On the morning of her departure, Skye let Cork walk her to the rented Escalade parked in the drive. A gentle snow was falling, flakes that caught in her hair like cloud shavings, that kissed the bare skin of her face and melted into drops and hung like tears on her cheeks. She was in every respect, Cork thought, a lovely person. If Anne’s decision had been to be with her, he would have approved and been happy for them both.
“Would you say good-bye to Stephen for me?” she asked. “And please let me know how his recovery goes and when he walks again.”
He appreciated her hopefulness.
“You’re always welcome here,” he told her.
“Thank you.” She looked up toward a sky invisible behind snow clouds. “But I don’t think there’s any reason for me to come back.”
Cork said, “If you’ll accept the advice of an old fart, it’s my experience that when you leave the door open to it, love just keeps coming.”
“Maybe,” Skye said. “But Annie was special.”
“Isn’t everybody?”
“No,” she said. “Not like Annie.” And what ran down her cheeks now was not from the melting snow. “I feel like my heart’s been carved out of me. Not her fault, I know. But I don’t want to hurt like this again.” She hadn’t put on her gloves yet, and with a cold, bare knuckle, she wiped at her eyes. “I swear that I will never knowingly hurt someone else this way. Why would anyone?” She looked at him as if she expected an answer. But he knew that, whatever he offered, it would not be good enough.
“Good-bye, Cork,” she said.
She got into her Escalade, started the engine, backed out of the drive, and headed away down Gooseberry Lane. He watched until she turned the corner and was gone. Gone forever from their lives, he suspected, and it saddened him.
He stood alone in the falling snow. The street he’d lived on most of his life was quiet and lovely in the way of winter in the North Country. He hoped that Skye was returning to a place she loved as much as he loved Tamarack County, because he knew that there were places that could heal, and home was one of them. Looking down the empty street, he thought about her final comment to him and understood that his heart already knew the answer to a question that his head had been puzzling endlessly.
He pulled his cell phone from the holster on his belt, and he called Rainy Bisonette. A small wind rose up around him and sighed past as he listened to the ring of the phone on the other end. At last Rainy answered.
Cork felt himself smile, and he said to her, “Hello, love.”
WILLIAM KENT KRUEGER is the New York Times bestselling author of twelve previous Cork O’Connor novels, including Northwest Angle and Trickster’s Point, as well as the novel Ordinary Grace. He lives in the Twin Cities with his family. Visit his website at WilliamKentKrueger.com.
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ALSO BY WILLIAM KENT KRUEGER
Ordinary Grace
Trickster’s Point
Northwest Angle
Vermilion Drift
Heaven’s Keep
Red Knife
Thunder Bay
Copper River
Mercy Falls
Blood Hollow
The Devil’s Bed
Purgatory Ridge
Boundary Waters
Iron Lake
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ATRIA BOOKS
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2013 by William Kent Krueger
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Atria Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.
First Atria Books hardcover edition August 2013
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Designed by Davina Mock-Maniscalco
Jacket design by John Vairo Jr.
Landscape © Sverrir Thorolfsson/Flickr/Getty Images
SUV truck © Matthew Wakem/Aurora/Getty Images
Author photograph by Diane Krueger
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Krueger, William Kent.
Tamarack county : a novel / by William Kent Krueger.—First Atria Books hardcover edition.
pages cm
1. O’Connor, Cork (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Private investigators—Minnesota—Fiction. 3. Murder—Investigation—Fiction. 4. Minnesota—Fiction.
PS3561.R766T36 2013
813'.54—dc23
2013004349
ISBN 978-1-4516-4575-0
ISBN 978-1-4516-4578-1 (ebook)
CONTENT
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
About William Kent Krueger