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Fall turned into winter so quickly that Lila could practically see the calendar pages flipping. Everything froze hard one night, and from then on, every morning when Lila woke up, she was dazzled by the frost crystals adorning the frozen stalks of the grass outside her window. The dead leaves that still clung to the shrubs—alder, willow, elderberry—were covered in a thick fur of rime. A few bright red berries still shone through the frost, even more vivid against the stark white.

As for the hardware store, icy condensation gathered in the corners of the single-pane windows, and her first task every morning was to stoke the fire. Bear had promised to set up a propane heater for her, but he hadn’t had a chance so far. He was busy helping half the townspeople with all their winter preps. To help out, she offered to pick up the slack at The Fang, so she found herself working even more shifts than she had during the busy summer season.

Luckily, she had an espresso machine to keep her adequately caffeinated. The regulars had finally accepted the new addition to the bar, and coffee with a splash of whiskey became everyone’s new favorite request.

Since they were both so busy, she didn’t see Bear as much as usual. Not that “busy-ness” was the only issue. She didn’t have to have hyper-intuition to sense the wall that existed between them. It was her doing just as much as his, but that didn’t stop her eyes from searching for him. It didn’t stop her heart from fluttering whenever she caught a glimpse of him. Or her knees from going weak. Or her dreams from getting downright X-rated.

Bear didn’t come to her goodbye party for Charlie and Nick; he was busy helping Pink Bannister repair his outhouse. His absence distracted her even from her favorite people in the world, as they all munched on homemade pizza together and made plans for a Firelight Ridge Christmas.

Were they just going to continue this way, avoiding the attraction between them, each of them putting up barriers, one step forward, two steps back?

She didn’t have much time to think about the murder of Rita Casey or any of the other recent mysteries. Officer Cromwell hadn’t been seen in town since that first trip. Now she knew what Bear meant about Firelight Ridge getting neglected in the murder-solving department.

But someone hadn’t forgotten. Every so often, Allison Casey would wake her up and deliver a frustrated rant. It never included any helpful details or leads, but when Lila pointed that out, she’d tell Lila to stop passing the buck.

“You’re the one who can go places and talk to people. I can’t.”

“Are you playing the ghost card again?”

“What does that mean? I’m not a ghost.” The dead woman seemed offended by the suggestion.

“What are you, then? Why do you keep coming back? Am I the only one who can see you? Why don’t you go haunt Paulina? You were friends, weren’t you?”

“If I could, don’t you think I would?” She stomped her booted foot on the dream floor. “I see you’re able to ask plenty of questions when it comes to poor me, a murder victim. Why don’t you get out there and make sure no one else gets killed?”

Lila would always wake up with a start and a shudder from those “dreams.” How was she supposed to “make sure no one else gets killed”?

True, in the past she’d gotten very strong signals that something terrible was about to happen. Sometimes they were very clear, but not always. If she knew enough details, she could warn people, but that didn’t happen very often. And she couldn’t summon a premonition at will. They either came or they didn’t.

Nothing was coming.

Except when it came to Paulina. Her instincts had told her something was up with Paulina, and that had turned out to be true. Was Paulina okay? Maybe she’d remember more now that she’d recovered from her fall.

During one of Bear’s rare shifts at The Fang, she asked to borrow his truck to bring Paulina her groceries, which were part of the big Costco delivery that had just arrived. Everyone had a list, with Paulina’s heavy on the cheese and rice.

Before she left, Bear insisted on giving her thorough instructions on how to handle icy patches on the road. He made her practice shifting into four-wheel drive and drilled her on how to handle a fishtail situation. Despite the stress of remembering all his instructions, it was nice to sit next to him in a vehicle and feel his concentrated attention on her.

In fact, it was dizzying. It took her long moments of deep breathing to collect herself enough to drive after Bear went back into the bar. Was her attraction to him getting stronger with every hour that passed?

Paulina was happy to receive her groceries and offered Lila some chamomile tea that she’d grown herself. “I have another type of tea, a little more, shall we say, psychoactive,” she added. “Interested?”

Lila had seen the cannabis plants growing behind the house in the summer; she wasn’t surprised at the offer. Paulina must have all kinds of herbs growing out here in the shelter of the forest. “No thanks. My brain is plenty psychoactive already.”

Paulina set a copper pot on the wood stove to boil. Her hair was pulled into a long braid down her back, and a pair of readers hung from a leather thong around her neck. “I suppose you came all the way out here to check on me. I keep telling Bear that I feel fine.”

“That’s wonderful to hear.” Lila pulled up a seat at her table, which was littered with the makings of a winter wreath—spruce cones, dried elderberry clusters, even a piece of bone. “But I was hoping I could ask you some questions.”

“I still don’t remember why I fell.” Paulina brought two pottery mugs to the table and used her forearm to clear a space for them. “I remember working on a painting, and I remember waking up and seeing your face. The in-between is a blank spot.”

Bear had warned Lila that was the case. “I understand. I’ve heard that happens sometimes after a traumatic event. The mind protects itself by forgetting.”

Paulina scattered dried chamomile blossoms in the bottom of the two mugs. “Traumatic is overstating it. A slight fall. Nothing more.”

“That’s such a huge relief. You really had us worried.” Lila waited until Paulina was done filling the mugs. Best not to surprise someone when they held a kettle of scalding water. “I wanted to talk to you about Gwen Dubrov.”

Paulina’s gray eyes widened, and she turned back to the stove to set the kettle down.

“She was your good friend, wasn’t she?”

“I won’t talk about her,” Paulina said firmly.

“Why not? Is it…because of how she died?”

The older woman shuddered as she lowered herself onto the chair opposite Lila. “I tell myself it’s not a bad way to die, freezing to death in the snow. Maybe I’ll do the same.”

“What was she like? Buster said she was a graduate student studying marmots, but that’s all he could remember. And that she was blond.”

Paulina snorted. “Men. Gwen was so much more than just a blond. She was an idealist. Gentle. She loved nature and anything wild. She loved misfits.”

The word sent a shiver through Lila, since she’d always felt like a misfit herself. All of her friends had, too. Molly because her family was so poor, Charlie because her father was in prison, Ani because of her limp, and Lila because of her intuitive streak. Feeling like outsiders had bonded them together. Had something similar happened with Paulina and her friends?

“It’s a good place for misfits, out here,” she said.

“Yes, that’s true. A lot of us never quite figured out a way to live free and be happy back in the regular world. Out here, I can be myself.”

“Gwen too?”

“Gwen too. She loved it here. She made friends with everyone, even that man…” She broke off, and Lila could tell there was something important she wouldn’t, or couldn’t, say.

“Were you both friends with Allison Casey too?”

“Oh yes, but Allison was married, so her life was a little different. She was the married one. I was the free spirit. Gwen was the dreamer. Nancy was the warrior.”

“Nancy…does she still live here?”

“Oh no, she’s never come back since they were killed. She said she would, but she never did. Maybe something happened to her. I’m the only one now.” Her gaze drifted away, and she seemed to be struggling with something.

“It’s hard to be without your friends,” Lila said gently. “There’s nothing like a good friend, someone you can really trust.”

That statement had the opposite effect that Lila had intended. Paulina turned away, grabbing her stomach as if Lila had just landed some kind of blow. “I’m so…so selfish, even now,” she choked out.

Lila jumped up from her chair and knelt before the artist. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you. I just meant?—”

“I’m selfish!” Paulina snapped. “I mean what I say. I kept hoping…” She shook her head. “I saw something a few days after the shootings.”

Lila drew in a breath of surprise. “What did you see?”

“It was…a man. I was looking for Gwen. We’d had a fight a few days earlier, before the shootings, something stupid that I can’t remember. Usually we made up quickly, but a few days passed and she didn’t appear. Finally I strapped on my skis and went looking. I never got to her yurt, because someone stopped me in the woods.”

Lila put a hand on her arm and squeezed, the weave of her sweater warm to the touch. “You mean Paul Anthony Bowman?”

It took a while, but finally the artist gave a tiny shake of her head. “Not him. He’d already been arrested. It was another man. He held a knife at my throat. Told me to never say that I’d seen him or he’d come after me. He scared the living daylights out of me. And then they found Gwen in the snow the next day.” She lifted her eyes briefly to meet Lila’s, then dropped her gaze again. “What if I’d told someone … maybe she would have lived. I…I don’t know. I never said anything to anyone. I was too scared.”

“Do you know who he was?”

“No, I’d never seen him before and I never saw him again, but I never forgot the lethal way he looked at me and the way that knife felt against my throat.” She put a shaky hand to her neck.

Lila squeezed her arm again. “That must have been terrifying. I’m so sorry.”She sucked in a breath, realizing the import of what Paulina had just done. “Why did you tell me?”

“That fall the other day…I might be sick. There could be something wrong with me, and that’s why I fell. I don’t know, but I won’t leave this life without saying what I saw. For Gwen. When Bowman confessed to those murders, he didn’t include Gwen. No one ever came to follow up on her death. Poor Gwennie. What if her killer went free because of me?”

“Oh no, you can’t blame yourself. She was probably already dead by then. Buster said she’d been in the snow at least two days before they found her.”

“He scared me so much,” Paulina whispered. “Most terrifying person I ever saw.”

Telling the story seemed to give her relief. She patted her forehead with the sleeve of her sweater, then gulped down half her tea.

“This tea is supposed to be calming, but my heart is pounding like a jackhammer. Reliving all this…I tried to forget it. But Gwen was my good friend. I still feel her presence when I try.”

Lila didn’t doubt it. Were all the victims of that long-ago murder spree still loitering around this lost mountain outpost? “Do you think you could draw a picture of the man who threatened you?”

Paulina startled and set down her mug. “What an idea. I don’t know if I could. He was so frightening, he might jump off the canvas and shoot me. I have a very vivid imagination.”

“Maybe just a sketch, not so life-like.”

Eventually, Paulina agreed to make a line drawing of the man, and directed Lila to bring her a sketchbook from a pile on her nightstand. It took her only a few minutes to sketch out a lean-faced man with a buzz cut and very erect posture.

“How old do you think he was?” Lila asked as she examined the image. He didn’t look at all familiar to her.

“Older than me. Forties.”

In other words, he’d be in his eighties now and probably wouldn’t look anything like the sketch. He might even be dead. Oh well—it might still be useful.

Paulina tore the page from the sketchbook and handed it to Lila. “Even if this doesn’t go anywhere, I feel better. I’ve done something for my Gwennie.”

“You have,” Lila assured her. “I think you’re very brave. One more thing before I leave.”

Paulina was already yawning; Lila felt badly that she’d demanded so much energy from someone still recovering from a fall. “If you think you’re sick, you should let us take you to a doctor. They can run some tests.”

“No.” From her reaction, Paulina was more frightened of that prospect than of the man in the drawing. “They won’t let me come back here.”

“You might just have low iron, or low blood sugar or something. Maybe it’s something that’s easy to treat.”

“No,” she said flatly. “I made a promise to myself that I would never leave here except in a coffin, and not even that because I left strict instructions that I want to be buried in the forest so the mycelium can reclaim me. It’s all written down, signed and sealed. Bear has it.”

Was there anything Bear didn’t do for this town? “Is that even legal?” Lila wondered out loud. “Just getting buried in the woods?”

“Who cares about that out here? What would they do, arrest me? They don’t do anything about the live criminals, let alone the dead ones!”

Lila giggled, happy to see Paulina regaining her spirit.

“Well, I’m sure Bear will have your back,” she said wistfully, “even after you’re gone.”

Paulina put her glasses into place to peer at Lila. “What’s that tone all about?” She held up a hand. “Let me try a wild guess. Is Bear freezing you out?”

Was that an accurate assessment of the situation? “Not really…maybe…I suppose you could put it that way…”

“Don’t pay any attention to that. Just barrel on through.”

“Barrel on through?”

“Bear has got a heart like a puddle of melted honey. Sweetest boy I ever saw. Always trying to take care of his mother, take care of his grandpa, take care of everyone. Someone like that gets hurt. Disappointed. Self-protective.”

Lila nodded along, her heart swelling, because every word of that felt true. “You remember him from when he visited his grandfather?”

“He told you about that, huh? Proves my point. He likes you. Don’t let him shut you out.”

As she drove back to town, Lila kept glancing at the passenger seat, where she’d set the sketch of the man who had scared Paulina so badly that she’d held her tongue for forty years. Her memory of the man’s face was crystal clear, at least judging by the sketch. Every time Lila looked at it, it seemed more lifelike. Everything that Paulina’s artist’s eye had observed about the man at the time, consciously and unconsciously, she’d poured into that sketch.

Military. The knowledge flashed into her mind. He had military training, but that was in the past. He was freelance. A professional. An assassin? He’d come to Firelight Ridge with a purpose. A mission. It meant nothing to him on a personal level. Only money. Someone was paying him. He was in this godforsaken wilderness because it profited him, not because he liked it. He just had to get the job done, then beat feet for civilization. He didn’t want to kill the woman on skis, but he would if he had to. She had about two seconds to decide to either go away or scream for help.

Lila wrenched herself out of her reverie as the truck skidded around a curve. How fast was she going? She pulled her foot off the accelerator and almost slammed on the brakes, but all of Bear’s instructions worked and she tapped them instead.

But the truck was such a big piece of machinery, and she’d gotten her speed up too high, and now it wouldn’t slow down quickly enough. The trees were coming at her—straight toward her! Holy crap, she was heading into the forest.

She wrenched the wheel to the right, and the truck bounced off a moss-covered bank like a gigantic unwieldy pinball. If only she wasn’t on a downslope, if she could just make it to the bottom then the upward climb would slow the truck down. Why had she stayed so late at Paulina’s? Darkness was gathering at the base of the trees. The overcast sky and failing daylight made the road hard to focus on. The world was a swirl of gray confusion and menacing forest.

And now the man in the passenger seat was mocking her for being such an amateur driver. Better run, little girl. Run and hide. Run and hide.

That phrase! Stunned, distracted, she loosened her grip on the steering wheel and the truck leaped toward the trees.