She woke to a smart rapping on the door. She’d fallen asleep. It was late morning now – perhaps even early afternoon – and someone knew she was in there. She called out, “Just a second!” and threw on her pants and pulled the hoodie down over herself. She put the knife into the pocket in her sweats.

It was a woman standing at the door, a giant thing holding a zippered portfolio the size of a laptop against her chest. Larysa opened the door, hoping she could somehow skate through whatever this was going to be and then go on to plan the rest of her day.

The woman offered a cheery “Hullo!” and stepped into the cottage, looking around. She saw the bedsheets on the couch and turned and frowned at Larysa. “Why didn’t you sleep in the bedroom?” She made an angry face. “Are the beds not made? I told the girl to make the beds.”

“No, no,” said Larysa. “She made the bed. I thought bed was too soft.”

“Nonsense,” said the woman. “They’re Posturepedics. They’re new, too.” She walked into the kitchen and pulled out a chair. “I’m just here to give you your receipt. I wasn’t expecting you until tomorrow morning – didn’t you have the place from tomorrow?”

“Oh, well, I get off early and I thought I come up –”

“How’d you get in?” said the lady now, her head just slightly tilted.

“Back door.”

She was still for a moment. “You French Canadian or something?”

Larysa hesitated. “Yes. From Quebec.”

“I can tell from your accent. Subtle, but I can pick up those kinds of things. Nothing gets past Rita. Nest pah?” Larysa laughed. It came out sounding a little strangled. “And you rode your bike in from the train in Port Dundas? Rather desperate to start your vacation!”

They shared a laugh now, the landlady’s rough burble covering Larysa’s anxiousness. She’d become talented of late in the game of playing along, and luckily the landlady had never met the woman she thought Larysa was.

“Hubby’s coming up with your daughter?”

“Ah, she has school early tomorrow, and they come up after.”

“Funny, you said in your email that she had already finished her summer school,” the woman said, looking up.

“I mean, ballet school.”

“Ah, of course. Who has school on a Saturday in the middle of summer, anyway?”

The lady tore a thin white piece of paper out of a receipt book and handed it to Larysa. “Well, that makes it official. You’ll get the damage deposit back by mail once we’ve checked everything.” She stepped forward to give Larysa the paper slip and took the opportunity to look around. “Did you bring anything with you?”

“My husband is bring everything we need.”

“Milk? Butter?” Larysa shook her head. “Well, this is silly. Do you have money, at least?”

“Of course.”

“Well, give me ten minutes and I’ll drive you into town. Ridiculous sitting in the dark without so much as a cup of tea and a piece of toast.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it,” she said, waving the woman away in as friendly a fashion as she could muster. But she was going to have to get out of here right now. No more resting, which was unfortunate, because her energy was still building. She needed more time to plan, but the landlady was insisting on being helpful.

“Splash some water on your face and meet me outside in five minutes, young lady. What’s your name, again?”

“Kitty,” she said, and she went to get ready to be seen in the world.

The town was called Compton Mills. She remembered seeing the name on the map. Gilchrist wasn’t far away. When the landlady was deep in the frozen-foods aisle, Larysa told her she was going to use the washroom, and she walked back out to the parking lot. It was the kind of place where people just left their car keys in the ignition, or tucked up under the visor. It was a pity because back at the cottages the children from other cabins had already filed out, laughing and fighting, and the water would be full of them. Just an hour among children would have done wonders for her, and she could have had the cottage for the whole day. But she had to get going now. She had not been careful enough. There would be too many people looking for her now.

] 16 [

Saturday, August 13, morning

He called her at home at 5 a.m. He’d been awake since before dawn. “James?” she said when she heard his voice on the other end of the line. “Is everything okay?”

“I couldn’t sleep. Thinking about the case.”

“Nothing is happening, James. You’re on vacation, remember?”

“I’m not so good at it. How’s your mother?”

“Imperfect.”

“What did Forbes discover?”

She squeezed her eyes together; she wasn’t quite awake. Her body could manage to stay asleep until six most mornings; five was still too early. “Something about the taxicabs down there.”

“What about them?”

“Like I said, Detective, I’ll be in touch if there’s anything you need to know about. Right now, your orders are to tan and drink, okay? And stay out of my way.”

“I’ll have my phone with me,” he said.

Hazel made it to the station house by eight, around shift change. There were cars coming in and out of the rear lot of the detachment, more than usual for a Saturday morning. As she got out of the cruiser, she flashed on the image of Wiest’s pickup parked well behind Eagle Smoke and Souvenir and wondered if he’d been one of the special passengers. Then she wondered if possibly everything that they had seen at the Eagle was unrelated to what had happened to Henry Wiest. What if this girl was pregnant, what if this had to do with paternity, and they were meeting to settle something? How well had he known this girl? Another wild guess to file away.

She was at the back door of the station house, and she could see three officers standing with their back to her at the end of the hallway through the door’s windows. They were looking into the pen. Something was going on.

She entered and heard a strong, low voice coming from the pen. She took her cap off and held it at her side as she walked down the hall. A scrabbling sound caught her attention from inside the photocopy room halfway down the hall and she saw the Wiest bird sitting on its branch inside its cage beside the paper cutter. She had time enough to say, What the fuck is … to herself before she came to the end of the hallway and Melanie Cartwright stepped directly in front of her. “Hi.”

“Uh, hi. What’s happening?”

“Willan is happening.”

Hazel’s expression turned dark. “Is he here?”

“Not exactly.”

She strode down the hall toward the pen, and when she turned the corner and came into the big, open area, she saw Ray Greene sitting on the edge of a desk and many of her officers standing around listening, some with looks of bewilderment on their faces. Greene saw some of the staff look past him, and he turned and there was Hazel standing at the back of the pen. His hands, which had been busy in the air as he spoke, froze and settled in his lap.

“Detective Inspector,” he said.

“Mr. Greene.” He winced slightly at the lack of protocol and got up to offer his hand. She took it and shook perfunctorily. “My punishment?”

“If you choose to look at it that way.”

“I choose.”

He turned his attention back to the rest of the pen and said, “That’ll be it for now, everyone. We’ll be sorting out various details in the weeks to come, but you’ve got nothing to worry about. In fact, as I said, you’ll be getting more resources, not fewer. You’ll have what you need.”

He pushed off the desk and walked past Hazel into the hallway she’d come down.

“Let’s go to your office,” he said.

She followed him. “You want me to clean it out now?”

“Look, Hazel, you’ve got your hands full. With one body and an attack on someone else, this is a big case now. Commissioner Willan thought you could use me.”