What did these new puzzle pieces tell him?

He didn’t know yet. They could have gotten on the boat to go anywhere. They could even have used it as a convoluted feint. Maybe they doubled back to shore at another location on the Lower Peninsula, although that didn’t feel right. Not when his people told him that they had sustained multiple injuries and risked death to do it.

No, he thought they were heading somewhere else. The problem was, if they survived their injuries, and the storm didn’t sink them, there were so many choices open to them once they got on that boat—the Upper Peninsula, Wisconsin, even Illinois.

He needed to scare up a few more puzzle pieces and see how they all fit together. And by damn, he hoped they hadn’t yet met up with Astra.

As he mulled over the different possible reasons for Michael and Mary’s actions, he gazed out the window of a black SUV and Martin drove them to their destination.

Jerry Crow lived within walking distance of the Lake, in an older rural neighborhood with smallish ranch houses and acre-large yards. Newer housing developments with large, expensive homes bordered the neighborhood. Dawn had broken. Gold arced across the sky, and rosy pink topped the green trees in the distance.

He studied the elder Crow’s property with a critical eye as Martin drove up the gravel drive. The house was well kept but modest, with light blue aluminum siding and white shutters. The land itself was probably worth twice as much as the house, if the surrounding developments were anything to go by. A 2005 Ford truck sat in the driveway, along with a 1994 Chevrolet Impala. Both vehicles looked well maintained too.

Despite the early hour, he could tell that nobody was home before they even reached the end of the drive.

He murmured, “Where have you gone this early in the morning, Jerry? And why did you go there?”

A second black SUV followed theirs. It parked when they parked, and his two new FBI drones, Ryan and Alison, climbed out of the car to meet him and Martin.

“Canvass the neighbors,” he told the pair. “See if anybody knows where Crow has gone, or when he’ll be back.” He paused. “If anyone asks, tell them you’re investigating his son’s death and have a few questions to ask him. We want the right story to get back to him, in case any of his neighbors think to give him a call.”

They nodded and took off. He walked up the path to the front door, while Martin followed.

How did he want to play this? Stealthy or straightforward?

Sometimes he wished he had Michael’s aptitude for stealth. Someone might see him if he broke a pane of glass to get in the house. If they contacted Jerry, he might be scared off from coming home. This was the kind of neighborhood where folks looked out for one another.

He didn’t even know why he tried the knob.

The door was unlocked.

He chuckled. Guess it was that kind of neighborhood too.

“Keep watch,” he said to Martin after they stepped inside. Martin stayed obediently by the front door, looking out.

He strolled through the quiet, empty house. It was modestly decorated with older furniture, and neat without being fussy. The faint odor of cigarette smoke tinged the air, but he did not find it unpleasant. American Indian artwork hung on the walls. Good pieces too, not flea market cast-off stuff. Out the back, a round sweat lodge was tucked into a corner of the yard, covered with tarps.

There were three bedrooms, which was more than he would have guessed. One bedroom had been turned into an office. Clothes were strewn all over another bedroom.

He eyed that room with interest. They were clothes that a young male might wear, mostly jeans and T-shirts. The third bedroom was simple and tidy, with a double bed that was neatly made, two nightstands and a dresser.

An opened letter rested on top of the dresser. He recognized the official seal. It was Nicholas’s death notification.

This was Jerry’s bedroom.

He sat at the foot of the bed and contemplated the dresser.

For all that he worked to avoid it, he was intimately acquainted with death. He had killed so many people. Still, the aftermath of death was not something that he usually concerned himself with.

Nicholas had been killed just a few days ago. Because he had been murdered, there would have been an autopsy before the body was released for burial. He wondered where Nicholas’s body was, or if he had been cremated. Perhaps Jerry had requested that his son be brought home, or Nicholas might be buried in a soldier’s grave in Arlington National Cemetery.

If that was the case, Jerry might be traveling to the funeral.

He checked under the bed and around the room. Suitcases lay tucked in the corner of the closet.

The old Crow hadn’t gone far then. Perhaps he had taken an outing with the young male who stayed in the second bedroom.

An opened pack of Marlboro Reds lay on one of the nightstands, along with an old-fashioned metal lighter and an ashtray.

He helped himself to a cigarette, lit up and took a deep drag. Smoke filled his lungs. He could tell right away that his host body was no stranger to smoking. The nicotine hit his system. He settled back against the headboard of Jerry’s bed and relaxed with a sigh.

What to do.

Should he focus on this and let his forces churn through the process of the larger hunt? Or should he leave this to his FBI drones and focus on some other angle of the hunt?

Jerry Crow wasn’t so much a long shot as he was a wild card. He had no way of knowing if questioning Crow would lead anywhere until after he had done it. He turned the monkey’s head from side to side to stretch tight neck muscles.

The front door of the house opened and closed. Footsteps sounded in the hall. Alison appeared in the doorway. “One of Crow’s neighbors told us that he kept a motorboat down at the dock at the end of the road. She said she saw Jerry and his grandson head out early a few days ago, and she hasn’t seen them since. We checked the dock, and the space where he keeps his boat is empty.”

He finished his cigarette leisurely and tapped out the stub.

A few days ago Nicholas had died, and a notifying officer, along with a chaplain, had come to deliver the news. Jerry left the house soon afterward, and he hadn’t been seen since.

And he went out on the Lake.

They were such slender puzzle pieces to fit together. But they did fit.

He smiled at Alison. “I like this house, don’t you?”

Obediently, she said, “Yes.”

Of course, he knew she would say yes.

“We’re going to use this place as our search headquarters while we wait to see if Jerry returns anytime soon. One of you get on the computer in the office to see if there’s anything useful on it.” He scooped up the pack of cigarettes, the lighter and ashtray and got to his feet. “And do something less obvious with our SUVs, will you? Right now they stand out like sore thumbs.”

The drones got to work. Life was so peaceful when everybody did exactly what he said.

He wandered into the kitchen to see what Jerry had to eat in his refrigerator.

Chapter Fifteen

ASTRA WASHED DISHES with an excess of energy. As she flung items around, her mind operated on several different levels.

She had one overwrought healer tucked in the loft. One overwrought human boy asleep on the couch. One warrior sulking on the beach. One old man taking a nap. One anxious ghost.

Look at all of that drama, and none of it was relevant. May God protect her from a passel of fools. Worse, she was a fool to put up with all of it.

She looked out the window over the sink at the grove of fruit trees. She had planted those trees by seed so long ago. Now they were mature, and each year, they produced more bounty than she was able to use.

A long time ago, she had foreseen that she might need a sanctuary separate from the growing human population. She had searched until she found this small rocky island and made it her home.

The island was located north of Beaver Island and west of Garden Island. Only three-quarters of a mile long and little over a half a mile wide, it was absent from all but the oldest and most crudely drawn explorers’ maps.

At first, she had needed to expend energy to hide the island from other eyes. Then, as the spirit of the island grew more aware, it turned eccentric and secretive. It became a participant in the process and learned to cloak itself.

Over the years, ships and pleasure boats passed by with increasing frequency. While their occupants might register the island long enough to navigate around the dangerous, broken shoreline, they soon forgot about it as they moved on to other, more pressing matters in their lives.

Now, aside from Michael and Mary, only a dwindling handful of people remembered the island’s existence, or her existence either, for that matter. They were people who knew how to keep a secret—traditionally raised First Nation elders who sometimes went to their graves with a thousand years of knowledge locked in the treasure vaults of their minds because they hadn’t found pupils trustworthy enough to teach.

As she had told Mary, those elders used to bring creatures of all species to her, creatures so injured or broken in body or spirit Astra was their last chance for recovery. She did what she could for them.

Sometimes the healing worked and sometimes it didn’t. But the elders were always grateful she tried. They had kept her supplied with offerings of food, seeds for her garden, firewood and candles, clothing and other essentials.

PtesanWi, they called her.

Over the centuries she had acquired other names. Dream Weaver, for the protections she could offer against dark spirits that preyed upon the helpless in nightmares. Star Woman, for she came from another world. Grandmother Spider, for she could spin webs that could heal, but her bite could also poison.

As those elders grew old and died, her visitors dwindled until only Jerry, his son Nicholas and now Jamie knew of her home. Jerry continued to bring her creatures that needed healing, and some of the birds and animals stayed, such as her shy little fox friend and a young golden eagle that nested at the top of the four-hundred-year-old oak. They were both under stern orders to leave her chickens alone, and they meekly obeyed.

She finished cleaning the kitchen, wiped the area by the sink and leaned her hands on the counter with a frustrated sigh. Then having made a decision, she shrugged into her battered jacket again and stomped down to the pier.

The campfire had been doused, and Michael had piled wet clothes and shoes at the end of the pier. She couldn’t see him anywhere but she heard a slight metallic clanking that came from somewhere on the boat.

She cast a scowling glance around as she climbed aboard. She didn’t like modern boats. She found Michael with his head buried in the bowels of the engine.

Manly and useful. Hrmph.

She snapped, “Hello, idiot.”

“Go away.” His voice echoed in the confined space.

“I will not.” She kicked one of his feet. “Get out here.”

“Fuck off.”

She kicked him again because it felt good. “I came down here to tell you that you are an idiot.”

He pulled out of the engine with the swiftness of a coiling snake. “The hell.”

She grinned, in a fine, fun rage. She had grown to adore this tall, deadly man. “What’s the matter with you?” she said. “You should be in bed resting.” She pointed in the direction of the mainland. “He’s on the hunt. We have no idea how long this haven will hold.”

His hard, white teeth shaped words with biting precision. “Which is why I am making sure there’s been no permanent damage done to our only f**king boat. Then I will check my store of weapons and check the f**king news. Then I will take a f**king nap. Got it?”

“All right.” She gave him a sweet smile and almost laughed out loud at his expression of baffled wrath. She hadn’t managed to get him this riled in years. “That’s not why you’re an idiot, you know.”

He had a wrench gripped in one muscled fist. He threw it, and it bounced off a wall. “You evil, old elf,” he said in a conversational tone. “I could always strangle you. That would shut you up.”

She wagged a finger. “But only for a while.” Her gleeful energy faded. She grew tired again and abandoned her adversarial stance. “You’re an idiot because we could all be gone in a matter of hours. You’re choosing to spend what precious time you have left closed off in that fortress of yours. That’s not who the Creator intended you to be, Michael.”

“Don’t tell me who I’m supposed to be,” he snapped.

His anger was a palpable force that beat at her skin, but she had withstood it before. “That’s my job. To help you remember who you are.”

“You’ve already done that,” he growled. “I know very well who and what I am.”

She blew a frustrated breath out between her teeth. “Mary told me off earlier, and she was right to do so,” she said. “Life isn’t some kind of pale, distant thing you hold at arm’s length. Maybe I have treated our lifetimes as though they are disposable. I watch human lives go by so fast anymore they’re gone in an eyeblink. And I always keep in mind the ultimate price we must be prepared to pay. None of that means we aren’t supposed to live.”

He sighed and rubbed at his forehead, leaving behind a dark smudge. “Are you through?”

She hesitated at his clipped tone, but then pushed on. “No. Like I said to Mary earlier, I don’t have time to mother-hen you two, so I won’t talk about this again. But I’m warning you now. Make peace. Make peace with her, with me, with the Creator, with yourself. Make it now while you can.”

“Old crone.” That too was one of her names. “You’ve made your point.” His expression was bitter but she noticed his voice had lost its edge. He rubbed his forehead with the back of one hand and left a black smear of grease behind. He looked as tired as she felt, tired to the bone and beyond. “How’s Mary?”