During the Tern Island case, Mac had been on the mainland, but we’d remained in close contact via phone. Being that it was my first case after New York, she was concerned about my mental state, and rightly so. As much as she needed to check in on my frame of mind, I’d needed her more. When I got to the corner of my street, I took out my phone and called her. I felt my limbs loosen when she picked up.

“Nothing new, I’m afraid,” she said when she answered. “We’re still searching.”

“Yeah, I heard the same from Tim. Got a sec anyway?”

Mac whistled, and the wet sound of happy panting filled my ears. I felt a pang of longing for little Whiskey. “There’s a beer in my hand and a dog in my lap. I’ve got all night,” she said.

“I found something. A tooth. I think it’s Trey’s.” I explained about the envelope on my bed, and the message within.

“Holy hell.”

“I know. I think it’s time to consider the possibility that Bram’s here in Swanton, and that he brought Trey.”

I gave her Harmison’s name and number. Mac promised to call him first thing in the morning. Then she asked after me.

“I’ll be honest,” I said. “Things aren’t great. I don’t mean I’m relapsing”—let’s be clear—“but I’m struggling.”

“You just lost your uncle; that’s hard on anyone. And I know how much you wish you could be back on the job.”

“Sure,” I said, “but Mac, a kid is missing, another innocent life thrown into the mix. Bram was supposed to come after me.”

“You wanted him to, maybe even convinced yourself he would. But you can’t fathom what goes on inside a lunatic’s head.”

“But that’s exactly what I need to do. I spent all that time with him: I should be able to figure this out. It doesn’t help that I’m following a million different lines of inquiry on Brett.”

The second I said it, I cursed myself and hung my head. I knew what was coming.

“Shana, are you investigating your uncle’s death?”

She was going to talk to Harmison. Mac would have found out anyway.

“Swear to God, you’re impossible,” she said when I made a hangdog confession. “That’s a conflict of interest, and you know it.”

“I’m helping. Nothing official.”

“That seems to be your MO these days.”

My face was hot. My body, too. I wriggled clumsily out of my jacket and folded it over my arm as I walked. “I’m sorry, okay? I’m fucking sorry. I’m doing the best I can.”

“Oh, Shana.”

She waited for me to recover. I did my breathing, and closed my eyes. “When we were on Tern, Philip Norton told me he once found a deer on the island. It swam across the channel, all the way from the mainland. That’s me, Mac. I’m that deer in the river.”

“Don’t get all existential on me now.”

“No, listen. I’m paddling like crazy, but—”