To get away from it all, Gibson had holed up in Ginny Musgrove’s bedroom, where Bear had spent much of her time. He’d sat with his back against the bedroom door and read more of the annotations in The Fellowship of the Ring. Looking for a smoking gun about his father but at the same time dreading finding one. Was Duke the one that Bear had run away from? Was that why he’d ended his life? Gibson didn’t know if he could survive the truth.

Gibson studied Billy’s face. His boyish eyes, the premature crow’s-feet, the tuft of gray hair amid his unkempt blond rat’s nest. No one was perfect, but when it came to Suzanne, Billy Casper was as close as a person got. He’d stuck his neck out for her and then done it again. The risk he had taken to find her. This absurd long shot he had played by hacking ACG. Gibson had no parallel in his own life, and it was humbling.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Shoot,” Billy said, resting his head on the pillow.

“How long did you and Suzanne talk online?”

“Almost a year.”

“When did she start talking about running away?”

“Right from the beginning, man.”

“Why?”

“Because of the baby. I told you.”

“No. You said she wasn’t showing when she got here. That meant she was only a couple months pregnant. So why did she want to run away before that?”

Billy said he didn’t know, hadn’t really considered it.

Gibson opened Bear’s book and read the passage about the baseball game again.

“What is it?” Billy asked.

The sound of a vehicle coming down the driveway interrupted them. Gibson put the book on the sink and stood up to look out the small porthole window. Billy watched him with wide eyes.

Powerful headlights fractured the brooding dark of the woods. Gibson yelled back toward the kitchen that they had company, but Hendricks and Jenn were already on their way. Jenn was turning off lights as she went. She stuck her head in the bathroom.

“What do we have?” she asked.

“Headlights. Is this your deal with the feds?”

“No,” Jenn said. “Stay with him. Call out anything you see.”

She shut off the bathroom light and left them in the dark.

A huge black SUV broke the tree line, curved slightly to the left, and came to a stop. A second SUV, running dark, pulled up alongside. Together they blocked the driveway back to the main road. Like a play-by-play announcer, Gibson relayed it all out to Jenn.

In unison, both SUVs flipped on their brights, scouring the back of the house in blinding white light. Gibson had to look away, but not before he saw the blue-and-red strobes from the vehicles pulsing off the trees. So much for cutting a deal.