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I’m plunged into darkness. Like a coffin lid shutting . A laugh bursts out of me. The short hysterical bark of a trapped dog. As my eyes adjust to the dark, I listen for sounds—voices, footsteps, anything. But all I hear is my own breathing and the wind moaning outside.

I pull out my phone and dial 911, but my finger hovers over the call button without pressing. What am I going to say? I’m breaking and entering. Oh, and the developer who owns the property might be on-site. Also he might have killed two people. I’d sound like a lunatic. I lower the phone, but keep it in my hand.

Suddenly, the room is bathed in a faint glow. The white orb of the moon shines through the window. The snow has stopped for now, the clouds gone. But not the wind. If anything, it sounds more violent. A gust rattles the windows, as if frustrated I’m out of reach.

What had the radio said? Rapidly dropping temperatures followed by heavy snow. Bomb cyclone. The kind of storm where people freeze to death. And I’m wandering around an unheated building at an empty construction site, hoping to find a killer. Dumb to the last , my tombstone will read. I’ll look around for ten minutes. Then I’ll go home. Wait for Parker to call me back. I’m sure he’s fine.

“Hello?” I call. But of course there’s no answer. The brass chandelier sways back and forth. The wind, finding a way in.

Then I hear it. A murmur rising and falling. I can’t make out the words, but I’m sure it’s a voice. Someone upstairs. My thumb hovers near the call button again.

The banister is cold and smooth as stone under my hand. The stairs creak and groan beneath my weight. At least I’ll hear if anyone follows me. They’re not behind you, they’re already upstairs, idiot. I lick my lips and find that my mouth has gone dry.

At the top, I pause on the landing. All the doors are shut, except for one. The door to the girls’ dormitory at the end of the hall is half open. A faint wedge of light spills into the corridor. I wait, my heart beating. There it is again. It’s faint, but the rise and fall is unmistakable. Not voices, though. Not even words. Someone in the room beyond is humming.

I drift down the hall, closer. It should be terrifying, but it’s not. The song is familiar, but I can’t name it. Something I heard as a child, maybe. The knob is ice under my hand as I push the door open.

The room is empty. I don’t need to see the floorboards lit up by the moonlight spilling in through the tall windows. Don’t need to tug on the door leading up to the attic to know that it’s latched shut—though I still do. I know it’s true as soon as I step inside. It has the feel of an empty room. There’s no one here to see me, but still heat floods my cheeks. What had I expected? Someone sitting up here, waiting for me and humming? I’m a little old to be turning every gust of wind into a ghost.

Time to go home, Alex.

But as I turn back toward the hall, movement outside catches my eye. The windows look out onto the graveyard and the frozen expanse of lake beyond. Trees bend and snap in the wind. Maybe that was it. Still, I scan the gravestones for footprints or the shadow of someone hiding.

Then I see it. A figure down by the water. Quickly, I step closer until my nose is pressed against the glass. It could be a rock. A trick of the moonlight.

The figure steps onto the ice. It’s walking strangely, hunched and monstrous. Then I see why. It’s dragging something large and unwieldy. It takes a few more steps. The picture snaps into focus.

The hunched figure isn’t dragging something . It’s dragging someone . Out onto the ice.

Suddenly, I think of the police cruiser parked in front of the office. I imagine Parker arriving to question Bill Campbell with no idea what the man is capable of. I bang on the window. “Stop!” I shout to the empty room. For a second, I stand, paralyzed by my distance, my powerlessness. Then I turn away from the window. And I run.

Instinct takes over. I burst onto the landing and sprint through the narrow hallway so quickly I bounce off the wall. Time slows down. I run across the boys’ dormitory, wrench open the door, and take the steep, dark stairs down to the kitchen two at a time.

At the bottom, I shoulder the door. But the knob doesn’t turn and I’m thrown back, landing painfully on my hip. The door is locked.

No. No. No. No.

Just then my phone vibrates. I stare down, shocked to find it still clutched in my hand. It’s the police station. With immense relief, I answer. “Parker?”

“Alex? This is Detective Garcia.”

Her voice is breaking up.

“You have to get here,” I shout. “You have to hurry.”

Some jumble of words falls out of my mouth. About Bill Campbell and Parker. About the canoe. And hiding in the woods. About a boy who drowned in 1968 and this moment in a dark back staircase, trapped behind a locked door.

I’m not sure if I make any sense at all or if Detective Garcia just thinks I’ve gone insane, but after a pause her voice comes back on the line, clearer this time.

“Stay right where you are, Alex.”

I can hear her shouting orders at someone.

“We’ll be there as soon as we can. But the weather—emergency services are delayed.”

My phone beeps. The line goes dead.

I try the door again, shouldering it as I turn the knob. This time it opens easily, and I tumble onto the kitchen floor, landing hard on my knee. The pain is so sharp that, for an instant, my vision goes black. I pull myself up, using the counter for leverage, and hobble to the door. The heavy antique key is in the lock, waiting. I throw the door open and step into the night.

The wind is a punch in the gut. Thick clouds cover the moon now. My eyes rake the ice below, searching for movement, but everything is shadow.

I have been here before.

Except not me. This is where Sarah Dale stood while she watched Tommy drown. Pressed down by the heat of the day, her ears full of the chirp of crickets, she felt her feet grow roots. Everything and nothing stopped. But I’m not rooted to the ground.

There on the ice, a dark shape is moving. My eyes find the gap in the underbrush at the bottom of the hill—the path to the lake. I limp forward, knee throbbing, through the gate flanked by weeping stone angels, and then I begin to run.

The snow in the graveyard is deep. It cakes my boots until they’re heavy as bricks. I’m slow, too slow. The snow is blowing, blinding. I’ve lost the path. My foot catches on a headstone hidden beneath the snow and I go down. When I stagger to my feet, my bare hands sting with cold.

Finally, I reach the hedges that separate the graveyard from the beach. Branches catch my jacket and tangle in my hair. Then I’m through, standing on the rocky shore. Without the shelter of the underbrush, the wind howls. All is darkness, but the ice—so much ice—stretches ahead, glowing with its own light.

In the distance, I can make out two dark shapes. One upright, the other on the ice. My heart squeezes into my throat. The prone figure is struggling. It’s not a body. It’s not too late.

“Stop,” I yell. But the wind carries my voice into the sky.

At first, I assumed they were making for the nearest point of land, which would be Xander’s house, though it’s hidden now by blowing snow. But they seem to be walking out onto the lake. Could it have frozen all the way across since this morning? Or maybe there’s a boat out there waiting.

I look down at the spot where the ice meets the shore. It’s thick and lumpy. When I look up, I can barely see the dark shapes. I put a foot on the ice and test my weight. It holds. I take another step and then another. Don’t let me be too late. I think it over and over like a prayer. Because I know there’s no boat waiting for them. That’s not how this story ends.

From a distance, the ice looked smooth and blown clear of snow. But it’s covered in ridges and holes, crevasses where plates come together. Out here, it’s an alien landscape. I try not to think about what I’m doing. How insane this is.

Ahead of me, the two figures struggle on the ice. Faster. I have to go faster. But I’m afraid. Of sliding, of falling, of going into a hole and slipping quietly below the ice.

“Stop,” I scream. But they can’t hear me over the wind. I break into a run.

Finally, I get close enough to see Bill looming over a dark shape, both blurred by snow. I hear weeping. See a hand smeared in blood. Parker. Alive. I’m not too late.

“Bill,” I shout. “The police are on their way. Don’t do this.”

The looming figure straightens. Slowly, he turns around, giving me a clear look at the man down on the ice.

The world tilts on its axis. Because the man bleeding on the ice, his eyes wide and terrified—that man is Bill Campbell.

“Oh, thank God,” he moans, wiping at his face, leaving a red smear on his cheek. The figure in the black coat stands over him, one booted foot on Bill’s neck to keep him down.

“No,” I whisper.

The monster I’ve been chasing has brown eyes ringed in gold. It’s not Bill Campbell, of course. It never was.

“Hello, Alex,” says Parker.