one

Monday, March 3, 2:35 p.m., near the Canadian border

By the time she heard him behind her, he’d gotten so close that she instinctively reached for her Smith & Wesson .40 as she turned to face him.

They stood at the tailgate of Border Patrol Agent Peyton Cote’s Ford F-150 service vehicle. She’d been loading water bottles into the pockets of her backpack, preparing for a three-mile hike, a routine border sweep, when she’d heard his feet scuff the frozen chunks of dirt and snow behind her.

Now, facing him, she felt nearly embarrassed to be holding her weapon—the boy wasn’t much older than her eleven-year-old, Tommy.

So why did she have that feeling, the one that had befallen her hundreds of times before, the one that told her something wasn’t right? She didn’t immediately reholster her .40. Her sister called it Mother’s Intuition; agents called it Field Instinct.

She shuffled her L.L.Bean leather hiking boots, her snowshoes on the ground near her feet. Behind the boy, to the northeast, was a dense, commercially owned forest of eastern pines and Norway spruces.

Peyton knew the boy had emerged from the tree line.

She also knew the woods behind him ran to the Canadian border.

It was a warm morning, one of those glorious late-winter days residents of Aroostook County, Maine, felt they’d earned on the heels of a winter that saw temperatures plunge to forty below twice this year and the snowfall total top ninety-one inches (and counting).

“What’s your name?” she asked.

Was that a shiver? Or a flinch?

She couldn’t tell, but his blond bangs swayed. His face was dirty, his pant leg torn at the knee. Red-cheeked, he’d obviously been outside for an extended period.

A wind gust hit them, and somewhere overhead, a large crow sounded. She took a different approach.

“Like to snowshoe?”

He shrugged, so she kept going.

“I love it, especially on days like this.” She pointed to a nearby tree. Sunlight turned ice-covered branches to refractive chandeliers. “It’s beautiful out here.”

He shook his head and looked down. “Very cold.”

Her first reaction was as an agent: she heard the accent. Russian? Her second reaction was as a mother: the boy wore only a hoodie, and beneath it his T-shirt collar was frayed. Where were his hat and mittens? She wouldn’t allow Tommy outside dressed like that during winter.

She left her backpack where it was and tossed the snowshoes into the truck’s bed.

“Come sit in my truck,” she said and moved to the passenger’s-side door. She opened it for him.

He looked at her. She nodded reassuringly, and he climbed in. She rounded the hood, got behind the wheel, started the engine, and set the internal temperature to seventy-two.

“Are you lost?”

“No,” he said. The skin near his eyes was pale. Dehydration? His bare hands were raw, the red skin cracked and bleeding. He rubbed them on his thighs, seeking friction to warm them. “Waiting for you,” he said.

She’d been reaching for her phone but paused. “You’ve been waiting for me?”

He looked down at his fingertip. It was split, a white half-moon open where a tiny drop of blood emerged. “For Border Patrol,” he said.

She watched him closely. He didn’t appear nervous.

“Is that a Russian accent?” she asked.

He nodded.

“Where do you live?”

He shrugged.

“You don’t know?” she asked.

“Not anymore.”

His cheeks were red, but he wasn’t out of breath—he’d been exposed to the elements of the harsh winter for too long.

“You might have frostbite. Tell me your name.”

“Aleksei Vann,” he said. “I wait to surrender.”

5:40 p.m., 12 Higgins Drive

Stone Gibson entered Peyton’s kitchen wearing a sweat-drenched T-shirt and sweatpants, toting a gym bag.

“You’re late,” she said, “and you stink.”

“Thanks for noticing,” he said and kissed the back of her neck, “on both fronts. And I’m sorry. I’m not usually late for a meal. Can I use your shower?”

“You left your razor in there,” she said. “Don’t dilly daddle. Steak tips are just about ready, and I have salad, bread for Tommy and me, and a six-pack of gluten-free Omission IPA for you.”

“Christ,” he said over his shoulder, “I’m moving in.”

She turned but just caught a glimpse of his wide shoulders rounding the corner as he headed up the stairs. She’d hoped to see his face, wanted to read his expression.

Had he read her mind?

It was nearly dark at dinnertime on this March evening. And that was an improvement: Garrett, Maine, in Aroostook County, was north of Montreal, which meant during December and January each year nightfall came early. Peyton often left the house in early-morning moonlight and returned after the 3:45 p.m. sunset.

She lit a cinnamon-scented candle left over from the holidays. The aroma mixed with the scent of garlic she crushed and put in the pan with the steak. She liked being at home, liked typical domestic activities like cooking dinner. And she liked Stone Gibson, maybe more than she wished. They’d been dating for six months. He was a state trooper, one of four assigned to Aroostook County. They’d met—Peyton was loathe to admit—when her mother’s millionth attempt to set her up with a man actually worked. Now he was a large part of her already complicated life: work and Tommy seemed all she could handle. But somehow Stone overturned her emotional apple cart. And she hadn’t minded one bit.

She called Tommy in from the living room. He entered the kitchen, cell phone before him, thumbs dancing. “Hey, Mom, can we have ployes?”

“Your grandmother makes those so well that I’m not competing with her,” Peyton said. “Don’t text and walk. You’ll hit a wall. And, hey, I thought we discussed what the phone was to be used for.”

“Only to call you in an emergency.”

“So I assume you’re texting me. What’s the emergency in the living room?” She heard water running in the shower upstairs.

Tommy smiled and shook his head. “Sorry.”

“If you weren’t so cute …” She squeezed his shoulder and kissed his forehead.

“Mom, don’t do that in front of Stone.”

“If you’re bored, don’t text. Read a book.”

“I will.”

“Now, please put the salad on the table.”

He slid the cell phone in his pocket and went to the fridge. “Stone said we have a karate competition this weekend, Mom.”

“Great,” she said. “Can’t wait.”

Tommy carried the salad to the dining room table.

Peyton returned to the stove and pushed the steak around with a wooden spoon. It was done, so she took the pan off the burner, added a little more garlic, gave one last stir, then scooped the steak tips onto a serving platter to rest.

She hadn’t been the only one who benefitted from Stone’s return to Aroostook County. School had never come easy to Tommy. And the previous summer, before his dyslexia diagnosis, Tommy had begun karate lessons. Stone Gibson was the instructor. So as Peyton journeyed down fate’s odd path, attending a blind date set up by Lois of all people, Tommy had also met and was befriended by Stone.

The water in the upstairs shower stopped. Peyton carried the steak to the dining room table. In less than three minutes, Stone bounded down the stairs and took an end chair.

“Quick shower,” Peyton said. “You must be hungry.”

“I was going to slide down the banister.”

“Glad you didn’t.”

“Can you teach me how to do that?” Tommy said.

Stone winked at him. “Here’s to my favorite Aroostook County people.” He raised a chilled glass of Omission IPA.

“You must be forgetting your mother and sister,” Tommy said.

“No,” Stone said. “You guys are my favorites. You’re not crazy.”

“Are they really crazy?” Tommy leaned forward, eager to hear more.

“Foot in mouth.” Stone grinned at Peyton.

She drank her wine. “Everyone has crazy relatives.”

“We don’t have crazy relatives,” Tommy said. “We only have Gram and Aunt Ellie.”

Peyton looked across the table at Stone.

“Care to add anything to Tommy’s remark?” he asked.

She liked his boyish smirk. “We watched the Celtics game last night,” she said.

“You’re fast on your feet, agent,” he said, smiling. He ate a piece of steak and groaned in obvious appreciation. “How was your day?”

“A thirteen-year-old Ukrainian boy surrendered at the border.”

“To you?”

“Yeah. I was near the woods behind McCluskey’s Potato Processing Plant, getting ready to sweep the border, and he stepped out from the tree line and walked over to me.”

“How did he get here?”

“Long story,” she said.

Tommy rolled his eyes. “May I be excused?”

Peyton examined his plate. “Yeah. But I want you to read. No phone.”

Reluctantly, Tommy nodded and slid out from the table.

“I’m all ears,” Stone said.

“After I did a preliminary interview with the boy, I spent a couple hours on the Internet seeing what I could learn about Ukraine and what’s going on there. Then I called a professor from U-Maine at Reeds.” She sipped her red wine. “Vladimir Putin’s annexation of the Ukraine was particularly harsh in a town called Donetsk, where this boy is from. The airport was demolished. I mean, it’s rubble. Still finding bodies a year after the battle there ended.”

“I hadn’t heard the fighting was that bad.”

“Some Ukrainian cities have been turned into third-world countries. Pro-Russian separatists bombed this boy’s house. Might’ve been an accident. You remember Malaysian Air MH17?”

“Of course.”

“Well, that was a Buk missile. One hit the boy’s house, and his mother was badly injured. A few days later, his father put him on a boat to Nova Scotia, trying to get him to his aunt in Garrett. He’s only two years older than Tommy.”

“Did he come through the Black Sea?” Stone asked. “Wouldn’t that take forever?”

“Not sure about all the travel specifics yet. But, apparently, the father feared for his son’s life. I brought the boy—his name is Aleksei Vann—back to the station. His English isn’t bad, but his aunt lives in Garrett, so we’re hoping to have her help us interview him in the morning.”

“Where is he tonight?”

“In DHHS care.”

“It must’ve taken weeks for him to get here. And then Halifax is several hours’ drive from Garrett.”

She nodded. “This looks carefully planned.”

“And well executed.” Stone sipped his beer. “Being gluten-free isn’t easy,” he sighed.

“If anyone can do it”—it was her turn to smirk—“I’m sure it’s you, big guy. We’re hoping for answers tomorrow. The boy already asked for political asylum.”

“He sounds well aware of the immigration mess in Texas and wants a piece of the pie.”

“This is different,” she said. “He’s not asking for amnesty. Political asylum has been granted to people for a long time. The policy exists for cases like this one. Aleksei’s mother needs constant care. According to the boy—who, by the way, cried when he told us the story—his father fears for his son, sent him here to live with his aunt in Garrett.”

“Sounds like the boy’s father thought this through,” Stone said.