I soften just looking at him. Cricket trots over to refamiliarize herself with his smell, and Wanda says hello, seeming to know there’s a story here, one she can learn some other time.

“You can help with the mailings or in the field,” I throw out. “We’ve got four or five different groups going out every day. Come tomorrow morning. We’ll be here.”

He nods and takes in the room, heading to the bulletin board, our shrine to Cameron. I watch his eyes move over the images, the poems and drawings, each a new part of her he’s never had a chance to know.

Moved, I go over and stand next to him. He’s staring at a photo I don’t recognize. Gray must have brought it in recently, maybe just today. In it, Cameron is almost unrecognizable. Her hair has been gathered into a low, sleek ponytail and pulled over her left shoulder. Her eye makeup looks professionally done, with winged liner that makes her look not older exactly but wiser, more confident and experienced. There’s also an imitative quality to her pose and expression—I don’t know how else to explain it to myself—as if Cameron was acting for the camera, somehow, pretending to be someone else, someone not just beautiful, but famous. Her black blouse has draping sleeves and bares her midriff. Her black skinny jeans look painted onto her body above low-heeled black boots. I stood in her closet and didn’t see anything like this. Are they even her clothes?

Hector is still staring. “Where was this taken?”

I step closer. The background is wooded and lush. Cameron leans against a tree trunk that’s deeply textured, curved like a body, its color almost mauve with shadows. The light is eerie and familiar, I realize, and the shapes of the trees, too. Suddenly I feel a jangle of dread, like a premonition that’s come true. This is the krummholz grove.

(fifty-five)

Before seven the next morning, I’m headed back to Cahto Street, my mind a hive of questions. Is the krummholz grove just a random place Cameron and Gray decided to hang out one day, or is it connected to our killer’s territory? Did I miss a sign of him when I hiked into the grove? Was he nearby then, or when the photos were taken? Had he brought Cameron there some other time? And whether he had or not, why is she so unrecognizable in the picture?

Di Anne answers the door in her bathrobe and slippers, looking rumpled but tender somehow without a trace of makeup. Offering coffee, she leads me into the kitchen, where Gray stands packing his lunch for school, cheese and apples in a brown paper bag, a Dr Pepper, a Hostess cupcake, all of it so ordinary and uncomplicated, I almost hate to ask my questions.

I hold up the photo of Cameron. “Did you take this, Gray?”