“Poor Cam,” Megan said with teasing sympathy. “Don’t worry. You’ll run into the right guy one of these days, and the curse will be the last thing on your mind. It happened to me, and I promise it will happen to you, too.”

“But I don’t want it to happen to me. I like being single. If I feel like going to bed at six in the evening, I can. And if I want to stay at work until three in the morning, I can do that too, because I don’t have someone calling me every hour asking me when I’m coming home.”

“No, you only have Dad giving you a hard time when you visit,” Megan said with a laugh. “Here. Turn here. Dammit, we’re in town!”

Camry stopped the snowcat just as they crested the snowbank of a plowed road. She looked up and down the street, then over at Megan. “It’s only a quarter mile to the main road, and then a short distance to the lake. And we know Frog Cove is frozen solid; they’ve been driving trucks on it for the last month. I say we go for it. It’ll shorten our run by at least ten miles if we just head up the cove and cut into the woods where Bear Brook comes out.”

Megan involuntarily shivered. “We don’t know how thick the ice is around Bear Brook.”

“Then we’ll go all the way up to Talking Tom’s cottage on the point and then backtrack. There’s a trail leading from there up to the top of Bear Mountain, isn’t there?”

“Yes. But what if someone sees us going through town?”

“There are more snowmobiles than cars around here this time of year, and they’ll think our snowcat is one of the club trail groomers.” She started to give the machine gas, then hesitated. “Where’s Jack tonight? Does he make patrols around town?”

“I have no idea what Jack is doing. Apparently he’s been so busy with police work, he can’t even find the time to come see me.”

“There has been a bit of a crime wave lately, sis. Have you seen his police cruiser?” Camry asked with a laugh, easing the snowcat over the snowbank and onto the street. She drove down the residential lane, made a quick stop to check for traffic, then darted across Main Street and into the town park. “It doesn’t matter if anyone does see us,” she said as they cruised onto the lake. “They can’t tell who’s inside here, and if they call the resort, Thomas will cover for us.”

“You’re going to get that poor man fired,” Megan said, looking around to see if anyone had noticed them. But it was eleven o’clock on a Tuesday night, and the town seemed deserted.

“So what’s the plan if we do find ourselves nose to nose with a dragon?” Camry asked. “Did you bring some doughnuts?”

Jack stood in the middle of the Frog Point camp road and aimed his flashlight down at the lifeless body of Peter Trump, specifically at the half-inch metal spike sticking out of his back. “So he simply tripped and fell on that survey stake,” Jack said, repeating what Robbie MacBain had just told him.

“He made the mistake of glancing over his shoulder to look for me,” Robbie said, “and he tripped, tried to catch himself, and landed exactly like you see him.”

Jack lifted his gaze. “He just…fell.”

Robbie sighed, seemingly in an attempt to hold onto his patience. “I wanted him alive as much as you did, Stone. He’s our best chance to nail Collins.”

“He was. So why didn’t you simply take him down at the house?”

“Because of Megan. I didn’t want her coming home to a mess, if there was a struggle. Nor does she need that kind of negative energy in her new home, especially with the baby on the way. So I let him see me, knowing he’d run, and I intended to bring him down out here in the road.”

“I would say your plan worked.” Jack moved the flashlight beam on the ground around the body, stopping when he spotted the gun. “How come he didn’t shoot you?” he asked, walking closer to stare down at it.

“I never gave him a target. He did fire his weapon as he ran out of the house. You should find a bullet lodged in the siding by the lakeside door.”

“Where’s your gun? I’ll need to take it for evidence.”

“I don’t have one.”

Jack lifted his gaze to Robbie. “I see. You expected Trump to come search Megan’s house again, and you were waiting for him unarmed?”

Robbie lifted an eyebrow. “I didn’t say I was unarmed, I said I don’t have a gun.”

Jack pulled out his cell phone with a sigh. O-kay, then. “I’m calling the state police, as they like to be in on this dead body stuff. Why don’t you go to my house and make yourself comfortable, as I imagine we’re both going to be here awhile. The key’s under the mat.”

“We need to find out if he sent Megan’s laptop to Collins.”

“I’ll check his pockets for a hotel key or receipt. If he hasn’t sent it yet, it’ll be in his room or his car. If he has, we’ll deal with that problem after we clean up this one.”

Robbie still hesitated. “I wanted him alive, Stone.”

“So did I,” Jack said, speed-dialing the state police.

With a sum total of three hours of sleep in the last twenty-four, Jack finished tying his backpack down on the rear rack of his idling sled, climbed on, and headed up the lake just as the sun was breaking over Bear Mountain. He didn’t have a clue where he was going; he simply trusted that he would recognize his destination when he got there. He wasn’t wearing a helmet because he hadn’t bothered to buy a new one, and the crisp February air would go a long way toward keeping him awake.

He still hadn’t seen Megan, and he was beginning to think the gods were waiting for him to get his act together before they let him see her again. But then, she hadn’t exactly been beating down his door, had she?

Oh, yeah, that’s right. She was otherwise occupied, doing a mysterious favor for Kenzie Gregor—like helping him give his slimy pet a bath or something.

Jack reined in his anger, redirecting his thoughts to more pleasant things, like the sweet sound of his purring engine. He checked his speedometer and smiled when he saw he was cruising at an effortless sixty miles per hour. Young Tom Cleary was fifty bucks richer this morning, and Jack was eight hundred bucks poorer but immensely pleased.

Back on the lake on a snowmobile, Jack found his thoughts once again drifted to Megan, so he mentally went over the list of equipment he’d brought. It had been difficult packing for an unknown destination, but he felt prepared for just about anything. He’d taken climbing gear, his gut telling him he was headed for high ground, along with several wool blankets and a collapsible bucket. His equipment also included snowshoes, his high-powered rifle, plenty of power bars, the knife his father had given him for his eighth birthday, and his hatchet.

Twenty minutes later, Jack let off the gas and hit the brake, bringing his sled to an abrupt stop when he noticed the solitary mountain rising up from the lake five or six miles ahead. It was almost a perfect dome, and he estimated it to be more than a thousand feet tall. He could see several sheer cliffs peeking through the dense evergreens covering it, and he let out a pained groan. Even though he was prepared, he’d been hoping he wouldn’t have to actually climb to his destination—not on three hours of sleep.

He checked the position of the sun, guessed he’d been traveling for a little over half an hour, and realized the mountain was sitting directly at the north end of the forty-mile-long lake.

O-kay, he decided, giving his sled the gas and quickly bringing it up to speed; if his ancestors wanted him to climb, he would climb.

Which is exactly what Jack found himself doing half an hour later, though he didn’t have to use a rope and harness. He’d found a faint but definitely man-made path leading up the mountain, and realized he was not the first Native American to come here searching for answers.

There was a slight hum in the air that filled Jack with a sense of peace. The higher he climbed, the stronger the hum grew, until even his bones began to vibrate in perfect harmony with an energy as ancient as time itself.