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the Imbolog rainstorm, and the Saturday-morning sky was high and blue and cloudless. Little whitecaps rolled across the blue water six stories below my apartment, and the sun shone pale and yellow and without warmth. When I stepped onto my balcony with my coffee, a frigid breeze drove me right back inside. It felt awfully damn wintry to me.
    Punxsutawney Phil got his weather forecasts right about half the time, the same as the television meteorologists. This time, it looked like he’d gotten it wrong.
    It was about ten in the morning. I called Jake’s number in Reddington. It rang five times before the answering machine clicked on. “Hi,” came Sharon’s cheerful voice. “Sharon, Brian, and Jake aren’t here right now, but we do want to talk with you, so please leave your number and we’ll get right back to you.”
    I did not leave a message. I wondered where they were, what they’d heard, how they were doing.
    I spent the morning trying to deal with the stuff that Julie had sent home with me for my weekend homework, but my mind kept flipping back to Reddington. I called the Golds’ house several times and got the answering machine each time.
    I tried Joey and Billy a little after noontime. Just as I figured,
in their time zones they were both asleep, and I woke them up. Neither of them seemed to mind. I told them I just wanted to say hello and restrained myself from saying what was really on my mind: I wanted to know they were okay.
    After talking with my boys, I was able to concentrate on my paperwork a little better. But Jake and Sharon still lurked in the corners of my mind, and they were not answering their telephone.
    Finally, around two in the afternoon, I said the hell with it.
    Traffic was light on the Mass Pike, and it took about half an hour to get to Reddington. A black-and-white Ford Explorer with a light bar on the roof and the Reddington Police logo on the door panels was parked in the Golds’ driveway, so I pulled up on the side of the street. The Explorer’s motor was running and somebody was sitting behind the wheel.
    I’d just started to get out of my car when the front door opened and Jake and Chief Sprague came out. Jake was in shirtsleeves. The Chief wore a bomber jacket and blue jeans and leather boots. The two of them paused on the front porch. Jake looked down at his feet, and Sprague gripped his hand with both of his and spoke to him for a long moment.
    Jake nodded. Sprague leaned close to him and said something else, and Jake looked up and shrugged. Then he saw me. He lifted his hand and waved.
    Sprague came down the walkway, and I met him halfway.
    â€œMr. Coyne,” he said. “Hello, again.” He held out his hand.
    I shook it. “Anything new?”
    He shook his head. “Afraid not.”
    â€œBrian?”
    â€œNo. I’m sorry.” He jerked his head back at the house. “Jake and Sharon aren’t doing very well. Maybe you can cheer them up.”
    â€œI don’t see how.”
    â€œNo,” said Sprague, “I don’t, either.”
    He got into the passenger side of the cruiser. The driver, I
noticed, was McCaffrey, the redheaded cop I’d met at the station. I waved to him, and he raised his hand. Then he backed out the driveway, and they drove away.
    I went up onto the porch, where Jake was waiting for me with his arms folded across his chest.
    I gave him a hug. “No news, huh?”
    â€œNo. Nothing.”
    â€œI’ve been trying to call you.”
    â€œSorry,” he said. “We finally turned the ringers off the phones. All night they were calling. Friends, well-meaning, I guess, but we didn’t feel like talking to anybody. I would’ve called you. I kept waiting, hoping I’d have something to tell you.”
    â€œIt’s okay, Jake,” I said. “Maybe this is a bad time … .”
    â€œNo,” he said. “Sharon would like to see you, I