“Welcome to the club,” Matt said, bending down. He was glad to see someone else, to talk to another human. I guess it’s true when they say misery loves company, he thought. He looked away, ashamed.

“You-you’ve been hurt too?” the man asked.

“You could say that,” Matt said. “I’ve been trapped here for days.”

The man looked around nervously. “Trapped? Where? We’re outside, son.”

Matt scanned the orchard edges and returned his gaze to the man. “In this orchard.”

The man checked the tree line and then looked at him like he was crazy.

“Something grabbed me, put me here,” the man said as he wiped his bloody nose with the back of his hand. “I was cutting fallen trees out on the road—then I felt numb and couldn’t breathe. I was dragged through the trees and the next thing I know I’m lying here.”

“The effects wear off after several hours, mister. Can you feel your toes?”

“Yes, I think. But my limbs feel like dead weight.”

“That will go away, trust me.”

“Trust you? What are you talking about?”

Matt looked away, tears welling in his eyes. He fought them and turned to the anxious man. “I don’t know. All I can tell you is that a force is holding me here, and that force put you here, too.”

“Crazy talk, guy,” the man said, his chest heaving and his eyes blinking rapidly.

No point in responding to that, Matt thought. Better to be the one asking questions at this moment. “What’s your name?”

The man’s panicking eyes met Matt’s as he tossed aside a branch that had pierced his jacket. “Mike Eggerts.”

The call concerning missing Officer Bertil haunted Mike Eggerts. The police had interviewed him as he was the last person Bertil tried to contact. Mike had met Bertil many times in the comings and goings around Ironville. They often passed each other on the road, exchanging friendly waves. Bertil was an upstanding and powerful young man.

He told the police he knew nothing, which of course was true. All he knew was that Bertil phoned in an animal situation. Eggerts had a good idea just what that was—slaughtered moose hanging high from the canopy. Eggerts shifted in his car seat and set the heater. The breeze from the big lake chilled the air down here, and the vegetation grew darker, with stout aspen and patches of blueberry and bracken fern. Eggerts adjusted his glasses, sliding them up from the tip of his nose.