“Yep.” I shut my own eyes briefly, sick with relief that she recognized me. “Do you remember where we are?”

“The cottage. Calvin’s granddaughter. What happened?”

“I fired a twenty-two, Mrs. Graham. I shot you. I never meant to-I’m so sorry.” Catherine appeared under my left shoulder.

“Sweet words don’t make ice cream,” Geraldine snapped. “You’ve caused us all-“

“Yes. A lot of trouble,” I interrupted. “We need to get out of here, Catherine. Really fast. Geraldine-excuse me, ma’am-Ms. Graham, I’m going to leave you here for a minute while I bring Catherine’s Range Rover up to the door. I don’t like to make you travel with this wound, but I think we can lay you flat in the Rover. Benji!”

The youth materialized at the entrance to the living room. “Go upstairs and pull together whatever you brought with you. Catherine, sit down and don’t do anything for two minutes. Don’t cry, don’t run away, don’t shoot anyone.”

She stuck out her lower jaw for a second, then smiled weakly and collapsed obediently in an armchair that faced the lake, nursing her tasted arm on her lap. “Benji and I turned on the propane feed and the water. He knows where the taps are.”

“We won’t bother with those. Just give me your car keys.”

She fished them out of her back jeans pocket. I took them to the kitchen with the used towels. The floor looked as though we’d fought the Battle of the Bulge in here. I wiped up enough of the blood that I wouldn’t be slipping in it when I carried Geraldine out and dumped all the towels in the sink: the caretakers could deal with those when they opened the lodge in May.

I had dropped my briefcase by the back door when I came in-twenty days ago, was it, or only twenty minutes? I put Geraldine’s shoe and nylon in the case and called up the stairs to Benji to hurry up. “I’m going to get the car. You bring everything of yours and Catherine’s downstairs. And then I’ll need you to help me carry Ms. Graham to the car.”

The whining in my ears was dying down. When I went outside, I could hear the wind again, whipping the tree branches around. I slid the barn doors back and started the Range Rover. I’d have to figure out some way, some other time, to come back for Mart’s Saturn.

The Rover’s engine turned over with a roar that made me jump, but, as soon as it caught, it ran so quietly I couldn’t hear it at all. It felt queer to be perched so high above the ground, and it was hard to judge the sides. I inched forward cautiously, not wanting to scrape Mart’s car, nor ram into the barn door.

When I jumped down from the Rover to slide the doors shut behind me, the whining in my ears returned. I shook my head impatiently, trying to clear my ears. The whining got louder. It wasn’t my ears; it was a snowmobile roaring past the lodge and skimming to a halt in front of the cottage door. A compact figure with dark hair in a dark parka jumped off. “Renee!” I shouted above the wind.