Chapter 9

The troopers took Boone first. He tried to talk, tried to say I was drunk, tried to say I'd taken the plow. One of the troopers, a woman with a tight bun and a calm voice, listened, then played the recording back from her cruiser's radio. Marnie had patched it through the repeater. Half the county had heard it.

Boone went quiet. They put him in the back of the cruiser. He looked at me through the glass. I didn't look away.

Marnie's voice came over the handheld. "Tessa, I've sent the full logger file to the barracks. It's done."

"You turned yourself in."

"I told them everything. The route order. The log. The hush money."

"Why now?"

"Because he was going to kill you. And because I couldn't stand hearing my own voice anymore."

The troopers helped me into the camp office. The ambulance was still forty minutes out. The roads were iced, and the plow was part of the crime scene. The female trooper, whose name was Delia, wrapped me in a blanket and put a log in the stove.

"You're in labor," she said. "How far apart?"

"Three minutes."

She radioed for a helicopter, but the wind was too high. She radioed for the ambulance again. Forty minutes. I didn't have forty minutes.

The camp office was small and cold. There was a couch, a desk, a first-aid kit, and the base radio that Marnie had used. Delia had delivered babies before, she said. She had been a medic in the Army. She wasn't lying.

Cody stood in the doorway. His face was blotchy. "I'm sorry," he said. "I gave him the handheld. I didn't know-"

"I know," I said. "You turned the light on."

"I should have done it sooner."

"You did it."

Delia told him to boil water. He did. He moved like a ghost. The plow sat outside, floodlight still on, blade tangled with the dozer. Boone was in the cruiser. Marnie was on the radio, her voice thin and official, giving the troopers the location of the bus mirror and the invoice.

The contractions came faster. I bit down on a leather glove. The office smelled of coffee and kerosene. Delia talked me through it. I pushed. I screamed. I called for my mother, who had been dead for six years. I called for Boone, and then I hated myself for it.

At 1:12 a.m., my daughter was born. She was small and red and furious. Delia put her on my chest. I held her with both hands. She opened her eyes. The storm kept falling. The ambulance arrived at 1:30. By then, I had already named her.

Earlene. After the woman Boone killed.