"There are lots of fingerprints, and they are analyzing all of them. Chances are his prints will be in there somewhere. And also, I've been talking again to Harriet."

  "Talking?" May asked, frowning. Harriet was a deaf-mute now.

  "Well, when I say talking, what I did was I took along a sketch pad and I wrote down some questions on it, with possible answers, encouraging her to circle the right answers."

  "Oh, Kerry, that's clever!" May said.

  "It seemed like she was getting into it, but she tired very quickly. So I left it for today, but she's got the idea of it now. I think tomorrow, I might get a chance to try again in the morning."

  "I hope so," May said.

  "If I do, I now know how to do it better, and I think there's a chance that I can get some answers from her one way or the other," Kerry said, her tone filled with purpose.

  "If anyone can do it, you can," May said, and she was shocked to find that there wasn't any jealousy in her mind as she said that. There would have been, a year ago, she realized. A year ago her own insecurities and self-doubts would have come rushing to the surface and she would have felt deeply conflicted that Kerry could do something she couldn't.

  Years of being regarded as second best, the underachiever - sometimes by her parents, and other times by herself – had taken their toll. Only recently had she found the strength and confidence to believe in herself, and that she had what it took to do the best job.

  "Thanks, sis. It's been a tough day," Kerry said, and again, May respected what it took for her sister to share that she was also feeling burned out and exhausted after dealing with this.

  "Tough days need tough people to handle them," May said supportively.

  "How's your case?" Kerry then asked. "That was a very early start, and if you're not done yet, I guess it's complicated?"

  May sighed. "This afternoon, we found out that it's a serial. Two people murdered so far and this killer is leaving the bodies in weird settings. We need to get into his mind, and I don't think we're going to like what's there." She refocused on the immediate worry of the case, her thoughts veering away from all the other concerns she had.

  "Keep me in the loop. I'm going to go into town now and get some food. I'll probably turn in early if you're back late, but I'll make sure there's some dinner in the refrigerator for you."

  "That's great," May said, feeling thankful.

  She cut the call, which had taken them out of the park and almost the whole way back to the police department. May headed in, her mind now on the promise she'd made to herself to find out what was bothering Owen.

  "Penitence, beaver dams, shaved head," he muttered to himself distractedly as they headed in. The back office was empty, and she guessed that the other police still on duty were all involved in setting up the roadblocks.

  They were alone in the back office.

  May took a deep breath, her nerves jangling.

  "Listen, Owen," she said in a quivery voice. "I can't help noticing you're rather distracted. And I was wondering - is it anything to do with us? Is there a problem with us at all? If it's work that’s bothering you, that's fine, I totally understand. But I - I can't help being worried," she ended, her voice now shaking.

  Owen turned to her. He looked pale and stressed, but yet resolute.

  "Yes, it is to do with us, May," he said, and she felt sick inside.

  And then, to her utter astonishment, rummaging in his pocket, Owen continued, sounding just as nervous as she had.

  "This is not how I wanted to do this. I wanted to take you for dinner, but the case came along, and there's never going to be a good time, but I can’t wait any longer, and want to ask you now."

  May gasped as Owen, in the police station's back office, got down on one knee and produced a beautiful ring, with sparkling diamonds, from the small box in his pocket.

  "May, will you marry me?" he asked in a shaking voice.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  May stared at Owen in utter shock. A marriage proposal? This was the last thing she'd expected. This had totally blindsided her. Her mind had been going in a different direction entirely.

  Marriage? Her?

  She realized she was giving a good impression of a fish out of water as she gaped at him. And that was how she felt, as well. This had completely thrown her.

  Half of her felt full of joy and amazement. Her heart was bursting with sheer happiness, knowing this was a wonderful moment, and that it meant a permanent, loving commitment. Owen was not just asking her to be his girlfriend but to spend her life with him. To be his wife.

  But the other half had gone into a flat spin of panic. She felt conflicted, and she was so confused. It was a major life decision! Was she ready for this?

  Did she have what it took to be the partner of such a truly good, kind, caring man? When she was worried even now that she was disappointing him and letting him down, could she make a marriage work?

  What if it didn't work, if it failed? She didn’t know if she could handle such a terrible failure and the misery of losing him.

  May had never expected to feel bombarded by so many fears and doubts.

  Owen was pale, and she could tell he was quaking with nerves. She'd never seen him like this and it touched her that he was so human and vulnerable in this moment.

  She felt a rush of emotion for him, for his vulnerability. He looked as terrified as she now felt.

  "Are you saying yes, or are you saying no?" Owen asked, his voice shaking, his eyes wide and anxious.

  "I'm sorry. I'm just in shock," she said, her voice trembling now. "I - this is so important. I can't believe it’s happening. I mean, it's everything I've ever wanted, but -"

  "I have asked your parents already, and your dad gave his blessing," Owen reassured her.

  "He did?" May said, feeling even more flabbergasted.

  She needed to say yes. She wanted to say yes. But her brain was screaming at her - what if you mess this up? What if it's too soon? Maybe you should tell him you'll live together for a while first? Wouldn’t that be safer? Shouldn’t you go into that slowly and what makes you think you deserve such a nice ring? That’s a seriously beautiful ring! It might just be the nicest one you’ve ever seen. Is it too good for you? Can you live up to it?

  The voices – doubting, critical, condemning, all raged in her head.

  “I – I – well, this is something I never thought would ever happen,” May tried to explain in stammering tones.

  “I understand,” Owen said, sounding equally frazzled.

  Now at a loss for words, May stared at him and he stared back.

  And then, at that moment, as she was struggling with the enormity of the decision, Owen's laptop pinged.

  “What’s that?” he asked, as if relieved about the distraction. He looked around, scrambling up off his knee.

  “I don’t know,” May said, her mind still in turmoil.

  "It's the keyword search!" he said in amazed tones. "It's actually gotten a result!"

  "It has? We’d better look at it. I mean, this could be a big break in the case. Owen I still feel totally stunned by – by what you said. Can we talk about it later?”

  He glanced at her and nodded, but he looked dubious, making May feel terrified she’d messed this up, that she’d ruined the moment spectacularly, and now there was no time to go back, with a possible break in the case.

  She felt a sense of unreality as they crowded next to each other to stare at the screen.

  It couldn’t be more wrong to suddenly be derailed from accepting a marriage proposal, but she'd already decided that this day of her life was breaking all records in terms of twists.

  And it felt like a strange relief to not have to think about this life-changing decision, but instead to pore over the computer and look at what Owen's search had brought up.

  "Nature's Nurturer? What is this?" she asked.

  The search had hit on a blog, and as soon as she started reading it, May realized they were onto something here.

  The Nature's Nurturer blog was written by a writer who was clearly a local man, who lived in “the wilderness near Fairshore” and who claimed that "his passion and his mission were to restore the land to its rightful owners, the beavers, birds and bears."

  Nature's Nurturer was a man who, from the photos, looked to be in his thirties, dressed in leather and fur and “natural fabrics,” deeply tanned, and with a full beard.

  It was quite a rambling blog, where he seemed to go off on tangents about nature, conservation, and just about anything else that he could think of to get on record.

  The blog was a strange mix of information about wildlife in the area, and information about how nature was being destroyed by people and that animals needed to be allowed to live as they were meant to do.

  May had absolutely no argument with that. She fully agreed that nature conservation was important.

  But it seemed that Nature's Nurturer wanted to get this done by forcing people to apologize to nature and to undergo all kinds of humiliating, uncomfortable, and unsafe penitence in order to atone for the wrongdoings.

  That, May had to acknowledge, was very strange.

  And it also aligned with what she'd seen this killer do. As she read through the blog, she started seeing more and more parallels between them. This man was obsessed by wildlife and particularly by the “beavers, birds, and bears” that were in his introductory tagline.

  And he also seemed to be obsessed with finding weird, painful, and potentially violent ways to prove his argument that the animals needed humans to leave them alone.

  The blog was full of quotes about nature, and there were pages of photographs of Nature's Nurturer with various animals. The words and the images were moving and realistic in parts. And then in other parts, they were just downright peculiar.

  She frowned as she read one of the excerpts.

  "I'm here to show you how wrong we are in the way we treat nature. I'm here to show you that what we should be doing is respecting this planet and all its inhabitants, and returning to a sustainable way of living. And I'm here to show you that we can do this, with a little bit of help from our furry friends."

  That was all well and good, if it hadn't been followed by a rambling monologue: "I saw a beaver in a natural dam yesterday. I got into the dam and I spent an hour there, apologizing to the little fella for us being such a cruel and invasive species. I ended up trying to atone by burying myself in the mud and scraping my skin with thorns. Once I'd done that, I felt I knew some of the pain that he must have known, from seeing us recklessly canoe in his territory and hike over his natural pathways."

  She stared at Owen, who was reading another part of the blog with a shocked expression.

  "Look here, May. Here he used his hunting knife to cut his hair to apologize to the birds for stealing their environment. And he left the hair out in the wilderness so they could use it for nests. That's so off the wall, and he follows it with a perfectly ordinary, normal blog on spring nesting. But then, look how he ends it!"

  “Head shaving? Just like the last murder scene?” May asked, feeling incredulous.

  Owen gasped as he read the next line aloud.

  "Next time, I might just stab myself with my hunting knife. Or maybe even punish someone else. You'd all better watch it if you're thinking of getting in Mother Nature's way." He looked at May questioningly.

  That got May's eyebrows shooting all the way up. There was no time to lose in pursuing this angle.

  "I think Nature's Nurturer could be our killer," she said.

  But a glance at the blog showed that it was disquietingly anonymous.

  They needed to find out his real name, and his address. Nowhere was it mentioned in the blog, and perhaps there was a reason for that too, May thought darkly.

  He might be staying ‘anonymous’ in terms of his details, so that he could pursue his crusade of making the world a better place by killing off humans, one by one.

  They had to track down this man, and fast.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  "Can we trace Nature's Nurturer from his blog?" May asked anxiously. “There must be a way to do it somehow. Mustn’t there?” This was so critical, so all-important. They needed to root out this anonymous blogger, with his violent and disturbing content.

  Owen was already at the computer next door, logging in, doing more searches, his fingers flying over the keyboard.

  “There’s an email address on the blog, but it’s anonymous, a gmail account. I don’t know how much we’re going to learn from this. I’m going to do an image search for his face. Perhaps we’ll learn something there."

  He switched to another window, copying and pasting the image of the bearded man.

  "What about looking for any historic crimes?" May moved to a computer where she could access the official police database quickly. "I guess we could search for anything involving a beaver dam?" she added doubtfully. She had a feeling that might confuse the database completely.

  Still, knowing they needed to make a start somehow, she keyed in the words and waited, hopefully, to see if anything resulted.

  The system stalled, as if shocked by the fact that it had to seek crimes involving beaver dams. May had a feeling they were going to go far, far back in the archives before coming up with anything close. Or else, come up with a flat “No cases found.”

  "I'm really not getting anywhere with this image search," Owen said, sounding frazzled, as if he, too, had a few twists and turns too many today.

  No, May thought. She was not going to let this strong lead fizzle out, and she surely couldn't allow it to delay them. Not when the success of the entire case might ride on it. There had to be another way. They knew the wider area where he was, because the blog had revealed that. If they went out there, perhaps one of the neighbors might know something; someone in the area might know where a man of that description, or known as Nature’s Nurturer, lived?

  But it was dark, and knocking on doors after dark always took longer, especially in the remote area where he had indicated he stayed.

  Then, she had an even better idea.

  “This is a time to get the FBI involved,” she said. “They can probably trace that blogger's IP address to within a few yards of where he lives.”

  And she knew, at this time, her sis would be glad to assist. Feeling relieved that they had Kerry here to help, she picked up the phone and called her.

  "Kerry?"

  "What's up?"

  "“We need your help in tracing a suspect. Do you have time?” That was also a nice way of asking her if she wanted to, May thought. The day must have been tough, with that forensic search to deal with.

  "Of course I have time.” Kerry sounded impatient at even being asked. “Let me know what I can do. I have my work computer here and I can log into our systems to look anything up."

  "We’re trying to track down a blog," May said. "It belongs to someone who isn't actually anonymous, because there are photos and he gives his approximate location. But he’s anonymous enough that we don’t know where to find him. He doesn’t give his name, or an actual address, or a contact phone number. Only an email."

  "Hmmm," Kerry said. "You know, I think that might be a job for our techs. And luckily enough, I have a tech that I know will be ready to help."

  "You do?" There was a weird note to Kerry’s voice, May realized. A satisfied sound to it.

  "Yes." Kerry paused. "Reason being, we're dating," she confessed.

  "Oh, wow!" May hadn't realized that Kerry had been bold enough to jump back into the waters of the dating pool after her bad experience catching her ex-fiancé cheating. And an FBI tech sounded like - well, obviously highly intelligent and driven - but somehow, more normal than the high flyers Kerry had gone for in the past.

  "I'll chat with Dominic now," she said. "Send me the details. He's a bright guy and he's super-fast."

  "Thanks!" May said. "Do you know if he'd be able to get it back to us tonight?"

  "I'd be surprised if he can't do it in an hour," Kerry said confidently. “I’ve just been messaging him now. He’s home, and he’ll be able to look.”

  “Thanks!” Feeling encouraged, May cut the call, and sent the details through.

  "I'm looking at the map here," Owen said. "I think it would be worth driving out there now, and at least getting close. We can ask around, perhaps we'll find a place still open that has local knowledge. A general store or something like that?"

  May doubted it. She thought that Owen was being optimistic, but didn’t want to shut him down. And in the meantime, Dominic would be at work and he might come up with something.

  As she put her laptop in its bag and hurried out of the back office, it also occurred to May that perhaps Owen had wanted to get out and go searching, so that he wouldn't have to stay in and suffer the awkwardness of speaking to May once they'd wrapped up work for the day. After all, he had just given her a marriage proposal.

  And she hadn't yet accepted it.

  She knew she wanted to. But she didn't know if she should.

  That life-changing decision was weighing heavy on her mind as they climbed into the car and drove, in a slightly uneasy silence, out of the police department and onto the main road that May knew turned into a narrow, country lane a few miles later. It then wound its way up into the hills surrounding one of Eagle Lake's most isolated tributaries. In the darkening evening, this was where they were now going to hunt the killer.

  "There were some cabins along the western side of that lake," May remembered. "I went there a few weeks ago to sort out a domestic disturbance. Let's head there now and see if anyone knows who Nature's Nurturer is.”

  Owen, who'd gotten behind the wheel, veered the car in that direction, turned off the road where May indicated, and they bumped along what was now a sand track, in the direction of the few scattered lights ahead.