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asked.
    “Nooo!”
    “Snot?”
    Emily burst out laughing—a barking cackle from her gut that was infectious to anyone within earshot. In seconds, the two of them were rolling around on the floor, while Nikki stood away, trying to force the grin from her face. Nikki had suffered the most from her mother’s abrupt departure. It was she whom Walt worried about on his sleepless nights.
    The morning report from Nancy was pretty typical for the day after a storm: five highway collisions throughout the early-morning hours, none fatal; three DUIs issued; a ski shop had found a back window broken and was conducting an inventory; a nineteen-year-old girl had been reported missing by her parents.
    A few months earlier, he’d not needed phoned-in reports from Nancy; he would have already been at his desk by now. He resented Gail for every intrusion in his routine. There was no seam in their family life her indiscretion had not penetrated and infected. It was as if the waning gifts of a young face and tight body had compelled her to prove herself still attractive, with no regard to the three she had left behind.
    With Nancy’s help, he’d dispatched a team of twelve Search and Rescue to continue looking for the missing skier. He felt he owed his energy to Mark Aker and the investigation into Randy’s death. He was the only trained investigator for a hundred miles in any direction. As such, he also asked for more on the missing girl. Nancy told him that Kira Tulivich attended a wedding, had gone out drinking with friends, and had not come home. Walt assumed she would stagger home sometime later in the day, with apologies, but he knew to consider it a crime first and to be happy if it turned out differently.
    “My coat won’t zip,” Nikki complained, all trace of humor gone from her face.
    “Okay, okay,” he said, Emily’s foot finally sliding down into the boot. A small victory. He tried Nikki’s zipper, but she was right: the coat wouldn’t close around her.
    “Damn.”
    “Daddy said a bad word!” Nikki announced loudly. This time both girls giggled.
    “Daddy’s tired. I shouldn’t have said that.”
    Lisa, the sitter, would pick them up from school, get them home, and start dinner. She worked for a flat daily fee, not hourly, and she gave him all sorts of breaks, doing everything from picking up dry cleaning to running to the supermarket—and never charged him. She’d made his transition to single parenting doable, though he had miles to go. He felt like a failure most of the time, as if, no matter how hard he tried, no matter how much he cared, he moved backward. He held himself to higher standards than what he was capable of. He was digging in sand, and, worst of all, he thought the girls knew it.
    There was nothing much to do about the jacket. New winter outfits were needed. He tried the snaps; got the middle two to hold. “That’s going to have to do.”
    “But it won’t zip.”
    “It’s the best we can do for now.” Talk of the zipper reminded him of Randy Aker’s body bag. He thought he should probably hurt more for Randy’s loss. In truth, he felt bad for Mark, but it was difficult to take the victim’s death personally. That emotion had been trained out of him, clipped from his DNA. Even Bobby’s untimely death had hit him much the same way. He grieved not for the dead but for the living.
    “I don’t want to wear it if it doesn’t zip,” Nikki said.
    “Don’t. Please, don’t. Not this morning. Okay? We’ve got to get to school. We’ll fix it later. Maybe you can go shopping with Lisa.” He was thinking how expensive kids’ winter clothing was. Maybe he’d get lucky and find a secondhand jacket at the Barkin’ Basement.
    Despite the best intentions, he went from fuming mad to blind anger as he made the short drive to Hailey Elementary. Gail had cited a dozen reasons for leaving him—his time on the job, the nature of his work and the fear it forced her to live with, her unfounded