Rina looked up at him, tears streaming down her face. Decker felt like an ogre who had kidnapped the princess. It was a despicable thing to do, but what was his alternative? He wanted her safe and out of the way. He took the car key off his ring and stuck it in the ignition. “I’m going to lock the door now, Rina. I’ll check in with you in thirty minutes. Don’t answer any of my calls unless I tell you to, all right?”

His words were met with silence.

Decker raised his voice. “All right?”

“I heard you.”

Decker said, “You can be mad at me all you want later. But I have to be able to count on you. Can I?”

Rina wiped away tears with her free hand and gave him a stony look. “Yes.”

Decker came out of the car, depressed the car lock and shut the door. Her face staring out of the glass. Her beautiful forlorn face: He had clipped the wings of an exotic bird. He went to the trunk, took out the flashlight, then gently closed it.

One last look at Rina. He tapped on the window; she looked up. He mouthed an “I love you.”

Rina paused, then mouthed back a “Be careful, Peter.” Decker would have preferred an “I love you” but that was too much to ask for.

It was damp outside, the fog hovering over the barren stretch of land. The service road was almost indistinguishable from the construction site—both full of loose gravel and dirt. Decker tried to walk as quietly as he could, but his shoes stirred up plumes of dust, his soles scraped against loose pebbles.

Decker hooked the flashlight onto his belt. It was still dark, dawn at least two hours away, but there was enough light from streetlamps. One less thing to carry. Droplets nipped at his cheeks. He rolled up his collar, stuck his hands in his pockets. He walked slowly, scanning the area for anything significant.

Strolling, observing.

He looked down, then looked up.

If he hadn’t looked up, he would have missed it.

A serpentine rise of black cable line connecting to the T-grid of a telephone pole. The line arced down, stopped at a wooden pole one hundred feet in front of him. Decker walked over. A black rotary phone was fastened to wood by metal rings.

Having worked construction in his teens, Decker had seen this kind of thing before. At major sites, the project owner often installed a temporary line for the foreman’s outgoing calls. The line was disconnected as soon as the work was completed. But this one had no lock on the dial. Unusual. Maybe it had never had one, maybe someone had jimmied it off. Decker wrapped his jacket sleeve around the receiver and picked it up.

A dial tone.