Whatever it was, it was in her voice as well. “Just stop for a bit,” she said, “and feel the air on your face.”

For a moment—a few seconds, a minute perhaps, he wasn’t sure—he was transfixed.

“Isn’t it amazing?” she said again, so softly that the words seemed to be a part of the air she was describing.

“I have to go,” he said. “I have to go before—”

She stopped him. “I know. I know you do. Be careful.” She put her hand on his cheek. “I love you.”

“Oh, God.” He stared at her. “I’m afraid, Maddie. I’ve always been able to figure things out. I hope to God I know what I’m doing. It’s all I can do.”

She placed her fingers gently on his lips. “You’ll be brilliant.”

He didn’t remember walking to his car, or getting into it.

What he remembered was looking back, seeing her standing on the high ground above the birch, radiant in the sunlight in her profusion of colors, waving to him, smiling with a poignancy beyond his understanding.

Chapter 48

The One That Mattered

The countryside between Walnut Crossing and Cayuga County presented one classic bucolic vista after another—small farms, vineyards, and rolling cornfields, interspersed with hardwood copses. But Gurney hardly noticed. His mind was on his destination—a stark little cabin in a black-water bog—and what might happen there that night.

It wasn’t yet noon when he arrived. He decided not to go into the property right away. Instead he drove slowly past the dirt entry road with its skeleton sentinel and sagging aluminum gate. The gate was open, but its very openness appeared more ominous than inviting.

He proceeded a mile or so, then made a U-turn. Halfway back to Clinter’s forbidding driveway, he saw a large, decrepit barn in the middle of a weed-choked field. The roof was sagging dramatically. Quite a few boards were missing from the siding, as was one of the double doors. There was no farmhouse in sight—only a disheveled foundation that might once have supported one.

Gurney was curious. As soon as he came to what he suspected had formerly been the entrance, he drove slowly up into the field, all the way to the front of the barn. It was dark inside, and he had to switch on his headlights to get a sense of the interior. The floor was concrete, and there was a long open passageway extending from the front clear through to the shadowy back of the building. It was filthy, with decaying hay everywhere, but otherwise it was empty.