For a long time, Max had believed that Jenni hadn’t known about the pregnancy—she was only a month or so along. But the day before Max killed Mikhail, Max had found this bracelet in Jenni’s car, a blank charm added. Jenni had known, and that thought had burned hot inside of Max as he drilled the holes in the ice. He had killed Mikhail not just for Jenni, but for their child.

Before last night, the child had never been more than a nameless charm, a line on a medical report. But now, could it have been his child who stared up at him from the icy water?

There were so many ghosts floating around the cabin already: his wife, his brother. To have his child now cling to him seemed too cruel. But hadn’t that been why he came to the cabin in the first place—to accept his punishment? Something in the air seemed to shift as Max set the bracelet back into the box.

He had been waiting for a reckoning. Could the child in the dream be it?

CHAPTER 5

The man in the ski mask knew a great deal about Pip. He knew that the boy’s real name was Reed, and that his mother refused to call him that after she divorced Pip’s father—whose name was also Reed. The man knew that Pip was in first grade and stayed with a neighbor named Linda after school until his mother got off work.

“I want you to go wake up Pip and tell him that there’s no school today. Tell him that his teacher is sick or something. Then take him to the rec room downstairs. Turn on the TV—find something that will keep him entertained for a couple hours. He’ll eat his breakfast there.”

“No. Do what you want to me, but leave my son alone.”

The man rolled his eyes. “And if he wakes up? If he walks out here and sees me? What then? I’m doing this for you—for him. He must not know that I’m here; don’t you understand that? Take him downstairs. Get him distracted—turn on the TV or whatever. It’s imperative that he stay in the basement until you get back here with my money.”

The man hesitated, but added one more point of persuasion: “I’ll be taking my ski mask off while you’re gone. If he peeks his head up those stairs and sees me… I’ll be forced to do something I don’t want to do.”

Her breath went shallow. Then she said, “I’ll make sure he stays downstairs.”

They stepped into the hallway, and at Pip’s door the man whispered, “I’ll be in the living room. I’ll hear everything you say. If you fail me, you will suffer the consequences.”

He was wrong, though. He couldn’t hear them from the living room, and after a couple minutes of silence, he began to worry that he’d messed up. But then he heard them coming down the hall, a tired Pip asking why he wasn’t going to school. Sandy sounded calm as she told him a lie about a pipe breaking and flooding the school. The two walked to the stairs and then down to the basement.