“It’s the anterior tibial,” said Doug. “I’m sure of it.”

“Tighten the belt!” Elaine said, panicking. “He’s bleeding too much!”

Maura refastened the tourniquet and looked at Doug. He took a breath and began to cut.

At the first slice of the knife, Arlo jolted awake with a scream.

“Hold him! Hold him still!” Doug yelled.

Arlo kept screaming, battling them away, the tendons on his neck so taut they looked ready to snap. Elaine wrestled his shoulders back to the floor, but she could not stop him from thrashing and kicking at his torturers. Maura tried to pin his thighs, but blood and sweat had made his bare skin slippery, so she threw her weight across his hips. Arlo’s scream rose to a shriek that penetrated straight to her bones, a shriek so piercing it felt as if the sound were coming from her own body, as if she were screaming as well. Doug said something, but she couldn’t hear him through that scream. Only when she glanced up did she see that he had set down the knife. He looked exhausted, his face gleaming with sweat even in that cold room.

“It’s done,” he said. Rocking back on his knees, he wiped his sleeve across his forehead. “I think I got it.”

Arlo gave an agonized sob. “Fuck you, Doug. Fuck all of you.”

“Arlo, we had to do it,” said Doug. “Maura, loosen that tourniquet. Let’s see if we got the bleeding controlled.”

Slowly Maura released the belt, half expecting to see another gush of blood. But there was no trickle, not even a slow ooze.

Doug touched Arlo’s foot. “The skin’s still cool. But I think it’s starting to pink up.”

She shook her head. “I don’t see any perfusion.”

“No, look. It’s definitely changing color.” He pressed his palm against the flesh. “I think it’s warming up.”

Maura frowned at skin that looked every bit as dead and pale as it had before, but she said nothing. It made no difference what she thought; Doug had convinced himself that the operation was a success, that they’d done exactly what they should have. That everything was going to be fine. In Doug’s world, everything always turned out fine. So be bold, jump out of planes, and let the universe take care of you.

At least the tourniquet was now off. At least he was no longer bleeding.

She rose to her feet, the sour stink of Arlo’s sweat on her clothes. Exhausted by his ordeal, Arlo was now quiet and drifting to sleep. Massaging her aching neck, she went to the window and stared out, relieved to turn her attention to something else, anything else but their patient. “It’s going to be dark in an hour,” she said. “We can’t get out of here now.”

“Not in the Jeep,” said Doug. “Not with that broken tire chain.” She could hear him rattling through all the pill bottles. “We have enough Percocet to keep him comfortable for at least another day. Plus Elaine says she has codeine in her purse, if I can just find it.”

Maura turned from the window. Everyone looked as drained as she felt. Elaine sat slumped against the couch. Doug was staring listlessly at the array of pill bottles. And Grace-Grace had long ago fled the room.

“He needs to get to a hospital,” said Maura.

“You said you’re expected back in Boston tonight,” said Elaine. “They’ll be searching.”

“The problem is, they won’t know where to look.”

“There was that old guy in the gas station. The one who sold you the newspaper. He’ll remember us. When he hears you’re missing, he’ll call the police. Eventually someone’s going to show up here.”

Maura looked down at Arlo, who had sunk back into unconsciousness. But not soon enough for him.

12

WHAT DID YOU WANT TO SHOW ME?” ASKED DOUG.

“Just come with me,” whispered Maura. Pausing at the door, she glanced back at the room, where the others had fallen asleep. Now was the time to slip away. She picked up the kerosene lamp and stepped outside, into the night.

A full moon had risen, and the sky was awash in stars. She did not need the lamp to see the way; the snow itself seemed to luminesce beneath their boots. The wind had died, and the only sound was their footsteps crunching through the icy glaze that coated the snow like meringue. She led the way up the row of silent houses.

“You want to give me a hint?” he asked.

“I didn’t want to talk about it in front of Grace. But I found something.”

“What?”

“It’s in this house.” She stopped before the porch and stared up at black windows that reflected no starlight, no moonlight, as if the darkness within could swallow up even the faintest glimmer of light. She walked up the steps and pushed open the door. The lamp cast a feeble pool of light around them as they crossed the living room. Beyond that pool, in the shadowy circumference, lurked the dark silhouettes of furniture and the reflected glint off the picture frame. The dark-haired man stared back from the portrait, his eyes almost alive in the shadows.

“That’s what I noticed first,” she said, pointing to the birdcage in the corner.

Doug moved closer and peered into the cage at the canary lying on the bottom. “Another dead pet.”

“Like the dog.”

“Who leaves a pet canary behind to starve?”

“This bird didn’t starve,” said Maura.

“What?”

“Look, there’s plenty of seed.” She brought the lamp up to the cage to show him that the feeder was filled with birdseed, and ice had frozen in the water dispenser. “The windows were left open in this house, too,” she said.

“It froze to death.”

“There’s more.” She moved up the hallway and pointed at the streak across the pine floorboards, as though someone had swiped a paintbrush. In the dim candlelight, the stain looked more black than brown.

Doug stared at the drag mark, and he didn’t try to explain it. He didn’t say anything at all. In silence he followed the smear as it grew broader, until it led him to the staircase. There he stopped, staring down at the dried pool of blood at his feet.

Maura raised the lamp and the light revealed dark spatters on the steps. “The splash marks start about halfway up,” she said. “Someone fell down those stairs, hitting the steps on the way down. And landed here.” She lowered the lamp, illuminating the dried pool at the bottom of the stairs. Something gleamed in that blood, a silvery thread that she had missed earlier that afternoon. She crouched down and saw that it was a long blond hair, partially trapped in dried blood. A woman. A woman who had lain here while her heart continued to pump, at least for a few minutes. Long enough for a lake of blood to pour from her body.

“An accident?” said Doug.

“Or a homicide.”

In the dim light, she saw his mouth twitch in a half smile. “That’s a medical examiner talking. What I see here isn’t necessarily a crime scene. Just blood.”

“A lot of it.”

“But no body. Nothing to tell us one way or another how it happened.”

“The missing body is what bothers me.”

“I’d be a lot more bothered if it was still here.”

“Where is it? Who took it?”

“The family? Maybe they brought her to the hospital. That would explain why the canary was forgotten.”

“They would carry an injured woman, Doug. They wouldn’t drag her across the floor like a carcass. But if they were trying to get rid of a body…”

His gaze followed the drag marks until they vanished into the shadows of the hallway. “They never came back to clean up the blood.”

“Maybe they were planning to,” she said. “Maybe they couldn’t get back into the valley.”

He looked at her. “The snowstorm kept them away.”

She nodded. The flame in the lamp shuddered, as though buffeted by a ghostly breath. “Arlo was right. Something terrible happened in this village, Doug. Something that left bloodstains and dead pets and empty houses.” She looked at the floor. “And evidence. Evidence that tells a story. We keep hoping that someone will come back here and find us.” She looked at him. “But what if they’re not here to save us?”