She reflected on another course she’d taken through the State Police: a water safety rescue seminar. It had been held at a lake just like this and though she’d done the exercise-swimming underwater to rescue a “drowning” dummy in a sunken boat-she’d hated the experience.

She now scanned the surroundings, looking for boaters in trouble, car accidents, fires.

For intruders too.

There was still enough light to navigate by and she shut the lights out so as not to announce her presence. And drove even more slowly to keep the crunch of the tires to a minimum.

She passed the first two houses on the private road. They were dark and set at the end of long driveways winding through the woods. Large structures-four, five bedrooms-they were old, impressive, somber. There was a bleakness about the properties. Like sets in the opening scene of a family drama: the homestead boarded up, the story to be told in flashbacks to happier days.

Brynn’s own bungalow, which she’d bought after Keith bought her share of their marital house, would have fit inside either of these and still have left it half empty.

As the Honda crawled along, she passed a small bald patch between copses of fir, spruce and more hemlock, giving her a partial view of the house at number 3-the Feldmans’-ahead and to her left. It was grander than the others, though of the same style. Smoke trailed from the chimney. The windows were mostly dark, though she could see a glow behind shades or curtains in the back and on the second floor.

She drove on toward the house and it was lost to sight behind a large copse of pine. Her hand reached down and for reassurance tapped the grip of her Glock, not a superstitious gesture, but one she’d learned long ago: you had to know the exact position of your weapon in case you needed to draw it fast. Brynn recalled that she’d loaded the weapon with fresh ammo last week-thirteen rounds, which wasn’t superstitious either but more than enough for whatever she’d run into in Kennesha County. Besides, it took all your thumb strength to jam the slick brass rounds into the clip.

Tom Dahl wanted his deputies on the range for a checkup once a month but Brynn went every two weeks. It was a rarely used but vital skill, she believed, and she blew through a couple boxes of Remingtons every other Tuesday. She’d been in several firefights, usually against drunk or suicidal shooters, and had come away with the sense that the brief seconds of exchanging bullets with another human being were so chaotic and loud and terrifying that you needed any edge you could get. And a big part of that was making automatic the process of drawing and firing a weapon.

She’d had to cancel her session last week because of another incident with Joey-a fight at school-but the next morning she’d made her range time of 6 A.M. and, upset about her son, had run through two boxes of fifty rounds. Her wrist had ached from the excess for the rest of the day.

Brynn slowed about fifty yards from the Feldmans’ driveway and pulled onto the shoulder, sending a startling cluster of grouse into the air. She stopped, intending to walk the rest of the way.

She was reaching for her phone, in the cup holder, to shut the ringer off before approaching the crime scene, when it trilled. A glance at caller ID. “Tom.”

“Look, Brynn…”

“Doesn’t sound good. What? Tell me.”

He sighed. She was irritated he was delaying, though a lot more irritated at the news she knew was coming.

“I’m sorry, Brynn. Oh, brother. Wild goose chase.”

Oh, damn…“Tell me.”

“Feldman called back. The husband.”

“Called back?”

“Com Central called me. Feldman said he’s got nine-one-one on speed dial. Hit it by mistake. Hung up as soon as he realized it. Didn’t think it’d gone through.”

“Oh, Tom.” Grimacing, she stared at thrushes picking at the ground beside a wood lily.

“I know, I know.”

“I’m practically there. I can see the house.”

“You moved fast.”

“Well, it was a nine-one-one, remember.”

“I’m giving you a whole day off.”

And when would she have time for that? She exhaled long. “At least you’re buying me dinner out tonight. And not Burger King. I want Chili’s or Bennigan’s.”

“Not a single bit of problem. Enjoy it.”

“’Night, Tom.”

Brynn called Graham but got his voice mail. It rang four times before it switched over. She left a message saying the call was a false alarm. She hung up. Tried again. This time it went right to voice mail. She didn’t leave another message. Was he out?

Your poker game?

It’ll keep…

Thinking of the false alarm, though, Brynn wasn’t wholly upset. She was going to take an advanced course next week in domestic violence negotiations and could use her dinner break tonight to make some headway in the course manual she’d just received. If she’d been home she wouldn’t have been able to crack the book until bedtime.

She also had to admit that she wouldn’t mind a bit of a break from evenings with Anna, especially if a run to Rita’s was scheduled. It was odd having Anna back in the house after so many years of mutual independence. Emotions from years past surfaced. Like that night last week when her mother had shot a look her way after Brynn returned late from a shift; the tension was identical to that when, as a teenager, she’d lost herself in steeple-jumping and had come home hours after she’d promised. No fight, no lectures. Just a simple, burdened look beneath an unflappable smile.

They’d never fought. Anna wasn’t temperamental or moody. She was a perfect grandmother, which counted for a lot to Brynn. But mother and daughter had never been chummy, and during Brynn’s first marriage Anna largely faded from her life, emerging only after Joey was born.

Now divorced and with a man whom Brynn believed Anna approved of, they’d reconnected. At one point, a year ago, Brynn had wondered if mother and daughter would finally grow close. But that hadn’t happened. They were, after all, the same people they’d been twenty years ago, and, unlike her siblings, Brynn had never had much in common with her mother. Brynn had always spent her life riding, pushing, looking for something outside Eau Claire. Anna’s had been spent working unchallenging jobs-mostly four hours a day as a real estate office manager-and raising her three children. Evenings were invariably knitting, chatting and TV.

Perfectly fine for relations living apart. But when Anna moved in, after her surgery, it was like Brynn had been transported back to those days of her youth.

Oh, yes, she was looking forward to a few hours of evening time to herself.

And a free dinner at Bennigan’s. Hell, she’d even order a glass of wine.

Brynn flipped the car lights on and put the car in reverse to turn around. Then she paused. The nearest gas station was back in Clausen, a good twenty minutes.

The Feldmans were behind this mixup; the least they could do was let her use their bathroom. Brynn put the car in gear and headed for their driveway, curious to see just how far Yahoo thought two football fields was.

SQUATTING NEXT TO the stolen Ford they’d driven here from Milwaukee, Lewis sucked blood off the knuckle he’d gigged on the sheet metal trying to repair one or both of the flats. He examined the wound and spat.

Great, Hart thought. Fingerprints and DNA.

And here I’m the one picked this guy to tag along tonight.

“Any sign of her?” the skinny man asked, crouched over one of the wheels.

Hart crunched over leaves, returning from making a circuit of the property. As he’d searched for Michelle, being as quiet as he could, he’d had the queasy sense of being targeted. Maybe she was gone. Maybe she wasn’t.

“Ground’s plenty muddy. I found some footprints, probably hers, going toward the county road at first but they seemed to turn that way.” He pointed to the dense woods and steep hillside behind the house. “She’s gotta be hiding there someplace. You hear anything?”