The bus station closed at five.

She walked around for a time then returned to the car. She sang to Billy and played with him for as long as he was willing then nursed him to sleep. Whenever a car drove by, she ducked out of sight. She waited until dark to eat the first of the candy bars. For the second time she had not been at the meeting place. And she wasn’t going to be there tomorrow, either. But Joe had promised to keep returning until she arrived. She clung to that promise.

The night was endless. Every muscle in her body ached with fatigue and discomfort.

She ate the banana for breakfast.

The bus arrived in Brenham just before noon. She described the place she wanted to find to the ticket agent. “It’s a very old cemetery where some of the area’s first settlers are buried.”

“That would be the Independence cemetery,” the woman told her.

“How do I get there?” Jamie asked.

“Just head up the street here to Chapel Hill and take a left. Chapel Hill runs into 105 which will take you to 50. There’s no town to speak of anymore. Just look for Old Baylor Park. The cemetery is near there.”

“How far?”

“’Bout ten or twelve miles, I’d say, but there isn’t a bus.”

Jamie had planned to walk anyway. She didn’t have the money for a ticket if there were a bus.

A block from the bus station, she left the cumbersome infant carrier in a Dumpster and put Billy in the sling.

She reminded herself that she used to think nothing of running ten or twelve miles. All she had to do now was walk. But it was already warm. And she was exhausted. And she had a baby slung across her middle.

Climbing even the gentlest of hills left her breathless and sweating. And Billy was restless. She stopped several times, seeking out a shady, private spot where she nursed him, with no sense at all of how long it had been since the last feeding.

She ate the second candy bar a bite at a time and rationed her water. There were no service stations, no buildings at all except for an occasional farmhouse at the end of a winding lane. The sole of her left shoe came loose and made walking difficult. She tore a strip from the baby blanket she was using to shade Billy from the sun and tied the shoe back together.

I can do this, she told herself repeatedly, the words becoming a mantra. Several times a vehicle would slow as the driver considered asking her if she wanted a ride, but she would square her shoulders, stare straight ahead, and turn her dragging step into a marching gait.

The road signs told her that she was nearing Independence. She stopped at a large gardening establishment to ask for directions to the cemetery. A woman watering rose bushes pointed the way and filled her water bottle. “You all right, honey?” she asked.

“Fine,” Jamie said with all the brightness she could muster. “It was just farther than I thought.” Then she asked the woman what time it was and was on her way.

The water helped.

She passed by four stately stone columns in a grove of trees with a sign that said OLD BAYLOR PARK. A half mile or so past that sign was another for McCrocklin Road. A mile or so beyond that McCrocklin ran into Coles Road, just like the woman watering the roses had said.

A woman in an SUV pulled up beside Jamie and asked if she was lost.

“No, ma’am. I’m just out walking.”

The woman had beautiful snow-white hair. She stared at Jamie for a moment. “You look awfully hot and tired to me,” she said. “I live just past the cemetery. You and the baby are welcome to rest there for a time. I think I’ll make a pitcher of fresh lemonade as soon as I get home.”

Jamie thanked her again and kept on walking.

Fresh lemonade. She felt light-headed just thinking about it.

The cemetery was on the right side of Coles Road, set among a grove of ancient live oak trees. Just beyond the entrance to the cemetery Jamie sank to the ground by the moss-covered tomb of Moses Crawford, who died in 1857. She leaned against the backside so she wouldn’t be visible from the road and nursed her baby. Then she lay down and, cradling Billy in her arms, curled her body around his and closed her eyes.

Chapter Thirty-one

AFTER JAMIE HUNG UP, Joe stood there for a time with the receiver still to his ear. He felt the anxious eyes of his parents. Still in their bathrobes, they were standing by the sink, his father’s arm protectively around his mother’s shoulders.

It was just three days ago that he had finally talked to his parents. The ship had just docked in the Libyan port city of Tripoli. He could tell the minute he heard his mother’s voice that something was wrong. She was too chipper. When he started asking questions, she insisted that nothing was amiss and that he should continue his trip for as long as he wanted. Then she had handed the phone to his father, who had rambled on about how he wished that he had traveled more as a young man and had seen the world just as Joe was now doing, and experienced the glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome, and taken advantage of what only youth can offer, which was a definite about-face from the paternal lecture on responsibility that Joe had received when he’d told his father about his plan to stay on in Europe after he’d finished the course at Oxford.

Joe finally interrupted him. “Dad, what in the hell is going on? Did the house burn down? Is Mom sick?”

“No, no, no. Nothing’s wrong,” his father insisted. “Your mother and I were a little put off when you decided to stay over there, but we do want you to enjoy yourself before you have to settle down.”

Maybe there really was nothing wrong back home, but the phone call had left him with a deep sense of unease, and after roaming through the old city center for a time, he returned to the ship to collect his possessions. He didn’t bother to announce his departure, unsure if international maritime law permitted him to terminate his employment before the end of the voyage. He had flown standby to London’s Heathrow Airport, where he was lucky enough-after running at full steam through three terminal buildings-to arrive at the gate just as the last passengers were boarding a direct flight to Houston. The gate attendant said there was just enough time for him to make a quick phone call before he boarded.

His father answered. Joe blurted out the flight number and the time it was scheduled to arrive in Houston.

When his parents picked him up at the airport, his mother insisted they stop for coffee at an airport restaurant. That was when they told him that they couldn’t talk at home. Or in the car. Just in case the house and car were bugged. They were absolutely certain that their phone was tapped and that they were being followed everywhere they went and were being watched at this very minute.

Bugged? Tapped phones? Being followed? Joe wondered if his parents had gotten senile during his absence.

Then they explained that it had all started with a phone call from Jamie Long.

Their coffee grew cold as they told him about Jamie’s strange calls and how she seemed desperate to get in touch with him. How she behaved as though someone was listening in and wouldn’t say where she was or what sort of trouble she was in. And they told him about the mysterious “agents” who showed up at his grandparents’ house in Georgia in search of information about Jamie, including her relationship with their grandson. His grandparents had called friends in Mesquite and learned that these mysterious agents had been there, too, questioning all sorts of people-wanting to know who Jamie’s close friends had been and implying that she was in some sort of danger and that they were trying to find her so they could protect her. “But the only one who had seen or heard from Jamie since she packed up and drove away from Mesquite was the stonemason at that monument place out by the cemetery,” his mother said. “She had come by sometime in July and ordered a tombstone for her grandmother’s grave and paid him with cash. Everyone says it’s like she dropped off the face of the earth, and since Jamie was adamant that we not tell anyone we’d heard from her, we can’t tell them otherwise. I know you’ve always thought highly of her, Joe. And we are sorry for her, but now that we realize how serious her trouble must be, your father and I don’t want you to get involved.”