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Dedicated to the memory of my father,

Raymond Henri Vallieres

1922 - 2006

Prologue

Forty years past ...

Twelve large stones; four heavy, rotting logs; dry leaves and soft earth; and at the bottom of a three-foot hole, wrapped in a shroud of tent canvas ... He hoped it would be enough.

It was hard work, with only a small digging tool ... and an axe. Flexing his aching arms, he straightened up and set aside the light, short-handled shovel.

A rustle in the underbrush ... For a long moment, he held his breath. What if someone were out there, watching? His heart beat erratically as his breath pumped quickly out of his lungs in a gale force. Slowly, with a slightly trembling hand, he pushed back his hair and surveyed his work by the light of a small lantern. A trickle of perspiration ran down the back of his neck and mixed with the grime that clung to his skin. Absently he used the blunt side of the axe to reach behind and scratch between the shoulder blades. And he heard it again ... a faint rustle, a breath catching ...

He spun around, listening. All he could hear were the soft night sounds of bullfrogs and buzzing insects and, nearby, the gurgle of the river as it curved steeply around a sharp bend on the other side of a row of fir trees. Dousing the lantern, he moved back several paces toward the river and scanned the darkened campsite with his flashlight to see if he had missed anything. Nothing, not even a tent peg. The small fire pit he left intact. The cooking gear was packed in a knapsack, stashed deep under the roots of an overhanging tree about fifty yards downstream. The axe ... He wrapped it carefully and stuffed it inside the other pack, the one he would carry with him. Taking the broken branch of a hemlock, he swept the ground carefully until all traces of recent footsteps were obliterated. Then he stepped from the moonlit clearing into the shadow of the trees. There was only one thing left to do.

Chapter One

Present Day ...

The August lunch meeting of the St. Peter's Community Church Canning Circle ended badly -- so badly, in fact, that the last thing Betty deVos recalled was staring into the chilly depths of a toilet bowl.

In those few minutes of regained consciousness as she was jostled into a waiting ambulance, she remembered Anna Stoker calling for help in the church kitchen, and a frenzy of moans, tears, and gut-wrenching sounds as the entire group of women were stricken with ... What? A dozen sick women, and four small washroom stalls ... Not a happy thought. Why? She was aware of a vehicle pulling up to the door of the church hall. Another ambulance? Oh, God ...

Turning away from the bright afternoon sun, she gazed at the impassive face of the paramedic. "Am I going to die?" she croaked.

"Not on my gurney, you're not," the young woman in uniform replied, smiling.

Betty drew a shaky breath. The vehicle was moving, and the faces looking down at her seemed out of focus ...

You knew someone would come for you, eventually, a voice inside her head whispered.You've known for forty years.

***

Gloria Trevisi contemplated the cold, porcelain fixtures in the women's washroom at the Plattsford Sun office, where she had just spent a few unhappy moments. It was not like her to suffer from a violently queasy stomach, even on the most nerve-wracking deadline days -- and as editor, reporter, photographer, and flak-catcher of this small weekly newspaper, she had plenty of those. This week, however, it had happened twice after lunch and once upon rising at six in the morning. And at three in the afternoon, she was feeling none too well. She groaned. "If this is a late-summer flu bug, I'm too damned busy to get sick!"

"I heard that," her friend, advertising manager Linda Grant, said as she came through the door. "Are you all right?"

"I don't know." She leaned wearily against the counter. "This doesn't happen to me, usually. I was brought up on pasta and hot sauce, and I have an iron gut. Maybe it's some sort of bug going around."

"Not something I'd want to catch," Linda answered with a slight smile. Two in this washroom was definitely a crowd. Linda squeezed behind her into the closer of two tiny stalls. "Is something worrying you, Glo?"

"Yeah. My stomach. Maybe it's those pickles that Betty gave me from the Canning Circle."

"Nothing can go wrong with stuff from the Canning Circle. They know what they're doing, and they do it in a government-inspected church kitchen." Linda folded her arms and narrowed her gaze. "But you're right; you can't afford to be sick. You're living on your own, and you're working day and night. Go see a doctor, or at least, go home and rest. Isn't this your afternoon off?"

Gloria studied the reflection of Linda's bright face, in direct contrast to her own drooping image in the washroom mirror. Linda was barely five feet tall, and petite, from her flaming red hair to the tip of her size five shoes. Gloria herself topped five-ten in flat sandals, with broad shoulders and big bones, nearly straight, shoulder-length hair the color of buckwheat honey, light brown eyes and a tint to her skin that never faded, even in the dead of winter. Linda was in her late thirties, fair and freckled, and a lively mother of two teenage boys. Gloria was in her early thirties, married to an absent husband, and chained to her job. And at the moment, Linda was a picture of health and energy, and Gloria was wilting quickly in the looking glass. She splashed cool water on her face and patted her cheeks and chin dry with a paper towel. "I'll stop in and see Doc Logan sometime this week."

"Maybe right now," Linda advised.

"But I feel better now," she protested.

"Gloria ..." Linda gave her a stern, maternal stare.

"Oh heck." She blew out an exasperated breath. "I won't win this argument, will I? Fine. I'm going." She smiled at Linda's reflection, reached for the door handle, and returned to her work-cluttered desk by the front window. Stashed in the corner in-box, on top of piles of unread reports and agendas, were two rolls of film that needed processing; beside her keyboard were the notes to the crafts page feature she had started writing before queasiness overcame her. She'd have it finished in half an hour if ... She grabbed her handbag and headed toward the stairs to the street-level main office below. Linda was right; she had to let go of this job once in awhile.

It was a great job, really, for somebody who didn't mind a working week of sixty hours and who had no one waiting at home except two loyal cats ... in other words, one who had no life to speak of. She scanned the countryside as she headed out of town and was overwhelmed by its beauty. Taking a deep breath, she considered the good things she had experienced over the past sixteen months: open countryside and fresh air instead of a dusty concrete sidewalk; a roomy, rented farmhouse as opposed to a three-room flat above a small store on a busy downtown street; ... and constant activity.

Nothing about this landscape was languid; nearing the end of August, the fields of southwestern Ontario farm country looked spectacular. Large, colorful combines gobbled the bright yellow grain from the fields. Acres of soybeans were dabbed with gold. Corn was tall and straight, dark green stalks reaching for the warm, late summer sky. All around her, farm work had reached a fever pitch with harvest in full swing.

At the Sun office, Gloria also had her hands full. Fall fair committees were sending in their announcements. School enrolment had begun. She had several major features on the go, and summer soccer, softball, lacrosse, and other sports were in a frenzy of tournament play, chiefly the department of her one and only full-time staff writer, Rob Dixon. Soon her morning mail would be flooded with scratchy, barely-legible entries from church groups and women's organizations that traditionally took the summer off, and her part-time community correspondence editor, Norma Simmons, would be using all her talents to decipher their scribbles.

And there was other work. This summer she had a good-sized vegetable garden in the backyard of her old farmhouse. Carrots and beets were bursting out of the ground. Tomatoes were ripening fast, and a dozen mason jars were beckoning from her kitchen counter, telling her to get cracking and get canning.

Last week Gloria had written a feature on the St. Peter's Community Church Canning Circle, a group of women who got together at the appropriate times of year to share recipes, conduct workshops in the age-old tradition of preserving food, and sample the fruits, and vegetables, of their labors. She had brought home jars of pickles, some peach preserves, and plum jam from the afternoon that she had spent with the circle and already ha...