He’s guiding me, he thought. Owen’s guiding me.
He didn’t know how, but he felt confident in it, had a strange assurance that this was the right route, that it would lead him to Paul.
The wind picked up as he drove under the cypress grove, and a piece of Spanish moss drifted down in a lazy arc and landed in the passenger seat beside him. It was just past one now but so dark it felt like dusk. The arrival of the Cuban boat was still eight hours away. If it showed up at all. He had a feeling it would not, that word would have been passed somehow, and everything Barrett and the others waited for would not transpire.
Rebecca was on this same road, somewhere well ahead of him. She would have a few hours at least before they began to look for the truck.
And then I’ll catch up with her, he tried to think, but a single glance in the rearview mirror revealed the smoke in his eyes.
He would not see her again.
It was an agonizing thought. He’d never feared death. Had, at times in his life, longed for it. But those were in days past, days before her.
It was right for him to bear such a loss, though. It was needed. He thought of how he’d laid his hands on Owen Cady’s shoulders and looked into his dead eyes and heard his voice so clearly, heard the truth from him, and he remembered his boyhood trip down to the Fayette County sheriff and the way his father’s blood had pooled in the dust, and he knew that all things circled back in time. You paid for your sins, and he would pay for his today.
As he drove down the road, he reached into the backseat and moved one of the rifles up front with him, braced it against his leg with the barrel pointed down and the stock and trigger close at hand.
The car drove beautifully; Solomon Wade had a fine taste in machines. Arlen was holding it close to seventy. Twice he passed other cars moving at half that speed, saw drivers lift hands in annoyance and surprise, and blew by them and continued on. He’d gone at least five miles headed due north, passing two intersections without much pause, certain somehow that they held no significance, before he reached a four-way and again found himself turning left without thought or reason. The pavement soon disappeared and he banged onto a dirt road. The water from the previous night’s rains had not drained well here, and he splashed through deep puddles and spun the tires through soft mud. Thunder rippled to the south, but there was no lightning and the wind was still. He tried to keep the speed up, but the road was deeply pocked and rutted, and he was afraid he’d rattle the wheels right off the car. He felt one solitary raindrop find his forehead as the road narrowed into what looked like a thin green tunnel. The strange bird-of-paradise plants pressed close, their wide green fronds stretching toward the sky in search of sunlight.
“Where am I going?” he said aloud, hoping for an answer, hoping that Owen’s voice might reach him even here. There was nothing but silence, though. The road wound on and on, and no sign of humanity existed, just that green jungle.
He’d believed in each move he’d made in the car, believed that the dead man was guiding him, but what if that was all a foolish trick of the mind and he was driving away from Paul? His doubt grew as the road led him farther into the woods and farther from anyplace he knew, and he dropped the speed off again so the car was moving at a crawl and began to consider turning around. The road was so damn narrow that such a feat would be difficult. There were tire tracks in the mud and hoofprints from horses, but what did that prove? Only that someone had come this way; it didn’t have to be the McGraths.
A stretch of muddy water showed through the trees then, a creek winding into the woods. Arlen studied it, saw that while it was narrow it was also deep, and remembered the boat from the inlet the day he’d been up repairing the roof just after the hurricane. Tate McGrath. And Owen had said the McGraths emerged from the inlet today.
“It’s the right place,” he said. “You’re getting me there, aren’t you?”
Again, no answer. He wished he could hear him, or at least feel him, know that he wasn’t making this ride alone, but there was nothing. He had to take it on faith, had to believe, and the sight of the water made that easier.
He drove on, and a rickety wooden bridge appeared ahead. It was many years old. Arlen wasn’t sure it could even support the weight of the car, but then his eyes drifted ahead and what he saw made that concern vanish.
There was a car coming his way. It had just rounded a bend well ahead of him and was approaching the bridge, driving at a slow speed. Arlen pushed the brake all the way down and stayed where he was, watching it come on. When it passed out of the shadows and took on enough clarity, he recognized it—the county sheriff’s car. Tolliver.