Loamfield said something under his breath to Stanton and turned to them. “We have to go out the back. Try and minimize the risk of any of the vultures outside seeing us.”

Robin nodded. “What’s the address?”

“Nineteen Parkfield, Marsden,” Matthew said.

“Okay,” Robin said, “I’ll see you soon.”

Matthew looked at him. “Yes, you will.”

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Robin found a supermarket just before the two-lane highway that led back to Marsden. He got a frozen pepperoni pizza and, on the spur of the moment, three bottles of beer too. If anyone needed a drink, it was Matthew McConnell.

He got back in his car and started along the highway. It was deathly quiet—everyone was at work or having lunch, so the roads were clear. He saw less than ten cars in about twenty minutes. His eyes wandered to the edge of the highway, trying to find some stimulation. He felt calm for the first time since starting this whole crazy journey—since Matthew called him. It was hard to believe that was only a week ago. It felt like a year.

The roadside was short. The hard shoulder was really all there was, as past it, a steady hill dipped down into a forest. He wondered what forest it was. Did every forest have a name?

There was something draped at the top of the hill coming up on his right. It was blue and snaking. Robin didn’t think anyone else passing would have noticed it, so it was odd that he did. Wasn’t it?

It was coming up. A small, thin piece of shiny blue fabric lying in the grass. It had yellow stars on it.

He passed it, mulling it over in his mind. And then his eyes widened. He hit the brake and the clutch the hardest he ever had—the car seemed to almost lurch upward before being held back in a stop.

His breath came short and fast as he parked on the hard shoulder and got out. He looked up the hard shoulder, the way he’d come. He saw it. And he started to run.

He got to it, grabbed it and turned it over in his hand. A tie. A blue tie with yellow stars, ugly as sin. The same tie he’d seen around Loamfield’s neck not half an hour before.

He looked around where he picked up the tie. The shoulder didn’t have a barrier protecting the road from the forest below. It was very muddy but Robin thought he could see two very ill-defined tire tracks, veering off the road and going down the hill.

He couldn’t understand what he was seeing until he looked down the hill to the tree line. A car, wrecked—the bonnet wrapped around a tree.