Ethan thanked her and left without taking his change, which amounted to a nearly 300 percent tip.
The waitress followed him outside and waved to him as he walked down the street. “I lied about having a boyfriend!” she called.
Chapter
86
Blaine wore a high and tight, but Ethan knew instantly that he wasn’t military and never had been, though Ethan could imagine him spending a semester in JROTC before being kicked out for smoking a blunt in the school parking lot. He seemed vaguely high now, Ethan thought, or it could’ve been that he was just on the slow side.
He certainly wasn’t interested in acknowledging Ethan’s existence, at least not until Ethan picked out a fishing rod and a messed-up-looking ukulele and set them on the cracked glass of the counter. Ethan watched as Blaine did a quick calculus—shitty rod, busted instrument, out-of-towner—and said, “Hundred.”
Ethan laughed and said, “Twenty-five.”
Blaine grunted his assent.
As Blaine was putting the money in the cash register, Ethan casually asked him what he knew about Rose McCord and who her people were. “I think her stepdad’s name was Clayton.”
Blaine sucked his teeth and said, “Uh-huh, I know him. Clayton Dunning’s a mean sumbitch. Give him half a chance and he’ll knock the pretty right off your face.”
Ethan immediately thought about showing Blaine just who could knock what. But that went against his rule. Don’t start fights, it went, just finish them. So he faked a smile and said, “How about you tell me where I can find him so he can do that for me? I’m sick of being so damn good-looking.”
Blaine snorted. “Nearest hospital’s an hour away.”
Ethan gritted his teeth. The joke was getting old fast. “I need you to tell me where he lives.”
“Yeah, yeah, okay,” Blaine said, coming out from behind the counter. “Just don’t tell him I did.”
Two minutes later, Ethan tossed his purchases into the back seat of the cab and headed northeast out of town. He stayed on the main highway for twenty miles before turning onto a narrow road leading into the woods. As he drove, the road grew narrower and rougher—the kind of road that would’ve rattled Gladys to pieces. Pretty soon it was just a dirt track, and it seemed like the trees were closing in on him from all sides. Feeling claustrophobic, he rolled down the window and breathed in the scent of leaves, moss, and a nearby creek. A rabbit skittered in front of the truck, and Ethan touched his brakes as it disappeared into the woods.
“You’re going to think that you’ve gone too far, and you’re lost,” Blaine had said. “But you won’t be. You’re just supposed to feel like it.”
As he drove, Ethan tried to convince himself that he’d find AnnieLee just up ahead. There were girls she loved and a man she hated living off this road, so it wasn’t so crazy to think she’d be there.
Finally he came to the tree Blaine had told him he’d find, the dead maple with the NO TRESPASSING notices nailed all over it. Two children’s dolls hung from the broken branches, one upside down by her plastic legs and the other by her neck.
“That’s the warning for any trespassers who can’t read,” Blaine had said, laughing. “You have yourself a nice visit.”
Chapter
87
A dog barked as Ethan drove up the dirt track toward the crooked jumble of tar paper and cheap siding that was Clayton Dunning’s house. There were rusting machine parts scattered all over the yard and one incongruously shiny Chevy pickup with a gun rack and a brand-new deer hoist. Weeds grew around a pile of broken beer bottles and through the rigging of a wrecked trampoline.
Shit, Ethan thought. No wonder AnnieLee left.
As he walked toward the house, the front door opened and a man came onto the porch. “Who the hell are you?” he said as he lifted a rifle and pointed it at Ethan.
Ethan stopped in his tracks. He held up his hands a little—not a gesture of surrender, but an indication that he was unarmed. “The name’s Ethan Blake. Clayton Dunning? I’m here because I’m looking for your stepdaughter. For Rose.”
Clayton Dunning squinted at him. He was a bulldog of a man, round and ugly and unsmiling. Behind him, a teenage girl poked her head out of the house, and she looked Ethan up and down with a quick, almost animal curiosity.
“Get back inside,” Clayton said.
“Hey,” Ethan called to her. “You look a little like Rose.”
Surprise flashed over the girl’s face. “Rose? You know her?”