“Maybe there’s a wall somewhere missing some plaster?”

“Or maybe it was Jasper who got hit,” Tim said. I started to speak, but he cut me off. “You know, I bet that’s it. Jasper got in a fight with his brother and took off. Out here, so close to the border, he could easily make a dash for Canada. There are lots of places where he could have crossed, where the border’s just an invisible line in the river. You’re supposed to check in with your passport on the other side, but it’s an honor system. Agents don’t patrol the border area much this time of year. Even if he went over without letting them know, it’s not so easy to slip into another country unnoticed if you plan to stay awhile. If that’s what happened, we’ll find him.”

“This doesn’t feel like a runaway situation,” I said. “Jasper’s phone is still charging upstairs. What twentysomething guy leaves the house without his phone? I think Jasper’s in trouble.” It was such a huge understatement; saying it out loud sounded stupid to my ear.

“We’ll find him,” Tim said again. “I know we will.”

“These people.” I shook my head. “This isn’t a soap opera, it’s a shit show.”

“They’re not from around here. So.”

I hadn’t meant the comment as an attack on the Thousand Islands and their residents. Tim was fiercely loyal to his community. It was my community now, too.

“Right, of course,” I said. “Wonder what the parents were like? Abella never met them, but she told me a little about their deaths. Car accident while on vacation.”

“Shit, I think I remember that,” Tim said. “Didn’t put two and two together—but yeah, the deaths would have been in the paper up here on account of their island connection. Google?” He reached for his phone.

“Already done,” I said with a smile. We were clicking in a way I’d hoped we would months down the line. Tim had worked at the state police Alexandria Bay station a long time, so while I was technically his superior, I’d come to rely on him to indoctrinate me in the ways of the North Country. The ease with which we could bounce ideas off each other, his ability to read me and gauge where I was going next—those aren’t guarantees in a colleague, and finding it so soon with Tim was a nice surprise. “The accident was big news farther south. New York Textile Tycoon and Wife Killed While Vacationing in the Caribbean. Two years ago, Baldwin and Rachel Sinclair went on one of many quick getaways to Antigua and never came back.”

Tim sighed and dropped into an armchair. There was a second chair nearby, so wide and plush I wanted to curl up in it and reset my brain, but I knew neither of us should get too comfortable. I could see Abella nervously watching us from across the hall, and I was itching to talk to Bebe and Ned.