Then the distant trees caught the glow of a new set of headlights—another vehicle coming along the road from up ahead. It rounded the curve and coasted to a stop behind the sedan. Its driver’s door opened, and a lone man stood up from it. He strode past the car and angled across the field of its headlight glow, toward Dryden’s side of the Explorer.

Dryden still had the window down. The guy came abreast of it, stooped and looked in at the two of them.

“Danica,” the man said. Not a question.

Danica nodded. “Russell.”

The man gave a single nod in reply.

Russell Moss was younger than Dryden had expected; the guy was in his mid-fifties, give or take. He had a lean face and thick brown hair. He wore jeans and a blue flannel shirt. He looked like a guy in the middle of a camping trip, which maybe he was, in a sense. His eyes, direct and unblinking, went back and forth from Danica to Dryden.

“This is Sam Dryden,” Danica said.

Something passed through the man’s expression at those words, if only for a second. It might have been simply a reaction to an unfamiliar name, though Dryden’s gut told him there was more to it than that.

Moss looked at him, nodded quickly again, then looked back at Danica. “What’s this about?”

“Can we sit down and talk with you?” Danica asked.

“You’re sitting now. I’m fine standing.”

“You know what I mean.” Danica nodded ahead along the road. “Let us in. We need to talk.”

Moss shook his head. “I’d just as soon get it settled right here, and then you can be on your way. Camp gets a little spooked when strangers show up.”

“I’m not a stranger,” Danica said. “My father—”

“Your father was a friend of mine. You’re not. So whatever you want to talk about, talk about it. Here and now’s good enough.”

Dryden considered informing the guy that this was actually public land, despite whatever territorial pissings he and his friends had marked it with. He also considered grabbing him by the hair, hauling him halfway through the open window and ramming his face into the steering wheel three or four times to knock some politeness into him.

Instead he locked eyes with the guy and spoke evenly. “Tell us what happened in the summer of 1989. Tell us what happened to us.”

Dryden saw the same reaction he’d seen earlier, at the mention of his own name. It looked like recognition and surprise mixed together, and then a forced calm meant to hide both.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Moss said.

“Bullshit,” Dryden said.