He dove down a short but steep slope. Above them, Morgan heard Eleanor and Don whiz by. She mimicked Bennett’s movements as he leaned left and then right, dodging brambles and branches. Adrenaline surged through her body. She held on tight, probably squeezing the air from his lungs, to keep from being flung off.

“You okay?” Bennett called.

She nodded, though she didn’t know if he could see it. “What’s that?” she asked, suddenly pointing up ahead to a small building that looked like it was made of Lincoln Logs.

“An old post office,” Bennett explained. “This was all a little town once.”

“What happened to it?”

She didn’t have to see him to know his face was split into a wolfish grin. “People like me.”

“Private equity guys?”

“Businesspeople who saw an opportunity for profit. The county makes more off the taxes on these lake houses than they ever did with the whole town.”

“So money really can buy everything?”

“What do you think, Morgan Mori?”

“I think I’m in the wrong line of work.”

Bennett laughed. “After the holidays, I’ll take you on as my apprentice, how about that?”

She forced a grin and for a moment, the wind froze her face that way. They sped on through the graveyard of a town where he pointed out an old, dilapidated bait shop, a hardware store, and a library. Then, something appeared that felt like an unsettling brand of déjà vu to Morgan. She knew this place. A frozen pond with a dock and a little lean-to shed. It looked smaller in real life than it had in the photographs. A pile of logs was stacked along one wall, a long-handled ax splitting the top-most one, as though whoever had last swung it, called it a day and simply never came back.

“This is your pond,” she said, remembering scanning old photos of Clive and Bennett, holding up fishing lines of bluegill and perch.

Bennett laughed. “Sure is. Man, we used to spend a lot of time out here.”

“You and your dad?”

“Yeah.”

A canoe that might once have been fire-engine red was beached on the shore. It looked cut in half, its tail end stuck under the ice. Who knew how long ago the little boat had been abandoned, left to the weather and the elements and the solitude. Morgan felt sorry for the thing, and then, as they continued to careen through the woods, she was struck by a memory so vivid, so real, that she almost fell off the machine, for all by its lonesome, amidst the birch trees, stood a blue box.

It looked like a vintage parking meter, and yet, she remembered being lifted up as a child, someone’s hand guiding hers as she dialed a number on the keypad. The memory was immortalized in a negative, even. Clive had taken her there.

“What is that?” she asked Bennett, pointing to the thing that was now behind them.

“What?” He turned to look over his shoulder.