Meaning the sex and the kisses.

That'd teach her to open her damn mouth.

The alternative to having him on her tail-running around on her own-had its appeal, but Carine thought if she could just make the leap to Tyler North as a Musketeer, she wouldn't feel so hemmed in. But it wasn't just his presence, it was that every time she looked at him, a part of her remembered that he was the man she'd loved so much last winter and almost married.

She eyed him as he joined her on the sidewalk and wondered what they'd think of each other if they were meeting for the first time now. He was thirty-seven, she was thirty-three. They weren't kids. She tried to look at him objectively, pretend she hadn't known him forever-hadn't gone to bed with him just yesterday. She took note of his superfit physique, his military-cropped tawny hair, his green eyes and bad-road face. The jeans, the battered brown leather jacket.

She'd be attracted to him, no doubt about it.

Just as well she knew better, experience ever the hard teacher.

He seemed to guess what she was thinking and grinned at her. "Just think. Manny could have asked Gus to keep you out of trouble instead of me."

"Do you see now why I've always hated you?"

"If I'd known what you meant by 'hate,' I could have started sleeping with you when you were sixteen."

"Gus would have killed you."

"Hang on. He might yet."

It was in the fifties in the valley, warm by Gus's standards. He had the wooden front door of his store propped open with a statue of a river otter, the afternoon breeze blowing in through the screen door. Carine went in first, the old, oiled floorboards soft under her feet. Her uncle had started the business, now one of the most respected outfitters in the valley, when she was in the second grade, and he called it Gus & Smitty's. There was no Smitty and never had been, but he insisted that just Gus's was too prosaic. It was located in a former Main Street hardware store. Customers liked the old-fashioned atmosphere, but they came for the state-of-the-art equipment and unparalleled services.

Carine wove through the racks of winter hiking and camping gear to the back wall, where Gus, in a wool shirt and heavyweight chinos, had a map of the Pemigewasset Wilderness opened on the scarred oak counter. They'd hiked in the Pemigewasset countless times. It was a sprawling federally designated wilderness area resurrected from shortsighted logging-and-burning operations that had nearly destroyed it between the mid-nineteenth and the mid-twentieth century. Now it was protected by an act of Congress, and human activity there was strictly regulated.

"Planning a hike?" Carine asked.

He peeled off his bifocals and looked up from his map. "Nah. Just dreaming."

Stump wagged his tail but didn't stir from his bed at Gus's feet.

Ty whistled at a price tag on an expensive ski jacket.

"Only the best," Gus said.

"At that price it should come with its own search-and-rescue team." Ty emerged from the racks, joining them at the counter. "Just add water."

"You come in here to make fun of the merchandise?"

"No, sir. We're here to invite ourselves to dinner."

Gus folded up his map and tucked it back in a drawer. He sold a wide selection of maps, guidebooks, how-to books and outdoor magazines. "I'm cooking a chicken in the clay pot. You two can go over to the house and put it in the oven if you want. I'll close up here in a bit."

"I never can remember what to do with a clay pot," Carine said. "What part you soak in cold water, for how long, if you're supposed to preheat the oven-"

"Instruction book's right in the pot. How'd it go at the Rancourts?"

Ty leaned over a glass cabinet of sunglasses, sports watches and jackknives. " Sterling was frosty, Jodie was hangdog and Gary Turner drooled over Carine."

She groaned. "Gus, that's not how it went."

"It's the short version." North pointed to a pair of Oakleys. "Let me see those."

Gus shook his head. "I'm not wasting my time. You've never paid more than twenty dollars for sunglasses in your life."

"Twenty bucks? When have I ever paid that much for sunglasses?"

"Go to hell."

Ty put a hand to his heart in mock despair. "Is that how you treat a paying customer?"

"The key word is paying." Gus dismissed him and turned to Carine, his tone softening. "You don't ever have to see the Rancourts again, you know. You quit, right?"

She nodded. "If I'd just taken my camera with me during lunch-"

"If Jodie Rancourt and Louis Sanborn had just behaved themselves."

"I promised Sterling we'd be discreet."

"Too bad his wife wasn't."

"It's water over the dam at this point," Carine said. "I hope the Boston police will be here soon. I just want to get it over with."

"Go put the chicken on. Cooking'll help keep things in perspective."

The screen door creaked open, and Eric Carrera wandered unexpectedly into the store, making his way back to the counter. Flushed and out of breath, he spoke first to Gus. "My friend and I are in town collecting leaves for earth science class," he said. "How's it going, Mr. Winter?"

"Not bad, Mr. Carrera," Gus replied.

Ty, eyes narrowed as he took in the boy's appearance, stood up from the glass cabinet. "No trees on campus?"

Eric shifted, deliberately avoiding contact with his father's friend. "Yes, sir, there are, but not any ginkgoes and larch trees. There's a ginkgo in front of the Cold Ridge library…" But the boy's voice trailed off, and he sniffled, coughing as he adjusted his backpack and pretended to look at a rack of lipbalms. He had on his habitua lcargo pants, today's too-big hooded sweatshirt from Amherst College. "I saw your truck out front, and I-I was wondering if you'd heard anything from my dad."

"Not today." He stepped toward Eric, forcing the boy to face him. "You have your meds with you?"

Eric nodded. "I'm okay. I'm just-" He coughed, a sloppy sound in his chest, but he waved off any help, although Ty hadn't made a move in his direction. "My dad…the dead guy…that's not his real name. Louis Sanborn. You know about that, right? It was on the news."

Ty slung an arm over the boy's thin shoulders and maneuvered him to a wall of cross-country skis, sitting down with him on a wooden bench. Carine edged behind a rack of socks to eavesdrop, ignoring Gus's disapproving frown, but she suspected he was as shocked by Eric's news as she was-and wanted the details.

"We haven't heard anything," Ty said gently. "You want to fill me in? Relax, buddy, okay? Take your time."

Eric, who seemed to be making an effort to stay calm, coughed again, but with more control. "The police said the dead guy's identity doesn't check out. They don't know who he is. My dad told the police he doesn't know, either."

"That's what they said on the news?"

"Yeah. Yes, sir."

"Eric, is your dad under arrest?"

He shook his head, sniffling. "The reporter said the police are still not calling him a suspect. I don't know what that means. He's innocent, right, Uncle Ty? He didn't kill anyone?"

"Your dad's not a murderer, Eric."

Carine noticed Ty's careful choice of words and felt her abdominal muscles clamp down, a wave of nausea coming out of nowhere as the news sunk in. Louis San-born used a phony name? Why? Then who the hell was he? But she didn't move, didn't say anything.

"My mom called," Eric said. "She tried not to sound upset, but I can tell. She said if I need her, just say so and she'll come up here. I told her no."

"You haven't talked to your dad?"

He shook his head. "Not yet."

Ty glanced around the dark, quiet shop. Canoes and kayaks hung from the ceiling, but Gus & Smitty's was in winter mode. "Where's your friend who's collecting leaves with you?" But he'd obviously seen through the boy's lie immediately, and when Eric squirmed, Ty cuffed him on the shoulder and got to his feet. "Come on. I'll give you a ride back to school. If you want to come stay with me, we can work something out with the powers-that-be. Okay?"