"I never thought I'd see your face again," he said at last.

"I guessed by the way you said good-bye," I replied.

He didn't respond, just rearranged some papers on his desk. I wasn't sure if the gesture was meant to distract him, or me. "You're here about Ellen Cole?"

"That's right."

"We don't know anything about it. She came, she left." He raised his hands in a gesture of helplessness.

"That's not what her mother thinks."

"I don't care what her mother thinks. What I'm telling you is what we know, same thing I told her father when he was up here."

It struck me that I must just have missed Walter Cole, that we might even have been in town at the same time. I felt a twinge of sorrow that he had been forced to come up here alone, fearing for his daughter's safety. I would have helped him, had I known.

"The family's filed a missing person's report."

"I'm aware of that. I had a federal agent chewing my ear over a nonexistent NCIC filing." He looked hard at me. "I told him it was a long way from New York to Dark Hollow. We do things our own way up here."

I didn't respond to his bout of territorial spraying. "Are you going to act on the report?" I persisted.

Jennings stood up, the knuckles of his large hands resting on his desk. I had almost forgotten what a big man he was. There was a gun in a holster at his belt, a Coonan.357 Magnum out of St. Paul, Minnesota. It looked shiny and new. I guessed that Rand Jennings didn't have much cause to use it way up here, unless he sat on his porch and took potshots at rabbits.

"Am I having trouble making myself understood?" he said softly, but with a hint of suppressed anger. "We've done what we can. We have responded to the missing person report. Our view is that the girl and her boyfriend may have run away together and, so far, we have no reason to suspect otherwise."

"The manager of the motel said they were heading north."

"Maybe they were."

"All that's north is Baxter and Katahdin. They never made it there."

"Then they went someplace else."

"There may have been someone else with them."

"Maybe there was. All I know is that they left town. If they were still here, I'd know about it."

"I can see now why you never made detective."

He flinched, and his face flushed red. "You don't know the first damn thing about me," he said. The anger was distinct now as he pronounced his next words slowly and with deliberate emphasis. "If you'll excuse me, we have some real crimes to deal with."

"Really. Someone stealing Christmas trees? Maybe trying to screw a moose?"

He walked around the desk and came close to me as he passed by to open the door of his office. I think he half expected me to take a step back from him, but I didn't.

"I hope you're not planning on looking for trouble here," he said. He could have been talking about Ellen Cole, but his eyes said he was talking about someone else.

"I don't have to look for trouble," I replied. "I stay still long enough, trouble finds me."

"That's because you're dumb," he said, still holding the door open. "You don't pay attention to the lessons life teaches you."

"You'd be surprised how much I've learned."

I prepared to leave his office, but his left hand shot out to block me. "Remember one thing, Parker: this is my town and you're a guest. Don't abuse the privilege."

"So it's not a case of 'what's mine is yours?'"

"No," he said, with menace. "No, it isn't."

I left the building and walked to my car, the wind now howling through the trees and biting at my bare fingers. Above me, the sky was dark. As I reached the Mustang, an old green Nissan Sunny pulled into the lot and Lorna Jennings stepped from the car. She was wearing a black leather jacket with a big fur collar and blue jeans tucked into the same boots she had been wearing the last time we met. She didn't see me until she had begun to walk toward the main entrance. When she did spot me, she stopped short for a moment before coming over, casting an anxious glance at the illuminated doorway as she did so.

"What are you doing here?" she asked.

"Talking to your husband. He wasn't very helpful."

She raised an eyebrow at me. "Are you surprised?"

"No, not really, but it's not about me. A girl and a young man are missing and I think somebody here may know what happened to them. Until I find out who that might be, I'm going to be around for a while."

"Who are they?"

"The daughter of a friend, and the girl's boyfriend. Her name is Ellen Cole. You ever hear Rand mention her?"

She nodded. "He said he'd done what he could. He thinks they may have eloped."

"Young love," I said. "It's a beautiful thing."

Lorna swallowed and ran a hand through her hair. "He hates you, Bird, for what you did. For what we did."

"That was a long time ago."

"Not for him," she said. "Or me."

I was sorry I'd mentioned young love. I didn't like the look in her eyes. It made me nervous. But I surprised myself by asking the next question.

"Why are you still with him, Lorna?"

"Because he's my husband. Because I have nowhere else to go."

"That's not true, Lorna. There's always somewhere else."

"Is that an offer?"

"Nope, it's just an observation. You take care," I began to walk away, but she reached out and stopped me by placing her hand on my arm.

"No, you be careful, Bird," she said. "He hasn't forgiven you, and he won't."

"Has he forgiven you?" I asked.

There was something in her face as she spoke, something that reminded me of that first afternoon we spent together and the warmth of her skin against mine. "I didn't want his forgiveness," she said. Then she smiled sadly and left me.

I spent the next hour wandering around the stores in Dark Hollow, showing Ellen Cole's photograph to anyone who'd take the time to look. They recalled her at the diner, and in the drugstore, but nobody had seen them leave and no one could confirm whether or not they left with another man, or speculate as to whom that person might have been. It grew colder and colder as I walked, my coat wrapped tightly around me, the lights of the stores casting a yellow glow on the snow.

When I had exhausted every avenue of inquiry, at least for the present, I went back to my room, showered, and changed into a pair of denims and a shirt and sweater before pulling on my overcoat and preparing to meet Angel and Louis for dinner. Angel was already outside the room, drinking coffee and blowing puffs of white breath into the air like an unhealthy steam engine.

"You know, it's warmer out here than it is in that room," he said. "I lost a layer of skin from my feet, the tiles in the bathroom are so cold."

"You're too sensitive for this world. Who would have thought it?"

He snorted unhappily and stamped his feet while alternating the coffee cup from hand to hand, each time putting his free hand under the opposite armpit.

"Stop," I said. "You're going to make it rain. Any sign of activity out at Meade Payne's place?"

He came to a relative standstill. "None that we could see without knocking on the door and asking for cookies and a glass of milk. Caught a sight of the young guy and Payne eating supper, but they were alone, far as we could see. You have any luck with Jennings?"

"No."

"You surprised?"

"Yes and no. He's got no reason to help me, but this isn't about me. It's about Ellen and her boyfriend, but I could see in his eyes that he would use them to get at me, if he could. I don't understand him. He's suffered. I know he has. His wife took up with another man behind his back, a man ten years younger than him, but he's still with her, and it's hell for both of them. It wasn't as if Rand was old, or cruel, or impotent. He had what it took; or, maybe, he had it according to his own definition of it. I took something away from him, and he won't ever forgive me for it. But how can he not feel for Ellen Cole, for Ricky, for their families? No matter how much he hates me, they have to matter." I kicked idly at the dirt on the ground. "Sorry, Angel. I'm thinking out loud."