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Rob Boychuk tapped the End Call button and slipped his cell phone back into his pocket. He stood on the front step of the Patricia Bay RCMP detachment, watching two robins bob at the pale-green lawn in search of spring worms. A Herman Melville line from Moby-Dick played on repeat in his head, like a scratched CD track: There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke . He’d been trying to work his way through the novel for months, reading a page here and there. Not because it wasn’t readable, but because it struck Boychuck as a book you lived with for a while. Or maybe Melville’s tome resonated because Matthew Anderson’s disappearance had become Boychuk’s white whale.

The case nagged at him. It lolled in his mind—similar to the sensation of having forgotten something, like the car keys or the stove left on—only there was no resolution, no way to double-check. He was astute enough to suspect that his pending retirement could be fueling the fixation. Staring down the barrel of ending a twenty-year career gave incentive for self-reflection. It was no coincidence that Josh Lussier and his family kept coming to mind these days. Boychuk arrived in Patricia Bay on a failure. He had no intention of leaving it the same way.

It had been over six months since Matthew Anderson’s disappearance. In that time, Boychuk had considered a litany of theories about what might have happened even though the case was, technically, not his anymore. To satisfy his itch, he checked in occasionally with Sam Ritter. He still didn’t like the Ottawa detective, but he had to admit, the kid was thorough. When Ritter called to let Boychuk know the file was moving to a cold-case drawer, Boychuk suggested he be the one to tell Sarah Anderson.

“No objection here,” Ritter said over the phone. “I got nothing new to tell her. Every lead I had is dead. It’s obvious to me she’s hiding something about her husband, but I’ve got no idea what happened to him. I didn’t find anything to connect the wife, so either Anderson did a runner and hid his tracks incredibly well or she’s the best damn actress I’ve ever seen. If she did do something to her husband, she must have been way smarter than he was about it.”

“What does your gut tell you happened?” Boychuk had his own suspicions but wasn’t keen to rehash them with Ritter.

“Look, I know what you think, Boychuk. The guy was a lot of things, but I don’t think he was stupid. No way he drowned in that water. He took the canoe for a reason. I mean, how does he drown and then pull the canoe and paddle onto shore?”

“Jesus, Ritter. You ever spend time in the woods? There are a million different ways Mother Nature can kill a man.”

“Ya, but he made it to the shoreline. His prints were the last ones on the paddle. Even your guys told me they thought he made it across the lake. I’m telling you, either she did something to him or the guy walked away from it all, including his escape plan. Maybe he thought she was on to him and didn’t want to risk going to the storage locker to gather up evidence of his old life? Maybe he felt guilty? My guess: he’ll turn up somewhere in a few years, either as a corpse or whenever he gets bored with wherever the hell he is now.”

“You didn’t see her, Ritter. Sarah Anderson was a mess. No way she planned to kill her husband in the wilderness and then act her way through the trauma.”

“That’s what we all thought at first, but you were in those interviews here in Ottawa, Boychuk. We might not have found evidence she did anything, but my gut tells me she knows more than she’s saying. I just can’t prove it. You’re a good cop, Rob, tell me there isn’t something about this case that doesn’t sit right with you.”

Boychuk said nothing.

“She’s involved some way, Boychuk. Don’t let your dick tell you otherwise.”

Two days later, Boychuk found himself in Ottawa. The cherry red front door of the Andersons’ home stood out against faded brown brick. It was a city house, with a tiny lawn and a café-style table on the front porch. The last time Boychuk saw Sarah Anderson, the air smelled of rotting leaves and summer’s end; now, there was new growth on the big elm in front of the house and scraggly tulips in the front garden. Spring was taking hold and promise could be found in that.

Boychuk stood on the small porch, holding a faded blue baseball cap in his hand. Thick wood muffled the sound of his knock, but he knew these houses absorbed thuds and reverberated them through heavy timbers. He surveyed the front street while he waited—an old police habit—so his back was to the door when it opened.

When he turned around, he saw a much different Sarah Anderson from the one he remembered. The Sarah he’d met in Patricia Bay—with stained camping clothes, unwashed hair, and pain etched into her face—was like a leaf in a breeze, barely able to hold herself up. The Sarah in front of him now was as rigid as an elm. She wore jeans, a white T-shirt, and a smile that, while friendly, stopped short of a welcome.

“Hi, Rob. Come on in,” she said, stepping back.

The heels of his shoes landed heavily on the wood floors in the foyer, the sound crisp against the quiet space. A portent of doom, he thought, and brushed it away in case it was readable on his face.

“Hi, Sarah. Nice to see you again.” The pleasantry coated the unpleasant reason for his visit. Sarah ushered him in with an offer of coffee and fresh banana bread.

“Rob! What brings you all this way?” Izzy Stokes stood up from the living-room couch and extended a hand to him. She, too, was dressed casually, but he could see their personality differences in their clothing choices. Izzy’s jeans were intentionally ripped, and she wore a mustard yellow T-shirt. Her manner was friendlier than Sarah’s, but the measured tones and stealthy glances between the sisters screamed caution.

“Couldn’t resist the pull of banana bread,” he said with an ironic smile.

They stood awkwardly in the living room for a few seconds, a deliberateness in the pause. He saw something familiar in the women’s silence, one he’d used before with witnesses or suspects—hold them for a few moments in an uncomfortable quiet to unsettle their story.

“I didn’t expect to see you here, Ms. Stokes,” Boychuk said. The last he’d heard, Izzy Stokes lived in Toronto, where she ran an art gallery. “Are you up visiting?”

“Oh, please call me Izzy. I’m an Ottawan now, actually. I moved here when Sarah started back to work in January. Bought a small condo down near the stadium. I still have my place in Toronto, so it’s easy to commute when I’m needed there. But I’m closer to Sarah and the kids this way. Makes it easier to help out. Especially on days like today.” The tilt of Izzy’s head and hardening of her voice on the last sentence were a warning to Boychuk.

“I see.”

“It’s pretty much Auntie Izzy’s shuttle and babysitting services,” Izzy said, a return to her friendlier tone. “We offer full service, including regular ice cream stops.” She mocked a bow.

“Well,” said Sarah. “No sense standing around here all day. Have a seat, Rob.”

The sisters left the couch to Boychuk as they each settled into overstuffed leather chairs. After some back-and-forth about the weather and his drive and inquiries about the kids, Sarah held his eyes and said, “So, what does bring you here, Rob?”

Boychuk noticed a defiance in Sarah’s gaze, one he’d glimpsed in previous interactions with her.

“I wanted to update you on the case in person.”

Sarah’s eyebrow quirked up. “I thought Detective Ritter had taken over things,” Sarah said.

“He has, but I’ve been staying involved on the margins. He and I both thought it would be good for me to bring you up to date.”

“This sounds ominous,” Izzy said.

Boychuk wondered whether there was something more in the glances the women kept exchanging. He decided to put them at ease. “I don’t think you’ll be too surprised,” he said. “Officially, there isn’t anything new.”

Their faces were impassive, but Boychuk noted that Izzy watched her sister.

“Detective Ritter’s a young guy. Ambitious and determined,” he continued. “He chased down everything, even those things I would have left by the roadside. He was thorough and meticulous.” He paused to allow his words to settle. The women remained expressionless.

“I know he gave you a rough ride, Sarah. And I can imagine it didn’t feel right or fair at the time, but please know he brought the same stubbornness to everything he looked into.”

Sarah nodded, slowly.

“My mom used to say there ain’t no point sugarcoating bad medicine,” Boychuk said now in Sarah Anderson’s living room. “Taking into account the documents from the storage locker and everything we learned from the Vancouver PD, the final report will say there is suspicion that Matthew was planning on leaving his current family to return to his previous one. We can’t be sure, but the evidence points to a man looking to run. Ritter’s leads have gone cold. At this point, all they’ve managed to do is rule out where Matthew isn’t, but that hasn’t brought them any closer to knowing where he is . The report will be inconclusive on whether it was an accident, foul play, or whether he walked away of his own free will.”

“What do you think, Rob?” Izzy asked.

Boychuk hesitated. How much to tell them about his own suspicions, the ones not shared by Ritter? In the end, he let one thing guide his decision: If it were him, would he want to know?

“I think Matthew lost his way. Mother Nature can be cruel when we let her. I think she bit hard.”

“Good.” Sarah’s statement salted the earth with its finality.

“What aren’t you telling us, Rob?” Izzy said. Boychuk was discomforted by the woman’s perceptiveness.

“It might be nothing.”

Both women looked at him expectantly. In for a penny, he thought.

“I know Ritter’s already mentioned the car we found,” he said, the words seeping out like air from a pricked balloon. “It was abandoned on an old logging road about two miles through the woods from Nagadon Lake. It seems unrelated. But I can’t shake it. There was no reason for anyone to be on that road. It hasn’t been used in years, and there’s no access point to the lake from there. It’s also on the opposite side from where we found the canoe. My guys only checked it out at first because Ritter insisted that we check every lead.”

The Honda Civic, first pointed out to him by Zach Ellis, had been there for some time, shoved into a small turnout with the battery unhooked and a set of keys tucked under the wheel well in a small magnetic box. It was a beater, the kind found sometimes on rural properties, ungainly sentinels too broken to move on their own and not worth the money to get them towed. The plates were real but stolen and years out of date. No owner could be traced. It was probably nothing, but still, the car’s presence sat like a sliver under Boychuk’s skin.

Ritter had been enthusiastic about the car at first—had even grilled Sarah about it during one of the interviews. He lost interest when it became clear the location was well outside the range of a reasonable walk from where the canoe had been found. There also wasn’t a stitch of evidence linking the car to Matthew Anderson. Fingerprints coated the car—some clean, some smeared beyond recognition—but none from any of the people involved in the case. Ritter didn’t think it was worth requesting DNA testing, so the car and its contents were impounded in police lockup.

“It was suspicious,” Boychuk said, “but there was no evidence it had anything to do with Matthew or anyone who knew him. Do you happen to know anyone who owns, or owned, a red Honda Civic? It was one of the older hatchback models.”

Sarah looked at him, her face expressionless, but her eyes betrayed frustration. “As I already told Detective Ritter, repeatedly, not that I can think of,” she said.

Boychuk nodded apologetically. “Likely a coincidence, then,” he said. The only trouble was that Boychuk didn’t put much faith in coincidences. He’d seen too much to dismiss them so easily.

On his own time over the last few months, Boychuk had been scouring the edges of Nagadon Lake, bushwhacking to get to the hard-to-reach shores. It was rough terrain, but an experienced orienteer could find their way. There was a small network of well-used animal trails and even a few faint paths from the old logging days carved along the forest floor, echoes of past lives that traveled these woods. In the hours he’d spent up there, Boychuk had identified three or four paths that could have led from the lakeshore to the logging road.

The bigger question was how Matthew had even planned to reach the car. Nagadon Lake was popular for its vistas, including the high cliffs lining the eastern edges of the lake. Trekking through the woods along those edges would have been foolhardy in broad daylight and downright stupid at night. If Matthew Anderson had tried to flee from his family by hiking the ridges of Nagadon Lake, there was no doubt in Boychuk’s mind, the man was dead.

Izzy jumped up to the beckon of a timer alarm in the kitchen. Boychuk’s mind returned from the shores of Nagadon Lake.

“Sorry, banana bread’s ready.” Izzy left the room, the stutter in her steps the only hint at her reaction to the information.

Sarah didn’t move. She stared unflinchingly at Boychuk and said, “You think he’s dead.” Boychuk looked down into his empty mug. He’d done it many times before in his career. Sat in the comfortable spaces of someone’s home and brought grief. He remembered every one of them: the overdose in the toilet at a bar, the drunk teen who climbed behind the wheel, the girl riding her bike to school who didn’t see the car turning. They were among dozens in his time as a police officer, and every one of them stayed with him in some way. And yet he knew he would never hesitate to tell the truth in each one of the homes he destroyed. In the end, the truth was all these families had left.

“I honestly don’t know,” he said, even though it wasn’t in line with the official story in the police file. “The car is an unanswered question, and I don’t like unanswered questions. If Matthew was trying to get to it, I can’t figure out how. Whether he walked the shore or swam the lake, his chances of surviving would have been slim. Those woods are unforgiving, and there would have been far too many risks for the odds to be with him.”

“And the swim would have been even riskier without a proper wet suit,” Sarah said, though she was no longer looking at Boychuk.

“It would. Did he have the wet suit with him, do you know?”

Sarah nodded, though she was clearly lost in her own thoughts. “He brought it. He always brought it.” Her words were barely above a whisper. So faint, Boychuk couldn’t be sure he heard them.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

Sarah looked at him, as if released from a dream, or a nightmare. “Oh, nothing. Just thinking.”

Boychuk let his silence act as invitation for more. But Sarah only looked at him expectantly, hands on her lap, shoulders back.

When she offered nothing further, Boychuk explained Matthew’s file was being moved to a cold-case unit. Officers would continue to follow any leads that materialized, but for now, the case was at a dead end. “I’m sorry, Sarah. I know it’s hard.”

There was nothing more for him to say. Death had come, and his words meant nothing in the face of it.

Sarah sat straight-backed in the chair. Her gaze turned out the window. Shadowed light undulated across her face as a cloud passed in front of the sun. She pulled in a long breath and let it creep back out. Izzy, who had returned while Boychuk was explaining his theory, leaned against the doorway between the kitchen and living room, a plate of banana bread in her hands.

Sarah’s reaction was not what Boychuk had expected. Though he was glad he didn’t have to deal with a hysterical widow, this new edge made him uneasy. After years with the police force, he recognized the cold, hard blade of retribution when he saw it.

“Can we offer you some banana bread before you go, Rob?” Sarah said, in a voice laced with Martha Stewart–like formality. Izzy disappeared into the kitchen.

“No. Thanks.”

“Well, then, if there’s nothing else.”

Izzy returned with a chunk of the bread wrapped in paper towel. Both women walked Boychuk to the door. Sarah thanked him for his diligence and his kindness, though it sounded like she was reading from a Hallmark card. In response to his suggestion, Izzy assured him she would keep an eye on her sister.

“Rob,” Sarah said as he stepped out the door. “You’re not telling us anything we didn’t already suspect. The kids and I will make it through this.”

She touched his arm—a final gesture of acknowledgment and dismissal—before closing the door. He stood like a lost schoolboy on the front porch, the banana bread cooling in his hands.

As his truck veered toward the split at Highway 7, a sharp memory came to Boychuk. He was nine or ten at his grandfather’s cabin on a rainy afternoon. His cousin had found them first: a stack of old comic books with Detective Comics emblazoned on the covers in white lettering on a small royal blue box. The top comic showed Batman and Robin—muscles bulging and frowns brooding—fighting off bad guys in off-white armor. In the foreground, sitting aloof, was an amber-skinned Cleopatra, watching with cool detachment. The look on her face was the same look Boychuk saw on Sarah Anderson this afternoon, a calm certainty while chaos reigned in the background.

“Jesus,” he said, “you’re letting Ritter get to you.”

Boychuk’s training had always told him to trust the evidence. He was a small-town cop, more used to drunk campers and “stay in school” visits than multilayered murder plots. Maybe the routine of police work and Ritter’s contagious suspicions were getting under his skin, filling in the spaces left by unanswered questions. Boychuk shook his head, feeling like a kid for the second time that afternoon. He turned on the radio.

The sun bent low on the horizon as the truck took a left turn onto Highway 60 toward Eganville. A rough calculation told him he’d be home by six, just in time to help set the table for dinner. Myra always made a pot roast on Sunday, the smell luring their three teenage boys from their rooms before hockey practice or girlfriends pulled them out into the world. They were getting older, all of them. It wouldn’t be long before the boys would be off, leaving Boychuk with the uneasy question of who he was without his police uniform, without his dad duties. For now, though, his family waited, as always, a balm for the sadness and death he saw in his job. There was relief in that, and some survivor’s guilt.

“This is Pure Country 94 FM with Keith Urban and ‘Tonight I Wanna Cry,’” a radio announcer’s voice said over a soft piano. Boychuk reached over and turned the volume up, letting the music take over his thoughts. A low piano chord held the rhythm, while a practiced hand danced across the higher keys, teasing out a sad, slow melody joined by a male voice with a country lilt. Boychuk’s ear immediately tuned to the sadness of the vocals, of another lost relationship. The notes reverberated through the truck, jostling free a memory.

He thought back to an early interview with Sarah, back in Patricia Bay, when a failed search and rescue had been morphing into some new grief. Holed up in the detachment interview room with cold coffee and a lingering desperation, Boychuk was testing paths, hoping that one would lead to Matthew.

“Remind me again, Sarah. Did Matthew have a wet suit?”

“Yes ... I mean, he has one but didn’t bring it. Not this trip.”

“Isn’t that a bit strange? Most swimmers I know take a wet suit with them for a lake swim, especially in the fall.”

“Maybe he forgot it. I really don’t know. I know he didn’t have it with him.”

The story had changed. Sarah had just sat in her living room and told him—her voice shaky and thoughts someplace else—that Matthew had brought the wet suit with him. That he always did. Perhaps it was faulty recollections or the inevitable morph of memories as time crystallized over an event. But it was true: If Matthew Anderson had indeed brought his wet suit with him that weekend, why hadn’t they found it with the rest of his belongings at the campsite?

After Boychuk left, Sarah opened a link to the National Centre for Missing Persons and Unidentified Remains on her computer. The screen blazed with page after page of broken lives and lost hopes. Each missing person reduced to a small photo and brief description, a postage stamp version of a life. Trevor, 6ft, 170 pds, last seen waiting for a bus in downtown London. Térèse, age 24, brown hair, green eyes, disappeared after leaving a family dinner in Moose Jaw. And there, on the bottom of the main page: Matthew, born 1979, medium build, last known location the shores of Nagadon Lake . People, each and every one of them, no longer moving through the known world, living instead in an amorphous land of the lost.