Dark as night, Dahl thought. It is goddamn night.

“Keep looking.”

Dahl said to Eric Munce, who was rubbing the grip of his pistol the way a child plays with its sippy cup, “I want to get some bodies…” Dahl hesitated at the inappropriate word. “I want to get some searchers up here fast. As many as we can. But armed only. No volunteers.”

Munce hurried to his squad car to call in a search party.

Dahl stepped outside and gazed toward the lake. The moon was low, withholding most of its illumination from the surface.

Dahl’s radio crackled. “This’s Pete.”

“Go ahead.”

“I’m in the driveway of Number One. Haven’t checked it out yet but wanted to tell you.” He was breathless. “There’s a truck just passed me. White pickup. Headed your way.”

A truck.

“Who’s inside?”

“Couldn’t see.”

“Okay. Check out the house. I want to know what you find.”

“Will do.”

“Got company,” the sheriff said to Munce, then called Prescott and told him to keep an eye out for the vehicle.

They saw it approach slowly and turn up the drive.

Both Dahl’s and Munce’s hands were near their weapons.

But it turned out not to be a threat.

Though it was certainly a complication.

Graham Boyd climbed out of the cab, leaving his passengers, three fuzzy bushes, in the back, and walked straight up to Dahl.

“She’s not here, Graham. We don’t know where she is.”

“Let me see,” the big man said in an unsteady voice, heading for the house.

“No, I can’t let you in. There’s some bodies. People’ve been killed, shot. It’s a crime scene.”

“Where is she?” Graham’s voice was ragged.

The sheriff put his arm around the man’s solid shoulders and led him away. “Brynn and those folks’ friend got away, we think.”

“They did? Where?”

“We don’t know anything for sure. We’re getting a search team up here now.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“Look, let us do our job here. I know it’s hard. But I’m going to ask you to help us out and go on home. Please.”

The radio crackled once more. “Sheriff, it’s Howie. I was looking around the shore and found something.”

“Go ahead.”

“A car off the road. Went into the lake, looks like.”

“Looks like?” he snapped. “Or did?”

A pause. “Yeah, it did.”

“Where?”

“Can you see the flashlight? I’m signaling.”

Two or three hundred yards away a small yellow dot waved through the darkness.

Graham shouted, “What’s the debris, what color?”

A hesitation. Dahl repeated the question.

Prescott said, “There’s a bumper here. It’s dark red.”

“Oh, shit,” Graham said and started running.

“Goddamn,” Dahl spat out. He and Munce climbed into the sheriff’s car, Munce driving. They stopped and Graham climbed in the back, then they sped to the shore.

Skid marks, airbag dust, scrapes on the rocks and auto detritus-hunks of red plastic from lights, bits of glass-and an oil slick near the shore left no doubt. The car had sailed off the road, hit a rocky ledge then tumbled into the water.

“Jesus,” Graham muttered.

What did this do to the scenario? Who was in the car?

Or who is in the car still?

“Doesn’t mean it’s hers for sure, Graham. Or that she was even in it.”

“Brynn!” her husband shouted. The voice echoed across the lake. Graham scrabbled down the rocks.

“No!” Dahl said. “We don’t know where the shooters are.” Then to Munce: “Call back the State Police. We need a diver and a truck with a winch. Tell ’ em Lake Mondac. Western shore. They can check the depth… Graham that’s a crime scene too. We can’t have you fucking it up.”

Graham scooped something out of the water and dropped to his knees. His head was down. Dahl was about to shout at him again. But held back.

“I get him up here?” Munce asked.

“No. Let him be.” Dahl made his way to the water’s edge, moving carefully down the rocks, his game leg in agony.

Graham stood slowly and handed the sheriff a Hagstrom map of the county. On the soggy cover was written in marker Dep. K. B. McKenzie.

For a moment Dahl thought Graham was going to dive in after her. He was tensing to restrain him. But the big man did nothing. His shoulders were slumped, and he stared out over the black water.

A hiss and a crackle. “Sheriff, Pete. I’m at Number One Lake View. Nobody’s home and it’s sealed up. But there’s a car abandoned behind the house.”

“Abandoned?”

“I mean recent. I called it in. Stolen in Milwaukee a few days ago. According to the VIN. The plates match the same year and model but not this ID number. And there’re two bullet holes in the side and a rear tire’s shot out.”

So that’s the car that rimmed its way out of the Feldmans’ drive.

He thought of Graham and wished with all his heart the man was elsewhere. But he couldn’t waste any time. “Pop the trunk. Tell me what’s inside.”

“I did, Sheriff. Empty.”

Thank you, Lord.

“And nobody broke into the house?”

“No, I’ve been around it. They might’ve picked the lock and locked back up.”

“Forget it. Get to the closer house. Number Two.”

“Yessir.”

“You get over there too,” Dahl said to Prescott.

The big deputy nodded and he started up the dirt road.

A lengthy silence. Graham rubbed his eyes, then peered into the lake. “Don’t imagine it’s that deep. She could’ve got out.”

“I’m sure of it.”

“You don’t believe that, do you? You think she’s dead. Well, she isn’t.”

“I’m not saying that at all, Graham. She’s real tough. One of the toughest.”

“You have to search the area.”

“We will.”

“I mean now! Get state troopers here.”

“They’re on their way. I’ve already called.”

“The FBI. They’ll get involved for something like this, won’t they?”

“Yep. They’ll be here too.”

Graham turned and looked at 2 Lake View. Gibbs’s squad car was pulling up now.

Dahl had a lot on his mind but not so much that he couldn’t offer a silent prayer that his deputy and the houseguest weren’t in that house, dead as the Feldmans. “Go on home. Be with Joey. He’ll need you now.”

Then an excited clatter through the tinny speaker: “Got something here, Sheriff,” Pete Gibbs radioed.

“Go ahead.”

“Been broken into. And I think I see bullet holes in some windows upstairs.”

“Stay put till Eric gets there.” He nodded at the young hotshot of a deputy, who took off at an earnest run.

“Looks empty to me,” Gibbs said.

“Hold your position.”

“Yessir.”

“When Eric gets there, move in. But assume they’re inside. And we know they’re armed.”

Graham was examining the shore, his back to Dahl, who was staring at the house. The minutes passed, slow as could be, and Dahl found himself holding his breath, waiting for a gunshot.

Finally, the radio crackled teasingly.

No transmission.

Dahl didn’t want to call back, and have their radios squawk, giving away their position.

Nothing.

Damnation.

Finally Eric Munce called in. “House is cleared, Tom. They were here. Been a firefight. But no bodies. But we’ve got something weird.”

“Weird, Eric. I can’t use weird. Just tell me.”

“Upstairs bedroom. There’s ammonia all over the bathroom floor. Stinks like a baby’s diaper bin.”

“Ammonia.”

“And we found Brynn’s uniform. All her clothes.”

Graham tensed.

“They were soaking wet and full of mud. And the closet and dresser were open. I think she changed clothes and then took off.”

Dahl glanced at Graham, who closed his eyes in relief.

“Sheriff, it’s Howie. I’m outside. I see two sets of footprints, women’s, I’d guess, they’re smaller, running to the woods behind the house. They go to a stream heading back to the Feldmans’. Then I lose them.”

“Roger that.” Dahl put his arm around Graham’s massive shoulders, walked the man back to his squad car. “Listen, we know your wife got outa the car okay. If anybody knows how to stay alive, it’s her. I mean, I know that for a fact, Graham; I signed the payment request for her to go to all those training courses she takes. Hell, she takes so many of ’em they call her the Schoolmarm behind her back. Only don’t tell her I said that. Come on, I’ll drive you back to get your truck. You and me, we’re too old to be out jogging.”