All she could do was keep following, keep watching, and keep using the methods she had learned for tailing suspects without getting noticed. She would change lanes when they went around a curve so they wouldn’t see her doing it, change the look of her headlights in rural areas by falling far back and turning on the brights for a while, hide behind a truck for as long as she could stay with it, or join a pack of cars and stay in the middle long enough for the driver ahead to lose track of what vehicles were behind him. She had even pulled over on a deserted stretch to get out to pee and then drove hard until she saw them ahead again.

She didn’t understand the trip or the way the four men were making it, but she was sure that the face she had seen belonged to Lee Wolf. She would follow him for as long as it took.

The next day was difficult for Ed Leonard. He had denied having a relationship with Charlotte Carpenter, but there was no way in the world that Lonny Mann had believed him. Leonard had barely slept because he had left Charlotte’s house just before dawn, so he felt as though his brain were drugged and couldn’t stay alert. He worked hard all day in the summer heat and humidity, digging a trench for a second pipe leading from the upper lake to a lower-level reservoir that he had suggested. The idea was to have a wide and deep cistern underground made of bricks and concrete, for the times when drinking and bathing water was scarce.

The shovel work made his back stiffen and his arms feel limp and strained. Whenever he had a chance to stop, he tried to spot Charlotte and warn her about Lonny Mann, but he never saw her.

At the end of the day, he washed at the upper lake with the other men working there, came down and changed in the storage building, and went to the area near the central kitchen for dinner. He exchanged friendly conversation with the family sitting at the same picnic table while eating dinner, had a drink of whiskey to relax his sore muscles, and then went back to the storage building.

In the morning he felt better because of the extra sleep. He went up the hill to work. He stayed at it all day, trying to help his image, to stay away from Lonny Mann, and to hope Mann got over the idea that he had a relationship with Charlotte.

Late in the day, as he was getting ready to quit work, he saw her. She was in the woods, walking the perimeter of the lake. He stepped into the path and waited for her to reach him.