I have to wait for my eyes to adjust. Ice crystals reflect light even in the darkest of places—and this is one of them. Hard as it is to believe, I am lucky it is snowing. The paleness of the snow contrasts against the shadows of the trees.

I grab a sapling and pull myself onto my knees, then onto my feet. Something catches my eye on the cutbank above the water’s edge, near where I lost the light. It seems to be rectangular in shape, and I assume it is another figment of my deteriorating mind.

Or is it?

As I pick a route up the bank through the scratchy puckerbrush, I am afraid to blink, lest the structure disappear on me like a mirage.

It’s real, all right. Too small to be a house or even a cabin.

Recognition comes slowly: It is an ice-fishing shack. And the reason I didn’t recognize it is because it is lying on its side. It probably washed down the river and came to rest below. Then someone went to the trouble of hauling it into the trees.

I drop to my knees. I crawl toward the structure like an infant.

Shelter. Salvation.

8

Sabattus Tractors had gone all out for Christmas. The banner above the door advertised: “BLACK FRIDAY SAVINGS ALL MONTH LONG.” Inside the entryway was a semi-circle of bright green landscaping machines, outfitted with snowplows, arranged around an artificial tree that was bedazzled with tinsel. Each of the shiny machines bore a big red bow.

Marc Rivard had to be the mastermind behind this over-the-top display. The man had never known where to stop with the pizzazz. The one constant in his life had been a relentless commitment to self-advertisement.

He was the second sergeant I’d had in my career. My first, Kathy Frost, was a teacher, a mentor, and a lifelong friend. Rivard, by contrast, was a taskmaster, a bully, and a politician. He was so naturally deceitful, he seemed unable to differentiate between objective truth and the lies he told to make himself look good.

Since we’d worked together, I’d read that sociopaths were more common than scientists had once believed. Something like one in a hundred people met the standard for antisocial behavior and utter absence of conscience. If Marc Rivard didn’t fulfill the textbook definition, he came close enough for discomfort.

Contrary to his claims of being busy, I saw only a single customer inside the showroom. A white-haired man in a plaid coat stood staring up at the ceiling where a riding mower hung on cables from the exposed beams. The old guy didn’t strike me as a buyer, but Rivard practically had his arm around him.