What Clark hoped would be a brief twenty-minute introduction became an almost three-hour walking tour of the most important historical and contemporary sites Miller’s Point had to offer. By the time Michael ran out of steam, Clark knew more about the remote ranching village than he’d ever known about Dallas. For example, he’d had no idea his family founded Miller’s Point outright. He assumed they’d settled and prospered here, not set up the first encampments of ranchers.

At the first half-hour mark of the extensive tour, Clark considered bailing out and begging off to his office, but he couldn’t actually find it in himself to do it. Save for the workers taking down the decorations in the town square (as he’d instructed the night before), the town was empty and Michael was every bit the enjoyable host. Not that he ever let on, but he actually had a good time walking around the town and taking in its sights, provincial though they were.

But he drew the line at a cemetery tour. Close inspections of ghosts and tombstones where Jesus wore cowboy boots did not fit his description of an acceptable way to spend a morning. He checked his watch.

“I have to go to my office. I have things to do,” he said, curt and direct as possible. The tour may have been a fine diversion for a few hours, but it couldn’t last all day. He needed to be in the office, taking care of work, even if no one in this town seemed to understand the concept.

“Great! I’ll walk you there.”

“I’m fine, thanks—”

“No buts! Besides, I know where they hide the spare key.”

The Woodward Building was two blocks east off of the town square, and unlike the Dallas offices, it was not an imposing block of concrete and steel, made up in an intricate Art Deco style. It was a humble, two-story building with a flat roof and little else to speak of besides the embarrassment of Christmas lights decorating the front windows. A hand-painted sign with flippable numbers read: “0 DAYS ’TIL CHRISTMAS.” Clark ripped it from its hook as Michael went for the spare key.

“You really aren’t into this Christmas stuff, are you?”