Behind us, a boisterous group of teenagers walked in and descended on the coffee bar. Tim cupped my elbow with his hand and guided me to a cluster of empty tables at the back of the room.

“You’ve had some time on your hands these past weeks.”

“Should I have knit you a hat?”

By the look on Tim’s face, the time for jokes was done. “So you’re not looking for him?”

Him. No need to specify who Tim was talking about. “Bram’s gone,” I said.

“Maybe.” Tim’s tone was hard to read, and I sensed a trap. “After he got away in New York, Blake Bram had every reason to leave the state. He could have changed his name. He’s done it before. Or maybe he went home. Back to Swanton.”

“I don’t think so.”

“You don’t think so because that behavior doesn’t fit? Or you don’t think so because you know otherwise?”

Nearby, the teenagers cackled as they filled their mugs. Under his jacket and heavy crewneck sweater, I could see Tim’s shoulders were tense. “Bram could be gone,” he said, “or he could be here. I should have brought the wrath of God down on Cunningham for printing your picture in that story. How did they even know we’d be in Oneida?”

“No idea,” I said with a pang of guilt. “The man’s thorough, I’ll give him that. Look, I don’t know where Bram is, or where he’s been since I left New York. There haven’t been any more murders that match his MO. That doesn’t mean he’s done.”

“But you are, right? With him? Because you still haven’t actually answered my question.”

The teens split into groups and took two tables, one on either side of where Tim and I stood.

“You should get going,” I said. “I don’t want to keep you from your friend.”

I’d always thought of Tim’s eyes as gray, but in the November sunlight that leaked through the restaurant’s front windows, they presented as starbursts of blue and white. He blinked at me, nodded, and advanced on the patio door.

As I fell into step behind him, I overheard one of the waitresses talking to the group of teens. “Last bear claws for a while,” she said. “Better eat your fill while you have the chance.”

Nelly’s last weekend. The dead season was coming. And there wasn’t a thing I could do to stop it.

TWO

Breakfast settled in my stomach like a hunk of cement, and thanks to my talk with Tim, I was running late. I made the half-hour drive from Clayton to Watertown in twenty-one minutes and jogged down Arcade Street with a stitch in my side.

My destination was well concealed, tucked between a pizzeria and an art studio at the back of a courtyard, but I took a moment to survey the street before ducking under a brick archway. The paint on the walls of the building was flaking, and the pavement under my feet was tacky with grime, but it drew me in all the same. I’d gotten good at cultivating my anger so that when I entered the studio, my limbs were primed like a nocked arrow on a raised bow.