Those were some pretty good questions, ones that I doubted he was going to be able to satisfactorily answer in a fifteen-minute graveside homily.

I studied the layout of the graveyard. Two hills north of me sloped down and flattened out into the area where the service was happening. Based on the time of day, I figured that the best vantage point would be on the rise to my left. “I’m going to head up to get a visual from the ridge,” I told Greer through my earpiece.

“Right.”

Easing back from the service, I made my way up the hill. When I reached the top, the force of the wind reminded me that it was November.

I zippered up my jacket and studied the area.

Greer’s voice came through: “Nothing down here. What about you?”

“Not yet.”

Apart from a swath of land southeast of me that was dedicated to soldiers and was laid out with uniform grave markers, the somewhat random positioning of the headstones throughout the rest of the property covered the gamut from small, almost indistinguishable markers to looming stones large enough for me to have hidden behind, even though I’m over six feet tall. In many cases, the tombstones were hunched over their graves like uneven teeth rising from the earth, revealing the age of the graveyard.

As I scrutinized the grounds, I saw her.

Approximately forty meters away, a figure crouched in the shadow cast by a substantial aging headstone that stood at an awkward angle from decades of leaning in settling soil. The woman was peering down at the service but was clearly trying to avoid being seen.

“I’m on the rise to the north,” I told Greer. “Someone’s up here. Keep this channel open.”

I started to approach the gravestone but only made it a few steps before the woman turned and looked at me. I was still too far away to determine her age, but she was Caucasian. Small frame.

The moment she saw me, she leapt to her feet, but when I called out, asking to speak with her for a moment, she took off in the opposite direction from the funeral.

And so did I.

8

The woman was quick.

Despite being a runner myself, I had trouble keeping up with her.

“She’s on the move,” I said into my radio. “Get to Amber Road. If she goes through the woods, you should be able to catch up with her on the other side, over by the hospital.”

The slick soles of my shoes weren’t happy on the mud, and that wasn’t helping me any. She made it to the eight-foot metal fence rimming the graveyard, clambered over it, and disappeared into the forest.