As Maureen McIntyre spoke, I walked to the window and brought my face close to the glass. The cold had found its way inside and glazed the pane with frost. Tim isn’t alone, I told myself as I used a fingernail to carve a line into the fragile layer of ice. There were other investigators at the A-Bay station who could help him search Heart Island, along with McIntyre herself. They’d be in full-on disaster mode already. Picturing the urgency of the chase, a kid gone and my team working as one to beat the clock, made the pizza I’d eaten earlier churn inside my stomach.

I’d only spent one night in Swanton, but I missed A-Bay terribly. I wanted to be back there with Mac and Tim, helping with this pressing case.

But the warning I’d issued to Crissy weighed heavily on my mind. Whoever killed Brett might still be in town. The locals are on it, I reminded myself. This isn’t your job. The closest thing I had to one of those was back in Upstate New York. In so many ways, Swanton was about the past; whereas, back at my new home in A-Bay there was a kid who needed help now. When I thought of it like that, staying in Vermont felt selfish. My parents seemed to be coping. They’d be okay without me for a few days, wouldn’t they?

“Mac?” I said into the void.

“Yeah?”

“I’m coming back.”

“What, already?”

“I know my eval isn’t until Thursday and I’m not cleared to work. I know I can’t lead the team. But I want to help in whatever way I can.” I paused, and drew a breath. “Please let me help.”

Mac didn’t ask a lot of questions, not when I left Watertown for Swanton, and not now. I hoped she’d be glad to have me around, but when she spoke again I heard an intimation of uneasiness in her voice.

“I don’t need to tell you how time-sensitive this case is.”

“No,” I said, “you don’t.”

“We can’t wait to start the search until you get here.”

“Of course not.”

“Okay,” Mac said. “It’s your call.”

I had to think it was the right one.

TEN

When I told them I was leaving, my parents didn’t argue. “Work comes first,” said Dad, though I knew my mother didn’t share that philosophy. It was family first with her, always. She hadn’t asked me to come, but I felt a twinge of guilt for leaving, and assured them I would be back soon.

Thoughts of Brett’s irresponsible behavior and Felicia’s struggle raising kids alone kept me company all the way to Chateaugay near the Canadian border. In Massena, New York, with an hour and twenty to go until A-Bay, I finally managed to put Swanton behind me and give my thoughts over to Trey Hayes. A boy, lost among the islands, just as the weather was starting to turn. A boy who, God willing, was still alive.