Still, he’s useful for a job like today.

I had Nero look up all the properties owned by various members of the Du Pont family. There were three within a two-hour drive of Chicago. One was a little house in Evanston owned by MaryAnne Du Pont, now MaryAnne Ghery. Since she’s a schoolteacher with three small children, I crossed that one off the list. The second was an apartment downtown owned by Charles Du Pont. That’s a definite possibility. Charles Du Pont is only distantly related to Christian, but he’s an older man who seems to live alone, so he could be hosting his third-cousin. But the third place is the one I’ll be checking out first.

It’s a country estate outside of Rockford. It’s actually owned by Irene Whittier, who’s even more distantly-connected to Christian than Charles Du Pont. But Callum pointed it out to me on the list. He said that Jack used to visit the estate in the summer, to ride dirt bikes out in the hills, and help his great-aunt Irene exercise the horses. Jack never mentioned if his cousin Christian used to go there, too. But it seems possible, since both were the same age, and about equally related to Irene.

It takes Seb and I an hour and a half to drive there. It’s funny how different everything looks once you get outside the city. Sometimes I don’t leave Chicago for months at a time. I forget how flat the rest of the state is. In the city, the high rises are like mountains, creating a sense of structure and direction, no matter where you are. You can always tell which way you’re facing based off the river, the lake, and the buildings. Out here, you only have the sun for a guide. The roads and fields look the same in almost any direction.

The Whittier estate is large and beautiful, but extremely rundown. The closer we get to the main house, the more obvious the chipped paint and broken shutters become. I don’t see any other cars parked out front. Most of the windows look dark.

“What do you want to do?” Seb asks, eyeing those windows nervously. I’m sure he’s thinking the same thing I am—that we’re not keen to get out of the car if Christian might be up in one of those rooms, rifle at the ready.

“Stay in the car,” I tell him. “Watch out for me.”

“Alright,” Seb says, eyes on those windows.

I climb out of the Escalade, feeling exposed in the empty front yard.

The paving stones are cracked and the yard is full of weeds. I feel a little better once I’m in the portico, sheltered from above at least.

I knock on the door, then ring the bell. There’s a long wait during which I hear a couple of dogs barking in the house.

At last, footsteps shuffle toward the door. I’ve got my gun in my hand, inside my jacket, in case I need it. When an old woman opens the door, I release the trigger, and drop my hands to my sides.

“What do you want?” the woman demands.

She’s stoop-shouldered and broad-faced, dressed in a man’s cardigan and rubber boots. Her hair is so thin that I can see the pink scalp underneath. She’s carrying a bucket of seed mix and her boots are crusted with mud—it looks like she was feeding chickens out back when I rang the bell.

“Sorry to disturb you, ma’am,” I say. “I was wondering if I could speak to Christian.”

She squints up at me like I’m insane.

“Christian?” she squawks. “Why in the hell would you come here looking for Christian?”

“I thought he might be staying with you,” I say, calmly.

“You thought wrong.”

She goes to shut the door, but I stop it easily with the toe of my boot.

“Are you sure you haven’t seen him?” I ask, trying to keep my tone polite.

“I haven’t seen Christian in eight years,” she says. “NOT that it’s any of your damn business, whoever you are. And not that I’d tell you if I had.”

She’s peering up at me suspiciously. She might be old and frail, but she’s sharp enough to know that a friend of Christian wouldn’t come knocking unannounced.

Still, I think she’s telling the truth. Her outrage at being bothered seems genuine enough.

“Alright,” I say, releasing the door. “Thank you for your time.”

“ ‘Thank you’ he says,” she shakes her head. “As if I had a choice!”

With that, she slams the door in my face.

I’m not offended. I like ornery old ladies. They’ve lost the desire to hide how they actually feel about things, and I respect the honesty.

Irene is right to mistrust me. I’ve got no goodwill toward her grand-nephew. In fact, I have a hard time picturing a face-to-face meeting between the two of us where both of us walk away alive.

I’ve got to find him sooner than ever now, because Irene might call him, if she’s got his number. It won’t take him long to figure out who the giant on her doorstep was.

I’m about to head back to the Escalade, when I have one more idea.

I text Seb:

One second. I’m gonna check around the back of the property.

Without waiting for him to respond, I cut around the side of the house. The property isn’t fenced, so it’s easy to cross Irene’s grounds. However, I’m mindful of the dogs I heard barking in the house. I don’t know if there’s more prowling around, and I don’t want to have to choose between shooting an innocent dog, or losing a chunk of my leg.

Irene’s grounds are mostly untended—several open fields, an old horse paddock that looks like it hasn’t been used in years, a tumbledown barn, and a few wooded lots.

I’m about to turn back to the car, when I see what I was looking for, way out on the edge of the grounds: a tiny cabin. Large estates usually have a house like that for the groundskeeper—out of sight of the main house, but close enough to watch over the bulk of the property.

This one looks as untended and overgrown as the rest of the grounds. But I’m still going to take a look. It would be the perfect place to hide if you wanted to stay at your great-aunt’s house, without actually being bothered by that aunt.

Irene is too old to come tramping all the way over here. Christian could stay for months without her noticing.

As I get closer, I see a rear access road winding up to the cabin. You could drive right up and park without being noticed. There’s no vehicle around at the moment, but I think I see fresh tracks in the mud next to the cabin.

I approach the hut warily, looking for cameras. Looking for tripwires, too. We had plenty of those in Iraq. The insurgents used fishing line, transparent and set up at shin-level. Almost impossible to see until you blundered right through it and set off an incendiary device. Or one of those damn bounding mines—you trip it, and the propelling charge launches the body of the mine three feet in the air, where it explodes, spraying fragments in all directions at just the right height to rip open your guts.

Yeah, we didn’t love those.

We carried around Silly String to spray the area. The string would hang suspended on the trip wires, without detonating the bombs. But I don’t have any Silly String right now. So I just watch where the fuck I’m walking, carefully picking my way through the overgrown grass.

As soon as I get to the cabin door, I become certain that Christian has been here. I can see the arcing line through the dust where the front door swung open. I check all around the frame for boobytraps, then turn the knob and step inside.