I know these people, Sadie,” Jim said quietly. “They’re all good folks.” “I know. That’s what bothers me.

His voice jerked Lou from her memory. She blinked and the dim bedroom returned. Outside the parted curtains, the inky surface of Bertha Bay lay silent. Above it ran a saw’s blade of mountains. Beneath, Lou knew, but didn’t dare say.

There was too much history he’d like to forget, but his memories were on the surface today, closer even than the woman across from him. For a single heartbeat the shop faded and Slocan appeared: huts in rows, men and women like cattle within its fenced boundaries.

Sparrows were an interesting bird. They had dialects unique to each region they inhabited. If Waterton had a sound, it was the lonely sparrow, keening for its mate. The trill was peaceful, but melancholy.

Lou sat on the dock and stared into the blue depths of Waterton Lake to where a figure floated under the surface. It was the woman who’d walked into Emerald Bay, her pockets full of stones, but in the dream, the woman’s face was a mirror of Lou’s own.

Beyond him lay a small, boggy lake, a few patches of brush along its edge. There was the scent of decay, and Rich’s nostrils flared in disgust. His feet slowed just as one of the bushes moved. He jerked to a stop and his knee twisted in his haste. A stone’s throw away, a grizzly bear, interrupted from its feast of carrion, stood up on hind legs.

The town was as barren as an empty movie set, the only movement from deer that wandered the boulevards. His eyes skimmed silent streets as he searched for the bed and breakfast. A half-grown fawn, grazing near the side of the road, lifted its head and hurried off to its mother.

It seemed to Rich Evans that his innocence was an afterthought. Someone would go to jail for arson, and he’d do as well as anyone else.

Outside the parted curtains, the inky surface of Bertha Bay lay silent. Above it ran a saw’s blade of mountains. Beneath, Lou knew, but didn’t dare say.