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she was twenty. She’d been killed in an auto accident, alongwith her equally wild and reckless husband, who’d been driving drunk. In his late forties, John Harris had become the guardian of two young grandchildren.
    â€œWhat are you going to do?”
    â€œGo back into the Boundary Waters, to Raspberry Lake, see what I can find.”
    Jenny looked a little disturbed. “When?”
    â€œWe leave tomorrow.”
    â€œWe? You and Harris’s grandkids?”
    â€œJust his granddaughter.”
    â€œDad, do I have to remind you that you’re walking me down the aisle in two weeks?”
    â€œI’ll go in, stay a couple of days, then come out. I’ll be back in time for the nuptials.”
    Her face was one huge scowl. “So you agreed to all of this just for the sake of good old Johnny Do, a man you haven’t seen in, what, forty years?”
    â€œHe’s the only family these two kids have, Jenny. Remember when your mother went missing, all the hell we went through not knowing what had happened to her? I imagine that’s what these folks are feeling right now, don’t you?” He saw her relax just a bit, relent. “I probably won’t find anything that we didn’t find before, but I have to try, and it has to be now. If I wait, the snow’s bound to come, and it’ll cover every trace that might still be out there.” He pushed away from the table. “I’m heading to Crow Point. I want to talk to Henry.”
    â€œWhy? He was involved in the search?”
    â€œNo, but he understands those woods better than any man I know. Maybe he can give me a clue to what I ought to be looking for, something we all might have missed.”
    â€œBack for dinner?”
    â€œYeah. I’ll need to pack the gear for tomorrow. By the way, where’s Rose?”
    He was speaking of his sister-in-law, who’d come from Evanston, Illinois, to help with the wedding preparations. In the absenceof Jenny’s mother, Rose had often stepped in to fill the matriarchal shoes.
    â€œWorking out at Curves. She says she wants to look svelte for the wedding.”
    â€œBut it’s all about the bride, isn’t it?”
    â€œOh, you are so male.”
    â€œCome on, Baa-baa,” Waaboo cried from the other room.
    â€œI’ll explain to him,” Jenny said. “You go do what you have to do.”
    Cork said, “I can spare fifteen minutes for my grandson.” He stood to take care of the most pleasant business he’d seen to in that whole dismal day.

C HAPTER 5

    H enry Meloux lived on a point of land well north of Aurora, at the very edge of the Iron Lake Reservation. To reach it, Cork parked his Expedition along a gravel county road, near a double-­trunk birch that marked the beginning of a trail through a forest of mixed hardwood, spruce, and pine. He locked his vehicle, tugged on his gloves, turned up the collar of his leather jacket against a chill wind that had risen, and set off down the well-worn path. It was a hike of nearly two miles, one that, over the course of his life, Cork had taken more times than he could count or ever hope to remember.
    The trees lining the path felt like dark walls that day, and the narrow strip of sky above was like a ribbon torn from some soiled and shabby fabric. Cork hunched his shoulders and walked, lost in brooding thought, oblivious to the beauty that, in a different mood, he might have appreciated. He was thinking now of his daughter’s impending marriage, which he greatly approved of. He liked the man she’d chosen and who’d chosen her. He liked that Waaboo would have a father. What he didn’t like was that they’d chosen to wed in November, a month that promised nothing but disappointment and, if he allowed himself to sink into melodrama, doom.
    Had he said anything to Jenny about his concern? No. It wasn’t his place. The wedding was theirs, and the date they set