Peter looked away and nodded. “That night, we held a party at Henry’s place. I can’t remember which one of us suggested that now, but while everyone was arriving, Rider and Cooper waited inside Henry’s bedroom. Even my dad wondered what they might be talking about given time alone. I was annoyed with him for being suspicious, but now I look back, that’s when it could’ve happened. That was the only time Rider had Cooper on his own. That’s when he had his chance to say something or show Cooper something.”

The sheriff reached out, placing his hand flat across the table as if holding it to Peter’s heart somehow, and thanked him for his candour. And the three of them sat in silence with nothing but the wind and the snow all about them.

“But what could that something be?” the sheriff asked after a while.

“I don’t know. There was nothing in there. It was just Henry’s bedroom.”

“But it wasn’t always Henry’s bedroom.”

“What do you mean?”

“You said that a community of Returnees had lived on the lake before Henry and Darlene took it over.”

“Yes,” said Peter. “But what difference does that make?”

The sheriff held Peter’s gaze and once again waited for him to make the connection.

“Selma,” said Peter bolting forward. “That room and cabin were built and lived in by the Returnees’ leader, Selma.”

The door flew open, clattering back on broken hinges into the side of the trailer. The candle’s flame lassoed once in the wind and was gone. The sheriff jumped up, pulling the door to, and looked back across the darkness of the trailer, his eyes heavy with the burden of things yet to come.

“We have to notify the marshal ranger of this.”

Peter pushed his chair back and stood. “No.”

“Son, my hands are tied. And I can only keep the government at bay for so long.”

“But—”

“But nothin’. Now come on. We need to leave now and find whatever it is this Selma left behind before Cooper has a chance to.”

“But what could she have left behind that wouldn’t already have been taken?” Peter asked. “Henry lived there for years before Rider got a chance to get back into the room.”

The sheriff nodded. “And that might turn out to be the case. But the Returnees managed to hide there for some time without being discovered. What if the thing they were hiding was much smaller?”

“How small?”

The sheriff clenched his jaw and said nothing.

“How small?”

“Like a device, Peter. Like a damned bomb.”

The sheriff took his parka from the back of the door and Teddy did the same. Peter held back, watching smoke coil from the candlewick. But no amount of stalling would ever make such a threat go away. None.