There was almost a four-hour gap between Bree’s first, long conversation with her, when Coral Lee had been driving, and the short one at the party, when she’d been holed up someplace stationary. Robert could be tucked away in a north Georgia mountain cabin, stashed inside some shed in Alabama or a farmhouse in South Carolina, or in a soundproofed urban motel room in South Atlanta. All those landscapes and more were in range.

If it came down to a search, Robert would die of dehydration long before he was found. They didn’t have a starting point. Not even a state. His own tears and stress as he got hungrier and wetter and more lonely would burn up his reserves. A baby wouldn’t last long in those circumstances. Two days, maybe. Three at most.

Even if Marshall gambled, narrowed the search down to the mountains within two hours of Funtime, they wouldn’t find Robert. Not even with a hundred volunteers and a helicopter. Maybe not with a thousand. Not in time anyway. There were hiking trails and gravel drives and a million one-lane switchback roads up there. Tiny cabins and hunting blinds and sheds so overgrown with kudzu they looked like landscape. No, calling the cops to start a search once Coral had unbound the baby from her chest and left him to go meet Bree would be an impossible Hail Mary.

Outside the car the green and gold of Alabama was a blur, scrolling past his window, unheeded. He was supremely conscious of Bree beside him. She’d been quiet after sending her own texts, letting him search and compile and connect. He could smell her faint, herbal rose scent. If he couldn’t find Lexie, he’d go with her to meet Coral. Maybe he could get Coral to tell them where the baby was. Maye he could make her. Even as he thought this, he was hoping that there were limits in him, limits on what he might do for Bree. Right now, searching inside himself, he could not find them.

So there really was no backup plan. He had to find Lexie. Period. He opened a new browser and started searching for the Pine family’s digital footprint, taking callbacks from his sources as they came. Neither of them was on social media, and neither had credit cards. In spite of these limits, between his old partner and the Weavers and Gabrielle and his own research, Marshall had a pretty good file going by the time Bree hit the Georgia state line.