Tori Dillon is clever. She thinks things through. But she also struck me as being as tightly coiled as a mainspring. Waiting doesn’t come naturally to a person with that kind of jacked-up metabolism.

She’s going to run.

Where?

The answer arrives like a slap to the head. Back to her snowmobile, of course. She’s going to circle around to her sled and take off up the river to rendezvous with Tiff and whoever else she’s enlisted in the hunt for me.

And I’ve just given her a minute head start.

Unfortunately, the struggle has loosened the bandanna around my leg, and I have to take a moment to retie it. The continuous trickle of blood falls into the urgent category.

I turn and begin to lope toward the beaver lodge, using the flashlight to make a path through the darkness. The heaviness of the weapon in my arms is not a burden. Far from it. If anything, the weight is a comfort. No longer do I feel powerless. Armed again, I might just survive the night. Provided I don’t bleed out first or freeze myself into a state of confusion.

I have almost reached the channel when I hear the whine of snowmobile engines.

There is more than one machine.

More than two machines.

More than three machines.

And all of them are approaching from upriver and at a high rate of speed.

It’s the fucking cavalry.

Tori must have called for reinforcements as soon as she found my tracks. I am about to be surrounded, outnumbered, and outgunned. All of those good feelings I experienced a moment before are extinguished as thoroughly as a campfire doused with water.

26

There was a note on my windshield, torn from a kitchen pad (“Groceries & Shit Shopping List”), and pinned beneath the wiper blade.

LEAVE NOW, PLEASE!

You find decent people everywhere, even in the worst of places, but I didn’t honestly believe that I had a friend on the hill.

This wasn’t a warning then, but a chess move.

Someone wants me to stick around.

I made a show of turning in a slow circle to scan the street and the nearest mobile homes. No cracked Venetian blinds or parted curtains revealed secret watchers. Even the kids I’d spoken with earlier had vanished from the playground. But that didn’t mean someone wasn’t staring at me through binoculars or even a telescopic rifle scope.

I folded the note and slid it into a pocket.

Then I opened the Jeep’s lift gate to check on Shadow. The wolf was awake but groggy. He growled and curled his black lip to show a fang that Lizzie Holman’s tech had brushed while he was KO’d on the steel table.

“I know you hate me,” I said. “If I were in your place, I’d hate me, too.”

The growl moved deeper into the throat. He gave a half-hearted snap.