In the morning, there were nine calls on my answering machine. An overflow. A bounty of phone calls. A veritable inundation. Nine people wanting me. I was almost afraid to press the play button, hating to have my bubble burst, to find they were all calls from the electric company, all sweet voices enquiring about a payment because they still didn’t believe that I’d lost the envelope in transit from my purse to the mailbox.

OK. The first two were hang-ups. The next was Jackson. He needed to see me, he said in that deep voice he affected when he wanted something from a woman. “Let’s get together for dinner. Tonight? Tomorrow? My place, or yours. And if you’ve got that work ready for me … terrific. You are a gem, Emily. I’m so lucky.” His voice swelled with emotion. I caught my breath. He sounded the way he used to when we first fell in love. Maybe, I told myself, this could work again. The two of us. People change. If I’d learned anything in life, it was that: change happened, for good or ill. Why not Jackson? Why couldn’t he have worn out the coed chase and be ready, at last, to settle down with me? It would be easy to go back to my old life. No money woes. Be with old friends. Possibly get my job back at the paper. I’d be in a familiar world instead of living up here where I didn’t belong, and probably never would.

There are times, I told myself, leaning hard on the phone, when a woman has to get practical, accept her limitations, and run for cover.

Jackson’s would be the first call I returned.

The next message was another hang-up—number three.

There was a call from Jan Romanoff of Northern Pines Magazine: “I’d like to schedule that bones story,” she said, her voice distracted by noises behind her there at the office. “Oh, um, Emily, please call me. Oh, oh, yeah, and the other one—about the Indian cemetery—let’s do that as a separate story. OK? Think I’ll do an all Native American issue. Maybe get somebody from the Odawa to write a short story, or a history piece. Well, call me.”

Another hang-up. This one wasn’t immediate. There was someone there, listening, breathing into the phone, and then came the click.

Next: ah, that sweet voice from the electric company. Why the heck didn’t I just pay the bill and get it over with? I asked myself. I had the money. I wasn’t indigent—yet. Something about hanging onto my bank account like a squirrel dreading winter. I vowed to stop playing games and pay all my bills on time.

Next: a call from a charity wanting me to collect money from my neighbors, with a phone number to call them back—which I wouldn’t do.

The last call. For a few seconds no one spoke. Then a man’s voice came on. “Emily Kincaid. You have been warned enough. Stay out of our business or …”

The call ended.

I shivered and listened again. The voice was hesitant, the words slow, almost as if from someone who didn’t speak English well. I hit the button. A threat? I should call Detective Brent, I thought. I would play it for him, let him decide if I’d been threatened. Probably he’d want the tape, maybe for voice recognition sometime in the future when, or if, we caught the man who’d murdered Chet and the Indian woman.

I played the call one more time. I knew the voice. The man who’d come to my studio. The man Dolly and Lucky met in Peshawbestown. Same hesitations. Lewis George.

I called Dolly. Had to go through the office. It was good to keep my mind on the mechanics of action and off the fact I felt vulnerable.

Dolly came right on the phone. She was going home. I played the call for her. It must have shocked her, too. She fell silent for a long time.

“Recognize the voice?” she asked.

“That Lewis George you went over to the casino to meet. The guy who was here.”

“I think you’re right. Don’t understand why he’s after you. I can see them wanting to get the bones back, but that’s not up to us. Geez, there’s so much about this whole business that frustrates me. And what’s that ‘or’ mean? ‘Or’ I’ll report you to the state police for overstepping your bounds? ‘Or’ you’ll never be allowed inside another casino if you keep it up? ‘Or’ I’ll stop my subscription to your newspaper? I don’t get it. Can’t be anything worse—like ‘or’ I’ll kill you. You don’t think he means to hurt you … ?”

“How do I know? Let’s take a look at what we’ve got. The girl murdered out there was Native American. She’s probably Mary Naquma. The guy at the lake was Alfred Naquma, her brother. I’m pretty sure of that though I didn’t put the Naquma part to the Alfred part. If he was the dead woman’s brother, why doesn’t he come forward instead of hiding? Maybe offer himself for DNA testing. They were sure worried about what you found out at the lake. What else could be out there?”

“How about the gun?” Dolly asked.

“But after thirteen years? And they want us to stop looking into the murders. There’s got to be something they’re afraid of.”

“Would they protect a murderer?” Dolly asked. “Could it be Lewis George? Maybe it’s not Alfred and him together, but him alone. He could be the one who murdered Chet and Mary. He’s the one doing the intimidating. Seems a little old to have been a jealous boyfriend.”

“Divers checked the lake bottom and didn’t find anything. What else could be out there?”

“Look, before you break out in hives, call Brent. Ask him what you should do with the tape. He has to know about it, and have a copy made, in case you come up missing, or in case they find your lumpy body in a ditch somewhere.”

“What do you mean, lumpy?” I came right back at her. “Look who’s talking, you sack of … And if anybody’s going to meet an untimely end here, it should be you. I get suckered into going along to protect your sorry …”

“Yeah, yeah. Well, nice talking to you.”

She was gone.

I fumed. When I called Detective Brent in Gaylord, my voice must not have sounded properly afraid. Brent didn’t believe me until I played the tape for him. Then he asked for a copy. “Look,” he said, seeming worried, “maybe you and Dolly better lay low on this. I’ll get an investigator over there. Pull somebody from another case. I gotta have a talk with this Lewis George.”

I didn’t like the sound of that. There was still Dolly’s breach of police ethics. Brent didn’t know about the dog tags and maybe never would. There was also the fact we’d invested a lot of time in this. And the fact I’d been threatened. I felt the way Dolly would feel when she heard we’d been pulled. Not that I was overly brave, or stupid, or out to prove anything. This was my job, what I did for a living. I had a story to finish and I meant to finish it completely.

“I’ll get the tape to you,” I said. “But we’re not backing down. I’m sure I can speak for Dolly, too. This is personal now. You’ll be hearing when we’ve got something for you.”

I hung up on a protesting Detective Brent, who would either call Chief Barnard and get us off the case, or would think it over and let us go. He was in a pinch for investigators and he wasn’t dumb.