Page 29 of Coram House

My head snaps up. One of the officers crouches beside me.

“Sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

His face comes into focus—the long nose, the startling eyes with their golden centers. My stomach sinks. Not here. Not today.

He clears his throat. “It’s Parker,” he says. “Russell Parker. We met before.”

If everything wasn’t so awful, I might have laughed. “Yeah,” I say. “I remember.”

Parker unfurls a dark bundle of cloth in his arms. A jacket.

“Here,” he says. “I had an extra in my car and thought you might need it.” He holds it up so I can slip my arms into the flannel-lined canvas. It’s so heavy, it feels like a hug.

“One more thing.”

I catch the smell of pine and sweat as he reaches into the pocket for something. “Coffee.” He holds up a metal thermos. “It’s hot. I haven’t touched it yet, if you want some.”

And God, do I ever want some. I nod and he pours the hot, dark liquid into the lid. The first sip sears my throat. I take another. “Thank you,” I say.

My arms and legs have turned to sandbags. I wonder if I’m going to faint or something else embarrassing.

“Are you all right?” Parker’s face is all frown. “Never mind. Stupid question. Let’s get you out of here. Do you think you can walk? My cruiser is parked about a half mile back.” He looks at me, doubtful. “Or they can take you in the boat.”

“The boat?” I picture the solid ice across the harbor, the tiny ice-fishing huts dotting the surface. “But it’s frozen.”

“Only south of Rock Point,” he says. “It’s still open water to the north, for now. There’s a coast guard station on Grand Isle and they can drive you back to town from there.”

I think of being surrounded by all that water with the freezing wind roaring around me. “I can walk.”

“One minute,” Parker says and disappears into the throng.

I don’t want to look at the body. But when someone says don’t think about elephants, suddenly it’s the only thing on your mind. Then the officers part and the body is gone. I imagine the old woman sitting up, medics sponging the blood from her face. Maybe we made a mistake. Then I see the long black bag lying at the edge of the water.

Parker reappears. “The medics cleared you. My car is closer thantheir rig. But I promised we’d go straight to the ED if you showed any more symptoms of hypothermia. You sure you’re okay to walk?”

I nod. All I want is to be somewhere warm. Somewhere not here. I trudge after him.

At the top of the stairs, an officer wraps yellow caution tape around the slender trunk of a birch. He nods at us as we pass. I turn back to take in the cove, now below us. The ledges of red rocks crowned with green pines. The body bag surrounded by dark-suited officers like mourners at a funeral. Then I look directly down at the shallow water beneath the stairs. I’m standing right where she must have stood. Maybe twenty feet down. I feel a hand on my arm.

“Careful,” Parker says.

I take a step back, away from the edge. He lets go.

“Could falling really do that?” I ask. It doesn’t feel high enough.

He’s silent for long enough that I’m not sure he heard me. “The rocks are slippery,” he says, finally. “And it’s high enough that a fall—if you hit your head just right—could do real damage.”

“There was someone else here,” I say.

He looks at me sharply. “You saw someone?”

I shake my head. “No. I—I heard something.” It sounds feeble.

“We’ll know more soon,” he says. “Come on, the car isn’t far. We’ll blast the heat.”

The trail is a slushy mess of bootprints and disturbed earth. “This way,” Parker says, guiding us down an offshoot trail. I can feel him there beside me—arm held out a few inches from his body, fingers spread—to catch me if I stumble.

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