Jerome Pierce’s black truck came to a stop wel back from the edge of the cliff. A moment later the red truck pul ed in just behind it and Sam’s grandfather climbed out. With speed and strength that Sean wouldn’t have expected, given his age, Sam Senior stalked toward Pierce’s truck, opened the driver’s door, and, grabbing Pierce by the col ar of his shirt, pul ed him out of the car. The next minute the two men were pushing and shoving, gesticulating.
“Jesus,” said Sam. “Go, Granddad.” They watched for a moment, stil in shock, then Sam reached for the door handle. “I need to go and help him,” he said.
“No,” said Sean. “We have to go, right now.”
Sam stared at him.
“Think about it. If we go, there’s a good chance Pierce wil fol ow.
Your granddad is giving us a head start. And if Pierce thinks there’s a chance we’re going to get away, he can’t do anything too terrible here or he’l go to prison for it. If we get out of the car and go back, then there’s nothing to stop him from pul ing the gun on al three of us. We need to go, Sam.”
“You go. I’m going back.”
“Sam, please.” Sean glanced over his shoulder. “Look,” he said.
Pierce had left Samuel Senior standing in the dirt and was climbing back into his truck. “We have to go. We have to go now.”
Sam hesitated for one more minute, then nodded. Sean drove, expecting al the time that Pierce’s truck would catch them on the road, that the whole wretched process would start al over again. But they didn’t see him again and were left to wonder if Sam Senior had managed to stop him, or if he’d cal ed off the chase. The idea of the latter was less reassuring than it should have been.
“He could cal ahead,” Sam said, when they final y reached the main route and felt safe enough to talk again. “To Yorktown, I mean.
He knows that’s where we’re headed.”
“He could,” Sean said. “But two can play that game. We’re going to change cars before we get there.” He picked up his phone, spirits soaring. They were in this game now, and they were going to win it.
Hannah
NINETEEN
Hannah did sleep, eventual y. She’d fal en asleep sometime after three A.M. and she woke with the sun streaming in through the windows. Slowly, stil a little disoriented, she climbed out of bed and went to the shower. Sometime after midnight she had begun to hatch a plan. She tested the idea in the hard light of day. It was stil deeply risky and probably incredibly stupid, but real y, she didn’t have a choice.
Hannah left Charlottesvil e at eight A.M. and reached Yorktown at ten. She drove down Bal ard Street, away from the courthouse and out through town toward Lafayette Road, where Sam Fitzhugh had said the family home of Sheriff Jerome Pierce was located. She stopped at the hardware store along the way, asked directions, and bought herself a crowbar. They had pay-as-you-go phones behind the cash register and she bought one of those too. Lafayette Road was a short, pretty, tree-lined avenue with beautiful homes. Sam hadn’t mentioned the exact address, so Hannah parked the car, put on her best smile, and knocked on the door of the very first house on the street. An older man—salt-and-pepper hair, handsome—came to the door.
“Help you?” he asked.
“I’m so sorry to bother you. My mom asked me to drop something off at the Pierce house? I was sure I wrote down the address but now I can’t find it. I know it’s on Lafayette Road but I can’t remember . . .”
He didn’t wait for her to finish, just directed her to number 129
and told her to be sure to tel Mindy hel o from him. Hannah smiled her thanks and returned to her car. She drove down the road, found the house, and drove on a little before parking and returning. She pul ed her clothes out of her backpack, replaced them with the crowbar, put the backpack on her back, and set off in the direction of the house. Her hands were shaking. She didn’t al ow herself to slow or hesitate or even think too much about what she was going to do.
When she reached number 129 she stepped over the low fence and walked into the property, hugging the fence line between 129 and number 131. She watched the house. Jerome Pierce would be at the courthouse. His children were grown and moved away, but his wife might be there, watching. There were no cars in the driveway, no sign of movement in the house. Hannah kept walking. Sam had mentioned a workshop. There was a garage, to the front of the property that she’d already passed, but that didn’t feel right. She kept going around the back and spotted it. A smal building at the rear, off to the left of the pool, that looked like a purpose-built studio. It had a pitched roof and weatherboard siding, like a mini-version of the main house. This had to be Jerome Pierce’s man cave, the place where he sat and plotted and admired his good work.