“Ten,” I repeat. “That’s a houseful.”

She nods. “Eight boys and two girls. Momma was a glutton for punishment, that’s for sure. She had us girls last and always said she wished we’d been first out of the gate. Would have made things a lot easier for her.”

My mom told me a hundred times that having me before my brother Hayden was a godsend: Now, I have a built-in babysitter.

The clouds start to thicken, and a light rain pelts the windshield. Ruth directs me up another incline and we pass another house; this time, smoke curls from a chimney.

“How much further?” I ask.

“I’m not sure in miles,” she replies. “Maybe twenty minutes.”

I look at my phone. No service. No GPS.

“You’re right,” I say. “I doubt I would have found your sister’s place on my own.”

Ruth stares out the passenger window as the green of fir, spruce and feathery hemlock envelops us.

“That’s the way she and Merritt wanted it. They didn’t want the world to find them because they didn’t want anything to do with its ugly and irredeemable influence.”

“How is it that you could call them?” I ask her. “I don’t have any reception. I expect where we are going it isn’t going to be any better. There isn’t a cell tower for fifty miles.”

“Satellite,” she says. “They’re off the grid though they have internet and phone through satellite hookup. We have the same set-up back home.”

“You called me from the parking lot.”

“I borrowed a friend’s phone.”

“Oh,” I say, thinking that Ruth comes from a lot of rules, yet doesn’t always follow them.

“Get ready to turn up this driveway,” she says, abruptly.

I follow the trajectory of her stare.

I see nothing but a wall of green.

“What driveway?” I ask.

“Slow down. It’s right… here.”

I stop the car. I still don’t see any driveway.

“Right there,” she says, pointing. “See those two firs?”

I do. They have low-hanging branches that sweep against the gravel of the roadway.

“Drive between them.”

Between what? I think.

“There isn’t a road,” I say.

“Yes, Detective. There is. Once you push through, you’ll be on it.”

I’m glad my car is old. I’d get out and check out the wisdom of plowing through, but the rain keeps me inside where it is warm, dry, and very wintergreen.