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WHEN I REALIZED THAT it was going to take me way too many hours to drive to Kimberley, British Columbia, the town closest to Bree’s last cell phone transmission, I pulled over in Dillon, Montana, and slept from one a.m. to six.

I got to Butte by eight, went straight to the airport, and chartered a turboprop plane. It cost a small fortune, but I didn’t hesitate. I was sure Bree’s and John’s lives were at stake.

We were in the air by ten; we landed to refuel and clear immigration and customs in Bonners Ferry, Idaho, then flew two more bumpy hours to Kimberley. We landed at one p.m., and I was shaken from the turbulence we’d flown through and a little wobbly from fatigue as I climbed out of the plane into bitter cold and snowy weather.

There was two feet of the white stuff on the ground and the pilot said the snow was supposed to continue falling overnight. I cleared Canadian immigration and customs, glad that my FBI credentials meant that I could keep my weapon as long as I went straight to the local Royal Canadian Mounted Police office to declare and register it.

I rented a Ford Bronco at the airport and drove to the mounted police offices on Archibald Street. The place looked more like a one-level cottage than a police station with its white shake shingles and bright blue trim.

I knocked on the bright blue front door and went in. A woman in her mid-thirties sat at a desk alone beyond a small counter. She wore a green wool cap over a mane of startlingly red hair, a black puffy coat, and glasses, and she was typing furiously on a keyboard.

“How can I help you?” she asked, not looking up from her work.

“I’m looking for someone with the Canadian Mounted Police.”

“You’re looking at her,” she said, turning from the computer. “Officer Molly Fagan.”

I identified myself. She came over to look at my credentials.

“I didn’t know the FBI had consultants,” Officer Fagan said, squinting at them. “You have any real authority, Dr. Cross?”

“I’m federally deputized, but I almost always work with active agents who make the formal arrests.”

“Unconventional, but what do I know. How can I help?”

“I need to register my service weapon,” I said, setting the hard case on the counter. “And I need some advice.”

“Weapon first,” Fagan said, turning all business.

I opened the case, and she filled out a form, including the make and model—a Glock 19—and the serial number, then counted the rounds in the two clips. By the time I signed the form, the clock on the wall behind her said ten past two.

“And the advice?” she asked.

I told her that Bree and Sampson had vanished almost fifty-six hours before, that I believed they’d been taken by Maestro, a vigilante group involved in the deaths of U.S. Supreme Court candidates, and that there’d been a four-second transmission from Bree’s cell near this location.

As I was finishing, a big guy in his late thirties came in wearing a heavy down parka with a fur hood. He shook off the snow and pulled back the hood, revealing a broad, bearded, smiling face and short hair, both beard and hair tinged with gray.

“Brutal out there, eh?” he said.

Fagan looked over at him. “Give me a minute, sir.”

“Brian Toomey,” he said, unzipping his coat to reveal a blue jumpsuit. “I’m the new janitor? From Wolcott Secure Maintenance?”

“Since when?” she said, frowning.

“Last week,” Toomey said, removing the jacket.

“I was off last week,” Fagan said. She glanced at me and slid his way. “Identification? Federal?”

He hung up the jacket, nodded, got out several cards. “Everything’s there. Or at least it was last week when I showed them to Officer Craig, eh?”

After several moments, Fagan handed them back. “Ontario?”

He smiled. “I’m a regional supervisor for Wolcott back there and they said no problem when I asked them for a short-term transfer out this way for the winter. For the snowmobiling, eh? Incredible, eh?”

“The year for it,” Fagan agreed, and came back to me.

The janitor put in earbuds and tapped his phone. His head began bopping as he slid on latex gloves.

“You have the coordinates from your wife’s phone, Dr. Cross?” Fagan asked.