“Not so impatient, young woman. I only need to get my bearings. Look at that map. There should be a forest northeast of town.”

“The Nicolet National Forest, yes.”

“Is that what they call `the North Woods’ these days? You need to find a road into the forest that goes past Elk Horn Lake.”

I studied the map. The lake was about three miles northeast of the forest’s edge. I drove north through the town, found a county road east, and made my way under the canopy of giant sycamores and pines.

In the dark, with the snow, the forest felt cold and menacing, the wild woods of fairy tales, where writhing trees held demons. The little Saturn skittered on the unplowed surface. I got out to check the road, to make sure we hadn’t slipped off it-and to crouch shivering in a ditch to relieve myself.

No tire tracks lay ahead of us. Catherine, if she had come this way, had a four-hour start; the snow would have covered her tracks. But what about Renee? How long would it take the master organizer to work out where her granddaughter would flee for refuge?

After half an hour of hard driving, I spied a sign covered in snow. I climbed out again. It pointed to Elk Horn Lake. When I told Geraldine, she shut her eyes, rebuilding landmarks in her mind. I was to take the second turning north.

Grimly hoping that more roads hadn’t been added since she was last here, I took the second turn to the north. The snow had stopped, but the wind kept whipping the tree branches in their tormented dance. My arms ached; I could hardly bear to keep them on the steering wheel, and the muscle in my left shoulder began to throb, just below the level of unmanageable pain.

After two miles, when I thought I couldn’t drive another yard, I saw the sign. Grand Nicolet Lodge, one-quarter mile. When I told Geraldine, she smiled in triumph. She’d been right-I couldn’t have found it without her.

A heavy chain slung between two posts blocked the entrance to the turnoff. The lodge was open from May 1 through November 30, a sign on the chain explained, giving a phone number to call for reservations. If Catherine and Benji were here, they could have taken the Range Rover around the pillars. In fact, they probably had-a bush on the left looked recently mangled-but the Saturn wasn’t built for that kind of driving.

Under its headlights, my fingers thick with cold, I worked my picks into the padlock. Geraldine came out to watch: she had never seen a

professional lock breaker at work and wanted the experience, even though she slid in the snow and was saved from falling only by crashing against one of the pillars.

The padlock wasn’t a sophisticated one, fortunately, or I could never have undone it in the cold. When I’d driven the car through the entrance, I pulled the chain across the road again. If Renee was behind me, that might slow her down-for thirty seconds.