The Bodies Left Behind

won’t. Something’s wrong. I know something’s wrong.” The boy let up on the brake and the vehicle began to roll forward.
    And, not even thinking, Graham ran in front of the vehicle and stood there, hands on the hood.
    “Graham!” Anna called from the porch. “No. Don’t make a war out of it.”
    And he thought, no, it’s time somebody did make it a war.
    “Get out of that truck!”
    “I’m going to find Mom!”
    The only thing keeping him alive was a twelve-year-old’s untied running shoe on the pedal of brakes that had needed servicing for a year. “No, you’re not. Shut the engine off, Joey. I’m not going to tell you again.” When Graham was a child, that was all his father had needed to say to get him to comply, though the offenses back then were things like failure to take out the trash or neglecting his homework.
    “I’m going!”
    The truck lurched forward a foot.
    Graham gasped but didn’t move.
    If you move, he told himself, you lose.
    Though his mind was also running through the places he could leap if the boy floored the accelerator. He didn’t think he’d make it in time.
    “ You’re not going!” the boy raged. “Are you?”
    He was inclined to say, It’s not our job to go. Let the police do their thing. They’re the experts. But instead he said calmly, “Get out of the truck.”
    Aware that his instincts might be about to kill him.
    “Are you going to go find her?” He muttered something else. Graham thought one word was “coward.”
    “Joey.”
    “Get out of the way!” the boy screamed. His eyes were wild.
    For a moment—an eternal moment—Graham believed the boy was going to hit the gas.
    Then Joey grimaced, looked down at the shifter and shoved it into park. He climbed out, reaching for the gun.
    “No. Leave it.”
    Graham walked up to the boy and put his arm around his shoulders. “Come on, Joey,” he said kindly. “Let’s get some—” The boy, who seemed furious at this defeat, shrugged the gesture off and stormed into the house, past his grandmother. Saying not a word.

    AFTER A COMPASS reading, the women continued through a portion of the park less entangled with shrubbery and ground cover than the area they’d left behind, around Lake Mondac. There were patches of clearing—grass and meadow. And, increasingly, imposing rock formations pushed up by glaciers millions of years ago.
    They walked in silence now.
    A quarter mile from the last compass check Brynn was about to ask Michelle how her ankle was feeling. Instead, she said, “My husband is too.”
    Shocking herself.
    Did I really say that? she wondered. My God, did I really?
    Michelle glanced at her, frowning. “Your husband?”
    “Just like yours.” Brynn inhaled the cold, fragrant air. “Graham’s having an affair.”
    “Oh, God. I’m sorry. Are you separated? Getting a divorce?”
    After a pause she said, “No. He doesn’t know I found out.”
    Then she regretted speaking. This was absurd, Brynn thought. Just shut up and keep walking. But she wanted to tell the story. Desperately wanted to. Which was curious because she hadn’t shared it with anyone else. Not her mother, not her best friend Katie from theFire Department or Kim from the parent-teacher organization.
    In fact, she supposed it was significant that only here, in these extreme circumstances, with a complete stranger, could she talk about what had been tormenting her for months. Part of her hoped Michelle would respond with a few words of sympathy, that the subject would dwindle and they could get back to completing their trek. But the young woman responded with genuine interest: “Tell me. Please. What’s the story?”
    Brynn arranged her thoughts. Finally she said, “I was married to a state trooper. Keith Marshall.” She glanced at Michelle to see if the name had registered.
    It didn’t seem to. Brynn continued, “We met at a State Police training seminar in Madison.” She remembered seeing the tall, broad-shouldered man standing in front of the table that served as their desk.
    Keith had glanced her way with a lingering gaze that confessed he certainly liked her looks; but she hadn’t really caught his interest until her turn to run a mock hostage negotiation, which the psychologist running the exercise said was perfect. What really got his attention, though, seemed to be the Glock field-stripping and reassembly test. She had her slide mounted and clip loaded while the runner-up was still struggling to get the