Between the four of them, they guide her up and out of the water, sliding her carefully onto the tarp. She settles at an awkward angle, hair hanging on either side of her face like a slick white curtain, smothering all but a sliver of porcelain jaw.

Micah hugs his sopping arms around his belly and leans over the body, careful not to drip on her. “I can’t tell if this rigor is from mortis or the temperature, but the ME will know. Skin’s intact, as far as I can see. Clothes and shoes look expensive.” He’s so cold his body is practically vibrating.

I rush down the hill, shaking out the towels on the way.

Sam stops me at the edge of the tarp with a hand in the air. “Stay back,” he says, but he passes the towels to Micah.

He wraps one around his shoulders, but tosses the others on the ground. He turns to the two techs. “Okay, let’s get her into the bag. Sam and I lift her up, and y’all slide the bag underneath. You two—” he points a finger at the recruits, flinging them with icy water “—hold the bottom edge of the tarp so whatever’s on her doesn’t wash back into the lake. Everybody clear on what they’ll be doing?”

Head nods all around. Everybody moves into position. Chief Hunt moves to where he can get a better look.

“One...” Micah wedges an arm under her hips. “...two...three.”

What happens next is a blur of hurried movements and moving limbs, of male grunts and shouted orders. From their voices, I get that it’s not her weight but her rigidity that’s making the task difficult, and they handle her like a piece of their grandma’s best crystal. They lift her body in the air like it weighs nothing, cradling her to their chests and shuffling until she’s hovering over the body bag. I try to get a peek at her face, but they’re clustered all around her, a wall of shoulders and backs, and I’m standing at the wrong end. All I see are the bottom half of her pants and her shoes. Micah was right; they do look expensive.

Brown suede ankle boots with a thick stacked heel, not too high, fastened with a dark leather strap at the top. Like nothing in my closet, or anything I’d ever buy for myself—too prim, far too impractical on these muddy hills. City shoes.

Something slips across my mind, something important, but I’m too much in shock to catch it.

“Gentle now,” Micah says.

They lower her into the awaiting body bag, tucking her hands and feet inside. I take in their words with a silent sigh of relief. They don’t know her. A stranger from out of town.