There Daniel was, a powerful figure striding along the opposite side of the country road with his back to her. Just as she was checking to go across to get him, the sheriff answered his cell phone.
“Eastwind.”
She let out a breath that she was unaware of holding. “Sheriff … this is Lydia from the WSP. I need your help. I have to see you—”
“I’m out on a call right now, but I can—”
“You’re at Peter Wynne’s. I know.”
The sheriff’s voice dropped in volume. “As a matter of fact I am.”
Hitting the directional signal, Lydia cut over the outgoing lane and pulled in front of Daniel’s path. As he approached, her eyes obsessively inspected him in the rear view mirror—but there were no arterial wounds that she could see. No limping, either. No contusions on his handsome face.
“I need to talk to you,” she said to Eastwind. “Right now.”
“I can come to you when I’m finished here—”
“No, it has to be right now. Farlan’s Lane. Meet me about a quarter mile in from the entrance. I have something … you need to see. Delegate what you’re doing to Anthony or Phil. I need you now.”
Daniel tried to open the door. When it was locked, she fumbled with switches and buttons like she’d never been in the hatchback before.
“All right,” the sheriff said. “I’ll see you there in five minutes. But I don’t have a lot of time.”
Lydia found the unlock button and hit it, a punching sound released inside the car. As she ended the call, she looked over.
Daniel squeezed himself into the passenger seat. Shut his door while he brushed his rain-wet hair back. And then he looked over casually, as if they’d done nothing more strenuous or unusual than drop those invitations at the post office: No bizarre investigation of Peter Wynne’s mysteriously empty and waterlogged house. No spying on the reporter and the cameraman. No strange soldier stalking under that deer stand and Daniel—
“Hi,” he said. In a very chill, how’s-your-day-going tone of voice.
The trembling came over her in a wave, her body vibrating in the seat so badly, she hung on to the wheel. “We have to go back to the deer stand. Eastwind—the sheriff—is meeting us there.”
“Okay, good. You all right to drive?”
“No, I’m not.”
The rain was lashing now, the wipers not keeping up with the deluge. And as they slapped back and forth, she stared out the windshield.
“One step at a time,” he said quietly. “Cut the impossible into pieces.”
“How are you so calm?”
“Just turn us around.”
As a truck came toward them and then passed by, she screwed the twelve thousandth k-turn, and just threw them into reverse. Twisting around and grabbing on to his headrest, she piloted them backward to Farlan’s Lane.
The little cut into the forest came quicker than she expected, and as she took them off onto the twin dirt tracks into the trees, she glanced up at the yellow-and-brown road sign. So official for what her grandfather would have called a goat path.
“What are you going to say when he asks why you didn’t call him at Peter’s?” Daniel asked. “You should be prepared.”
Looking over, she asked a question she feared the answer to. “Have you been in jail?”
“You’ve seen my background check.”
“That’s not a no.”
“I can’t forge my record.” He drummed his fingers on the console like he was frustrated, but she wasn’t sure whether it was with her or himself. “When I was young, I had some issues. Just petty shit. Juvenile detention. Nothing as an adult.”
She nodded and bumped them along. “You just seem like you’ve done this before. With the law, I mean.”
And breaking into a house.
And flattening some guy to the ground.
“Don’t mistake detachment for familiarity.”
They fell silent as she went farther and farther into the property. Overhead, the bare tree branches and spindly pine boughs did little to cut the rainfall so she kept her wipers on. Some distance in, she stopped about where she thought they’d halted the first time. Turning the car off, she popped the hood and got out. As she leaned over the warm engine, Daniel joined her on the other side.
“We need to—”
“If you want to make it look as if we stalled,” he murmured, extending his arm down, “we’ll just do this.”
He pulled out a set of tubing.
“You read my mind,” she muttered as a big set of headlights bumped up and down toward them. “Here he comes. I think I’ll leave the hood up.”
As Daniel just nodded, she pushed her damp hair back. “I’m not used to any of this. And I hate lying.”
“I know you do,” he said.
The Walters Township sheriff’s SUV had front beams that were the new, icy kind, and in the forest, on a cloudy day, they were blinding. Eastwind killed the sting as he cut his engine, and he put his hat on as he got out. The thing had a plastic covering in place, like a shower cap, but the rest of him got as wet as Lydia and Daniel were becoming.