Jack watched Red’s face spin through reactions: alarm, fear, brief distrust, then desolation.

“Since you ain’t listenin’,” he said at last.

Jack waited. Watching Red.

Red set the knife on the table. He motioned Bev toward the bedroom part of the house. “Go on.”

Bev took two steps in the direction of the bedroom but then stopped and grabbed Jack’s hand. “I see hard things for you up ahead,” she said. “Be real careful—and you call if you need anythin’—”

Red raised his hand to smack her. “Go now, ’fore I do somethin’ I regret.”

Bev squeezed Jack’s hand, then went toward the bedroom and pulled the door shut. The seconds lengthened.

Red spoke. “There’s an old huntin’ site where me and Leland used to hidey-hole up years ago. Up in the hills. Remote. A place nobody knows ’bout. If he was needin’ to keep somethin’ safe, I imagine he might keep it there.”

“How far?”

“Hour maybe. Three at most, round-trip.”

“You’ll show me?”

“That’s what I’m sayin’. You go on out and wait in the truck while I pack up.”

Jack found that he had blood in his mouth from biting his torn lip. He didn’t trust Red, and he felt the hazard, but the desperation was stronger. The worry. He looked down and caught the rise and fall of his diaphragm. The quickness of his breath.

Two hours. Three at most.

Plenty of time to be back before dark.

Red stood and picked up the knife and slid the blade into a sheath at his hip. The pistol he tucked into his coat pocket. “Time’s wastin’. Wanna roll a joint for the drive?”

Jack savored the brief, dreamy comfort of the drive from Red’s place to the hunting site. The steady rhythm of Red’s truck over the road, snow bits falling, gray mist lifting, and the heater puffing out hot air. Pale colors of winter smoothed out in pearl and dove gray. He laid his head back against the truck seat and let his eyes close and wondered about Red. If Red thought the briefcase was hidden at the hunting site, he’d have searched there already. Wouldn’t he? Jack felt a sort of menace, but in the warm cloud of the truck a strange thing was happening in his head. He didn’t care. He just didn’t. He’d find the briefcase, or …

Or what?

His thoughts faltered.

Stop it, Jack. Red’s not as bad as that.

Besides: There was value in knowing what Red would do.