“Outside of town somewhere,” the waitress said. “I don’t know, really. I just used to see her around. She was a few years older than me, but she wasn’t stuck-up. She was nice. But then she got herself a boyfriend, and it seemed like she kinda disappeared. I assumed she married him and moved away. That’s the dream, right? Get the hell out?” She tucked a stray curl behind her ear. “Easier said than done, though.” She glanced down at Ethan’s still-full plate. “You done already?”

  “Yeah,” Ethan said. “It was delicious.” He took out two twenties and laid them on the table. “Do you know anyone who might know where she lived?”

  The girl narrowed her eyes at him. “Does she want you to find her?”

  “Maybe she didn’t at first,” he said. “But I think she does now.”

  “You her boyfriend?”

  “No, I’m her…” Ethan paused. “Bodyguard.”

  The girl picked up the plate. “So Rose McCord really became AnnieLee Keyes?” she asked. “And she’s writing songs now?”

  “She sure is,” Ethan said. “She’s really good.”

  “That’s incredible,” the waitress said. “Damn, I’m happy for her.”

  Ethan stood up. “Any information you could give me—”

  “Go ask Blaine over at the pawnshop,” she said. “He knows just about everything about everybody, and sometimes he’s in the mood to talk.”

  Ethan thanked her and left without taking his change, which amounted to a nearly 300 percent tip.

  The waitress followed him outside and waved to him as he walked down the street. “I lied about having a boyfriend!” she called.

  Chapter

  86

  Blaine wore a high and tight, but Ethan knew instantly that he wasn’t military and never had been, though Ethan could imagine him spending a semester in JROTC before being kicked out for smoking a blunt in the school parking lot. He seemed vaguely high now, Ethan thought, or it could’ve been that he was just on the slow side.

  He certainly wasn’t interested in acknowledging Ethan’s existence, at least not until Ethan picked out a fishing rod and a messed-up-looking ukulele and set them on the cracked glass of the counter. Ethan watched as Blaine did a quick calculus—shitty rod, busted instrument, out-of-towner—and said, “Hundred.”

  Ethan laughed and said, “Twenty-five.”

  Blaine grunted his assent.

  As Blaine was putting the money in the cash register, Ethan casually asked him what he knew about Rose McCord and who her people were. “I think her stepdad’s name was Clayton.”

  Blaine sucked his teeth and said, “Uh-huh, I know him. Clayton Dunning’s a mean sumbitch. Give him half a chance and he’ll knock the pretty right off your face.”

  Ethan immediately thought about showing Blaine just who could knock what. But that went against his rule. Don’t start fights, it went, just finish them. So he faked a smile and said, “How about you tell me where I can find him so he can do that for me? I’m sick of being so damn good-looking.”

  Blaine snorted. “Nearest hospital’s an hour away.”

  Ethan gritted his teeth. The joke was getting old fast. “I need you to tell me where he lives.”

  “Yeah, yeah, okay,” Blaine said, coming out from behind the counter. “Just don’t tell him I did.”

  Two minutes later, Ethan tossed his purchases into the back seat of the cab and headed northeast out of town. He stayed on the main highway for twenty miles before turning onto a narrow road leading into the woods. As he drove, the road grew narrower and rougher—the kind of road that would’ve rattled Gladys to pieces. Pretty soon it was just a dirt track, and it seemed like the trees were closing in on him from all sides. Feeling claustrophobic, he rolled down the window and breathed in the scent of leaves, moss, and a nearby creek. A rabbit skittered in front of the truck, and Ethan touched his brakes as it disappeared into the woods.

  “You’re going to think that you’ve gone too far, and you’re lost,” Blaine had said. “But you won’t be. You’re just supposed to feel like it.”

  As he drove, Ethan tried to convince himself that he’d find AnnieLee just up ahead. There were girls she loved and a man she hated living off this road, so it wasn’t so crazy to think she’d be there.

  Finally he came to the tree Blaine had told him he’d find, the dead maple with the NO TRESPASSING notices nailed all over it. Two children’s dolls hung from the broken branches, one upside down by her plastic legs and the other by her neck.

  “That’s the warning for any trespassers who can’t read,” Blaine had said, laughing. “You have yourself a nice visit.”

  Chapter

  87

  A dog barked as Ethan drove up the dirt track toward the crooked jumble of tar paper and cheap siding that was Clayton Dunning’s house. There were rusting machine parts scattered all over the yard and one incongruously shiny Chevy pickup with a gun rack and a brand-new deer hoist. Weeds grew around a pile of broken beer bottles and through the rigging of a wrecked trampoline.

  Shit, Ethan thought. No wonder AnnieLee left.

  As he walked toward the house, the front door opened and a man came onto the porch. “Who the hell are you?” he said as he lifted a rifle and pointed it at Ethan.

  Ethan stopped in his tracks. He held up his hands a little—not a gesture of surrender, but an indication that he was unarmed. “The name’s Ethan Blake. Clayton Dunning? I’m here because I’m looking for your stepdaughter. For Rose.”

  Clayton Dunning squinted at him. He was a bulldog of a man, round and ugly and unsmiling. Behind him, a teenage girl poked her head out of the house, and she looked Ethan up and down with a quick, almost animal curiosity.

  “Get back inside,” Clayton said.

  “Hey,” Ethan called to her. “You look a little like Rose.”

  Surprise flashed over the girl’s face. “Rose? You know her?”

  “I sure do,” he said. “I’m trying to find her. Has she come around?”

  “No,” the girl said, and then she turned and yelled back into the house, “Shelly, he knows Rose!”

  “I told you to get inside,” Clayton said. He shoved the girl with the butt of his rifle and she vanished from view. Then he pointed the weapon back at Ethan. “You’re trespassing.”

  “I was hoping a friend of the family wouldn’t be considered a trespasser,” Ethan said mildly. He gazed at the gun like it was a curiosity instead of a threat. “Is that a Winchester Model 70? I used to have one of those.”

  Clayton hocked a loogie into the yard. “You ain’t no friend,” he said. “And Rose ain’t no family. Not my blood.”

  Then the teenager came around from the back of the house, holding the hand of a younger girl who looked even more like AnnieLee—rosebud lips and bright-blue eyes and everything.

  “He knows Rose,” the older girl said.

  Ethan turned to them. “Have either of you seen your sister?” he asked. “Or heard from her lately?”

  They shook their heads solemnly, and Ethan struggled to push back a growing sense of unease. He knew she was close. Why wouldn’t she reach out to them?

  “Listen,” he said, “I know Rose came back this way, and I’m trying to find out where she is.”

  “She ain’t here,” Clayton said, stepping down off the porch. The dog started barking again. “Shut up!” he yelled, and it whined and lay down. “I don’t know where she is, and I don’t care. I just know that whatever they did to her, she deserved it.”

  “Deserved what?” There was a sharp edge to Ethan’s voice. “Who’s they?”

  Clayton spat again and said nothing.

  “We haven’t seen her in a couple years,” the teenager said quietly.

  “Is she gonna come visit?” the younger girl asked. “I miss her.”

  Ethan looked at them with overwhelming pity. How hard it would be to live out here with only that angry man for family. “She’ll visit,” he said. “I’m sure she’s on her way.”

  “That girl had the devil in her,” Clayton said. “Couldn’t beat it out.”

  Ethan stiffened, but he didn’t want to start a fight with Clayton, not with his daughters standing right there.

  He made a subtle beckoning motion, and the girls saw it and followed him toward his truck. “Are you okay?” he whispered as he opened the door.

  The big one nodded. “Is Rose?”

  “I hope so,” Ethan said. “I have to find her. If you hear from her, you call me, okay? I’ll be in town.” He gave her his cell number, and he could hear her repeating it to herself as the girls walked back toward the house.

  Then he felt something sharp stabbing him in the low part of his back.

  “You better go on if you want to keep your guts inside you,” Clayton said.

  Ethan whirled around so fast the other man didn’t have time to react. Ethan grabbed the barrel of the rifle and yanked it out of Clayton’s hands, throwing it into the Ram’s cab at the same time he brought a left hook to the side of Clayton’s head. Clayton stumbled sideways, hollering, and Ethan jumped into the truck. Then he was spinning it around in the dirt yard and peeling away down that sorry excuse for a driveway, AnnieLee’s stepfather roaring in rage behind him.

  When he’d made it to the main road, Ethan glanced over at the rifle. He’d been right: it was a Winchester Model 70, just like he used to have.

  Chapter

  88

  That evening, Ethan parked on the edge of town in front of a building whose sign proclaimed it the PROUD HOME OF POSSUM TOM’S LIVE BAIT. But Possum Tom, whoever he was, was long gone; the windows of his store were boarded up and trash littered the doorway.

  Ethan watched as a fat raccoon slowly descended a nearby tree and proceeded to nose its way along the sidewalk, as casually as if it was out for a twilight stroll.

  “Be careful, buddy,” Ethan said as the creature ambled by. “Don’t want to end up as someone’s dinner.”

  Ethan’s own dinner came out of the messenger bag he always carried: two protein bars, a bag of sunflower seeds, and a bottle of Gatorade left over from a greenroom back in Colorado. After he ate, he sat there with the stolen gun in his lap, absently running a thumb along its smooth stock. He was trying to keep his mind as empty as possible, because otherwise it was filled with awful visions: AnnieLee being picked up by someone dangerous. Being taken somewhere she didn’t want to go. Being hurt or kidnapped or—

  He shook his head. Enough.

  And what about those girls he’d met today—her half sisters? Did Clayton hit them the way he’d hit AnnieLee? Ethan hoped Clayton was kinder to his own flesh and blood.

  He couldn’t imagine what it’d be like to grow up in the middle of nowhere like that, in a house that looked like a strong wind could blow it over. As beautiful as the land was, Clayton’s mark on it was nothing but ugliness.

  Ethan set the gun aside and reclined a little, listening to the deep quiet of an Arkansas night. Somehow he must have fallen asleep, because the next thing he knew there was a loud banging on his window. He sat straight up, his heart racing and the rifle already back in his hands.

  But the face on the other side of the glass didn’t belong to a threat. Peering in at him was a scared-looking girl. It was AnnieLee’s teenage half sister, the one whose name he didn’t even know.

  He rolled down the window. “Hey,” he said, his voice hoarse with sleep. “Come around, kiddo. Get in.”

  A moment later she was climbing into the passenger side. “I shouldn’t be here,” she said.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Considering I stole my daddy’s truck and drove it without a license and made it all the way here without killing myself, I’d say I’m doing pretty good.” She held out her hands and looked at them, flexing her fingers. “I was holding on to that damn steering wheel so tight I must’ve got blisters.” She looked over at him, and her eyes were huge in the darkness. “Clayton’s gonna kill me if he finds out, but I just…I needed to talk to you. And you didn’t answer your phone.”

  Ethan reached into the pocket of his bag and pulled out his phone. There were four missed calls. “Shit,” he said. “I’m sorry. I sure don’t want you to get in trouble.”

  “Too late for that, most likely,” she said. She put her feet up on the dashboard and then took them down again. “But I don’t care, anyhow.”

  “I didn’t ever catch your name,” he said gently.

  “Alice,” she said. “Alice Rae.”

  Ethan had to ask. “What happens when you get in trouble, Alice Rae?”

  “Oh, my dad’ll lock me in my room for a couple of days,” she said nonchalantly. “Whatever.”

  “He won’t hit you?” If he does, Ethan thought, I’m not letting her go back.

  “No, not anymore,” she said. “He used to, and Rose always got the worst of it. But a couple of years ago, after she left, he had a scare. He passed out down by the creek, and we didn’t know where he was until the dog led us to him.”

  She gave a bleak laugh. “That was ironic, seeing as how Clayton’s never said a nice word to Bandit in his whole damn life. But dogs are loyal and dumb, so whatever. After Clayton comes around, up he goes to the doctor, and he finds out he’s got a bad heart. Doc says he shouldn’t get agitated anymore. And I guess that mellowed him out a little.”

  Alice was braiding and unbraiding her hair as she spoke. “Anyway,” she said, “you don’t care about him and neither do I, or anyways not near as much as I should, considering he’s half the reason I’m here on this earth.”

  “I can help you,” Ethan said.

  “No, you can’t,” she said bluntly. “But it doesn’t matter. Me and Shelly’ll be okay. It’s Rose you came here for.” She stared right at him again, and now she looked scared. “And I think she’s in danger.”

  Alarm shot through Ethan’s body like an electric shock. “What do you mean?”

  “If she made it this far and she didn’t come see us, it’s because she wanted to see somebody else first. And it didn’t go well.” Alice looked down at the rifle, still in Ethan’s hands. “She went to find Gus Hobbs—I’d bet anything,” she said. “And now she needs your help.”

  “Who’s Gus Hobbs?” Ethan asked.

  Alice clutched her hands together in her lap, twisting them in agitation. “He’s a really bad man,” she said. “And he’s Rose’s husband.”

  Chapter

  89

  Three hours later, driving up yet another rutted road in the middle of thick forest, Ethan bitterly wondered if he’d ever come to the end of AnnieLee’s secrets. Husband? He couldn’t even fathom it.

  Of course, maybe Alice Rae was a liar, just like her big sister.

  Branches brushed along the side of the truck, and the Ram’s headlights hardly seemed to penetrate the predawn darkness. Adrenaline coursed through him. So did a swirl of conflicting emotions. Never had anyone messed with his head and heart the way AnnieLee had.

  “You’ll see a fallen-down shack on your right, and then you’ll know you’re getting close,” Alice had said.

  Hopefully Alice is at least telling the truth about directions, Ethan thought darkly.

  After another half hour of driving, he saw the shack, a crumbling shell of what might’ve once been a homesteader’s cabin. There was an illegal dump just beyond it, full of old couches, mattresses, and car skeletons. Ethan’s headlights picked out the eyes of some nocturnal creature scuttling among the refuse.

  As instructed, he went five hundred yards past the dump. But then he pulled onto the shoulder and cut the engine. He paused for a second, gathering himself, and then he grabbed the rifle and got out of the truck. He picked his way along the side of the road until he spotted what he was looking for: the red reflector nailed to a post, which—if Alice Rae wasn’t trying to get him lost forever in the Arkansas woods—marked the turnoff to Gus Hobbs’s house.

  The night was very still, with barely any wind, and a half-moon offered just enough light to see. Ethan walked softly and deliberately toward his target, every sense on high alert as he followed the dirt track up the hill.

  Suddenly, sound and motion exploded on his right. He jumped back and simultaneously brought up his gun. A deer shot across the way in front of him and crashed into the brush on the other side.

  Ethan listened to its footsteps fade as he stood there, panting. “Shit,” he whispered. When his heartbeat had slowed, he continued on.

  He’d walked nearly a mile before he saw the house up ahead, dimly illuminated in the moonlight. It was a hand-built cabin, standing in the middle of a swept-dirt yard that was as neat as Clayton’s had been messy. Ethan was so focused on the silent house that he walked right into the barbed wire that had been strung across the road fifty yards in front of the place. He stifled a cry of pain as the rusted spikes sank into his flesh at his waist and thigh. Gritting his teeth, he stepped back, tugging his skin and clothes away from the wire.

  Whoever Gus Hobbs was, he had a knack for simple deterrent technology, Ethan thought. After ducking under the wire, he walked more carefully, in case Hobbs had hidden a bear trap in one of the potholes. Hobbs didn’t seem to have a guard dog, but Ethan could think of any number of defenses that were cheaper, quieter, and more lethal.

  He held the rifle loosely as he went. He wasn’t going to walk in shooting. But feeling the weight of the weapon in his hands reassured him, the way it had when he was a soldier. The years in Afghanistan weren’t ones Ethan could say he’d enjoyed, but they’d shaped him. They’d turned him from a scared, uncertain kid into a man who understood honor and duty, and who recognized the kinds of sacrifices those ideals often required.

  As Ethan thought about Antoine and Jeanie and others he’d lost along the way, he told himself that he wasn’t going to lose AnnieLee, too.

  He crept past two cars and walked up to a dimly lit window. Inside he could see the kitchen, its counters full of cereal boxes, chip bags, and beer cans. On the left-hand side of the room was an interior door, closed. He put his fingertips under the sash and lifted. The window slid open with a sigh.