They reached the ranch gate, and the pickup skidded to a stop. “Here’s where I let you off,” Roy said. He peered through the open passenger window at the black gabled building. “Still don’t like that house,” he said.

Mark opened the door and pulled his backpack by one of the shoulder straps. He hopped out and wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of a sleeve. “Thanks for the lift,” he said. “Appreciate it.”

“I’ll be coming back this way in about an hour or so. Want me to stop by, give you a ride?”

Mark looked up at the hot blue sky, nodded. “Sounds good.”

“Be waitin’ for me by the gate here. I’ll give three honks. If there’s no sign of you, I’ll head on.”

“All right.” Mark waved as the pickup took off, but even if Roy had been looking, he wouldn’t have been able to see through the dust. Coughing, Mark backed away from the road and turned away. Before him was the closed gate and beyond that the drive that led to the house.

He lifted the latch, swung the gate open, closed it behind him, and stood there for a moment. He was afraid. He’d known that already, of course, but the emotional reality of it had not penetrated until now. He stared at the dark structure, and though the front of the house was facing the sun, there was no glare off the windows. The entire facade of the house was the same flat black, its specific features differentiated only by slight variations in tone. It was as if the building swallowed the sunlight, absorbed it, and Mark noticed that the bushes and plants that were in what would be the perimeter of the house’s shadow were all brown and dead.

He was just being overly dramatic. The plants were dead because there was no one here to water them. Without daily attention, everything except cactus and sagebrush died in the desert, and Kristen was no longer here to take care of the property.

That meant that Billings was gone.

It felt as though a weight had been lifted off his chest. From what Roy had said, it sounded as though the assistant was no longer here, but Roy was obviously not the most reliable of witnesses and Mark had always been a hope-for-the-best-and-expect-the-worst kind of guy. There was no way Billings would have allowed the plants to die, though, and to Mark that was as good a proof as any that the assistant was gone.

That meant his daughter wouldn’t be here either.

“Fuck me in the ass.”

His gaze swept involuntarily to the window where he’d last seen the girl, but it was as flat and lifeless as the rest of the house and he saw nothing there.