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the Novitiate.”
    Stride nodded.
    “People can’t believe I stayed in the profession after that. God knows Percy wanted me to quit. I guess I’m naïve enough to believe that what I do matters. I focus on the success stories and try not to dwell on my failures.”
    “That sounds admirable.”
    “Oh, I don’t know. Most counselors are simply in the business to find people who are more screwed up than they are.”
    He smiled. “Did you grow up around here?”
    “No, I followed a boyfriend here after college. Eventually, he left, and I stayed around. I like the small town life. I have to travel a lot for my job—Milwaukee, Madison, Wausau—but this gives me somewhere to come home to. Of course, it was easier when I was anonymous. The Novitiate changed everything.”
    Stride thought it interesting that she identified her kidnapping and torture with the place where it had occurred, rather than the man who had assaulted her. To her, the incident was simply The Novitiate . He wondered if it gave her some kind of emotional distance from what went on inside the walls. Victims found different ways to cope.
    “It’s a bizarre kind of celebrity,” Kelli went on. “People are still uncomfortable around me, even after four years. They don’t know what to say. When Percy and I moved in here, your uncle was the only one who really welcomed us.”
    “Richard is good that way,” Stride said. “He takes people as they are.”
    “Well, I don’t blame the neighbors. We made their lives difficult simply by being here. Reporters would show up around town. Total strangers would drive by. Creepy. Percy and I didn’t want the magazine covers and the morning shows. We wanted to be left alone.”
    “America loves a fairy tale romance,” Stride said.
    Kelli frowned. “Fairy tales are just that. Fairy tales.”
    She didn’t elaborate. She bowed her head, letting her dirty hair fall across her face. Stride wasn’t sure whether her anger or her grief held the upper hand. He’d seen it many times before. Suicide crashed through those left behind like a tidal wave of guilt and fury.
    “Kelli, I realize how difficult this is for you,” he told her, “but I have to be honest. I don’t think I can help. You know as well as I do that there aren’t any easy answers when someone makes this choice. Everybody wants to know why, but most of the time, there really is no why. I’m sorry, but you probably need a minister or another therapist, not a cop.”
    She took a deep breath. With both hands, she brushed the bangs away from her eyes. “Richard tells me you’ve lost people. Your wife died.”
    He didn’t acknowledge that she was right, because his uncle had no right to share his personal life with a stranger. His annoyance showed in his face, and she didn’t miss it.
    “I’m not asking you to share the details of your loss with me,” she went on. “It just helps me to know that you understand . You know who to blame for losing your wife, Mr. Stride. You can blame a heartless, horrible thing called cancer.” She closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, they were aflame, and her voice hardened like the river ice. “Me, I want to know who to blame, too. Maybe most of the time with suicide, there’s no why, but this time, there is . I know my husband. I know the man he was. Something changed . Something happened . There is a reason he did this, and I want to find it, and no one else is going to help me. I know it’s not a crime to kill yourself, Mr. Stride. Sheriff Weik made it very clear that there’s nothing to investigate. A thorn in his side just got plucked, and he’s ready to close the book. ‘I’m very sorry, ma’am, but that’s the way it is.’ Right now, nobody cares but me, and nobody ever will.”
    She stopped on the trail and took his arm. “Except you know what? I said that to Richard last night, and he said I was wrong. He said, you don’t know my nephew. He told me that the man who stood in that