Peach jogged to the side street, which was San Fernando Drive. It was a nothing street, lined with telephone wires and crowded by palms and pines, but she stared at it now as if it were keeping secrets. She wandered down the middle of the street and found herself near a deserted industrial lot on the left. Everything was quiet, except for the shriek of birds. A quarter-mile down the road, she passed two run-down bungalows on large, unkempt lots. Cars and boats were strewn across weedy lawns. Evergreens towered over the houses and threw needles across the gravel. She passed another intersection. More remote houses. More trees. Badly fenced yards with children’s toys. Gardens growing nothing. It was a typical old Florida neighborhood, where progress had stopped in 1955.

Ahead of her, the road ended at a concrete barricade. She walked all the way to the fence and saw only an abandoned road overgrown with brush. There was nothing here and nowhere else to go. Frustrated, she turned around, and that was when she spotted the mailbox on the last house on the road.

The number on the box was 10761.

Peach felt herself breathing faster.

It was a tiny white house, no more than a few hundred square feet, behind a four-foot chainlink fence surrounding a big lot. The lawn was scrub and dandelions. The house had a matchbox screened porch on the right, which enclosed the front door. Six identical windows faced the street; all the blinds were closed. Flowering bushes had been planted underneath the windows, but the vines were shriveled and dead. A bushy oak tree loomed over the entire house.

She was alone. The road was deserted, and the house was isolated among the empty lots. If you wanted to hide where no one would see you or find you, this was the perfect place. She checked the mailbox, but it was empty. Even so, she knew she was where Justin wanted her to be.

Peach climbed the low fence. The driveway was cracked and furry with weeds. At the porch, she opened the swinging door, disturbing the web of a large spider. There was no furniture on the concrete slab. Despite the shade, the porch was stifling. She knocked on the door to the house, but she didn’t expect an answer, and she didn’t get one. When she turned the knob, she found that the door was open. She stepped cautiously into a small living room.

This was Justin’s house. His safe house. She saw all of his antiques, all of his quirky collectibles. She’d been with him when he bought many of them. This was where he kept his personal life, where no one could find his secrets. Or so he’d believed.

He was wrong. Peach was too late.