James did a brief confab with his wife. Marshall could hear the low buzz of his voice and then her keys clacking in answer. Spence had told him that Tiana was an autist, nonverbal, who could play a QWERTY keyboard “like Bootsy Collins played the bass.”

James fell silent, but the keys kept clicking. He wondered if they were checking him out. Then James came back and agreed to take the job, but asking for triple if they got what he wanted in less than an hour. Marshall agreed.

While he waited, he had a too-brief, surreal check-in with his daughter, all sunshine and stories about getting to drive a Jet Ski, and then went to Google Earth to survey the area where Coral Lee Pine had set the meet. What he saw confirmed his instinct. She must have history with the place. She had to know its layout, intimately. Because it was perfect. For her. Not them.

First, it was private. There was nothing, literally nothing, left nearby. It was a dead zone from the highway exit all the way to the small park’s entrance, which was ten miles down a rural road lined in fields and forests. He saw no houses or gas stations or small, open stores that might make the sagging carousel or ticket booth tempting to squatters. There would be no electricity, no plumbing, no access to food or clean water.

A single turnoff led to Funtime’s rectangular parking lot. It had maybe thirty spaces. All of them were dead empty, or had been the last time the satellite had passed over. A wide concrete staircase led up the steep hill to the entrance where mossy Funtime Jack and Baby loomed. The ruined carousel was just beyond, on a peak; Coral would see them coming long before they saw her.

He tried to imagine that old woman at the top of the steps with a sniper’s gun, aiming down to take out Trey, but that was soldier stuff. Old country people had shotguns and pistols. Even with a deer rifle, Trey would be out of range, unless she was an Olympic-level marksman. He couldn’t see it; this woman was a poisoner. She’d put a baby in the water. His spine shuddered at the memory of the hunger that had leaked into her voice when she’d understood that Bree had witnessed Spencer’s death. She’d wanted details. If he had to guess, and he did, she wouldn’t have the skill. She was a close-in kind of killer.

He went back through his notes. Nothing Coral Lee Pine had said gave him a single clue to their location now. If they met her without anything to trade—Lexie or Trey—her plan would work. They could have her arrested, put on suicide watch and interrogated, but if she kept her mouth shut, there was no way they’d find Robert. Not in time.

There was almost a four-hour gap between Bree’s first, long conversation with her, when Coral Lee had been driving, and the short one at the party, when she’d been holed up someplace stationary. Robert could be tucked away in a north Georgia mountain cabin, stashed inside some shed in Alabama or a farmhouse in South Carolina, or in a soundproofed urban motel room in South Atlanta. All those landscapes and more were in range.

If it came down to a search, Robert would die of dehydration long before he was found. They didn’t have a starting point. Not even a state. His own tears and stress as he got hungrier and wetter and more lonely would burn up his reserves. A baby wouldn’t last long in those circumstances. Two days, maybe. Three at most.

Even if Marshall gambled, narrowed the search down to the mountains within two hours of Funtime, they wouldn’t find Robert. Not even with a hundred volunteers and a helicopter. Maybe not with a thousand. Not in time anyway. There were hiking trails and gravel drives and a million one-lane switchback roads up there. Tiny cabins and hunting blinds and sheds so overgrown with kudzu they looked like landscape. No, calling the cops to start a search once Coral had unbound the baby from her chest and left him to go meet Bree would be an impossible Hail Mary.

Outside the car the green and gold of Alabama was a blur, scrolling past his window, unheeded. He was supremely conscious of Bree beside him. She’d been quiet after sending her own texts, letting him search and compile and connect. He could smell her faint, herbal rose scent. If he couldn’t find Lexie, he’d go with her to meet Coral. Maybe he could get Coral to tell them where the baby was. Maye he could make her. Even as he thought this, he was hoping that there were limits in him, limits on what he might do for Bree. Right now, searching inside himself, he could not find them.

So there really was no backup plan. He had to find Lexie. Period. He opened a new browser and started searching for the Pine family’s digital footprint, taking callbacks from his sources as they came. Neither of them was on social media, and neither had credit cards. In spite of these limits, between his old partner and the Weavers and Gabrielle and his own research, Marshall had a pretty good file going by the time Bree hit the Georgia state line.

Coral Lee Pine had indeed owned a house with a carport, and it was located in the mountains of north Georgia. It was maybe half an hour north of Funtime, which made him glad Gabrielle was working that angle. Coral must know it, well. She’d sold her house for thirty-five thousand in cash about five months ago. Then she’d closed out her bank account and disappeared. This was just after her diagnosis.

Cancer, according to Tiana Weaver’s emailed report, which included copies of Coral Lee Pine’s medical records. Started in the ovaries, but it was everywhere before they found it. Lung fluid. Intestines. Liver. And brain.

That one paused him. He’d heard that brain-cancer patients could suffer personality changes. Some even became aggressive, lost their social inhibitions. And she was stage four.

She had no insurance, and her doctors had given her nine months, if she was lucky, without treatment. She hadn’t lied to Bree about the seriousness of her illness. She was definitely on her way out. He didn’t ask, and James Weaver didn’t tell him how Tiana had gotten this private information. He Venmo’d their hefty fee and got back to work.

Then the lab called.

“You owe me that shrimp dinner.” It was the cute tech, Jenna, again, flirty and exulting. There was no reason not to flirt back. Gain goodwill. He might need her help again, and he’d already decided he should keep the date he’d accidentally made. But he found he absolutely could not flirt with her in front of Bree.

Who would not care.

And yet.

“Good,” he said. Curt. Professional. He felt confusion in her silence. “My boss is right here, waiting for these results. So. Perfect timing.” He was rewarded both by Bree’s quick sideways smile at being called his boss and Jenna’s soft laughter.