Fiona stirred in her sleep, bringing him back to the present. The cabin had grown cool during the flight and she’d wrapped her arms around her midsection as if chilled. Sam found a blanket in one of the overhead compartments, and tucked it around her lightly. She smiled in her sleep, and that alone had made him smile. Her dark hair spilled over her face, and he was tempted to push it back behind her ear. After a moment, he did just that, lifting the heavy silken strands with his fingers and draping it carefully over her shoulder. He leaned back in his own seat and closed his eyes, trying without success to relax.

The first thing Sam did once he climbed down from the plane was to try Tom’s numbers again. It was now two thirty in the morning, and there was still no answer and there’d been no return call.

“They have kids in school,” Sam told Fiona. “You’d think someone would be there to pick up the phone.”

“There could be any number of reasons why no one’s answering, Sam,” she replied calmly. “Some people turn off their ringers at night. If the kids fall asleep with their iPods on, they won’t hear the phone.” She paused. “Does the house have central air?”

“Central air?” He frowned. “The farmhouse is almost a hundred and fifty years old. No, there’s no central air.”

“Then they probably have those window units, right?” When he didn’t respond, she repeated, “Right?”

“Yeah, probably.”

“The newer ones are pretty quiet, but the older ones… those suckers are loud. And if they have them, you know they’re running tonight. It’s pretty damned hot. So chances are they’re not hearing the phone.”

“I’d like to think Tom would have called back if he heard my message.”

“Let’s not jump to conclusions, all right? First, we need to get out of here.”

“We need a car.” Sam gazed around the private airstrip. “How can we get a car at two AM out in the middle of nowhere?” He frowned. “Where the hell are we, anyway?”

“Someplace called Afton’s Fork.” She walked around the building that served as a hangar. “As I’m sure you’ve already figured out, the airstrip is private. It’s owned by a friend of John’s who lets him use it when he needs to. Which, from what I understand, is practically never.”

She continued to walk and he continued to follow. In front of the building a dark SUV was parked. Fiona opened the driver’s door and reached under the seat.

“Sam, heads up.” She called and tossed a set of keys in his direction. He caught them in one hand.

“You drive,” she said as she walked around to the passenger side. “You’re more likely to find the way out of here than I am.”

“Well, that remains to be seen,” he told her as he started the engine. “I’ll bet it’s been twenty years since I was in Afton’s Fork.”

“And the last time I was here would have been… let me think.” She fastened her seat belt. “That would have been never. You drive.”

The paved road wound through endless fields. Sam drove slowly, the headlights the only illumination. They passed a large house, darkened in the dead of night, and it was then that Sam realized that this was actually someone’s home. He tried to think if he’d ever known anyone in the area who had the kind of money that would enable one to have a private airstrip and a home like the one he’d just passed. He was pretty sure he never had.

He gave up and asked Fiona, “Whose place is this, do you know?”

“I have no idea. Someone John knows, that’s all I was told.”

He drove past several barns that looked new, past fenced-in pastures, and finally arrived at the main road.

“Which way is Blackstone?” she asked.

He thought for a moment. “East, I think. If I recall correctly, Afton’s Fork is farther to the west by maybe forty miles or so.” He glanced at the compass above the rearview mirror. “So that means a right turn here. We’ll see where that leads us.”

“At some point there should be a sign to identify the road we’re on. It would help if you knew the name of the road.”

“Big time.” He pointed to the dash. “It looks like we have GPS, but I don’t recognize the system. Would you look in the glove compartment and see if there’s a manual?”

“Yes, it’s here. Give me a moment.” Fiona turned on the interior light and skimmed several pages before activating the system. “Where do we want to go?”

“We’ll go straight to the farm. It’s 731 Old Yellow Creek Road.”

She entered the information.

“Well, it looks as if we’re headed in the right direction, anyway.” She leaned closer to the screen. “You were close. It’s about fifty miles east.” She pointed to the map that had appeared. “We are here.”

He eased off the accelerator slightly and scanned the screen. “I know where we are. We can make it there in less than an hour.”

Fiona settled back and said, “I suppose you don’t need the voice activated directions.”

He smiled. “I don’t need the GPS now at all, thanks. You can turn it off. Unless it amuses you to watch us eat up the miles.”

“I admit there are times when I am amused by my GPS.” She looked over at him. “It isn’t always as accurate as I’d like it to be.”

“Name one other thing that amuses you,” he surprised himself by asking.

“I Love Lucy reruns,” she answered without hesitation. “I have all of the ‘Best of collections on DVD. For me, there’s never been anyone with better timing or who better knew how to use her own natural gifts. How ’bout you? What makes you laugh?”

“Actually, I prefer the more sophisticated humor of the Three Stooges,” he deadpanned.

“Steve Martin as King Tut,” she countered.

“Soupy Sales with a pie in his face.”

“Nothing like those classic comics when you need a good laugh,” she agreed.

“Is Steve Martin old enough to be considered classic?”

“I’m not sure age is the determining factor.”

The road was a straight line ahead of them for as far as they could see, and Fiona commented on it.

“Roads are going to bend when there’s something to go around,” he told her. “There’s nothing out here to go around. Therefore, straight roads.”

A few minutes later, Fiona asked, “So, the plan is to go right to your brother’s and check up on him, then go to Henderson Falls?”

“Assuming my brother is there, and everything’s okay, we’ll bunk there for the rest of the night, then yes, go into Henderson in the morning.”

“It’s almost morning now,” she reminded him. “It’s going on four, and if we don’t get to Blackstone until five, there won’t be any ‘rest of the night.’”

“I need to go there before we do anything else.”

“I wasn’t suggesting that we not go. I was just pointing out that-”

The car swerved suddenly to avoid hitting a small herd of deer that fled across the road and vanished like ghosts. Sam hit the brakes so as to not crash into the last in line.

When the animals disappeared into the black night and he resumed driving, he told Fiona what he’d been trying not to think about.

“There’s no better way to get my attention than to target Tom.”

“You think that’s what’s happened? That the killer has your brother?”

“I’m starting to think it might be.”

Fiona took her phone from her bag and dialed the number she’d been given for the Henderson Falls PD.

“This is Special Agent Fiona Summers with the FBI. I’d like to know if there’s been an ID on the victim that was… Yes, I’ll hold…”

She turned her body to face Sam more directly and said, “It should be a capital offense for any governmental entity to play Muzak when they put a call on hold.

“Yes, thank you…” Fiona explained who she was and why she was calling. She took a small pad of paper and a pen from her bag and made some notes. “How do you spell that?”

She scribbled quickly. “What else can you tell me?”

A few more notes, and she said, “Thank you. Please leave a message for your chief that I and a colleague will be there in the morning and we’d like to meet with him. Thanks again.