Page 74 of Dead Man's Hollow

“It’s more than four hundred and fifty acres, and there are eight miles of trails.” Maisy recites the statistics automatically.

“That’s a lot of ground to cover.” There’s a whiff of defeat in his statement.

“We’ll split up. We’ll both keep calling Rich’s cell phone. Eventually, one of us will be close enough to hear it ringing. It’ll lead us right to them.” The idea is nonsensical, but she doesn’t want him to lose heart.

Unfortunately, the French-Canadian chef sees right through her cheerleading. “If he has coverage. If his phone isn’t on silent or vibrate. Or dead. Or in the car.”

She shakes her head at herself. “No flies on you, huh, sugar?”

He looks down at his chest, then spreads his arms wide and checks them, too. “No. No flies,” he tells her sincerely.

She howls, laughing until she can’t breathe. He watches her with a concerned expression.

When she can speak again, she explains, “it’s a saying. It means you’re quick on the uptake or clever.”

“What do flies have to do with anything?”

She thinks for a moment. “Well, I suppose it might be because flies tend to land on animals that are slow or sleeping.”

He nods seriously. “Thank you. Understanding and using idioms and figurative language is one of the hardest parts of learning a second language.” After a beat, he says, “Perhaps we should call the police. I’m sure they’ll say it’s premature, but I don’t know how else we’ll ever find them.”

Maisy feels whiplashed by the sudden change of subject. But she can’t fault his focus: the man’s wife is missing, after all. Before she can respond to his suggestion, though, a woman’s scream cuts through the air.

“I said, don’t touch me!” The words are distant and faint but unmistakable. And the voice is unmistakable, too.

“Chloe!” Bastian runs toward the sound with Maisy on his heels.

“I said, don’t touch me!”

Rich is trying hard to keep his temper in check, but this woman, who’s both so familiar to him and a complete stranger, is screaming at him with such venom that spittle flies from her lips. She scrabbles backward like a crab.

He holds up his palms. “Hey, I was just trying to help you up.”

“I don’t want your help,” she spits.

Rich laughs darkly. “Right. That’s what you said that night, too.”

“What?”

“You told me didn’t want my help, didn’t need my help. But you did, and I helped you. I’ve been covering for you for thirty freaking years. All you had to do was stay gone. I can’t believe you were stupid enough to come back here.”

“You’ve been covering for me?” she repeats.

He’s tired of tiptoeing around the subject, waiting for her to admit what she did. “You have to remember killing that kid.”

“Andre Newport?”

“Yeah. Only, I didn’t know his name then.”

“You thinkIkilled Andre?”

“I know you did.”

“You’re wrong,” she tells him.

“I know what I saw, Heather.”

“Stop calling me that.”