The fish houses were a ghost town of shadows that appeared and disappeared in his headlights. He had to slow down to avoid piling into them. They were of all shapes and sizes, some barely larger than Dumpsters, others as large as campers, big enough for people to live in and sleep in if they wanted to escape the world entirely. Tonight, they were dark. He made circles around each one and didn't see any cars parked by the houses, because no one wanted to be caught in the tempest if a propane tank went empty or a window blew out in the wind. Stride felt tiny out here, and the world felt huge and violent.
The lake was shaped like an amoeba spread out under the microscope, with rounded fingers of land pushing into the water in wooded peninsulas and a fat, open middle where underground currents left islands of thin ice to swallow up trespassers. It stretched for miles, and from where he was, Stride could only see a fraction of its surface, and in the midst of the storm, he could see even less. He felt as if he were crawling, nudging the Bronco past each snowy hillock where a fish house was hiding.
His phone rang.
"I'm on the lake," he told Maggie. "I came in on the fire road from the southwest."
"I'm coming in from the east," she said. "I'll follow the shore and head your way."
"It's a nightmare out here. Watch out for hot spots."
"You, too. Is the cavalry coming?"
"Yeah, I've got half a dozen cars heading our way."
"Any way to narrow down the search?" Maggie asked.
"Tanjy's body popped up on the south shore, so I'm hoping she went in somewhere around there, too."
"Stay in touch."
Stride threw his phone on the passenger seat. He shot out toward the open stretch of ice, hugging the shore and following the land as it bent around toward the next inlet. The snow blinded him, but when an updraft lifted the curtain for an instant, he saw another scattering of shanties a quarter mile ahead. He steered for them, and in the midst of the blackness, he could make out a yellow diamond of light. Someone was home.
The light shone through the door of an RV, parked like a beached whale off by itself, which the owner could simply drive on and off the ice at will. Stride parked next to the RV and bailed out of his truck with his gun drawn. In an instant, he was a snowman, crusted over with a wet, white layer that clung to his hair, skin, and clothes. He jogged through the powder to the door of the camper and listened, but he couldn't hear anything inside with the wind roaring around him.
He pounded on the door with his fist. "Police!"
A few seconds later, the door slit open a crack, and he pointed his gun at the opening but quickly withdrew it when he saw an old man staring out with surprised, frightened eyes. The man wore a heavy red plaid shirt, baggy jeans, and ratty slippers. His messy gray hair flopped over his forehead. "Who the hell are you?"
"Police, sir!" Stride shouted, because that was the only way to be heard.
"I'm not leaving the lake."
"Can I come in for a minute?"
"How about showing me your badge?"
"This is a blizzard, sir, will you just give me a break!"
"Okay, okay, get inside. You're letting in the snow."
He pulled back the door, and Stride climbed the metal steps. The interior of the RV was littered with food cans, beer, and fishing equipment. A black-and-white television set was perched on a bookshelf, broadcasting a 1950s movie in between zigzagging lines. The air was freezing, and Stride could see his breath.
The old man was barely more than five feet tall. "I'm not coming off the lake," he grumbled. "I don't care about any storm. I've seen worse storms than this."
"I'm not here to kick you out, although you're crazy to be here on a night like this."
"Yeah, so, I'm crazy. What do you want?"
"I'm trying to find a man who may have a fish house on the lake. He's huge, around six foot six, and built like a linebacker. Very long black hair."
The old man nodded. He snorted and cleared his throat as if he were about to hack up a fur ball. "I've seen him. Hard to miss that guy."
Stride was exhilarated. "Where? Where does he keep his shanty?"
"Don't know exactly. It's not in this part of the lake. I've seen that purple van of his heading up around the peninsula to the northeast."
"Still on the south shore?" Stride asked.
"Yeah, I assume so. Not much reason for people to be driving around down here if they're camped on the north side. It's a long way up there, unless you want to go across the belly of the lake and swim." He chuckled.
"Thanks," Stride told him. "Stay safe."
"Not like I'm going to die young."
Stride flew out of the RV and back to his Bronco. He called 911 and gave them the position off his GPS locator and told them where he was headed and asked them to scramble everyone they had. When he got the confirmation from the operator, he threw the phone back on the passenger seat and concentrated on the lake. He abandoned the rest of the fish houses in this inlet and accelerated back toward the open stretch of ice. Sheets of snow blew up from his tires in two waves, as if he were parting the sea. He tried to keep an eye on the dark blotch of land to the east, but the storm grew even worse, shrinking his universe to a few feet in front of the truck. Even so, he pushed the Bronco faster, until his foot was on the floorboard and the chassis was shimmying and wobbling on the bumpy ice. Too fast.
He lost control. The truck spun. He went round and round in a strange, graceful pirouette, and the truck came off its tires and threatened to roll. He felt himself sailing at an angle, airborne, but then the Bronco staggered back and righted itself, falling back onto its wheels with a kidney-busting jolt and drifting to a stop. He pushed the accelerator again, and the truck coughed, clamped down on the snow, and sped up.
He was lost now. He couldn't see a thing and had no idea where he was or what direction he was going. He opened the window and shoved his head out as he drove, but the wind and snow were like knives on his face. The lake, the sky, and the woods were all indistinguishable. He thought he could make out the dark stain of the next finger of land jutting out to the east, and he turned toward it, but he was disoriented by the silver, blowing swarm that was everywhere around the truck. The vision of the land vanished, as if it had been an illusion all along.
He was far out, too far out, before he realized he had gone the wrong way and strayed from the land. Something changed under his tires. What had been two feet of impenetrable ice no longer felt heavy and solid; instead, the ground trembled and moved as he drove. He knew he had to stop, turn around, get out of there. He was skating on a hot spot, trying to walk on water, and when he steered in another direction, the first sharp crack was like a rifle going off under his feet.
The ice was breaking.
The truck lurched.
Stride was thrown forward by the jolt. The nose of the truck shuddered and dipped. He fumbled with his seat belt, pushed open the door, and threw himself outside, where he hit the ice with a cold slap and rolled. He kept crawling, hearing more ice crack around and behind him. He spread his weight out and practically swam through the snow toward the safety of a thicker shelf of ice. He could see the red flags now, warning beacons that he had driven past and missed entirely in the storm.
He stood up. The ice here was strong enough to hold him.
Twenty yards away, he watched his ten-year-old Ford Bronco disappear, carrying his past and his cell phone with it. Spiderlike cracks opened up and widened into fissures. The front wheels slurped into the lake water, which freed itself from its prison like a sea monster and surrounded the truck. The Bronco flailed, fought, and floated, but not for long. Frigid water leached into its body, and steam hissed as the engine drowned. The front end dived, and the back end settled behind it, and then the truck careened to one side and made a gentle splash as it sank between the chunky plates of ice and was swallowed up and gone.