Chapter 4 - The Tracks in the Snow
The Wisconsin woods were a nightmare of white and gray.
The blizzard had tapered off into a biting, sub-zero wind that turned the falling snow into stinging needles. Victor’s boots crunched through crusty drifts as he followed Luca and two tracking dogs through the thick timberland near the shoreline of Lake Michigan.
The Volvo sat awkwardly between two snow-laden pines, its headlights still glowing a faint, amber yellow against the twilight.
Victor pulled open the driver’s side door.
The interior smelled faintly of lavender and baby powder—Nora’s scent, mixed with the sweet, milky aroma of the twins. A diaper bag lay half-unzipped on the passenger seat. Inside were three clean bottles, a spare change of flannel onesies, and a silver rattle Victor had given Leo for his one-month milestone.
He reached out and picked up the rattle. It was cold.
“Which way?” Victor asked, turning to the handler holding the leash of a massive German shepherd. “Down toward the frozen banks, Mr. Rinaldi,” the handler said, wiping ice from his beard. “The scent is strong, but the wind is scattering it. She’s moving fast for someone carrying two infants.”
“She’s running on adrenaline and terror,” Victor muttered. “Move.”
They pushed deeper into the trees, the terrain sloping downward toward the jagged, ice-choked cliffs of the lake. The gray water below crashed against jagged ice sheets, throwing up freezing spray that coated the shoreline in glittering armor.
As they cleared a ridge of snow-heavy spruce trees, Luca held up a hand.
“Boss. Look.”
A few yards ahead, half-buried in a drift, lay a bright pink woolen baby blanket. Victor recognized it instantly. Nora’s sister had knitted it before the twins were born.
He dropped to his knees in the snow, ignoring the freezing cold soaking through his trousers. He picked up the blanket, shaking loose the packed crystals. There was no blood. No sign of struggle. Just a dropped item from a mother whose arms were full and whose strength was failing.
“They went onto the ice,” Victor said, staring at the faint impressions leading past the tree line toward the frozen expanse of the lake. “Boss, the ice is unstable near the shipping channel,” Luca warned, stepping forward. “No one in their right mind would cross the bay in this weather.”
“Nora isn't in her right mind,” Victor said, standing up. “She’s terrified.”
He broke into a run, following the jagged trail of bootprints across the blinding white crust of the frozen bay.
The wind howled across the open water, screaming in his ears like a chorus of unanswerable questions.
Why didn't you stay home? Why did you look at another woman when the only thing pure in your life was waiting in the nursery? Why did you think she would endure it forever?
The bootprints continued for a quarter-mile, weaving around jagged pressure ridges of ice, heading toward a small, uninhabited fishing shack on the northern spit of the cove.
Victor slowed his pace as he approached the shack.
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The structure was half-collapsed, its wooden siding gray and weathered, a rusted stovepipe jutting crookedly from the snowy roof.
A thin, pale wisp of gray smoke curled from the pipe.
