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The sun is low in the sky and too big, as if the earth is hurtling toward it. As I drive to Xander’s, my anger drains away, leaving frustration in its wake. I know so much—I’m so close—and yet I’m missing something.

Fifty years ago, Tommy Underwood drowned in the lake, while Sarah Dale watched. When she tried to come forward, she was locked in the attic. When she tried again twenty years later, her claims were dismissed.

Twenty years ago, Bill Campbell paid people off to settle the case. Ten years later, his company purchased Coram House and began building. Alan Stedsan knew about it all, but said nothing.

Fred Rooney received regular payments of $10,000 a year for at least the last ten years. Bill seems like a likely source, but why would he give him all that money?

Someone killed Sister Cecile.

Ten days later, Fred Rooney himself was also killed.

Bill had access to the canoe, but the rest—Bill hiding among the trees, bringing the rock down on Sister Cecile’s head, strangling Fred—it’s hard to imagine. By the time I pull into Xander’s drive, I’ve worn a groove in my brain going over and over the same facts.

My stomach sinks at the sight of the other cars parked in front of the house. A salt-splattered pickup towing a boat trailer, and another car, forest green with the aerodynamic lines of something built for speed. I instinctively dislike its owner. Xander hadn’t said anything about other people. I wonder whether it’s too late to turn around.

Just then, the front door opens. Xander steps out wearing an outfit that looks like race-car-driver-meets-astronaut—a long orange jumpsuit, thick with insulation, and a silver helmet tucked under one arm. I look down at my own jeans, which I’d stuffed myself into over my only pair of long underwear, and feel deeply skeptical about this whole excursion.

“Alex!” Xander calls with a grin. I wave back, and force myself to take my hand off the key.

“You made it!” he says as I get out. He sounds both happy and surprised, like he doubted I’d actually show up, which makes me feel guilty for plotting my escape. Maybe it will be fun. Detective Garcia and Parker had told me to lay off, so here I am, laying off.

A shriek rends the air. A second later comes the deep boom of a man’s laughter. “You’re such an asshole!” yells a woman’s voice, but in a tone that suggests she’s flirting rather than being murdered.

Xander looks at me, nervous. “A couple friends dropped in for the weekend. Kind of a surprise.”

I force a smile. “That’s nice.”

“Come on,” Xander says, “we’re all headed to the boathouse.”

The path down to the water is solid ice, but he walks right over it without slipping. Magic , I think, until I realize he’s wearing some kind of cleats.

“Xander,” I say, gesturing to my outfit. “I’m not sure I took your directions as seriously as I should have.”

He swishes a hand through the air—as if shooing a fly. “You’ll be fine,” he says. “When I get a new toy, I just like to have all the accessories.”

He says it with an embarrassed smile that makes me smile back, for real this time. Maybe this will be fun. Maybe for a few hours, I can forget about the case and everything that goes with it.

See, Lola, I know how to have fun.

Xander holds out a hand. “It’s a little slippery on the way down,” he says. “But you have to see this thing. It’s en fuego .”

“I have no idea what that means,” I say, but I take his hand and let him lead.

And it’s a good thing I do because the path is ice all the way. With every step, Xander’s cleats make a sound like breaking glass. At the bottom, where it’s too narrow to walk side by side, I cling to the fence. A cardinal lands at my feet. It pecks at the snow, then, finding nothing, takes off into the trees. A flash of red, there and gone.

“You okay?” Xander calls from ahead. He’s nearly at the dock. I flash him a thumbs-up and half walk, half slide the rest of the way.

The boathouse buzzes with activity. Two men, nearly interchangeable with their stubbly faces and mirrored sunglasses, stand on the ice, near a contraption that’s not quite a sailboat.

“This is Dan and that’s Chris,” Xander says as he hops down onto the ice. Both men raise their hands, so I have no idea who’s who.

The boat looks like a sailboat, sort of. The sails are white and angular with indecipherable letters and numbers printed on the canvas. But the body of the boat is so sleek and narrow it’s hard to believe it accommodates a person, let alone multiple people. A perpendicular crosspiece reaches out from either side for balance, giving it an insect-like appearance. The name of the boat is painted in neat red script on the stern. I look at Xander.

“ CodeRunner ? You didn’t.”

“It’s like Blade Runner , but—”

I groan. “Yeah, I got the joke. It’s terrible.”

But he just grins at me. Someone giggles. That’s when I notice three other people standing in the shadow of the boathouse. A man—tall and broad in a former linebacker kind of way—and two women with matching blonde waves cascading down their backs. All three look dressed for an après-ski photoshoot: fur-lined parkas, fur headbands, shearling boots. One of the women wiggles her fingers in a wave. “Hey,” she says, drawing out the y .

“Hi,” I say. The other two look at me and then turn away. A dismissal. I want to be anywhere but standing here looking like an overstuffed sausage in my long underwear.

“Ready?” Xander calls from the ice. He plonks a pair of cleats at the edge of the dock.

“Is that thing really safe?” I nod at the boat.

“Totally,” Xander says. “See, we have helmets!”

He holds up something that looks like a motorcycle helmet. But I’m not sure how much weight this should carry, coming from the guy who drove his car onto the lake. Behind me, one of the women lets out a high, annoying laugh. I take the helmet. I’d rather risk death than be stuck here with them.

Xander pumps his fist in the air. “Let’s do this thing!”

Both members of his crew grin and roll their eyes, but it doesn’t feel mocking. Xander’s unfiltered enthusiasm for whatever’s in his line of sight is both ridiculous and infectious.

I pull on the cleats and then hop down onto the ice. There’s a sick second where I’m sure my feet will plunge through the surface, but they connect with a click. It feels like walking on stone.

Up close, the boat is elegant—all sleek, smooth wood and shiny pulleys. “I assume the useless luggage goes there,” I say, pointing to myself and then the bench seat in the front.

“Best seat in the house.”

Xander holds out a hand to help as I haul myself over the side. I nod to his friends on the dock. “What about them?”

He glances over his shoulder as if he’d forgotten they were there. “Spectators,” he says dismissively. Clearly he’s used to having an audience.

One of the crew comes over to tug on a rope. I feel around the seat. “Should I have a seatbelt or something?” I ask.

Chris or Dan shakes his head. “Nah, you wouldn’t want to be strapped in if the boat turned over.”

Okay, wrong question.

I look out at the view. The sun hovers over the Adirondacks in the distance, as if balanced on the peaks. Beyond the point, the lake is a flat open field of white.

“Are we going out there?” I ask.

“Yup,” says Xander. “But not past that island.” He points to a tiny smudge in the distance. “Reports this morning said open water a couple miles offshore.”

I check the faces of the crew, to see if they’re alarmed by any of this, but no one seems to be. “Ready?” Xander asks.

I nod, surprised at the thrill of anticipation. Then, we start to slide. Xander and a crew member run alongside the boat, pushing until we catch the wind. Then Xander hops in—much more gracefully than I did—and it’s just the two of us.

The boat picks up speed until we’re flying. It’s amazing to be moving this fast with nothing but the wind and the slice of the boat gliding over the ice. I imagine Bill’s lake monster, woken from its winter sleep, green scales trapped beneath the ice, teeth scraping against the hard surface in its hunger to catch us. But we glide right over.

When I turn back to Xander, he’s grinning at me. “Look,” he shouts. I do, just as we round the point, out of the bay and onto the open ice. Coram House stands on the hill, sun glinting off the windows so it looks like it’s on fire. The sky right above us is clear, but dark puffy clouds loom to the north. The promised storm on its way. We fly along in silence. The only people in the world.

“This is amazing,” I shout over the wind. “Is it always like this?”

I point out at the ice, the mountains, the sky.

“Nope,” he yells back. “Must be for you.”

I roll my eyes, but I’m smiling. The freezing wind stings my cheeks. The sky blazes orange. The speed clears my mind. It feels like we could keep gliding forever, fast and freezing, straight into the sunset.

When we get back to the dock I’m not sure if it’s been minutes or hours, but I’ve never been so cold. My arms and legs jerk like a poorly coordinated puppet as I climb out of the boat. The clouds have taken over the sky, eating the sunset. The dock is empty, the others probably sitting in front of that enormous fireplace by now.

“I got this if you want to head up,” says one of the sunglassed crew. “She looks half frozen.”

Distantly, I resent being talked about like I’m not here. But he’s not wrong. I do feel frozen.

“All right. Thanks, Dan.”

Xander takes my hand as we climb the steep, icy slope. The smell of woodsmoke drifts on the air. My ears ring in the quiet now that we’re not tearing across the ice. Xander stops at a landing cut into the earth, a small stone bench tucked under the pines. It’s probably a lovely place to rest in the summer. Today the stone is a cold slab.

“So,” Xander says, turning to take in the lake behind us. “What did you think?”

“Of the sailing?” My speech comes out slurred. “It was—it felt like flying.”

He smiles. “When you’re out on the ice with no one else around—it’s like the closest I ever get to feeling free.”

Before I can reply, he kisses me. His lips are warm, but my face is so cold I barely feel it. He leans back and looks at me. “You’re really cold, aren’t you?” He rubs my arms.

I nod, grateful that I don’t need to say anything else.

He takes my hand again. “Come on, let’s go up,” he says. “They’ll have a fire going.”

I let him pull me the rest of the way.

When we reach the house, Xander flings open the door and leads me into the great room. The two women lay in a tangle on the sofa. Orange flames leap and crackle in the huge stone fireplace. The man gazes into the flames, one arm resting on the mantel as if posing for a portrait.

“Jesus, Xand,” he says. “Shut the door, would you? It’s freezing.”

He speaks like someone used to owning the attention of every room he walks into. He comes toward me, hand outstretched. “We haven’t officially met. I’m Bill.”

Another Bill. Just what I need.

“And that’s Evvy and Nat.” He gestures toward the women on the couch. One of them, Nat, I think, lifts her glass to me.

“Nice to meet you,” I say. My cheeks tingle as they defrost.

“Let’s get you a drink,” says Bill. “The rest of us are having cognac.”

I don’t really want a cognac at four thirty, but I take it anyway. Bills sets another down by Xander, who is in the process of taking off his spacesuit. “God, it feels good to warm up,” he says. His boots sit, melting snow onto the sisal carpet. It will be ruined , I want to say. But it’s not my carpet.

I unzip my jacket, but all I want to do is leave. They all seem so relaxed. It could be because they know each other, but I have the feeling they’re the sort of people who feel at home in any room they walk into. The joy I felt out on the lake is draining away at the prospect of sitting here making small talk.

I’ll stay fifteen minutes, long enough to be polite.

As I look for somewhere to put the whisky down so I can take off my wet boots, Bill launches into some story about their undergrad days. Xander gives a loud, hearty laugh—different from his usual laugh. Bill grabs a beer from the bar’s fridge and looks around for a bottle opener.

“Yo, Willy, catch.”

Xander lobs something across the room that looks like a ceramic duck. Bill catches it easily in one hand. The beer opens with a hiss.

But I barely hear it. It feels like all the blood has drained out of my head. “What did you call him?” I ask.

Xander turns to look at me and the smile falls off his face. “Are you okay?”

The room blurs at the edges. “Your friend—Bill.”

Xander stares at me blankly, but then it clicks. “Willy? It’s a joke. Bill is short for William, but in college there was another Bill so sometimes we used to call him Willy.”

The glass slips from my fingers and smashes on the stone floor. Shards reflect the dancing firelight in flickers of orange.

“Party foul,” says Bill, looking down at the puddle of cognac.

Bill. Willy.

Is it possible? Was it really there in front of me all this time?

Xander jumps to his feet. “No worries, it’s just a glass.”

In my mind, I’m already in my car, driving away. Because if I’m right—if Bill and Willy are the same person—this changes everything.

“I have to go.”

The two women exchange a look and scoot back into the deep cushions, as if my insanity might be catching. Ignoring Xander’s call to wait, I pull open the front door. The hood of my car is covered in a dusting of snow.

“Alex!”

I turn. Xander has followed me outside with no shoes or jacket. “What the hell is going on?”

He’s annoyed, verging on angry.

“You’re acting all weird.” He drops his voice. “Is this—was it because I kissed you?”

This isn’t about you , I want to shout. But of course it is. This house. This life. Those friends. How could he not, somewhere deep down, believe he was the sun.

“Look, it’s important,” I say, opening the car door and sliding into the driver’s seat.

He steps forward quickly, grabs the door before I can close it. “I’m sorry for—whatever. Just don’t go yet.”

I look at him. My urge is to apologize, to promise to call him later, to thank him again—for dinner, wine, sailing. I feel the obligation of holding someone’s attention, the value it gives me, the desire to keep it even if I’m not sure I want it.

“Thank you for today,” I say. “But I don’t want to be here.”

It’s maybe the first fully honest thing I’ve said to him. He steps back, surprise on his face, and I slam the car door. Pebbles spit beneath my wheels as I pull onto the drive. When I glance in the rearview mirror Xander is still standing on the steps, watching me drive away. Then I round the curve and he’s gone.