“You threw a real scare into us. We’ve always been afraid someone might figure out the connection, come looking for…Miranda, or Katie.” The little girl was in the next room, watching cartoons. “And now, knowing there’d been trouble, we were kind of on edge.”

I took a sip of my coffee. It was hot, and I blew on it. Quietly, I said, “Would you have done it, Don?”

“Hmmm?”

“Would you have killed me?”

He ran his hand over his mouth, and I could hear his rough palms going across his whiskers like sandpaper. “Yeah,” he said. “If I had to do it to protect Katie, yeah, I’d have done it.”

“You ever killed someone before?” I asked.

Don Bennet shook his head very slowly. “Shit, no.” The question surprised him. “I’m a machinist. Worked on the Ford line for a while, building vans. Now I work in Groverton, fix tractors.” He took a sip of his coffee. “I would hope I’d never have to do anything like that. But a man does what he has to do to protect his family.”

Trixie wanted to know how I’d found her. The gas station receipt, I said. From the center console of her GF300.

“Shit, that was pretty careless, wasn’t it?” she said, then, worried that Katie might have heard her obscenity, glanced over her shoulder into the living room, where the little girl was flipping the channels. I heard Bart Simpson crack wise.

“Put it back on six!” Claire shouted.

“It’s The Simpins,” Katie said.

“Your show’s on six!” She shook her head. “She’s not watching The Simpsons yet.”

Trixie, ignoring the exchange, said, “I was afraid I’d left some clue on the GPS thing. I’ve programmed the route to get up here before, but I always delete it from the trip record, to be safe.”

“I haven’t even used that thing,” I said. “I haven’t got a clue how it works.”

“Actually, I’m kind of surprised the cops let you take the car.”

“They didn’t, at first,” I said. “But once the forensics people were done with it, they gave it to me.”

Claire was serving the chocolate cake. It was still pretty frozen, and I had to force my fork in, but it was still good. I’d had no lunch, and despite the headache, was ready to eat.

“So,” I said with some formality, looking at Trixie, “maybe you’d like to tell me what’s going on. I mean, I’ve come all this way and all.”

She smiled at me, reached over and touched my hand. “Claire’s my sister,” she said. Claire, who’d gotten up to put some dishes in the sink, looked at Trixie over her shoulder. “And Don here is my brother-in-law. And”—she nodded toward the living room—“you’ve met Katie. My little girl.”