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It would have to be, because I didn’t know what else to say. If I was having visions and people were dying and the two were connected, then we didn’t have much choice but to be together until we got to the bottom of things.
    I could have thought the freaking universe wouldn’t take no for an answer. You know, if I believed in that sort of shit.

3
    Saturday, December 16
    T he body had been found in a wooded area off I-81, a few miles north of the Binghamton area. Traffic was being detoured for a mile-long stretch, so the highway was eerily quiet.
    Mason skirted the detour sign and drove right up to the cop whose car was enforcing it, bubble gum light flashing. He lowered his window, slowed down and flashed his badge, and the officer waved him by.
    The scene was already swarming. The state police forensics team was already there, and Rosie was waiting for him on the shoulder, hunching into his police-issue overcoat and wearing a completely non-regulation furry hat with earflaps pulled down. Yeah, it wasn’t a warm day. The sun was shining, and the official temp was allegedly thirty-five, but it felt like single digits the way the wind was blowing. It was a cold wind, too. Icy.
    Mason parked his new-to-him Jeep and got out, then walked onto the shoulder to stand beside his partner, the oversized and ready-to-retire, shaven-headed Roosevelt Jones. He followed Rosie’s gaze down the steep slope to the bottom, where a New York state trooper supervised while two forensics guys worked. One was taking pictures, the other, measurements. The body was still there, bent and twisted unnaturally. “Looks like they just tossed her and let her roll down and stay the way she landed,” he said.
    Rosie nodded. “Looks like. Snow’s covered up any evidence on the bank here.”
    “Tire tracks?”
    “First responders ruined ’em.” Rosie shrugged as he looked toward the ambulance and police cruiser parked a few feet ahead on the shoulder. Their tire tracks were fresh in the soft ground, right where whoever dumped the body would probably have parked.
    Mason shielded his eyes as he watched the men below. “Who called it in?”
    “College student. Had a flat, pulled over a few yards back to change it and saw her lying down there. I got his statement and contact info, then let him go.”
    “All right.” Mason turned up his collar. His coat was lined denim, but he hadn’t grabbed a hat and his ears were already freezing. “Ready to head down there, then?”
    “I’ll wait up here,” Rosie said, eyeing the steep climb warily. “Man my size gonna trip and roll right down on top of her. I don’t wanna contaminate the scene.”
    Mason shook his head. “Creative way to get out of climbing back up, but I’ll let you off the hook.”
    “You better.”
    Mason headed down, taking a route a few yards from the one the body had probably taken. The state cop on the scene was Bill Piedmont, a man Mason knew and liked. He didn’t know the two forensics guys, but then, they tended to move around a lot.
    “Hey, Bill. What’s your take?”
    “Mason.” Piedmont gave him a nod from beneath his wide-brimmed gray Stetson. Trooper standard issue. “Looks like she’s been here a while. Body’s frozen to the ground. Probably was hidden by the snow until the wind came up and blew it clear enough so she could be spotted from the road. Ground underneath her is bare.”
    Mason was looking at the woman. She wore a blue dress, torn nylons, one shoe. The other was probably around somewhere. Most likely flew off her as she tumbled down the hill. She’d landed on her left side, left leg bent unnaturally beneath her, the right one folded up. Right arm extended, left one in front of her body. She had a wedding ring on her finger. Her hair was frozen to her skull. Red, he thought.
    “So she was dumped before that first snowfall. What was that, a week ago?”
    “Six days,” Piedmont said.
    “Look like she was dead before she was dumped?”
    Piedmont