“You’re a stubborn woman, you know that?” he replied, but I knew he’d do what I asked. He’d had time to think it over, and his conclusion was inevitable. I was going after Bram with or without him, and we were better off as a team.

Easing the gas pedal downward, I said, “Tell her we’re on our way.”

THIRTY

By 5:00 p.m., all three of us were huddled on a police boat, hurtling into the icy wind. To my left, Boldt Castle was more visible than I’d ever seen it now that the trees surrounding the manse were stripped of their foliage. It was only a ten-minute boat ride from Heart Island, where Trey’d gone on his field trip, to Deer Island. Mac said she thought Bram hid in the cottages for a while, but had they been right under our noses on this island, too?

I never fully understood the magnetic draw of natural beauty until I started calling the North Country home. Even desolate and cold, the river put me in a state of awe. With no other boats around to disturb its numinous splendor, the surface of the water was a lustrous, level plane. We glided over it, past islands bordered by cliffs of gneiss and pink granite and crowned with eastern red and white pines, their trunks bent to dramatic angles by centuries of wind. Reflections of stone and cedar homes, all empty for the winter months, twinkled on the water like eventide ghosts. By the time we got close to our target, the sun was balanced on the horizon, and when Tim cut the motor the sound of geese calling echoed for miles. I could feel the water all around me, and it strengthened my resolve. This was a place unlike any other. And I wanted Bram out.

From our southwest vantage point, the forty-acre island appeared to be nothing but forest. I would have assumed it was uninhabited, and I would be right, but it wasn’t always that way. When Deer Island was active as a summer retreat for Yale University’s Skull and Bones Society, stewards served elaborate dinners to former American presidents while their fellow Bonesmen walked its bucolic trails and made use of its tennis court. Now, the place was just a pain in Tim’s ass. In summer, local kids home from college liked to use it for parties. According to Tim, calling it a death trap was generous. Of the four original structures on the island, three now lay in ruins. Only the society lodge was still habitable.

That’s where we found the stolen motorboat. Located on the channel side of the island, the lodge was the most visible of Deer Island’s structures, its dock a neon arrow pointing the way in. I didn’t like that at all. If someone was trying to hide, tying up here wasn’t the way to do it.

Aside from the tarp, the boat was empty. There was nothing in it that appeared to belong to our missing boy or to Blake Bram. Stepping out of our own vessel, I transferred my gaze to the lodge. There was no smoke coming from its towering chimney. I pictured Trey Hayes in the jacket he’d been wearing the day he disappeared, which had been described to me as lightweight. It was a lot colder now than three days ago, and it seemed impossible that McIntyre and I had sat outside at Nelly’s just last weekend. If Trey was here, this derelict building would provide little warmth.