Jack looked tempted, so Johnny tried to ignore the way his friend’s face twisted, the way his right hand beat a hard rhythm on the side of the door. Jack was scared. If he wanted out, he should get out; but when Jack finally spoke, it was a verbal shrug. “Still early,” he said.

And that was that.

Jack was in.

They made their way back toward town, out of the emptiness, past the old mansions and the golf courses, then west to another lonely stretch of nothing that pushed against the back of Johnny’s house. Johnny found the narrow gash in the long row of pines and turned back onto dirt. Jack opened another gate, closed it, and they drove into the abandoned tobacco farm. They passed through the thin row of trees and went left when the road split. It dipped once, then rose and cut back right, to where the tobacco barn sat in the scrub. Johnny rounded the bend and stopped the truck.

A single crow sat on the peak of the roof. It opened its beak and three more landed beside it. Johnny felt Jack tense beside him, saw his fingers touch the shirt where the silver cross lay against his skin. “Just relax.” Jack leaned forward to stare up through the windshield. A fifth crow flapped onto the roof. “There’s wild millet in the fields,” Johnny said. “Blueberries, too. Lots of acorns. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“You’ve seen them like this before? Here? All still like that?”

Johnny studied the birds. He’d never seen crows at the barn before, not like this. They were so still, all of them, marble eyes fixed on the truck, feathers shining like black glass. “They’re just birds,” he said, and opened the door. He picked up a stone and skimmed it at the roof. It clattered a few feet from the birds. They stared for a few seconds more, and when he stooped for another stone they lifted as a group and dropped away into the distant trees. “See.”

Jack climbed out. They lowered the tailgate and roused Freemantle enough to get him out of the truck and into the barn. It took awhile, but they got him stretched out on the floor. “He smells worse,” Jack said.

“Fever’s still climbing.”

“Now what?”

They were standing outside, trees wind-tossed and green across the scrub, earth blackened where their fire had burned two nights before. Johnny pointed. “The house is past that big rock, between those trees. Hop a creek and you’ll see it.”

Freemantle’s voice came from inside the barn. “Hop a creek and you’ll see…”

The boys waited but Freemantle said nothing else. He lay still in the gloom of the barn. “Are you going to talk to your mom?”

Johnny looked in at Freemantle. “I can’t think of anything else to do. Maybe she can talk to Detective Hunt. I don’t know, man. If she’s not there, I’ll bring some clean water and food. Medicine if we have any. I just need a minute. One minute where he’ll talk to me.”

“That’s no kind of plan, Johnny.”

He shrugged. “If I can’t make something happen soon, we’ll call an ambulance, the cops, whatever.”

Jack dug the toe of one sneaker into the still-damp earth. “What if he dies? That’s heavy stuff, man.”

Johnny stared into the gray interior, said nothing.

“What about me?” Jack said. “What do I do?”

“Somebody needs to stay here.”

“I want to go with you.”

“No.”

“He’s asleep anyway, Johnny. What if you get in trouble? There won’t be anybody to help you.”

Jack’s words made sense, but Johnny knew, in truth, that his friend was scared. He pulled the gun out of the truck, held it out, and Jack took it. “Just stay out of his reach,” Johnny said.

Jack stared into the barn and swallowed hard. “You owe me,” he said. “I want you to remember that.” But Johnny was already walking. Jack watched him slip into the trees and fade, then he turned for the barn and willed himself to step inside.

Two minutes later, a lone crow settled on the roof.

Then another.

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

Hunt made it through the line of reporters without serious incident. Maybe it was something in his face. Maybe it was the wall of blue that stiffened to attention as he stormed past. One reporter had already slipped past the line, and that was a screwup. One more time, and somebody would be fired. No question. Hunt would see to it himself.

Little sun touched the forest floor, which remained spongy and damp. The air itself was a moist stew. Hunt pushed hard down the slope.

Stopping at the edge of the swale, he could feel the difference in the air. Finding an adult victim was unexpected, and no one knew what to make of it. Finding Johnny’s father took things to the next level.

People were processing.

Hunt saw two medical examiners from the Chapel Hill office huddled over a fresh excavation halfway across the bowl. That would be the next body. He ignored them. To the right, a cluster of tense people stood beside a seven-foot camp table that canted slightly with the slope of the ground. Cross. The Chief. Trenton Moore, the Raven County medical examiner. All three stared at Hunt, waiting.

The body bag on the ground seemed longer than the others.

More full.

Hunt walked over, stopped five feet from the bag, and squatted on his heels. He remembered Spencer Merrimon, the way he’d stayed strong for his wife, the way he tamped down the guilt and pretended that it wasn’t killing him from the inside out. Seems like he’d always had a hand on his son’s shoulder, a quiet word of thanks for the men working to bring his daughter home. Hunt had liked the man, maybe even respected him. “Is this him?”

Every eye turned to the bag. “We think so.”

“How can you tell?”

“Over here,” the Chief said.

Hunt stood and they all turned to the camp table. It was brushed metal, hinged in the middle. Gear cluttered the surface: laptops, a camera bag and tripod, a few notebooks, a box of latex gloves. A number of items were sealed in plastic evidence bags. The Chief pointed at a stained wallet. “This was in his pocket. It’s nylon with a Velcro seal. That helped preserve the contents.” Next to the wallet, the contents had been laid out, each in its own evidence bag. Driver’s license. Credit cards. A few grungy bills, some receipts. A claim check for the cleaners. Some papers, folded at one time, but open now. Hunt saw a photo of Katherine and the kids. It, too, was stained, but the faces were recognizable. Johnny looked shy, but Katherine was beaming. So was Alyssa. “Christ,” Hunt said.

“We’ll have the medical examiner run dental records to confirm, but I don’t see any reason to doubt that it’s him.”

“Doc?” Hunt looked at Trenton Moore.

“The body is male, age appropriate.”

Hunt looked out at the remaining flags, the men stooped above the half-exhumed body of some unnamed soul. It was now very likely that one of these bodies was Alyssa Merrimon. He turned back to the table and examined the items from the wallet. He looked through the receipts-meaningless-then came to two pieces of paper that had been folded so many times the creases were worn through. The first was a child’s drawing, stick figures of a man holding the hand of a child. “I Love my Daddy,” was written in an awkward hand. The bottom corner read, “Alyssa, age six.”

Hunt turned to the second page.

“Addresses,” Cross said. “We’ll check them when we get back to the station.”

Hunt saw nine addresses. The handwriting was bad, but legible. There were no names, no phone numbers. Addresses. But Hunt felt the cold tingle in the back of his skull that told him he’d been right about Spencer Merrimon. Why his body was here. Why he died, if not exactly how. Hunt knew the addresses. He knew the names that went with them.

Registered sex offenders.

The bad ones.

Cross gestured at the body bag. He was unshaven, lips turned down. “I thought this Merrimon guy ran off.”