Jacob grips the armrest. “You will get stuck in the snow.”

“I know what I’m doing.” I muscle the truck through deep drifts. The tires spin and grab alternately. The engine revs as we bounce past the steel building. I cut the wheel and we slide around to the rear where the vehicle will be out of sight from the road. The last thing I need is for some well-meaning cop—one of my own or a deputy from the sheriff’s office—driving by and finding us. A logical explanation would be hard to fabricate.

Cutting the engine, I pull on my gloves and get out. The frigid air stings my face, slithers down my collar as I pass beneath the massive overhead door. Inside the behemoth structure, the wind whines like an injured dog. A stained mattress and two fifty-gallon drums riddled with jagged holes from a shotgun lay scattered haphazardly. Half a dozen trash bags have been piled against the far wall of the truck aisle, several torn open by roaming dogs or raccoons.

A few yards away a padlock hangs on the office door. The concrete walkway is cracked as if by some massive earthquake. Winter-brown grass juts from between the crumbling gaps, nature trying to reclaim what had once been hers. The weigh platform has sunk a foot into the ground. At the end of the truck aisle, a second overhead door, knocked off its track by vandals or the wind, hangs at a precarious angle. Beyond, steel piping that had once fed grain from the silos to waiting trucks transects the night sky.

The task before us is overwhelming and macabre. I don’t know where to start. I wonder what will be left of the corpse. Bones? Clothing? Will we even be able to find the makeshift grave? Looking down, I stomp the ground, find it frozen solid, and I’m glad I thought to bring the pickax.

Standing next to me, Jacob huddles more deeply into his coat. “I have not been to this place since that night.”

I’ve driven past the elevator a thousand times, but never stopped. Just driving by was enough to give me the creeps. Every time the PD received a call about activity out here, I dispatched someone else.

Hands on his hips, my brother looks around as if trying to get his bearings.

“Where do we dig?” I prompt.

“I am not certain.”

“What do you mean you’re not certain?”

“I stayed outside with the buggy that night. Datt dug the grave, not me.” Frustration churns inside me, but I hold my tongue. Leaving him, I walk to the Explorer. I open the rear door and pull out two shovels, bolt cutters and the pickax, and lean the tools against the quarter panel.

Jacob walks the length of the building, studying the ground, his head moving from side to side as if he’s lost something.

I leave the tools and cross to him. “We have to find the grave,” I say.