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were askew, his hair was standing on end, and his eyes were bloodshot. Now, of course, Win knew this was the result of a night of hard drinking, but then she’d only thought he looked strange and a little wild. He started to walk past them, then stopped, came back, and stared at them. “What are you two doing here?” he asked, rubbing his eyes.
    â€œWe live here,” Poppy said, not skipping a beat. Win nodded in agreement.
    â€œRight,” he said, as if just realizing this, and then he reached out and put a hand on each of their heads and gave them both a slightly unsteady pat. “You live here,” he said. “’Course you do.” And then he’d walked out of the kitchen. Still, Win thought, as she began to feel the tug of the Benadryl’s chemical drowsiness, Poppy was twenty-nine. She was old enough to be responsible for her actions, despite her upbringing. Wasn’t she?
    Win yawned. In recent years, she’d been prone to insomnia, but tonight she knew that wouldn’t be a problem. She thought about their houseguest, Everett West. She hadn’t had much of a chance to get to know him. He’d been so quiet during dinner, letting her and Poppy do most of the talking. And Poppy, who’d said she was exhausted, had insisted they all go to bed right afterdinner. She wondered now if Everett was asleep. And if not, what was he doing? She had no idea. He was still a stranger to her. Could still be, for all she knew, a serial killer. Should she lock her bedroom door? No, if Everett were inclined to murder her and Poppy, he’d had more than ample time to do so already.
    Besides, he didn’t look like a serial killer. He looked like someone . . . someone with sleepy eyes, she decided, though she was so sleepy herself she could barely follow her own train of thought. He has such sleepy eyes. Such nice eyes . Not like her eyes. Her eyes felt itchy right now . . . so itchy. That cat . That cat would make her miserable. All summer long. Poppy would have to find someplace else for him, at least while she stayed here. And her last coherent thought, before she fell asleep was, That’s it, Sasquatch is going.

CHAPTER 4
    A couple of nights later, in another cabin on Butternut Lake—this one larger, and more cluttered, than Win’s—Sam Boyd sat down at his dining room table and flipped open his laptop. He’d been trying to watch the same YouTube video all night, and every time he started to play it, he’d been interrupted. “It’s about damn time,” he muttered, as the short commercial before the video finished, but in that same moment he caught sight of something out of the corner of his eye. He pressed “pause” and snapped his laptop shut.
    â€œAll right, who’s still up?” he called out, glancing over at the stairs that led up to the cabin’s second floor.
    â€œIt’s me,” his son Hunter answered, shuffling into view.
    â€œLights out was fifteen minutes ago.”
    â€œI know, but . . .” Hunter hesitated, and then edged down a few more stairs.
    â€œThis can’t wait until morning?”
    Hunter shook his head.
    â€œOkay, let’s hear it,” Sam said, itching to watch the video, but knowing that no self-respecting father would watch it in front ofhis nine-year-old son. He waited while Hunter came down the rest of the stairs and then sidled up to him at the dining room table. “Now, what’s this about?” Sam asked.
    â€œUm . . .” Hunter scratched a mosquito bite on his arm.
    â€œStop scratching,” Sam said. Hunter stopped.
    â€œIt’s about . . . the Fourth of July.”
    Sam sighed. “Is it that time of year already?” he asked. By “that time of year” he meant the weeks leading up to the Fourth of July, during which his sons (Hunter, and Hunter’s twin brother, Tim) began a series of tense negotiations with Sam over how many and what