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  “The girls want to do some filming over in Woodruff, Minocqua, Manitowish Waters,” Pete said. “You know, seems to me I heard the Capone mob ran a crime school in Hurley during the twenties. That’s quite a haul from here, though.” He eyed Gib’s paint-splattered T-shirt and shorts. “I’m thinking someone should go with them so they don’t get lost on the back roads. I would, but I’ve got, well, some business in town.”

  Gib gave his grandfather a reproachful look. Izzy felt Shelly’s elbow in her ribs and muttered, “Tupperware,” in reply.

  “You want to go with these two and help them out?”

  Izzy cringed. If she was going to stay away from Gib, spending the afternoon together wasn’t a step in the right direction. “Oh, you don’t have to come along,” she said hurriedly. “I’m sure we can find—”

  “Pete’s right,” Gib said. “It’ll be way easier if you have someone along who knows the roads around here.”

  “But you’re in the middle of painting.”

  “I’m waiting for the walls to dry so I can do the trim. Let me change clothes.”

  Three hours later, after shooting footage at a couple of other locations, they were interviewing the owner of a supper club who was describing how Baby Face Nelson used to sit at the end of the restaurant’s bar, his back always to the wall. Then he took them outside and showed them the dip in the back driveway where Dillinger reputedly spun out his car before taking to the woods on foot during an escape from the feds.

  “Our resort was never owned by gangsters, but they did like to stay here,” the man continued, warming to the topic. “Come down by the water and I’ll show you where they used to store the whiskey they brought in from Canada.” He headed toward the beach with Shelly right behind him.

  Izzy touched Gib on the arm and hung back to let the others go ahead. “This is the third place today and the story is the same,” Izzy whispered. “Well, not exactly the same, but, close enough. What gives?”

  “There were a lot of gangsters vacationing up here during Prohibition. Most stayed at existing resorts, so every bar owner can tell you where these guys ate and drank.”

  “Even if they never did.”

  “Exactly.”

  They caught up to the other two and Izzy set down the tripod and continued filming.

  “This used to be quite a big building.” The owner pointed to the remnants of a stone foundation, long overgrown. “Back in ’33, Frankie Marone holed up here late one night. He’d been in a feud with a rival Chicago gang for a couple of years and the fight moved to Wisconsin. Frankie and his men were outnumbered, so they headed for the beach where they had a powerboat. They only made it this far before they had to take cover inside.”

  The man strolled around the foundation perimeter. “There was a shoot-out. Then an explosion. This building went up like a fireball and that was it. Frankie and the men with him, all dead.” He stepped through the opening in the foundation that had once been a doorway. “Turns out the whole thing was a setup. The building had been rigged with explosives. Frankie had been allowed to escape this far so he and his men could be disposed of with no witnesses, no bodies.”

  Izzy shivered and glanced at Gib. His face was white. “Are you okay?” she asked quietly.

  “I, uh…yeah.” He turned and walked down the beach.

  She watched him uncertainly, then stepped back from the camera and said to Shelly, “Keep filming. I’ll be right back.” She followed Gib for a minute, quickening her pace so she could fall into step beside him. He glanced at her, brow furrowed.

  “No one should ever look that alone,” she said in answer to his unspoken question. “I didn’t want you to be.”

  They walked in silence for another couple of minutes.

  “I guess I should explain,” he finally said.

  “You don’t have to.”

  “I know.” The shade of a nearby tree cast a dark shadow over his face. “But I want to. I want you to know. There was a hotel I always stayed at in Iraq. Lots of journalists, photographers—the media—we all stayed there. It had reinforced concrete barriers, was well guarded.”

  “A safe place.” Izzy felt dread wash through her as though she was about to hear a horror story that she already knew. She’d read stories like this in the paper, heard them on the nightly news.

  “It was a haven where you could relax, let your guard down. We should have been safely up in our rooms when it happened. Would have been if…” He looked out into the distance. “There were five of us. We were out chasing down the story of another bombing. The other guys wanted to take off, but I kept shooting pictures. Kept thinking that I hadn’t caught what I wanted on film yet. Photojournalists…the pictures we shoot tell a story, answer the question—what happened? I heard someone once say, We shoot verbs—not nouns.”

  He exhaled sharply. “If I’d quit ten minutes earlier. Five minutes earlier. If I hadn’t gone along. If only I’d said, ‘Let’s stop and get something to eat before we go back to the hotel.’” His voice cracked. “If only…”

  Izzy took his hand in hers. “You couldn’t have known.”

  “The guy drove a truck full of explosives into the barrier at the hotel. There was no logic in it—no way was he going to penetrate that concrete wall. It happened as we were crossing the street. We saw him coming and started to run. There were five of us…Did I say that yet?”

  “Five of you,” she said past the knot in her throat.

  “Four took shrapnel and Dave didn’t get hurt at all except where his arms got skinned when he fell…” He clenched his teeth together and a muscle tightened in his jaw. “When I got off the ground, Chris was dead. Alex died on the way to the hospital. Terry a couple of days later. Me? The worst I got was in the knee.”

  He bent to pick up a handful of sand and let it run through his fingers. “Just like this, lives disappeared. Just like this, they’re gone. They died and I lived. They should have been safely inside the hotel, except they waited for me.”

  She could hear his guilt. And regret. “It wasn’t your fault. Anything can happen, anywhere. All of us could spend a lifetime second-guessing decisions, places, times—”

  “It should have been me. The guys were always razzing me about wanting the perfect shot. And they were right. I did. They died because I had to stay a few more minutes to capture the despair of those people on film, their horror at having survived something that their friends didn’t.” He rubbed the back of his hand on his jaw. “Pretty ironic. I didn’t get the shot I wanted, but I got to know what they feel. I know the despair. And I relive it every time I close my eyes.”

  Izzy’s heart lurched. She wished she knew how to take his pain away. She reached up to cup his face in her hands and force him to look at her. “Listen to me. It’s not your fault. Terrible things happen. They’re supposed to happen to other people, but sometimes the other people are us.” She could hardly stand the emptiness in his eyes.

  Without warning, he crushed her against him and took her mouth hard, as if she was the air he needed to stay alive. He cupped her head in his hands and laced his fingers through her hair, and though she knew she should push away, knew that no good could come of this, she gave herself up to him and kissed him back. Her heart pounded and her knees weakened and she grabbed hold of his shirt in both hands to keep herself from collapsing. Behind her closed eyelids, the bright sun sparkled like fireworks, and she thought to herself that Gib felt so right. His hands skimmed down her back and under the hem of her T-shirt, and she let herself spin dizzily into the heat of him. When finally he broke the kiss, she was breathless and dazed.

  “We’d better go back.” He looked as stunned as she felt.

  She touched a hand to her mouth. Go back to what? Gib Murphy had just ensured she could never return to the way things had been with him before. And with devastating clarity she knew better than to even think about moving forward with him.

  CHAPTER TEN

  THE PHONE CALL CAME IN at exactly t
en o’clock that night, right after the day had gone still and the sun had set. Gib took the receiver from his grandfather and listened in stunned disbelief to the shaking voice of the middle-aged man on the other end of the line. Dave was dead. Dave, the only one of them who’d managed to get through the explosion unscathed. He’d taken a curve on his motorcycle late the night before and lost control. On a road he’d been down a thousand times before.

  Gib cursed. “Why? He came home whole…and then this?” Except, inside he knew after everything they’d been through, Dave, like him, was only whole on the outside. He asked a few questions, searching for a reason, hoping to learn the purpose of this tragedy. Finally, numb, he expressed his regrets and sympathies and set down the phone.

  “What happened?” his grandfather asked.

  “Another friend. A journalist…motorcycle accident. I’ve gotta get outside.” He went to the beach in the dark, to the end of the pier, and curled his bare toes over the wooden edge. Staring into the black water, he tried to picture what it felt like to hurt so much you wanted to die.

  Ah, but he knew. Or very nearly did. He just buried it, shoved it away, refused to acknowledge its existence so he could keep functioning. As the thought peeled away the fragile cover from his own pain, anger exploded within him. His fury grew, blocking out everything until all he could feel was raw emotion and the frustration that there was nothing he could do to change anything that had happened. He spun round and headed toward the lodge, unable to stay still, feeling like if he didn’t do something he would implode.

  He flipped on the light outside the shed, got out the wood-splitting maul and set a log on the chopping block. This was for Dave. And for Terry and Chris and Alex. He positioned his feet shoulder-width apart and gripped the handle firmly with both hands, as though doing this very correctly would somehow fix everything. Then he swung hard into the wood and split the log. He picked up half and split it once more.

  Log after log, fury driving each stroke, he split wood until sweat ran in rivulets down his back, drenching his shirt. “Dammit, Dave. What the hell were you doing?” His breathing came hard and he swore again and again, the sound of the maul hitting the wood like an exclamation point on his curses. “You should have called me. I thought you were okay.”

  Sweat ran into his eyes and he wiped a hand across them to clear his vision. He swung again and the bit sank into the wood and stuck. “Shit.” He yanked at the maul, twisted the handle hard. “You should have called me. Dammit, you should have—” He rocked the handle to free the maul. “Aw, Dave—what were you thinking…What—” Suddenly, the bit wrenched loose and he jerked upright, almost losing his balance. Tears blended with perspiration to blur his sight once more. He swung forcefully again, as if the harder he worked the more he could hold back the pain trying to claw its way out from inside him.

  Dave had survived, had gone home to take a vacation, escape the horror for a while. And now, for him, the horror was gone forever. And so was the laughter and the friendship…and the beers they shared after filing their stories and sending their photos…and the world problems they’d solved over those beers…and the women they’d chased…and the dreams they’d compared…and the hopes they’d both had…

  Dave was dead and Gib couldn’t change it.

  Chopping all the wood in the world wouldn’t make a difference. Shoulders sagging, he went inside to change his shirt. He didn’t even want to try to sleep tonight, knew that if sleep came at all, it would be tortured. What was the purpose in all this? What was the point in working so hard to make things good when, in a second, everything could be destroyed, futures gone, lives lost?

  He took the path to Hickory Hollow, dug his keys from his pocket and unlocked the door. They were almost finished here. Just some painting left to do and their showcase cottage would be ready for unveiling.

  And for what? To try to save this damn resort so they could work themselves to death waiting on people? His brother had already made it clear he wanted out. His grandparents…they couldn’t keep going at this pace. Why hadn’t they sold White Bear years ago when the lease still had decades left on it?

  He shook his head at the stupidity of the question. Because they loved this place; they didn’t want to leave. And now, here he was trying to get the land for them so they could stay. So he could get back to life as he knew it, being so busy there wasn’t even time to think about death.

  Until it smacked him upside the head.

  He picked up the paintbrush from the drop cloth on the floor and pressed the bristles against the palm of his opposite hand, squeezing the handle hard as anger and hatred coursed through him. Chris and Terry and Alex had died. And now Dave. A moan escaped from low in his throat.

  He flipped on the radio and spun the dial until he found a radio talk show, some woman discussing azalea bushes and how they needed to be protected from cold and wind. Good advice—if only he’d been able to do it for his friends. As the guest prattled on about providing windbreaks, he changed to a music station, then pried open the fresh can of paint and gave it a quick stir. The way he was feeling, he would probably be able to work all night without getting tired at all.

  “WE LEFT THE FLASHLIGHT in the tunnel!” Izzy shot upright in her chair. She glanced at Shelly, sound asleep on the couch in front of the TV. “Shell, wake up! Shelly!”

  Shelly startled awake and raised her head. “What? Why do you keep waking me up when I’m sound asleep?”

  “We left the flashlight in the tunnel.”

  “Yeah, well, seems to me it was you who said we weren’t going to crawl around on the floor in pitch darkness to find it.” Shelly let her head drop back against the couch. “Jeez, I’m exhausted. How could I have said I’d do that crack-of-dawn morning ritual thing again tomorrow?”

  “It belonged in this cabin.”

  “I’ll buy them a new one.”

  “Listen to me. Beechwood, the name of our cottage, was printed on the side in permanent marker.”

  Shelly rubbed both hands over her face and opened her eyes again. “So? The Murphys already said they never go in the tunnel.”

  “What if they’re lying about that? They certainly were stretching the truth about the tunnel being clogged full of stuff. What if they’re in there all the time? If I kept gambling records in my tunnel, I’d say it was impassable. too. Just to keep people out.”

  Shelly sat up slowly and grinned. “Wait. Are you thinking something illegal’s going on around here? You’re not joking? Because—”

  “I don’t know.” Izzy paced the room and tried to organize her thoughts into coherency. “What if they are involved in something? With all the stuff they have down there…all those ledger books…they have to go into the tunnel once in while. What if there are other records down there—more current ones? What if they find the flashlight and discover we were in there when they expressly told us to keep out and then they think we were snooping around and know something that we don’t actually know and—”

  “And what if they’re into organized crime?” Shelly made a slashing motion across her throat.

  Izzy felt her eyes widen. “Oh, come on.”

  “Who knows? All that matters is you’ve convinced me we need to get that flashlight. But we’re bringing two lights with us this time. I’m not risking a replay of our last escapade.”

  Fifteen minutes later they were standing in the shadows where the woods met the beach, eyeing the dark shape of the boathouse in the night.

  “I’m starting to freak out about going in there again,” Shelly said. “Let’s hurry up.” She pointed at the sky. “Those are cumulonimbus clouds coming our way. If I’m right, we’re in for a serious thunderstorm—”

  “You were predicting rain a couple of days ago and it didn’t happen.”

  “Yeah, but that front is really close. Let’s go.”

  They hurried down the beach, feet sinking into the soft sand with every step, the light of the moon enough to let them see without usin
g a flashlight.

  Once safely inside the boathouse, Shelly pried open the tunnel door. “I’ll stand guard,” she said. “You go get it.”

  “I’m not going in there alone.”

  “You know how those walls close in on me.”

  “We’re not going to be in the dark this time,” Izzy said. “If one flashlight goes out, we’ve got another. Come on.”

  “Fine. Lead on.” Shelly followed Izzy into the tunnel, leaving the door open so they could make a quick exit. “What if they already found it?”

  Izzy’s stomach began to churn. “They couldn’t have. Otherwise, they would have said something. Sweep that beam on the floor.” Gingerly, they made their way along the passage. Finally, Izzy spotted the flashlight against the wall and swooped to pick it up. “Let’s go.”

  “Shh.” Shelly held a finger to her lips. She pointed at the ceiling.

  Izzy cringed, half expecting to see an army of spiders or bats or centipedes above her. Then she heard the murmur of conversation.

  “We must be in the section under the lodge. I think that’s Pete and Catherine.” Shelly cocked her head as if it would help her hear better.

  Pieces of conversation slipped through.

  “…said he was betting on the Packers…”

  Catherine answered, “Still only the preseason…”

  “After last year, the odds aren’t…”

  “What are they talking about?” Izzy whispered.

  “Football.”

  Suddenly Catherine was almost directly above them. “We’ve got every record going back thirty years. I could show him exactly…”

  Izzy tapped Shelly’s arm, then hiked a thumb over her shoulder to say, let’s get out of here, now. They hurried back through the tunnel. Only when they were back on the beach did she finally exhale in relief. “You know what? If the Murphys are into something, I don’t want to know. I don’t care what else is in that tunnel, I don’t care what the family is up to, I’m never going in there again.”