“What’s this mean?” I pointed to a light blue triangle on the map.

Raymond had made an investigative guide, a trail of locations of interest and notes of names or purchases he said he’d like to check out. He glanced over and looked at the map.

“That’s a bread crumb,” he said, and returned his focus to the road. “I thought we’d take them in order. Follow the crumbs.”

According to the chart of bread crumbs, the most recent credit card purchase was at a restaurant in Superior, Wisconsin. Superior was twenty minutes past Duluth, and Duluth was three hours north. I wanted to go straight to the restaurant, but Raymond wanted to stop at the places in the same order that the credit card had been used: first a mini-mart, then a Target, and finally, the restaurant, with each clue leading to the next.

After an hour or so, the traffic thinned out and the billboards began to change, became more specific, more revealing. Advertising for deer stands and filtered water systems. The casino and local politicians. Facts about a fetus’s beating heart, with a photo of an adorable baby.

“Pro-life up here, eh?” Raymond said, not really a question.

“Pretty much,” I said. Tension rose in the car as the billboards with pro-life statistics cast a spotlight on the secret between us. Raymond was the only person in the world who knew. He was the one I’d called, and he was the one who’d helped me. At seventeen. I’d been on the pill, but it gave me migraines and made my breasts hurt. So I stopped the pill and instead insisted on condoms. But still I got pregnant. I couldn’t believe it, and I couldn’t tell anyone. Raymond drove me to the clinic, waited, then drove me home. We never spoke about it after that. I wouldn’t dare bring it up now.

I wondered what his stance was on surrogacy. I’d told him the entire story, everything I knew about Cally, the insemination, the pregnancy and birth, and the first couple of days in the hospital. He didn’t react one way or the other. He had a perfect poker face, a true professional. And he wasn’t judgmental. He had a calmness that made you feel like confessing. A good quality in a detective.

“I hope you don’t own a gun,” he joked, breaking the silence in the car and nodding toward another hunting-related billboard.

“Ha-ha, no,” I said, but it occurred to me that Raymond might be carrying a handgun. I glanced at his waistline but couldn’t see.

“Probably for the best.” He smiled.