Micah pops to the surface, then another diver. They move onto shore, shaking their heads and peeling off their wet suits, drying off with towels someone fetched from upstairs. The cops gather up their trash and toss dirt on the fire. They’re packing up for the day and, by the looks of things, leaving empty-handed.

Chet bangs through the back door moments later, his cheeks chapped from the wind. “All that for a big, fat nothing. Can you believe it? Wait’ll I tell the guys down at the bar.”

“Micah told us not to talk to anyone, remember? If anybody asks, we’re supposed to say ‘no comment.’”

“No. He told you to say ‘no comment.’” Chet peels off his coat, drops it on a hook and jimmies off one boot, then the next, letting them fall to the floor with a thud.

“Chet, you know as well as I do he meant you, too. You can’t go around talking about this all over town, not until we get the okay. You know how Chief Hunt is. If you mess up this case for him, he’s going to toss your ass in jail without a second thought.”

A flash of something crosses his face, fear mixed with resignation. “Oh, come on. It’s not like I can say anything that people don’t already know by now. By now there’s not a soul in town who doesn’t know about the dead tourist, or that Micah’s been searching for evidence all day.”

My phone beeps with a text from Micah. Done for the day. What do you want me to do with the towels?

My thumbs fly across the keyboard. Just leave them by the back door, I’ll take care of it. Go home. Get warm. All good up here.

I walk to the window and press my face to the glass, cupping my hands to see everyone’s gone, nothing but dark massing shapes of the trees and mountains against a slightly luminous sky. Paul is out there somewhere, in woods that come alive at night. Fox and coyotes and bats, tiny rodents that scurry between his legs as he crashes through. Night animals and people like Jax, who don’t mind the darkness.

Speaking of Jax, where is he? Has Paul found him yet? And how does he know where to look? Jax roams the hills during the day and sleeps in caves or rotted-out logs. He doesn’t exactly have an address.

The lake is a sea of swirling black, swollen and churning from a rainy fall. Even from here, even in the coming darkness, I can see the muddy streaks.

“I wonder why they didn’t shut down the dam.”