealing that mother and child had been found in a river – an apparent suicide brought on by postpartum depression. In the second, six months after disappearing, the mother showed up at a homeless shelter, then took off in the middle of the night, abandoning her baby. That left me with Deanna Macy

I found multiple listings for her on missing-persons Web sites, but no resolution, happy or otherwise. With her dark hair and eyes, she was the physical opposite of Sammi, but like Sammi, Deanna Macy was a startlingly beautiful young woman. Coincidence?

I scanned through the details. Sixteen years old. Last known residence: a home for teen mothers, indicating little or no family support. The home was in Detroit – she'd been listed on Canadian sites in case she'd crossed the border.

At the time of her disappearance, her baby, Connor, had been a few weeks younger than Destiny. One evening Deanna and Connor had been taking the bus to see a friend. They never arrived. According to the bus driver, they'd never got on. The police were treating the case as a runaway, but the woman who'd notified the police was convinced otherwise.

The contact was Denise Noyes, with a Detroit-area phone number. From her emotional pleas, Noyes had to be a friend or family member. I didn't want to make this call from the lodge, so I'd do it tomorrow, when I was in town to see Tess.

Saturday started at 6 a.m. with my jog. The Previls had signed up, and while I was tempted to say, "I knocked and no one answered," I had to do my job – so I knocked… lightly. They answered. And they made their wives join us to share in a "romantic country run," which I'm sure would have been far more romantic if the guys hadn't spent the time commenting on my "form" and making indiscreet inquiries into the state of my romantic life.

After breakfast, I decided to get the biggest chore of the day over with – taking them shooting. Again, they joked all the way through my lesson, so I gave up. I couldn't keep stalling, but I could make sure we stayed on the inside range and only one gun was in play, as they took turns under my supervision.

I took a paper target from the bin.

"A bull's-eye?" one of the brothers – Ben – said. "Where are the people? Like what they use in the movies?"

"Sorry, I don't allow human-form targets unless you're a cop or someone who might need to shoot in the line of duty."

"And only if a perp does something dangerous, right?" said Ken, the other brother. "Like reaching for a tissue."

I'd shot Wayne Franco when he made the mistake of reaching for a tissue. It was a small detail, one people could hardly be expected to remember if they'd casually heard it seven years later. In other words, the Previls had looked up my story before coming to the lodge. Nice. It was nothing new, though, and while most people pretended not to remember who I was and what I'd done, I'd learned to deal with those who weren't so polite. As the twins guffawed over their joke, my expression didn't change.

"The bull's-eye is better for accuracy testing," I said as I wheeled it down the line.

"We want the paper men."

I clenched my teeth without tightening my lips, forced a bright hostess smile, and said, "Okay, then. But I'll warn you, the plain black-and-white can be harder to see."

They stood back, giggling and whispering like teenage girls as I set up the target.

"Who wants to go first?"

"You. Show us how it's done."

I nodded, picked up the gun, stepped to the boards -

"Pop him right between the eyes," Ben said. "That's your specialty, isn't it?"

I turned slowly. The twins and their old friend were grinning. Their business associate pretended not to hear, absorbed by my first-aid poster.

"Come on," Ben said. "Between the eyes. Show us how it's done."

"You volunteering?" grunted a voice from behind them. Jack hobbled from the shadows and jerked his chin at Ben. "Go on. Show your friends how it's done."

After a full chamber – with only two nicks in the edge of the target – Ben complained I'd put it too far away. When Jack gave a derisive snort, the brother challenged him to try it. Jack eyed the gun as if it was a snake that might bite, then, after some ribbing, let me reload it, and took it awkwardly.

"Is there a safety or something?" he asked.

"It's a Glock. They don't have one."

"Huh."

He took one shot and missed the target completely, to the laughter of the brothers and their friend.

"Hold on," Jack said when Ben reached for the gun. "I'm getting the hang of it."

He took three shots, putting a perfect triangle through the target's heart. Then he passed the gun to Ken. When all four had had a chance to be humiliated by the "porter," they decided marksmanship wasn't really their thing.