CHAPTER 1
The auger bit through the ice with a satisfying crunch that Kate Perkins felt in her bones. Fourteen inches down. She'd measured it twice with the spud bar when she'd first walked out from shore, testing each step despite knowing this ice like she knew her own heartbeat. March ice on Goose Pond was reliable, had been holding steady for three months now. The trucks scattered across the pond proved it, her own F-150 parked thirty yards back, Charlie Brennan's rust-covered Chevy beyond that, a couple of Tacomas closer to the point where the good perch holes were.
Kate's breath came in white puffs that crystallized instantly on the fleece neck gaiter she'd pulled up over her nose. Twenty-two degrees, no wind. Perfect. She wore her usual layers: merino wool base, fleece middle, the old Grundéns parka on top that had been Pop's back when he could still make the walk onto the ice. Her Baffin boots, rated to minus forty, were overkill for today, but out here you didn't take chances.
The auger broke through and water gurgled up, dark against the white ice. Kate cleared the slush with her skimmer, the metal mesh already growing ice crystals where the water clung. This was the only place her mind could properly settle, outhere where the only sounds were the ice's deep groans and the distant cry of a gull. No guests asking about breakfast. No Pop forgetting his medications. No bills stacked on the desk she'd inherited along with everything else.
Just the ice, the fish below, and the rhythm of winter as it should be.
She drilled her second hole twenty feet down the drop-off line, her movements automatic. Thirty-five years old, and she could set a tip-up in her sleep. The inn might be falling apart, Pop might be getting worse, but this, this she could do right.
The orange flag of the tip-up stood bright against the white expanse as she adjusted the spool tension. Too tight and the fish would feel the resistance and spit the hook. Too loose and they'd run with it, swallow it deep. Pop had taught her the sweet spot when she was seven, his massive hands guiding her small ones on a tip-up he'd built himself in the garage.
Everything's about balance, Katie-girl. Fish know when something's not right.
Her phone buzzed against her ribs, underneath all the layers. Kate ignored it, moving to drill the third hole. Dani could wait. Whatever crisis had driven her sister to that three-sentence email could wait another hour. Out here, Kate had learned to parcel out her worries like she rationed heating oil at the inn, only what was absolutely necessary.
The email had come last night, just as Kate was turning off the lights in the guest lounge. Three sentences, typical Dani:
Coming home next week. Need to talk to you and Pop. Don't worry.—D
Don't worry. As if those words from Dani had ever meant anything but trouble. The last time Dani said don't worry, she'd been leaving her third job in six months. The time before that, she'd maxed out her credit cards on some sure-thing business venture involving essential oils.
Kate set her third tip-up and stood back, surveying her line of flags. The ice made a long, low moan beneath her, the sound of pressure ridges adjusting, nothing dangerous. But she felt it in her chest anyway, that shifting, that warning.
“Your lines are crooked.”
Kate turned to find Charlie Brennan had walked over, his own bucket in hand. His face was a map of seventy Maine winters, ice fishing every one of them.
“They're on the drop-off,” Kate said.
“I know where they are. I'm saying they're crooked. Your mind's not on the fish.”
Kate almost smiled. Charlie had been reading her since she was a kid out here with Pop. “Dani's coming home.”
Charlie grunted. “The pretty one who can't sit still?”
“That's her.”
“Saw her at the Portland Jetport yesterday.”
Kate's stomach tightened. “Must've been someone else. Dani's in New York.”
Charlie shrugged, the gesture barely visible through his bulky Carhartt. “Could be. Sure looked like her, though. That red hair? Getting into one of those black SUVs. Don't see much of that around here. Looked like money.”
Kate's first tip-up flag popped, the orange square snapping upright in the still air. She moved fast but steady, no point running on ice, no matter how thick. She knelt beside the hole, watching the spool spin out line. Patient. Let them take it. The line stopped, reversed direction. The fish was turning the baitfish, getting it head-first for the swallow.
Now.
She set the hook with a quick lift, felt the weight on the other end. Not huge, but decent. The pickerel fought in short runs, each one a little weaker. She worked it up through the hole,grabbed it behind the gills. Maybe two pounds. Perfect eating size.
“You want these?” Charlie held up his bucket. “Couple decent perch. The wife's tired of fish anyway.”
“Pop would love them,” Kate said. “Thanks, Charlie.”
He handed over the bucket, then looked at her straight on. “Your father still know who you are most days?”
“Most days.”
