Danica turned to him, but before she could ask anything, Dryden stepped past her and crossed to the pool table at almost a run. His eyes were locked onto the nearest pocket, even before he could see down into it. He stopped at the corner of the table, shielded his eyes against the glare of sunlight, and looked down into the pocket’s depth.

“Don’t tell me,” Danica said. That earlier sound was back in her voice—the edge of a thrill.

Dryden looked up and met her eyes. He could see her focusing, letting it come to her.

“It’s a dart,” she said. “A plastic dart.”

Dryden reached into the pocket and lifted it out: a red plastic dart with its metal tip still attached.

For a few seconds they both just stared at it. Then Dryden rounded the table, from one pocket to the next, retrieving another dart from each.

“They were supposed to mean something,” Danica said. “I can remember that much, but that’s all. The darts were … what? A riddle?”

“A message,” Dryden said. “From who, I don’t know, but it was definitely a message. You and I were supposed to figure it out.”

Danica was nodding, making the same connection herself. Still, she looked frustrated as hell. Her eyes screwed almost shut as she tried working through it.

Dryden set the six darts on the pool table’s surface; the felt had rotted away in places, exposing dull grey slate.

“It was important,” Dryden said, the thought and the spoken words arriving almost together. “The message. Does it feel like that to you, too? Like it ended up being something critical. Life and death. We really had to figure out what it meant.”

Danica opened her eyes and looked at him. “Did we?”

Before Dryden could consider that, someone called to them from outside. It was Grace, yelling through the broken windows upstairs.

Dryden took a last look at the darts, willing his mind to connect the next dot. Then Grace shouted again; there was urgency in his tone.

“We should go,” Danica said.

Dryden nodded. He turned from the pool table and followed her up the stairs.

Grace was standing a hundred feet away in the street, with a dozen agents around him. Others were running in from elsewhere in the subdivision. When Grace saw Dryden and Danica coming, he broke from the group and sprinted toward them. The two of them ran to meet him halfway.

“Chopper found something,” Grace said. “A set of stairs going down underground, out in the middle of a field. It’s a couple miles north of here.”

Grace was already turning, leading them north and west toward the side of the forest where the vehicles were parked. He waved one of his men over and spoke hurriedly.