If the men had tied them up and questioned them—Who are you? How did you know about this place?—there would be no way to know if the answers were true or not. Or if the two of them were leaving things out. If all you did was threaten or torture someone, you’d never know if they’d actually told you everything.

Sprinting, Sam replayed the spectacle in the barnyard again. The men dragging Pierce out to the grave, then leaving him there unguarded for those fleeting moments. Then the rescue, the frantic escape into the darkness and the ditch, he and Dani helping Pierce out of the tape, and all the while … talking. Just talking and talking, answering every damned question he asked them.

And once that part was over with, once they’d told him everything they knew, and he had them inside the farmhouse a mile from the barn—

There’s a secure bunker downstairs, Pierce had said. It’s not much bigger than a closet, but it’s safe. I’d like both of you to wait in there until this is over with.

Had he really not wanted to kill them, at that point? What if he’d had some other idea in mind, then? Like leaving two witnesses alive who would swear forever that he had been an innocent prisoner. Maybe. That wouldn’t have worked if Lauren survived to tell her side of things, but maybe her captors had never intended to let her live—whatever her father had believed.

And none of that mattered now, anyway; the chopper crash had changed everything. Pierce and his people—the ones that weren’t dead—would be on the run now with no money, and no head start. All bets were off, and the only certainty was that Pierce wanted all three of the kids to meet him at Station 14, a place where bodies could probably go undiscovered for decades, if they were ever found at all.

Sam was running north now, already making the long curve back toward Truman Avenue—toward the little park where he’d first met Dani.

He pictured her and Lauren, somewhere farther north on Truman at this very moment, heading up that road toward Station 14. Did he have time to catch up to them? Could they almost be there? They had a big lead on him, that was for sure; he had lost so much time playing cat-and-mouse in the suburb.

Still, it was two miles up to Station 14, and Lauren’s injury would have to slow them down at least a little. Maybe there was still time to overtake them.

Assuming they went up Truman at all, and didn’t go some other way.

The thought sent chilly little waves over his skin.