Sam couldn’t see anything, but it was easy enough to follow her instructions by feel alone. He got his hands around a dense clutch of weeds, thick as a heavy rope, and braced his feet and knees against the steep wall of the ditch. He heard Dani doing the same, right beside him, and within a few seconds they were both holding still, well hidden in the deep grass, their heads just below the surface of the road.

At that moment bright light washed over the tops of the weeds. The car had crested the slope. As it drew nearer, the light and sound intensified. The dew-soaked weeds caught and scattered the glow. Sam realized he could see Dani clearly.

“Never did this in L.A.,” he said.

“Me either. What are the odds?”

A second later the car rushed past above them. The weeds turned from bright white to fading red, and the smell of exhaust filled the air. Within moments the night was quiet again.

It took them another ten minutes to reach the forest, and a couple more to pass through it, back into the clear beneath the stars. They’d gone another quarter mile when Dani stopped and faced west. Sam could just make out some kind of gravel track in that direction, leading inland off the road. It was bordered by the weeds of an undeveloped lot on its south side, and an open cornfield to the north. Far out across the cornfield stood a farmhouse. Sam would’ve missed it, if not for a mercury light on a post in the yard.

“Whatever you do,” Dani said, “do not turn on your flashlight now.”

She led him onto the gravel track, walking carefully, quietly. Sam followed her example.

“See that farmhouse?” Dani whispered.

“Yeah.”

“During the daytime, there are always lots of people there. Half a dozen cars parked out front. People sitting at desks near the windows, working on computers. They come and go in shifts. Not like people that live there. More like people that work there.”

“You don’t think it’s really a farmhouse?”

“I think it’s some kind of office. And I’m pretty sure there’s a night shift, too. Lauren and I watched the place from the woods one day, way up in a tree. Some cars show up right around dark and stay for a few hours, or even all night long. It’s a busy place.”

“Is that what we came here to look at?”

“No.”

They continued along the track. After a while they were due south of the farmhouse—or whatever it was. Sam guessed they were passing it at a distance of about a football field. None of its rooms were brightly lit, but he got a sense of some faint illumination from inside, like from TV screens. Some kind of screens, anyway.