“Okay,” Donny said as the tires crunched across the gravel of the summit parking area. “We’re here. Now what?”

Hari kept the Tahoe moving toward the cell tree at the far northern end of the lot as she said, “We go over the edge.”

“No-no-no!” Donny cried, slamming his hands against the dashboard. “Are you crazy?”

“Possibly.”

Yesterday, as she’d driven the perimeter of the lot in search of the missing trailers, she’d noticed how the northern end had a gentle grade off the edge, easing down to a line of brush before the trees took over. Whoever had flattened the summit a generation or two ago must have pushed the excess earth off the edge.

Hari bumped the Tahoe over one of the low, concrete parking stops by the cell tree and eased down that grade, stopping in the low brush thirty or forty feet below the summit.

“This is why I wanted four-wheel drive,” she said.

Donny had turned in his seat and was staring back up at the summit. “But he’ll see us here.”

“A good chance he won’t. The road up is on the other side of the hill, so we’re not visible from there. I suspect Deputy Dog drives up to the summit and checks the lot. If he sees anybody, he shoos them off with some lame excuse. If it’s empty, he turns around and goes back down the road and stations himself where he stopped us yesterday.”

“Let’s hope you’re right.”

“If he drives the lot perimeter, we’re busted, but I’m betting he doesn’t.”

As they sat with the windows open and listened, Donny fired up his tablet.

“Hey, a new signal report.”

“From that Burbank at the Allard?”

“Yeah. Gives me an idea.”

“An idea…it’s good to know you’re open to new experiences.”

“Ha-ha.” He gave her a pointed look. “More so than you, that’s for sure.”

“Are you carrying a grudge about last night?”

“Last night?” he said, all innocence. “What happened last night?”

“Nothing. Absolutely nothing.” Time to change the subject. “What’s your idea?”

“The report gives the coordinates of each frequency it mentions. I’m just wondering if there’s one nearby. First let me get our own coordinates…”

He tapped around while Hari kept her ears alert for the sound of tires on the gravel above and behind them.

“I’ll be damned,” he muttered. “There’s one right here on Norum Hill.”

“One of those signals?”

Hari found that unsettling. An electromagnetic impulse beaming out of nowhere and striking the Earth right where she was sitting.

“Exactly where?” she said.

“Somewhere down the hill a ways.”

“You think it’s connected with where they’re hiding the trailers?”

A shrug. “How can I say? Might just be an oddball coincidence.”

“Or it might not. I—” She held up a hand as she heard a crunching sound.

Definitely tires on the parking area gravel—crunching briefly, then fading away.

“I think that was him,” she said, not exactly sure why she was whispering. She slapped Donny on his shoulder. “Let’s go.”