“You want to come see the house?” Bear asked.

“The house?” I said. My gut spasmed in panic, and I felt like my heart was beating outside my chest.

Bear smiled. “Where you’ll be working,” he said.

I glanced at my mother’s shitty little truck, slightly crooked off its frame and parked with the front tire in a deep puddle. On the way out of the park this morning, the fuel light had come on.

“I’m pretty dirty from work,” I said.

“Why don’t you go home first,” Bear said. “Shower and change, and then meet me over there.”

So logical. So normal. And so ridiculously impossible that I started laughing. I was afraid I sounded hysterical. I wiped at my eyes, and my lips pulled down in a hard, uncontrollable frown.

“Whoa,” Bear said, when I had hoped he wasn’t paying attention. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“Oh.” I waved my hand. Blinked my wet eyes. “It’s more than you want to know,” I said.

“Tell me,” he said.

I took a rough breath. “The water and electric were turned off at my place,” I said.

“Okay,” Bear said.

“So, I need to work,” I said. I tried to keep my eyes on the clouds behind him and not on his beautiful face. They were heavy clouds, the kind that bring snow. The air, even though it was warm, had a bite to it.

“Are you hungry?” Bear asked.

“I mean, I’m not in a commercial with a swollen belly and a fly on my face,” I said and laughed, bitter.

“I meant right now,” Bear said, and he smiled. “Not chronically.”

“Oh.” I blushed hard, and I felt my heart again, pounding. “Yeah,” I said.

He got into the Land Rover then and pushed open the passenger side door from inside. “Get in,” he said, and after a second of hesitation, I did. I got in and sat on the buttery leather seat that was warm from the sun, or maybe from a built-in heater.

“I’m pretty sure I can get you what you need,” Bear said.

NINE: KATERI

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 18

Kateri’s phone rings in the early hours, before the sun has come up. In her deepest sleep, she struggles to recognize the chirp of her phone. In her dream, a cricket as big as her hand climbs the wall, its copper wings making the sound of her phone ringing.

“Fisher,” Hurt barks as soon as she accepts the call. “I need you out at Mercy.”

Her heart starts and she draws a quick breath. “Did they find the kid?” she asks.

“No,” he says. “Come now.”

His call has her immediately on alert. Still, she stops at the twenty-four-hour Stewarts for coffee before she drives the two-lane highway out to Mount Snow. She watches the sun in her rearview mirror, leaking yellow over the horizon, lightening the black trees, spreading gold over the pavement. By the time she gets to Mercy, there’s a circle of seven trooper cars, lights going, an ambulance, Hurt’s Honda, and a petite buff BMW that, turns out, belongs to Elise Diaz.