Nanette's dad, who had winter in his bones and generally operated best in blizzard conditions, told her he couldn't remember a longer, more dismal year than this one: frigid temperatures had assaulted northern Minnesota beginning in early September and had refused to let up, killing the fledgling asparagus and bean plants he and Nanette had so meticulously planted days before.

So, he mused, it was perhaps no wonder the teenagers of Mahnomen, Minnesota were overwhelmingly depressed, if the county paper was to be believed. Nanette privately agreed, was starting to feel that the grey outside was forever, that the icy winds would not let up, that the sun would never again kiss her dark summer skin.

When the suicides first began in early November, people were understandably shocked. Candlelight vigils were held, counselors flooded the school and the district mailed pamphlets to parents, detailing the warning signs of depression.

The first death had been a fourteen-year old homeschooled girl from the White Earth Reservation. Her father was an alcoholic, people said. She was depressed, was the general consensus. The decision to slit her wrists was tragic, and people shook their heads and grimaced and hoped to put the whole situation behind them as soon as they heard about it.

A sophomore from Mahanomen High was next, downing a bottle of her mother's sleeping pills in the family bathroom. Yes, she was in the school's robotics club- had helped bring the team to a 2nd place victory in Fargo the year prior- but people wondered if that really counted as a social life. The girl was unpopular, bullied. In all likelihood.

Then, a boy killed himself with his dad's pistol and he, too, fit the narrative that had begun to form among the collective minds of the good people of Mahnomen (who were cooped up more often than not, and had little else to do besides talk). The boy was affected by the awful weather, he had alienated his friends, he had been recently been dumped by his girlfriend.

There was nothing to indicate foul play.

Except for one thing.

There was one deputy in the Mahnomen County Sheriff's office who was not quite convinced these suicides were everything they appeared, but it wasn't until the third death by suicide- that of sixteen-year-old Mitchell Coyote Alms- that John Townsend pinpointed a common thread.

None of the victims' cell phones had been recovered.

It was sixteen-year-old Nanette who had brought the urgency of this fact to her father's attention. He and the other deputies had found it strange, being unable to locate a teenager's phone, but Nanette had been the one to find it downright alarming.

"No one my age goes anywhere without their cell phone, Dad," she said over lasagna and parsnips one cold evening in late November. "Never."

The following morning, John had conferred privately with Sheriff David Ackerley, in whom he found a surprisingly receptive audience. After all, the Sheriff himself had a teenage daughter who had known all three of the deceased. Things were personal.

That afternoon, Sheriff Ackerley made an announcement to the county's fourteen full-time deputies and one part-timer (grizzled old Bart Stonewell, who was well past the point of being considered able-bodied but who refused to retire). The spate of recent suicides was now being ruled as suspicious, the Sheriff informed them. It was their job to find the missing cell phones and, more importantly, prevent more death.

The editor of the county paper, Debby Sellers (who was also the administrative assistant at the Sheriff's office) was friends with the mother of victim #2, and upon learning the investigation was ongoing, agreed to keep the new announcements out of the paper until more was known. If John's theory of foul play was right, it would be easier to catch the guilty parties if they didn't have a reason to hide.

John's suspicions would, in time, prove to be correct- and the person to prove it would be his daughter, Nanette.

But not before she was targeted as a victim.