Gray foam slapped the bow of the Crestliner as it zipped north across the still waters of Puget Sound. A fisherman by the name of Mike Ginter sat behind the windshield, bobbing up and down with the tiny boat, his eyes glued to the wall of evergreens that flanked the shoreline ahead. He was searching for the dying pine, the one with bleached branches poking through the top like exposed bones.

It was early Sunday morning, and by the looks of it he had beaten Wes to their favorite fishing spot for once. Mike cut the engine and the Crestliner slid through the hidden entrance to the cove as silently as a paper boat. As far as he knew, he and Wes were the only fishermen in town who knew about it. Between the dead pine and the one to its right was a small inlet accessible only at high tide and so narrow that he had to crouch down behind the windshield as the sweeping lower boughs scratched the sides of the low boat on the way in.

Fed by a small stream that ran through the Leith property, the hidden lake was full of fresh water that attracted the fattest trout anywhere near Point Orchards. Mike and Wes had sworn on their friendship to keep the place a secret, though not a weekend went by without someone at the marina eyeing their catch and pressing them for information.

Mike’s Crestliner popped through the pines and he yanked off his hat, slapping it down on the bench beside him. He’d been fully prepared to rub in Wes’s tardiness, but there was his friend’s boat, already docked on the far side of the lake and rocking as gently as a cradle. Mike swore as he reached for the set of aluminum oars beneath the bench. He rowed forward, his paddles sending the perfectly mirrored evergreens on the surface dancing in the soft ripples. He and Wes never risked motors here; both to prevent alerting fishermen out on the sound and to hide the fact that they were technically trespassing on Elijah Leith’s property.

Mike rowed a diagonal path across the water toward his friend. Wes stood like a soldier at attention in his boat, his back to Mike, his eyes fixed on the trees. There was no shoreline here. The dark forest marched right up to the water’s edge and the firs hung out over it, casting black shadows in a wavering ring around the lake.