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door with a large down comforter filling her arms. “This was what I could find.”
    “Lay it out on the ground next to him. We have to move him very slowly. Any jarring at all will cause a heart attack. We don’t want that.”
    They tucked the edge of the comforter under his body in the snow and then gently rolled him onto his other side, which moved most of his body onto the quilt. “Wrap it over him and then grab that end tight.” Claire turned and yelled at Dan’s wife, who was standing in the doorway. “Keep the door open. We’re bringing him in.”
    Lifting him up in the comforter, they carried him slung between them. Claire backed up carefully as Amy directed her toward the door. “Slow and easy,” she said as much to herself as to Amy.
    Once through the door, they set him down on the floor.
    “How about the sauna?” Amy suggested.
    For a moment that sounded like a good idea to Claire, as much for herself as for the frozen man, but then she remembered more of what she knew about hypothermic victims. “That intense heat would be too much for him.”
    “We could turn it on low,” the wife said.
    “I’d rather not risk it. There’s a weird phenomena known as rewarming shock. That’s what a lot of people with hypothermia die from. They need to be rewarmed very slowly. Let’s just keep the comforter on him.”
    “Is there anything we can do?” his wife asked as she sank to the floor next to Walker.
    “Put your hands on his chest. Let him know you’re there. Give him some of your warmth.”
    New Year’s Day: 10:16 am
    Meg ran her finger down the kitchen window, melting the hoarfrost that had gathered around the edges. She loved the patterns it formed, like miniature ice floes, like snow flowers. Whorls and twirls that shimmered in the pale sunlight.
    “What’s up with you today?”
    Meg jumped. She hadn’t heard Rich come in the room. “I don’t know. Don’t feel like doing much of anything. Too cold.”
    He had a million layers of clothes on, his fur-lined hat with the flaps hanging down, his leather-mitten choppers, a dirtydown coat. The front of his dark hair had turned even grayer with frost from his breath. “The first day of the year and you don’t know what you’re going to do? Not a good start. Have you made any resolutions?”
    “I might be swearing off boys.”
    Rich stripped down to his lined blue jeans and flannel shirt. He rubbed his hands together and grabbed the coffee pot. “Good idea. I highly recommend it. Are you going to make an exception for Curt?”
    “No. He’s the reason.”
    Rich sat down across from her at the table and poured himself a cup of coffee. “What’s the problem?”
    “Oh, nothing.” Meg held out her cup and he filled it with coffee.
    Rich stared out the window, cradling his coffee cup. “I’m worried about the septic. This damn cold. We don’t have a lot of snow cover and the frost line could drop down far enough to freeze the lines.”
    Meg didn’t really want to talk about their septic system. “Rich, are boys always jerks?”
    Rich turned his head toward her and nodded. “Most of the time. Especially at that age.”
    “Curt’s been hanging around with Andy Palmquist and he just seems different. All he wants to do is play those dumb games.”
    “What games?”
    “You know, he’s more interested in playing video games with Andy than watching a movie with me. I hate those violent, shoot ’em up games.”
    Rich took a sip of coffee. “That doesn’t sound like Curt. From what I’ve heard, that Andy’s a bad egg.”
    “I know. He gives me the creeps. He always looks like he’s up to something. And he’s always hanging around Curt. Like last night, I just wanted to go for a walk, with just Curt. Right at midnight, outside, the two of us. Something special. But he didn’t want to. Said it was too cold.”
    “It was too cold.”
    “You know what I mean. Just for a few minutes. I didn’t want to be with everyone else at