Seven-fifty. No voice mail or text.

I dialed Ryan and left an update on my whereabouts.

Thermally, the new location was a trade-off. Though sunrise had atomized the mist and kicked the temperature up a notch, a steady breeze pumped moisture off the unseen water.

I crossed my arms and tucked my hands under my pits. My breath was no longer forming cones, but it was close.

For an eon the only action on Ragged Ass involved ravens jockeying for position on the overhead wires. Then a door slammed and an engine fired to life.

My head whipped left. Thirty yards north, a red pickup was backing down a drive. I watched the truck wheel out, stop, then head toward Hamilton.

By eight-fifteen my enthusiasm for surveillance had dropped lower than my core body temperature. A million arguments for leaving swirled in my brain.

This house might have nothing to do with Ruben. Maybe it was Nellie’s home and she was inside, warm in her bed, with Ruben back at the Gold Range. Maybe Nellie had stopped by the hotel to tip Ruben about our presence in Yellowknife. Maybe Ruben had already gone underground and I’d blown it again.

What the hell? I knew the address. We could return later to see if Ruben was here.

Occasionally, I give myself good advice. In rare instances I take it. Unfortunately, this was not one of them.

Before bailing, I decided on one quick peek. No, that’s not quite accurate. There was no conscious decision. My semi-numb feet just started moving toward the house.

Quick scan left and right, then I scuttled across Ragged Ass, up the drive, and around the awning side of the house. Circling the barbecue with what I hoped was stealth, I flattened my back to the wall beside a pair of sliding glass doors.

Breath frozen, I listened.

From inside came the muted cadence of a radio or television talk show. Outside, around me, nothing but stillness.

Ever so gently, I disengaged my right shoulder and rolled left.

Pointless. A set of thin metal blinds covered the inside of each glass door. Both sets were fully extended with the slats firmly shut.

I slid to my right and tried the same maneuver on a window whose sill was at shoulder height. More closed blinds.

I was about to give up when I heard what sounded like yapping coming through the wall. Ruben’s dog?

Totally amped, I stole toward the rear of the house.

On the right of the backyard, a clothesline ran from the house’s rear wall to a stunted birch maybe twenty feet back. Opposite the birch, across mostly dirt, was an aluminum storage shed. Beside the shed was a weathered wooden Dumpster with an angled flip lid.