"And has he written? The way he said he would?"

"His letters haven't exactly come like clockwork, but yes- one letter a week, and one phone call and sometimes, if he was near a computer, I'd get an e-mail. Every week. Until now."

Cardinal nodded. Miss Steen was not just a serious young woman, she was also- and this was not a judgment Cardinal made very often- a good person. She had been well brought up, probably strictly, to respect other people and the truth. She looked Dutch, with her wheat-blond hair cut short as a boy's, and her eyes the deep blue of new denim.

"Keith's last phone call was Sunday the fifteenth- a week and a half ago. He sounded fine. He was in Gravenhurst, staying at a hideous little hotel and not having a particularly good time, but he's basically a cheerful person, Keith- the kind who makes friends easily. He's a pretty good musician- lugs his guitar everywhere. People tend to take him in. That's partly what worries me."

Lucky Keith, Cardinal thought, to have someone like Miss Steen worrying about him. She pulled a photograph out of her purse and handed it to Cardinal. It showed a boy with long curly brown hair, sitting on a park bench. He was playing an acoustic guitar, frowning with concentration.

"He just hasn't got a suspicious bone in his body," she continued. "He's always getting cornered by pamphleteers and people like that because he always believes their opening pitch, you know what I'm saying?" Her denim-blue eyes- dark, and slightly turned up at the corners- implored him to understand. "Which is not to say he's stupid. Far from it. But the others who disappeared, they weren't stupid, either, were they?"

"Well, two of them were very young, but no- none of them were stupid."

"Keith was planning to head for the Soo on Monday, but he wasn't really looking forward to it. He's not really big on seeing relatives, but…" She looked away, took a deep breath again, and held it.

Keith, my man, Cardinal thought, if you let this young woman get away, you are truly an idiot. "What is it?" he asked gently. "You're hedging, now."

The breath was let go in a long sigh. The serious blue eyes held him once more. "Detective, it's only honest to tell you that Keith and I had a- a bit of a quarrel, as well. A couple of weeks ago when he called. I guess I was feeling kind of lonely and vulnerable. Anyway, we went over a lot of old ground about how we're spending our respective years. He's lugging his guitar cross-country- I mean, really, if I have a rival for his affections it's that Ovation of his- but I'm not as spontaneous as he is. I just want to get on with my education. It wasn't a serious fight- please believe that. We didn't hang up angry or anything. But it was a quarrel, and I wouldn't feel right not telling you."

"But you don't think this quarrel is the reason for Keith's… sudden silence."

"I'm sure it isn't."

"I appreciate your telling me. How were things left, exactly?"

"Keith said he would probably stop off in Algonquin Bay- he'd call me when he got here."

"Miss Steen, Keith didn't want to go to the Soo, didn't want to see his relatives. Now, you say he wasn't angry with you, and I accept that, but why should we assume he's in trouble when he doesn't show up at a place he said quite clearly he didn't want to go to?"

"On its own, I agree, it wouldn't be alarming. But no letter? No phone call? No e-mail? After being so reliable about it? And you have these unsolved abductions here, these murders, right?"

Cardinal nodded. Miss Steen was holding her breath again, working her way to another thought. Cardinal waited for her to reach it. Lise Delorme leaned in the doorway, but Cardinal shook his head, warning her off. Miss Steen resolved whatever hesitations she had; when she spoke, her voice was louder. "I told you there was no letter this past week, Detective."

"Yes. You made quite a point of it."

"Well, that isn't quite true. And that's really why I'm here." Miss Steen reached into her purse and pulled out a manila envelope. "The letter's in here- the envelope, I mean; it isn't a letter. It's Keith's handwriting on the address, but there wasn't any letter inside."

"It arrived empty?" Cardinal took the manila envelope from her.

"Not empty." This time she didn't look at the floor. Her serious blue eyes looked directly into his.

Cardinal tore off the top sheet of his desk blotter pad and emptied the contents of the manila envelope onto a fresh sheet. The smaller, enclosed envelope was postmarked three days ago, Algonquin Bay. Using tweezers, Cardinal opened the flap, saw the yellowish, dried contents, and closed it again. He folded it into the clean blotter sheet and put both back inside the manila envelope.

In the brief silence that followed, Cardinal was certain of two things: Every word this young woman had told him was true, and- if he were not already dead- Keith London had very little time left to live.

He dialed Jerry Commanda's number, then put his hand over the mouthpiece. "When did this arrive?"

"This morning."

"And you came straight here?"

"Yes. It didn't occur to me for one moment that Keith did it. But he did address the envelope. I know his handwriting. I'm right to be frightened, don't you think?"

Jerry Commanda was on the line, now. "Jerry, this is important. I need to helicopter something down to Forensic. What are my chances?"

"Zero. If it's desperate, I might be able to weasel something out of the flight school. How urgent are we talking?"

"Very. I think our boy just mailed us a sample of his semen."

31

ALGONQUIN Bay's government dock is a quiet place on a winter evening. The only sounds are likely to be the sawtooth buzz of a passing snowmobile, or a sudden quake in the ice as massive plates shift against each other, emitting an otherworldly sigh, a slow-motion squeal, sometimes a horrendous gasp.

Eric Fraser and Edie Soames huddled side by side in a corner of the wharf out of the wind. Lake Nipissing stretched out into the gray like some bleak Nordic vision. Eric wasn't saying anything, but Edie was luxuriating in the thrill of knowing another mind so well that no words were necessary. In fact, she knew what Eric was going to say- he would say it any minute now. He'd been restless and irritable all morning and into the afternoon. And now, although taking the photographs was calming him a little, Edie knew where things were headed, even if Eric didn't. Any minute now, he would say it.

But Eric moved away to stand below the Chippewa Princess, a tour boat that had been turned into a restaurant- at least, during summer it was a restaurant; in winter, it hung clear of the ice like a white whale on a hoist. Eric adjusted a lens, cursing the cold. Edie fussed with her hair, trying to get it to hang across one eye like Drew Barrymore's in a movie she'd seen. Some hope, she thought bitterly. But at least it would hide some of her face.

Watching Eric in his long black coat, she wished they could sleep together. The problem was Eric didn't like it. His entire body would go stiff as a board when she touched him- not with desire, but with revulsion. At first she had thought the revulsion was directed just at her, no surprise there. But Eric seemed revolted by sex in general. Sex is for weaklings, he always said. Well, she could live without it, especially now that they shared this other, deeper excitement. He would say the word within the hour, she was sure.

"Move over." Eric motioned her to her left. "I want to get the islands in."

Edie turned to look. Out there, where the sky and the lake met in mutual shades of ash gray, lay the islands. That island. Windigo. Who would have thought such a tiny island could have a name? Edie remembered the dead girl, the curve of her spine against Eric's duffel bag. So momentous it had seemed at the time, the murder, such a grim weight to that word. But it was amazing how little it mattered, the actual event, when you got right down to it. A human life had been extinguished, but no pillar of flame had descended from the sky, no maw of hell had opened. The cops and the newspapers got a little excited, but essentially the world went on exactly as before, minus Katie Pine. I wouldn't even remember her name, Edie thought, if they hadn't yammered about it day in and day out on the news.