And now they needed to pick a photographer. They’d already met Joel Bettancourt and liked his wedding portfolio, but Kelsey Ainge had good client references and Nicky agreed they should see her work as well. Vin still had the business card she’d given him at their house last fall. And now he saw its puzzling tagline printed in green on the studio door: Today Made Timeless. He followed Nicky in.

An entryway table held business cards and a vase filled with spring hyacinths. The front half of the studio was configured as a gallery, with framed photos hung on a central partition and the windowless walls. Track lights illuminated the artwork.

He couldn’t see anyone in the gallery, but there was an archway at the far end and a back room behind it. Nicky sidestepped along the partition, pausing to study each image. Vin walked down to the arch. The back room was an office and Kelsey was standing next to a desk in the corner, wearing a cardigan sweater and listening to a prototypical Potomac matron: 50-something, bouffant hair, knee-length leather boots, garish rings.

Kelsey made eye contact and held up a finger for Vin to indicate she’d be finished soon. He rejoined Nicky, who was examining a photo of a bride and groom feeding each other cake, arms entwined. It was shot from an intermediate angle in black and white.

“I like the perspective of this shot,” Nicky said. “And the fact that it’s black and white. It makes it look…” She hesitated for a second.

“Timeless?” Vin offered.

“I don’t know. Maybe ‘classic’ is a better word.”

He nodded and put his arm around her waist. Her hair smelled like lilacs. They edged down the partition, studying the wedding photos. Vin was glad that their own plans were finally taking shape. And the process of nailing things down seemed to have lifted Nicky’s spirit over the last six weeks. The days following their ill-starred snowshoeing trip had been dismal. She had seemed distant and depressed, almost inscrutable for a while, and he had grudgingly buried himself in the Rottweiler project. At least he’d managed to get the company to sign off on phase one and accept the invoice he’d sent. And then both he and Nicky had come up for air at the same time. After all the snow disappeared in late January. After the ensuing flood.

It was his idea to fly to Arizona in mid-February for a week with her parents. They’d been able to hike every day in desert sunshine, and Vin had watched Nicky transform back into the person he’d spent six weeks with in the Rockies last summer. The woman he’d fallen in love with the previous autumn in Boston. Spending time with Nicky’s parents, they’d been able to work through the logistical issues and agree on an October wedding date.

The wheels had kept turning after they flew home from Arizona. This morning they had dropped off their “save the date” card design at the print shop. The invitation list was mostly done, so they could probably get the cards mailed within the next week or so. At that point there would be no turning back.

And while his career planning wasn’t quite on the same trajectory, he knew that Nicky had grown more comfortable with his consulting situation. Rottweiler had paid him for phase one and he’d recently submitted a proposal for phase two. Phase three would probably last into the fall, so it didn’t make sense to look for a job until after the wedding. The truth was that he’d become attached to the flexibility of working at home; it allowed him to go for a bike ride on a short winter day or take Randy for a run on the towpath before it got dark. Or spend a few hours at the library, though he hadn’t done that recently. That might be another reason Nicky seemed more relaxed. She thought his “treasure hunt” – his fascination with Lee Fisher’s note and the 1924 event at Swains Lock – was ebbing or over.

On the surface it appeared she was right, but deep down Vin wasn’t sure. He knew that the words in Lee’s note had infected him, and that though the virus might be in remission, it wasn’t entirely gone. Joined sycamores, Lee Fisher, K. Elgin, Emmert Reed’s albino mule… the money, the killers, the dead. His interest had waned because he’d run out of ideas and into dead ends. And it was harder now for him to fish the note for insight because a question had been lobbed into the limpid waters of the pool, creating waves that made submerged objects harder to see. “Why are you here?” It was as if the question was a clue itself, arrayed alongside the others.

“Good white mules are really hard to find.” Vin was startled from his reverie. Kelsey had approached so quietly that he hadn’t noticed her. She was looking over their shoulders at a color shot of a bride’s silk hemline, with tanned legs and pedicured feet extending from a white folding chair into lush grass. The bride wore white, backless shoes with open toes and crossing straps. One foot was halfway out of its shoe and the shoe had capsized in the grass.

“I’m sure they are,” Nicky said. “Those are gorgeous, but we’re getting married in October, so I don’t they would work for me.”

“A little too summery,” Kelsey agreed. She led them back through the archway to the office area and offered seats at the circular table. Vin put his folded sunglasses on the tabletop while Nicky asked if Kelsey was available on October 19. Kelsey said she was, then asked standard questions about the wedding size, venue, and time of day.

Vin surveyed the room as Nicky answered. There were L-shaped desks on each side, with their vertices in the back corners. Landscape photos and nature shots hung on all the walls, and waist-high bookcases girded the front half of the room. In response to something Nicky had said, Kelsey walked over to a bookcase, pulled out an album, and brought it to the table.

“I loved this wedding,” she said, “and what you’re describing reminds me of it.” She oriented the album and Nicky studied the photos on the first page.

“The stone house is beautiful.”

“It was at an old estate that had been converted into a vineyard. The reception was in a barn the owners had turned into a tasting room, and there was a huge patio with a view down the hillside and out over the vines.”

Nicky rotated the album to give Vin a better viewing angle. When they’d finished reviewing it, Kelsey slid a glossy data sheet across the table that laid out the parameters of her wedding packages. As Nicky read them and Vin scanned sideways, Kelsey rose to answer the phone. Vin watched her glide to her desk. Very cat-like.

He stood up and was drawn to a photo on the far wall of a great blue heron standing in a shallow bog. “Heron – Dierssen Waterfowl Sanctuary” was written in pencil under the print. A nearby color shot showed a seven-arch stone bridge spanning a tranquil body of water, the late-afternoon sun imparting a pinkish hue to the stones. It was titled “Monocacy Aqueduct – Chesapeake and Ohio Canal.”

“Pretty, isn’t it?” Nicky had joined him. “Do you think we should get a quote?”

“Sure – knowledge saves.” They turned as Kelsey approached, apologizing for the interruption. Nicky said they’d like an estimate based on her standard package, so Kelsey took down their mailing address.

“It sounds like you have a vision for the event,” she said, “which I always hope for when I talk to couples about a wedding. It’s important to know what you want,” she added, turning toward Vin, “and to know why you’re here.”

He smiled tightly, canine teeth pressed to his lower lip, and glanced over her shoulder at his sunglasses lying on the table.

“Thanks for your time,” Nicky said.

“I enjoyed it,” Kelsey said. “I’ll be in touch.”

Vin followed Nicky back to the archway, then stepped sideways to examine the picture hanging beside it. It was a close-up of a sunlit stone block in a scarred old wall. The block’s gray face was stained with patches of white and pale-green lichen, and the branching shadow of a sapling curved across an upper corner. Its right side helped form the edge of the wall. Carved into the block was a symbol he had seen before.