Elizabeth sneezed. “It better be nailed in place.”

“Do you have allergies?”

Elizabeth looked at her with watery and red-rimmed eyes. “Yes. The sooner I can get out of here, the happier I’ll be.”

“Do you want to go back to the car?”

“Doh.” The deacon was as grim as Clare had ever seen her.

“Okay. Give me a sec to check the inside of the pickup, and then we’ll go down. I want to go first.”

“Of course.”

Clare couldn’t tell whether de Groot was being sarcastic or just prissy. Either way, she’d better hurry. She strode back to the pickup. The wind ripped into her as she stood on the running board and looked inside. She opened the driver’s door and slid in on her knees. Maps in the door pockets, three scrapers stuffed behind the seat. She popped open the glove compartment. Insurance and registration, in Quinn Tracey’s name. Paper napkins left over from a fast-food joint. Beneath them, two condom packages and a tin box of breath mints. What her brothers used to call their Hope Springs Eternal Kit.

In other words, nothing. No blood smears, no hidden K-Bar. She flipped down the sun visors and was startled by a piece of paper fluttering to the floor-mat. She pawed at it, clumsy in her gloves, until it came up into her hand.

Dear Mom and Dad,

I am sorry. I tried and tried but I could not control my urges and now a woman is dead. My friends tried to help me but no one knows that I am a killer inside. I am responsible. No one else but me. I’m sorry, but this is the only way I know to stop myself.

Quinn

“Sweet holy-” Clare stuffed the typed note into her pocket and slid out of the car. She looked around wildly. “Elizabeth? Elizabeth!”

The ladder. She hadn’t waited. Clare sprinted toward the west end of the barn, her boots thudding on the boards, almost skidding into the open square that led downstairs. She grabbed the edges of the ladder and scurried down, jumping the last rungs.

Too late. Elizabeth stared at Clare, eyes wide and terrified, frozen into stillness by the glittering knife held against her throat.

Russ kept his mouth shut and his eyes on the switchback he was negotiating.

“I should have guessed. Even this comes back to Clare Fergusson. Did she come running to comfort you as soon as she heard the good news?”

He saw Debbie’s lights in the rearview mirror. She had made the curve safely.

“Boy, is she going to be pissed off when she finds out I’m still alive.”

I’m not going to mention Lyle, he told himself. I’m not going to mention Lyle. That was serious, deep-talking, kick-in-the-guts stuff.

Linda was quiet as they went through another turn down the mountain. They were getting close to the public road. He hoped the plows had been through.

“So who do you think did it now? I mean, who would want to kill our cat sitter?”

Ours? It’s not my damn cat. “We’re looking for Dennis Shambaugh, her boyfriend. His fingerprints were at the scene, and he fled when I went to question him.” Linda had never much cared for hearing about the details of cases he worked on. It struck him that this was one of the most detailed discussions of a crime they had ever had. Of course, it was also the first time anyone had been killed in their kitchen.

“I can’t believe it,” Linda said. “My God, I met him. And then he turns out to be a murderer? I never would have guessed it.”

He slowed down but didn’t stop at the sign at the bottom of the Algonquin’s road. A quick look told him nothing was coming in either direction. He rolled onto the white and featureless expanse of Sacandaga Road.

“Where’d you meet him?” he asked.

“At the house. He dropped Audrey off.” She turned in her seat. “Who’s been taking care of Bobbitt?”

“Who’s Bobbitt?”

“My cat.”

“You named the cat Bobbitt? As in, Lorena Bobbitt?” He shook his head. “The responders took it to the county shelter.”

“You let them take her to the shelter?”

“I had a few other things on my mind than the damn cat, Linda.”

“I can’t believe you! You thought I was dead, and you didn’t even bother to keep the last living connection to me.”

“If you wanted me to have a connection with the cat, you might have tried telling me about it. Or-hey, here’s an idea! You get me to watch the cat while you’re gone instead of hiring a woman whose boyfriend is a convicted felon! Oh, but wait. That would have required you to mention that you were going to disappear for a week!”

The truck shimmied beneath him, and he realized he was going way too fast for the conditions. He took his foot off the gas.

“I’ve already apologized,” Linda said, her voice barbed. “I don’t know what else to say. I can’t undo it or make it not have happened.” She looked out her window. She didn’t say anything else. She didn’t have to. He recognized the words. She was throwing back what he had said to her the afternoon he told her about Clare.

“Look,” he said, “this is ridiculous.”

“It certainly is. You’re treating me like I’m one of your criminals. You say you thought I was dead. Didn’t you miss me? Aren’t you glad to see me?” She held her hands in front of her, as if asking for a higher power to give her an answer.

“Christ on a crutch. Of course I am.” He took one hand off the steering wheel and gripped her hand hard. “I was-part of me kept thinking you were going to show up at any minute, and then I’d realize what had happened. It was like getting knocked down by a tidal wave, over and over.” He drew their interlocked hands over to his thigh and hammered on his leg. “Now you really are here. I just need a little time to get my feet under me and catch my breath.”

“Silly man. Of course I’m really here.” She squeezed his hand and smiled at him. “If this helps us realize what we mean to each other, then it will have all been worth it, huh?”

Not to Audrey Keane. No. He wasn’t going to go there. He wasn’t going to ask Linda to be someone she wasn’t. He smiled back at her. She was here. She was back. Of course, that meant all their problems were back.

No. That wasn’t fair. He was the one who evidently needed something he hadn’t been finding at home. Linda had been perfectly content with their marriage.

Sure. She had gotten it out of her system with Lyle.

His pants pocket beeped loudly. “We must be back in signal range,” he said. “Would you grab my phone and see what messages I’ve got? I don’t want to take my hands off the wheel.” The snow-covered road blended imperceptibly with the snow-covered farmland, and the barbed-wire fences he knew marked out the pastures running alongside them were hidden by curtains of white and gray.

Linda wiggled his phone out of his pants and dialed his voicemail. She punched in his mailbox number and listened. “It’s your mother,” she said. “She’s worried about you. She wants to know where you are. She loves you. Call her.” Linda looked at him.

“Erase it.”

She beeped for the next message. “It’s… Ben Beagle from the Glens Falls paper. Wants to get a statement from you. No, an interview.” She frowned. “What’s the sensational event that happened at the station last night?”

His stomach lurched. “I’ll tell you later.” God. He was going to have to explain spending the night with Clare. Linda would never believe they hadn’t had sex.

“He leaves you a couple of numbers to reach him at.”

“Uh… better save it.”

She beeped again. “Oh, it’s Lyle.” She raised her eyebrows. “The state police caught Dennis Shambaugh, and he and… who? I didn’t catch that. Anyway, they’re going to Troop G headquarters for the questioning.” She smiled. “He says to call him if you find out anything about me. Isn’t that sweet?”