James fell silent, but the keys kept clicking. He wondered if they were checking him out. Then James came back and agreed to take the job, but asking for triple if they got what he wanted in less than an hour. Marshall agreed.

While he waited, he had a too-brief, surreal check-in with his daughter, all sunshine and stories about getting to drive a Jet Ski, and then went to Google Earth to survey the area where Coral Lee Pine had set the meet. What he saw confirmed his instinct. She must have history with the place. She had to know its layout, intimately. Because it was perfect. For her. Not them.

First, it was private. There was nothing, literally nothing, left nearby. It was a dead zone from the highway exit all the way to the small park’s entrance, which was ten miles down a rural road lined in fields and forests. He saw no houses or gas stations or small, open stores that might make the sagging carousel or ticket booth tempting to squatters. There would be no electricity, no plumbing, no access to food or clean water.

A single turnoff led to Funtime’s rectangular parking lot. It had maybe thirty spaces. All of them were dead empty, or had been the last time the satellite had passed over. A wide concrete staircase led up the steep hill to the entrance where mossy Funtime Jack and Baby loomed. The ruined carousel was just beyond, on a peak; Coral would see them coming long before they saw her.

He tried to imagine that old woman at the top of the steps with a sniper’s gun, aiming down to take out Trey, but that was soldier stuff. Old country people had shotguns and pistols. Even with a deer rifle, Trey would be out of range, unless she was an Olympic-level marksman. He couldn’t see it; this woman was a poisoner. She’d put a baby in the water. His spine shuddered at the memory of the hunger that had leaked into her voice when she’d understood that Bree had witnessed Spencer’s death. She’d wanted details. If he had to guess, and he did, she wouldn’t have the skill. She was a close-in kind of killer.

He went back through his notes. Nothing Coral Lee Pine had said gave him a single clue to their location now. If they met her without anything to trade—Lexie or Trey—her plan would work. They could have her arrested, put on suicide watch and interrogated, but if she kept her mouth shut, there was no way they’d find Robert. Not in time.