I check the park first—almost nobody around this time of day on a weekend, but plenty of cop cruisers parked along the curb. Out there in the marsh, searching for Ivy.

I drive around for a while, thinking maybe I’ll find him skating down some random street. I end up in a neighborhood I recognize, the one with the old cemetery. I park the Suburban on the grassy shoulder, and continue through the stones on foot, stopping to read inscriptions, particularly the ancient ones made from black slate. Crazy to think about being dead and buried for almost two centuries longer than you lived.

I didn’t plan to go into the woods, but I do. Gingerly at first, lots of stopping and listening, as if I might hear his footsteps far off, some hint that it’s worth braving this place again to find him. It’s quiet, peaceful. A bird sings, then falls silent.

I choose a direction and go, moving fast, hands in my pockets, senses working overtime. Even in the daylight, it’s scary being here, but maybe I want to prove to myself that I can take on Kincaid’s demons, anything he can throw at me. And maybe I’m still trying to figure out what he sees in this place. It’s a good place to be alone. Like the egret, standing sentry.

I walk until I reach the ledge above the murals, not straying as close to the edge as Kincaid did the day he smiled down at me. From here, you can see the view spreading out for miles, the boats of the searchers bobbing on the water like small colored specks, dragging the depths for Ivy’s body. I didn’t intend to watch this. I leave quickly, gaze on my steps as I follow the jagged circumference of the ledge, carved by some glacier millions of years ago.

Maybe forty yards away, I step on something that crunches underfoot. A cellophane wrapper with a paperboard tray, the kind Twinkies or Devil Dogs come in. These woods are strewn with trash, but the next thing I see is the distinctive blue of a tarp, rumpled, just visible around the base of a lichen-spotted granite boulder.

I round the rock, see how a piece of old cedar fence paneling has been propped up between the boulder and some trees to create a makeshift wall to block wind, the tarp there to shield from the rain. It’s a shelter. No blankets or newspapers on the ground as a cushion, but it’s been worn to dirt, as if the sleeper takes his bedroll with him each time he leaves.

Twenty