They walked to the plane, where Rachael was loading Pip into the backseat. Henry called Rachael to shore and Max watched as Henry told her the news, her head slumping low. Then she looked at Max, nodded, and walked back to the plane.

As they taxied out to the middle of the river for takeoff, Max caught a glimpse of Henry downstream again, kneeling next to Lyle’s body, his head bowed as if in prayer.

CHAPTER 75

Max sat beside the pilot and Pip rode in the backseat, staring out at the sky around them. In that moment, Pip lived in a sliver of respite between the tumult of his kidnapping and the maelstrom of heartache ahead. Max wished he could capture just a drop of that contentment to save for later when Pip would need it the most.

Rachael used the radio to try to get in touch with the sheriff of St. Louis County, which would have jurisdiction over the murder of Peter Molinar. It comforted Max that Tate Bolger would have no say. Max would push to get the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension to keep tabs on the investigation into Sandy Voight’s death. Intentionally or not, Bolger had botched things from the beginning.

It felt strange to think like a cop again, the world defined by rules and procedures. But he wasn’t a cop. He had bent and broken the law to serve his purposes and he felt just fine about it. All that time he had spent at the cabin trying to turn back some karmic clock, but it had never been about going back. The man in the mirror wasn’t a wound that needed to heal; he was the scar that remained.

About halfway into their hour-long flight back to Ely, Rachael managed to reach someone from the sheriff’s department in St. Louis County. She handed a headset to Max, and he introduced himself to Chief Deputy Aldo Bennet.

Max gave Bennet a thumbnail sketch of what had happened, lowering his voice as he talked about the deaths of Sandy and Lyle Voight. He told Bennet about the body they would find at Hill River State Forest, and about Peter Molinar. Then he asked Deputy Bennet to bring Lyle’s wife, Meredith, to the dock to take care of Pip once they landed.

“No offense,” Bennet said, “but I don’t know you from Adam, and you want me to tell this woman that her husband’s dead?”

“I used to be a homicide detective in Minneapolis. Call Homicide there and ask for Niki Vang. She was my partner. She can vouch for me.”

After his chat with Deputy Bennet, Max must have dozed off, because the next thing he knew the plane was banking for its landing on Shagawa Lake, the northern border of Ely. Behind him, Pip stared out his window with a look of amazement. All that Max could think about was how he had failed. He should have been the one to take that bullet. It should have been him lying dead on the bank of the river and Lyle sitting in that plane with his grandson.