“No,” Cal said. “Turn around right now. Eve, I’m serious. Turn—”

I hung up on him, powered off my phone, and threw it onto the passenger seat. I figured I had thirty minutes, maybe, before Cal caught up to me. That would be enough time, because Matt was either going to talk or he wasn’t.

Up ahead I could see the tiny guard station Jimmy Ray had built out of plywood and scrap metal. It stood on the edge of his property, and there was no way to drive down his lane without passing it. A spotlight shone from its lopsided roof, and the whole jury-rigged look of it would have been funny if not for the armed redneck I knew waited inside.

But when I pulled to a stop next to the guard station, it was empty. I’d been practicing my speech in my head, the collection of words I’d hoped would get me past this barricade, and I wasn’t quite sure what to do with myself now that they weren’t needed. The thick metal chain that usually barred entrance to Jimmy Ray’s compound when the guard station was unmanned lay coiled in the brush. The apparent ease of my entry left a hissing snake of worry in my gut. I’d never known Jimmy Ray to be careless with security. But a trap didn’t seem like his style, either. Jimmy Ray wasn’t sneaky. He didn’t plot out ruses to get at you sideways. He came full throttle and right in your face. Maybe the guy manning the entrance had to take a leak and forgot about the chain. Maybe something at the compound required his urgent attention. Which might end up working in my favor. If everyone was distracted, that gave me more time with Matt.

I drove past the guard station, wincing a little as I remembered the few times I’d let Jimmy Ray talk me into bringing Junie out here. My worst moments as a mother rising up along with the shadows creeping out from the stands of trees lining the road. Back then, Matt lived in a trailer on the western edge of Jimmy Ray’s property, and I was guessing that was still the case. Once Jimmy Ray’s henchmen staked out a piece of land, they were reluctant to move. And if memory served, Matt’s trailer might have been a broken-down tin can like my mama’s, but he was close to the creek and had a view of the rolling hills out of his back windows.

The road curved, and I eased my car onto the shoulder, following a set of tracks I knew from memory, not from sight. Branches slapped against my windows, and I thanked God for the lack of recent rain. Last thing I needed was to get bogged down, stuck out here with no way to escape. Just when I thought maybe I’d turned too early, I saw the half-rotted cabin Jimmy Ray had shown me once. It was the original homestead of the family who had owned this land years ago. Overgrown and hidden. We’d had sex there, me pressed up against the moss-covered walls and Junie asleep out in the car. I knew there was a wide-open patch of ground to turn my car around on, leave it facing out for a fast getaway.