It was eight o’clock in the night by the time Mason was done with the video conference. Instead of going back to the bedroom, he walked over to the window in the study and smoked a couple of cigarettes. A wisp of smoke hung in the air, covering the study with a greenish hue.

Mist covered the entire window. He reached out and wiped the glass, only to find four inches thick of pockets of snow gathered on the ground. It snowed particularly heavily this winter, it seemed.

With a cigarette between