Finally, after a good fifteen minutes, Jack hung up and returned to the car. He nodded with satisfaction as he stuck his head in the door.

“All right. Didn’t see anyone I know. How about you?”

“No one. What are you writing?”

“Makes, models, color, license plates. I see one of those cars again, I’m going to want to know why. Now… one more thing and we’ll get rolling again.”

He reached into the backseat and came up with the Land Rover—fully reassembled now with its black plastic body snapped into place. He took it out to the shoulder and watched it run along the pavement. His dark eyes were bright with excitement when he returned to the car.

“You know, the thing’s running almost due west now. I think we’re close.”

Low gray clouds slid across the sky, obscuring the timid winter sun as Jack drove on into the hills of Ulster County. From a distance the denuded trees lent the surrounding hills a hazy look, a light brown fuzz broken here and there by dark green patches of pines.

At every major fork in the road, Jack would stop and watch the traffic for a while, then he’d take out the truck, see which way it ran, and choose their path accordingly.

The Rover led them farther and farther into the hills. As the pavement gave way to a hard-packed dirt road, Alicia felt a growing sense of anticipation seeping through her. She fought it for a while—she didn’t want to look forward to anything connected to that man—but finally she gave in. Up ahead, perhaps over the next rise or around the next bend in the road, on one of these leafless wooded slopes, something momentous waited.

But as her anticipation grew, she noticed an increased edginess in Jack.

“Is something bothering you?” she said.

He shrugged. “All this wide-open space.” He gestured to an expanse of hills and valleys visible through a break in the trees. “Not my kind of place. I like my roads paved, preferably with the option of traveling under them, and I like my trees growing in evenly spaced holes in the sidewalk.”

Just then the tires began to spin and slip on the steep upgrade.

“Should have rented a Jeep,” Jack said. He seemed annoyed with himself. “Should have thought of that.”

But the tires finally caught and propelled the car up to where the rutted dirt road leveled out a little.

“It can’t be too much farther,” she said. “There’s not much more of this mountain left.”

“Yeah, but what if the Rover is pointing at the next mountain?”

Alicia hadn’t thought of that.

A moment later they came to the end of the road.

“Swell,” Jack said.