Tessa entered and kept on walking, her footsteps growing faster, surer now. She came to a massive gray boulder jutting up from the landscape and seemed to nod to herself. They veered left around the rock, Quizo whining low in his throat, as if already on-scent.

No one spoke. Just the squeaky crunch of footsteps trampling snow, the panting of dogs, the muffled exhalations of their handlers and officers, bundled up in neck warmers and wool scarves.

They exited the copse of trees. D.D. paused, thinking that must be a mistake, but Tess kept moving forward, crossing an open expanse of snow, fording a small, trickling stream just visible between fluffy white banks, before disappearing into a more serious line of woods.

“Awfully far to walk with a body,” D.D. muttered.

Bobby shot her a glance, seeming to think the same thing.

But Tessa didn’t say a word. She was walking faster now, with purpose. There was a look on her face that was almost uncanny to see. Grim determination rimmed with ragged desperation.

Did Tessa even register the dog team, her entourage of law enforcement handlers? Or had she gone back somewhere in her mind, to a cold Saturday afternoon. Neighbors had seen the Denali depart around four p.m., meaning there hadn’t been much daylight left by the time she made it all the way out here.

What had Tessa Leoni been thinking in those last thirty minutes of twilight? Struggling with the weight of her daughter’s body as she careened through the woods, across flat white fields, heading deeper and deeper into the dense underbrush.

When you buried your child, was it like imparting your greatest treasure into the sanctity of nature? Or was it like hiding your greatest sin, instinctively seeking out the darkest bowels of the forest to cover your crime?

They came to another collection of moss-covered rocks, this time with a vague man-made shape. Rock walls, old foundations, the remnants of chimneys. In a state that had been inhabited as long as Massachusetts, even the woods were never totally without remnants of civilization.

The trees gave way to a smaller clearing and Tessa stopped.

Her throat worked. It took her a couple of times, then the word came out as a whisper: “Here,” Tessa said.

“Where?” D.D. asked.

“There was a fallen tree. Snow had collected in front of it, forming a snowbank. Seemed … like an easy place to dig.”