Dryden said, “That’s why they scrubbed our memories. Because we saw you murder Lauren Coleman. And if they were going to make a deal with you, they couldn’t have us out there somewhere, knowing what you did.”

Another nod, just perceptible. The man was fading fast. Still that look of satisfaction held—some twisted version of a father’s pride. It was going to be the last face he ever made.

Then Danica stepped forward and crouched down, eye level with Pierce.

“What happened to Lauren Coleman’s body?” she asked.

Wasting your time, Dryden thought. They shoved her into that cremator down the hall, then dumped her ashes up in the cornfield. Or maybe they left the ashes in the machine, like they left the chimps to wither away in that room.

Pierce stared at Danica, his eyes going blank. For a second Dryden thought he was gone already.

Then Danica grabbed a fistful of the man’s hair, right on top, clenching it tight.

“Tell us,” she said. “You’re dead anyway, it’s nothing to you. Tell us where they put her.”

No response. Just the glassy stare.

Danica slapped Pierce’s face with her other hand, rocking it sideways even as she held on to his scalp.

“Tell us!”

“Potter’s Field,” Pierce said softly. “Somewhere in Des Moines. You have the date.”

It was his last breath. It hissed out on those words, and didn’t go back in. Danica let go of his head and let it thump dully into the wall behind him.

Silence, as dead as any Dryden had ever known.

He swept his gaze over the little room. The gun-mounted flashlights still shone everywhere, pointed up at random angles from the sprawled bodies. In the confining dark they looked like spotlights—like some nightmare rock concert frozen in time.

“Let’s get the hell out of here,” Danica said.

Epilogue: FRAGMENTS

The Spanish villa in Malibu was a long way from being finished, but at least the cleanup was done. The stale air and the odor of dry rot were gone, replaced by the smell of new lumber and sheetrock. Tonight the house mostly smelled like the pine forest outside; Dryden had the windows open.

It was the tenth of April, 2019. He had finalized the purchase of the house in November, two months after the events in Ashland, Iowa had run their course. Those autumn weeks, right after it all happened, had played out like an IRS audit and a plague quarantine rolled into one.