He could see the car still making its slow turn in place, scanning the fields with its headlights. The beams were pointed east at the moment, gradually tracking southward.

There were three men on foot in the barnyard, all of them staring at where the headlights shone.

The men’s eyes, still adapted to the lit-up space inside the barn, probably couldn’t make out what Sam had seen a moment before. But they would—a few seconds from now, when the headlights came to it.

“Take a look at this,” Sam whispered.

Dani climbed to the edge of the ditch and lifted her head above it, next to Sam’s. She followed his gaze.

The car’s lights were pointed almost exactly southeast now, moving like a ship’s searchlight over a pitch-black ocean.

Then the beams froze in place.

One of the men shouted something and bolted forward. The others followed. They closed in on what they had seen: the trampled-down path through the alfalfa, which stood out in stark contrast in the headlights.

“We didn’t leave any tracks coming from the grave to the road,” Sam said. “But we left that single line through the alfalfa.”

Dani was nodding, putting it together. “It looks like a path leading away from the grave, toward the cornfield we came from.”

“And we didn’t leave tracks in the cornfield either,” Sam said. “We were careful. So these guys…” He was quiet a moment, thinking it all through. Then he nodded, sure of the logic. “These guys are going to think he just broke the tape on his ankles and ran away by himself. They’re going to think he’s out in that corn somewhere. What else could they think?”

All at once Dani seemed to understand what he was getting at. She turned sharply toward him.

“If they go out there to search for him,” she whispered. “If they all go…”

Hope lit up her eyes. She turned and stared at the distant searchers for another second, then let go of the edge and slid back down to Pierce’s level.

“How many men are in the barn?” she asked. “How many bad guys?”

Pierce’s earlier confusion, still present, seemed to reach a kind of tipping point. He shook his head, staring at both Dani and Sam.

“Who are you?” Pierce asked. “How are you—how can you be here?”

“We’ll tell you,” Dani said, “but I have to know how many people are in the barn.”

“Are you with someone?” Pierce asked. “Are there … grownups with you?”

Dani shook her head. “It’s just us. Please, how many—”

“But you’re just kids—”

“How many fucking people?”

Pierce didn’t quite flinch, but Dani’s tone silenced him. He stared. Then he looked away, as if thinking hard.

“Five,” he said. “Five men.”

“You’re sure?” Dani asked.

Pierce nodded. “I’m sure.”