“But Sheriff said—”

“If I leave the hotel, I’ll call, I promise. You’ll be by my side,” Darren said. Briggs nodded, liking the idea that he was needed. “But I’m good for now.”

He grabbed the duffel he always kept in the cab of his truck. He tossed the strap over his shoulder and nodded to Briggs. The hotel’s receptionist saw him through the window and had him checked in “on the house” by the time he approached the front desk in the lobby, which strongly resembled Rosemary King’s gilded parlor, although the Cardinal Hotel showed its age in a way that both Rosemary and her home did not. Seen up close, the baseboards were scuffed, and there was dust on the red velvet curtains; the carpet in his suite was worn in the hallway to the bathroom, which had an ancient claw-foot tub, and one of the windows didn’t open. Still, there was a weight to the place, a sense of history that was both regal and sad, a loss of glory in every ornate detail. Kind of like the town itself. Darren sat on the edge of the four-poster mahogany bed, heard its springs creak beneath him; the mattress emitted a smell of rose water and dust. He waited until he was sure Briggs had finally gone, and then he walked outside, climbed into his truck, and headed back to Hopetown.

Darren didn’t even know what the kid looked like, had nothing to show Leroy Page to confirm or deny whether this was the boy he’d seen Friday night. Short of announcing his intentions to Sheriff Quinn, there was only one way to get his hands on a photograph of Levi King. He drove hunched over the steering wheel—ignoring a second call from Mack—so he could pay attention to every ditch-like rut off Farm Road 727, every weed-choked path, to be sure he didn’t miss the narrow red-dirt road that led to Hopetown. His tires were coated with it by the time he pulled in front of Marnie and Gil’s blue and white trailer. The sun had wandered below the tops of the cypress trees on Caddo Lake to the west, and a honeyed light poured through the Spanish moss, dotting the surface of the water with circles of gold. Inland, dozens of loblolly pines and hundred-year-old live oaks ringed their arms around the trailer park, giving the place a warm, homey feel it didn’t deserve.

He had a hard heart for the folks out here.