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As though she’d decided she wasn’t dead after all and was about to rise. Whitecaps had formed out at the center of the lake, and even in this fairly protected cove, they bumped up against the woman, moving her limbs in some mockery of life.

She was shoved half ashore by the gray waves that were growing increasingly insistent by the minute. He’d flown hours northeast from his home in Montréal to the shores of this godforsaken lake to kneel beside the body that now bobbed in near-freezing waters. The head of homicide for the Sûreté du Québec had been called away from Sunday breakfast with his young family. He heard a snort of derision behind him and ignored it, continuing to stare into the worried eyes of the dead woman at his feet. He pulled his field jacket closer around him and knelt beside her, like a penitent at some awful altar. It was the beginning of November when the Chief Inspector first saw Clotilde Arsenault. She really should have repeated rabbit, rabbit, rabbit. All will be well.īut Harriet Landers was wrong. Setting aside the absurdity of magical incantations, Harriet marshaled her rational self and entered the day.Įverything will be okay, she said as she ran through the warm June morning. Did Auntie Myrna even do it? Or had it been a joke the timid child had taken to heart? She was an engineer, she told herself as she prepared for her morning run. Where did it even come from anyway? And why “rabbit”? There was nothing actually magical about those words. How could she? It was a silly superstition. Though she knew it was probably because she had so much else on her mind.ĭid she really believe repeating rabbit, rabbit, rabbit made a difference? No. Most months Harriet remembered, but of course this month, when she needed it most, she’d forgotten. That had been years ago, but the rabbit habit hadn’t wholly taken.

“It’ll bring you good luck, little one,” Auntie Myrna had assured her niece when she’d taught her the incantation.

And if there was any day when she needed magic, it was today. She said it now, toothpaste foaming on her lips, but had the sinking feeling it was too late. It was the first of June and she’d forgotten to say, rabbit, rabbit, rabbit.

Harriet looked in the mirror, her toothbrush hanging out of her mouth.