Iron Lake

Molly wakes up and realizes that she’s in the icy water of the lake. She is dying but isn’t afraid. She decides to sleep until Cork comes, wondering if she told him she loves him.

Cork looks for Molly and learns that she left early to rearrange the cabin for the Christmas tree. As he returns to his car, Jo pulls into the parking lot. She attacks him about his relationship with Molly and admits that Sandy showed her the pictures. He rushes to Molly’s house, realizing that Sandy will think Molly knows where the negatives are. Jo goes with him, not believing that Sandy is a danger.

On the way to Molly’s cabin, Cork tells Jo everything and shows her the photos of Harlan and Joe John. She doesn’t believe that Sandy was involved. Molly’s house is dark, and the negatives are no longer in their hiding place. Cork runs to the sauna; while he searches for Molly, Jo continues to protest Sandy’s innocence, convinced that Cork is just angry about her affair.

Leaving the sauna, Cork sees the open hole in the lake. Molly lays naked on the ice, dead. While Jo calls the sheriff, Cork cries for Molly.

Cork is silent and wooden as Wally’s team arrives. Sigurd declares Molly’s death an accident, saying she slipped on the ice after taking a sauna. Jo expects Cork to protest, but he says nothing. After Wally leaves, Cork tells Jo he’s going to Sandy’s house. She protests that he doesn’t have proof of Sandy’s involvement, but Cork can’t depend on the law for justice. Jo goes with him.

At Sandy’s house, Jo uses the code to unlock the garage. Cork feels the hoods of Sandy’s cars, but the engines are cold, indicating that he hasn’t driven them recently. Sandy is in his hot tub; he thinks they are there to talk about the situation between the three of them. Cork and Jo tell him about GameTech and the judge’s files, but Sandy looks honestly surprised.

Sandy denies being involved in Molly’s death, claiming he’s spent all day in his office. Cork calls the housekeeper, who tells him that she didn’t see Sandy after he went into his office that morning. When Cork brings up being hit at Harlan’s house, Jo tells him that she and Sandy were together that day.

Discouraged and exhausted, Cork leaves. Sandy tells Jo that he has a Christmas present for her.

Sandy and Jo walk down to the boathouse—inside is a new white Mercedes. He reiterates his desire to marry her and go to Washington, DC. Jo runs her hand along the car’s hood and when she feels the engine’s warmth, her heart sinks. She asks if he went for a test drive, but he claims he didn’t. She asks him to open the trunk, sure the bag of negatives will be inside, but it is empty. Jo can’t believe she doubted Sandy. They decide to go for a drive in her new car.

While Sandy gets the keys, Jo gets into the driver’s seat. She runs her hand along the passenger seat and her finger catches on a strip of negatives in the crack in the seat. She confronts Sandy when returns, but he denies killing Molly. He claims Molly offered to sell him the negatives, so he went to her house and found the negatives scattered across the floor. When he found Molly, she was already dead. Doubting his story, Jo demands he give the negatives to Wally and confess.

Jo calls Cork to tell him she knows where the negatives are, and asks him to meet her at Molly’s. After she hangs up, she and Sandy go out to the garage. Before they can get in the car, however, Sandy binds her hands with duct tape and puts her in his truck. He isn’t going to give up his political future. Jo realizes that he killed Molly. Sandy claims that everything he’s done is just business, and asks if she will still go to Washington, DC with him. Before they leave, he gets the bag of negatives and Cork’s gun, which he found on the lake after Russell Blackwater’s death.

On the way to Molly’s cabin, Sandy admits that he tried to kill Cork at Harlan’s—he snuck out while she’d been asleep. He also admits that he also has a cassette recording of Joe John’s death, which he was present for but didn’t know about ahead of time.

At Molly’s cabin, Sandy tapes Jo’s mouth and feet and locks her in the sauna. When he leaves to find Cork, Jo manages to unlock the door. She escapes, but Sandy catches her again.

Cork is sitting at Molly’s kitchen table when Sandy comes in with Jo. He realizes that Sandy might kill them both. Cork tells Sandy that Wally knows about the negatives and GameTech. Sandy plans to kill Jo and Cork, staging it as a murder-suicide.

Suddenly, Molly’s kettle jumps off her stove. Cork tells Sandy the Windigo is calling Sandy’s name. The power goes out and Jo and Cork escape. Outside, Jo gets separated from Cork. Henry Meloux appears from the forest’s edge, helps her to a hiding spot, and then leaves.

Cork draws Sandy away from Jo, running for the wilderness of Superior National Forest. Sandy fires two shots. Cork hides behind a log and feels a hand on his arm. He turns to see Henry.

Jo is disgusted with herself for hiding and decides to return to Molly’s cabin. She finds Cork’s rifle inside. Out the window, she sees Sandy come out of the woods and start his truck.

Henry tells Cork that Jo is safe. Cork realizes that Henry is “a great hunter spirit, silent and powerful” (427). Henry decides that it is time for them to attack and turns back toward Molly’s cabin. He gives Cork his hunting knife.

Jo follows Sandy’s car as it moves slowly along the shoreline. She realizes he is looking for Cork and Henry.

When Cork hears Sandy’s truck, he knows that he must become the Windigo to kill the Windigo, just as Sam told him so long ago. He faces the truck, which races toward him. Just before the truck reaches him, Cork hears gunshots and sees the windshield shatter. Sandy’s tires catch and the truck flips across the ice, slamming into the shoreline. After a moment, the truck explodes.

Jo appears next to Cork, the rifle in her hands—she shot Sandy’s car and saved Cork’s life. Henry tells them that the Windigo is gone and sings the song of the dead.

On Christmas morning, Cork takes a Christmas tree to Molly’s cabin. He sets it in the snow, not wanting to go inside. He talks aloud to the spirit of Molly, telling her that Jenny read Robert Frost’s poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” for the Christmas program. Jenny did it for Cork, which he sees as progress. He also tells Molly that the geese are back on the lake, and wishes her a Merry Christmas.