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Just like that, they were a family of four—Bear, Lila, Jack Daniels and Goldilocks. Neither Jack nor Goldilocks seemed aware of that fact, or indeed of each other.

But Lila, with her innate wariness of cats, decided to keep an eye on the big orange fur ball. If he ever figured out that the tiny being in the glass bowl would be a yummy snack, Goldilocks wouldn’t stand much of a chance.

She and Bear worked up a list of things to research.

Number one: find out if anyone else recognized the man in Paulina’s drawing.

Find out everything she could about the mysterious “Nancy.” Too bad she hadn’t gotten her last name from Paulina.

Find out who else had stayed in the hardware store over the past forty years and if they still had access.

Locate the nearest thrift stores that sold housedresses from the eighties, or, alternatively, find out who would have the sewing skills to create one.

Try to find anything that connected the murder of Rita Casey to the murder spree from the eighties.

Most difficult of all—who would have had access to the FBI files that had supposedly been burned in a fire.

They divided up the tasks. Bear wanted to take most of them, because he’d shifted into ultra-protective mode after that night of the crash. She couldn’t blame him. In one night, she’d knocked herself unconscious, been scared by a dress hanging from a cable, and gotten freaked out by a cookbook.

A cookbook.

It was almost embarrassing, especially because she couldn’t swear to the fact that there had never been a cookbook in the store before. Maybe it had been there all along, and she’d obliviously knocked it to the floor while doing Pilates or something.

Not that she minded having a magnificent softhearted man hovering over her. But she wasn’t a helpless child, and she was fully part of whatever was going on, and she refused to be shut out.

Once she’d gotten that sorted out with Bear—all credit to him for understanding and accepting—she tackled her part of the list.

First, she met with the man in charge of renting out the hardware store. Frank Stetson was a carpenter who doubled as a handyman, road maintenance guy, town manager, and vendor of fishing licenses. Lila had met him before, when she’d first moved into the hardware store.

She found him shoveling gravel into a pothole near the general store. A thin layer of snow covered the road, left from the couple of inches that had fallen last night.

“Missed this one before the snow,” he explained as he stuck the shovel in the pile of gravel in the back of his truck. “Boy did I hear it from Kathy. Worst possible spot for a pothole. How are you doing? Here to give your move-out notice?”

“What? No, of course not. I’m staying for the winter.”

“Oh yeah?” Looking mildly surprised, he removed his hat, scratched at the sweat line on the back of his neck, then put it back. “Brave girl.”

That almost sounded like a threat. Or was she just being paranoid?

“I was hoping you have records of any tenants that came before me. At the hardware store, I mean. You said the town bought it from the Caseys so teachers and doctors and people like that would have a place to stay.”

“Yes, that was the idea.” He scratched at his chin. “Thing is, no one wanted it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Ever since that podcast came out, the one about the murder spree, no one wanted to stay in that hardware store.”

“The podcast…” She tried to remember the date it had been released, but drew a blank.

“About seven years ago now. Before that, sure, we had a few tenants. But no one after that.”

“I had no idea it had been empty that long.”

“Bear didn’t tell you? I assumed he did when he sent you over there, or I would have.”

Confused, she fiddled with the long wool scarf she’d wrapped around her neck. “Bear didn’t send me…what do you mean?”

“He called me up and told me to put up the ‘For Rent’ sign because we might have a tenant. A few minutes later, you showed up. I figured he would have made sure you were okay staying in a house with a murder dress.”

“Yes, it’s fine, I have no problem with…” She trailed off, biting her lip. Bear had made sure she had a place to stay here. That was both the sweetest thing, and also…no, it was just sweet, she decided. He’d made sure she had shelter, given her a job, and left her alone in all other respects—until she’d kissed him. “Anyway, do you have any records from between 1980 and seven years ago?”

“Nah. I never bothered with that kind of thing. Why?”

“I’m…well, I’ve gotten interested in the Snow River Murders.”

“Well then, you know who you should talk to? That podcast guy. He came in here and dug around for weeks. He got on everyone’s nerves, I’ll tell you that. But the podcast was pretty good.”

It was actually a good idea, so she stepped into the general store to take advantage of the paid Wi-Fi. Kathy, the owner, wore a pink knitted newsboy hat and one of her ever-present down vests. “You okay? Heard you ran off the road.”

Word had already gotten out. Great. “I’m fine. Even the truck’s fine. Gunnar helped Bear pull it out of the woods this morning.”

She plucked a candy corn shaped like a pumpkin from the bowl on Kathy’s counter. “This is the only good thing about Halloween, if you ask me.”

“Good for sales. The Fang’s usually busy too.”

“Say, have you ever heard of anyone named Nancy who used to live here? She might have had some kind of cooking job, maybe?—”

Kathy screwed up her face. “The name’s familiar. Nancy…Nancy…” She snapped her fingers. “The Caribou Grill. They had a sale a while back, cleaned out their inventory. I saw a bunch of old laminated menus and they had the name Nancy’s on them. A woman named Nancy Butcher ran it.”

“Do you know round about when?”

“Before my time. They might know at the Caribou Grill, but that place is only open in the summer. The owners live in Anchorage. You could try?—”

“Just guess.” Lila wanted to know something, anything, right now. She didn’t want to have to track down someone in Anchorage. “If you had to guess, when do you think it would have been?”

Kathy shrugged and looked over her horn-rimmed glasses at her. “I mind my own business.”

Lila sighed. “Ten years ago? Twenty? Forty?”

“More like forty,” Kathy finally said. “But keep my name out of it.”

“Out of what? I’m just trying to find out who Nancy was.” When Kathy had nothing more to offer, she gave up. “Half an hour of Wi-Fi, please.”

Kathy accepted her cash and told her the day’s password. Snow12345, which somehow seemed appropriate.

Fifteen minutes later, Lila had her first solid piece of information, but unfortunately it didn’t help her any. Jim Sutcliff, the podcaster, had died about six months after he’d produced the Snow River episode. Coincidence? Or something more ominous?

She scanned the obituary and finally found the connection she’d been looking for. Jim Sutcliff leaves behind a fiancée, Rita Cassey, and two brothers.

The obituary must have misspelled Rita’s last name, and that was why it hadn’t appeared during her initial research into Rita Casey.

Scanning further, she learned with shock that Jim Sutcliff been driving his truck in a snowstorm in Michigan and had lost control of the steering and slammed into a tree. He’d died on impact.

Could that possibly be a coincidence? And yet, how could it not be?

Had something caused her to lose control of the steering wheel? She thought back to those moments on the twilit road driving away from Paulina’s place. The steering wheel had felt strange, but she’d figured it was because of the road conditions. Was there more to it?

Seriously spooked, she walked back toward The Fang. Snowflakes drifted from the sky. One landed on her cheek like a cold kiss from above. She looked up and caught a bald eagle flapping across the road. The sky was a soft shade of gray, and the longer she looked at it, the more texture and dimension she saw in the shifting clouds.

This place was so beautiful it made her heart ache. And yet dark things had happened here. Had Rita Casey come to Firelight Ridge to finish the work of Jim Sutcliff and his podcast?

She thought about Paul Bowman. The FBI report had painted a picture of a man who was divorced, bitter, and isolated, who had come to Fangtooth Gulch to retreat from the world. The perfect profile of a killer driven by rage. It would be easy to pin the shootings on him, especially if he was coerced into a confession.

But what if the real killer was the man in Paulina’s drawing, who’d hung around the area afterwards to cover his tracks? He’d done something to Gwen—chased her into the snow until she collapsed?—and threatened Paulina with a knife. Maybe he’d also killed Joe Baker with that same knife.

None of this sounded like a “rage” incident. It sounded more…targeted.

Had someone targeted Allison Casey? She’d been the first victim. The others had come next. Presumably that meant she’d been the focus. But why?

She passed the gas station, where Gunnar was chatting with a large man in work overalls and a parka. Winter gear was everywhere you looked now. It was harder to recognize people now that everyone wore balaclavas and neck gaiters, and she had to learn what everyone’s winter clothes looked like. But Gunnar’s customer looked like one of the old-timers; maybe he’d recognize the photo in her phone, the one of Paulina’s drawing.

As she approached the gas station, the two men turned to greet her, and she saw with delight that the other man was Old Solomon. He’d been around since the mid-1970’s—running from the law, as it turned out. Around here, that didn’t seem to be a problem as long as no further misdeeds were committed. Old Solomon was a retired miner who operated on the barter system. Again, possibly because he’d been evading the reach of the law for so many years.

“Little Miss Lila,” he greeted her. “Still hanging around. Good to see.”

Something in his tone… “You guys aren’t placing bets on me, are you? About how long I’m going to stay?”

The two men shared a glance and shrugged.

“It’s a long winter. Gotta keep ourselves entertained.” Gunnar grinned at her. He was in his twenties, a big blond Viking of a man, someone she might ordinarily find attractive. But in her mind, his image was blocked out by an even bigger dark-haired man. Anyway, he seemed to have something going with Ruth Chilkoot lately, which she entirely supported.

“I’ve got a question for you both, especially you, Solomon. Does this face look familiar?” She angled her phone so he could see the drawing. “He would have been in this area forty years ago, give or take. Around the time of the Snow River murder spree.”

He took her phone in his gloved hand and squinted at it. “Could be a lot of people. What is this, a police sketch?”

Lila shook her head. She didn’t want to bring Paulina’s name into it. “It’s from memory.”

An artist’s memory of a very vivid and traumatic moment.

Gunnar looked over Solomon’s shoulder. “Rings a bell.”

“Oh no, you wouldn’t have…you’re too young to?—”

“Not me, no. I got this stack of old FBI most wanted flyers going back to mining days. There was a time we had a post office here, and this is where they sorted the mail.” He gestured at the building behind him. “It expanded a lot since then, but when I took over I didn’t throw anything out. I was sorting through it the other day, thinking I should dump it all. What’s the point of a forty-year-old Most Wanted poster?”

Lila’s heart felt as if it might jump right out of her chest. More historical records. “Can I see the one you’re talking about?”

“Yeah, come on in. Solomon, you’re good? I’ll order that catalytic converter, should take about a week.”

“Ay-uh. See ya then. What’s it worth, about ten sockeye?”

“Throw in a king and we have a deal.”

Salmon. They were negotiating with salmon. Only in Firelight Ridge, thought Lila affectionately.

They shook on it, then Gunnar led Lila into the shop, where the smell of diesel and old rubber enveloped her.

“Quick question,” she asked as he led the way past a Subaru up on a lift, toward the small office in the back corner. “Is there any way to mess with a truck’s steering so it would work at first, then stop working later on?”

“Power steering?”

She was pretty sure the F-250 had power steering, but trucks were not her forte. “Yes?”

“There could be a leak in the hydraulic line that starts small and gets bigger. If enough drains out, your steering could fail.” He pushed open the door and went right to a banker’s box. “I was literally just thinking I should put all this crap in a burn barrel and be done with it.”

“I’m glad you waited. These are practically historical records.”

“I’m sure the FBI has all of this shit.” He sorted through the papers in the box, looking for the one that had snagged his memory. “I always laughed at these drawings because how could anyone recognize someone when you have a million ways to change your appearance? But that drawing…it’s more the expression that seems the same. Here it is.”

He pulled one page free and presented it to her. As she stared at it, a sense of certainty came over her. Gunnar was right. Something about the tilt of the man’s head, the arrogance captured in Paulina’s sketch, rang very true from one sketch to the other.

“Donald Jenner,” she read aloud. “Wanted for Murder.”

Even saying it out loud made her shudder.

Gunnar read the rest of it. “Suspected in the fatal shooting of Charles Greenley, a candidate for U.S. Senate in the state of Alaska on October 5, 1986. If you have any information on his whereabouts, please contact the local FBI bureau. He is considered armed and dangerous.”