“Right. Good. Guy’s some hotshot with WKPR. Tall, dark, and hair sprayed. Does the evening news. I think they might be living together.”

Wade set down his bottled water and reached into the fridge for a beer. He twisted off the top, tossed it into the sink, and took a long pull. He wasn’t sure why the news stung. Simone had always wanted to make the switch from print to television. God knew she had the looks—not to mention the instincts necessary to claw her way up the food chain.

“You still there, man?”

Wade started. “What? Oh, yeah. Just, you know . . . busy.”

“Oh good. For a minute there, I thought I lost you. So what’s the deal with the book? I know you said you were finally going to finish it. How’s that going?”

“Good,” Wade replied, hating the lie. “Just polishing, you know.”

“Yeah, you were always a polisher. All the i’s dotted, all the t’s crossed. Every word chosen for maximum impact. Killian really screwed up when he let you get away.”

Wade checked his watch, suddenly eager to end the call. “Listen, I’m in a kind of time crunch here with the edits, but anytime you want to come down to the cabin to do a little fishing, you let me know.”

“Phone works both ways, man. I’m here if you need me. I mean it. Anything.”

Wade ended the call, drained what remained of his beer, then promptly reached for another, hoping to drown the memories of his time at Week in Review. Not that it was all bad. In fact, in the beginning it was pretty amazing. The pace had been grueling, but he’d relished the work. He had interviewed POWs and Holocaust survivors; the victims of rape, incest, racism, and mass shootings; the survivors of oil tanker explosions; and wives who lost firefighter husbands when the towers fell on 9/11. And somewhere in there he’d even managed to snag himself a Hearst Award.

But as time went by, the lines between news and sensationalism began to blur, and word came down from on high that human interest was dead. They wanted shock and fear, blood and gore, the gruesome tick-tock of human tragedy, because fear outsold hope and always would.

Things finally reached critical mass when Killian ordered him to interview a survivor from the Crystal Lake Middle School shooting; a twelve-year-old whose mother—a teacher’s aide—had been shot and killed while standing just three feet away. That’s where he had drawn the line and walked away, though not before letting Killian and an entire newsroom full of reporters know exactly what he thought.

It was a habit he had, saying what was on his mind. Usually without thinking before he opened his mouth and frequently in the presence of witnesses. Not that he regretted a word of what he’d said to Killian that day. There were people who needed a dose of truth now and then. Killian was one of them. Stephen Ludlow had been another.

SIX

Clear Harbor, Maine

November 29, 2016

Traffic was virtually nonexistent as Christine pulled onto the highway. Good riddance, she thought as the Rover’s headlights swept past the dirty remnants of yesterday’s snowfall mounded around the guardrail. She didn’t know where she was headed. She only knew there wouldn’t be snow on the ground when she got there.

What she needed was a tiny town in the middle of nowhere, preferably one where they’d never heard of Stephen Ludlow, where she could lay low and take stock of what remained of her life. If only such a place existed. It didn’t of course. The Examiner had seen to that. But with a few days head start, she might be able to disappear until the fervor died down—or some new bit of schadenfreude captured the world’s attention.

In the meantime, she needed to put as much distance as possible between herself and Clear Harbor. The only question was how far she’d be able to go before fatigue and the reality of what she’d done finally caught up with her.

Two hours later, she had her answer. Her eyes had begun playing tricks on her several miles back, and more than once, she’d found herself mesmerized by the strobe effect of the highway’s broken white lines. She had no idea where she was when she finally stopped for gas, but she was glad for the chance to stretch her legs.

She took a chance on the ladies’ room, which reeked of bleach and cherry air freshener, then bought a pair of bottled waters and several packs of Nabs. This wasn’t her first rodeo; she had subsisted for days on nothing but water and peanut butter crackers, and the less she stopped, the less likely she was to be recognized. She wasn’t sixteen anymore, wasn’t flat broke, wasn’t worried about seeing her face on a runaway poster, but somehow the stakes felt just as high. In fact, she’d spent a good portion of the drive dusting off her street smarts. Never use your real name. Pick one alias and stick with it. Cut your hair. Cover any tattoos. Lose the jewelry.

As she pulled back onto the highway, she glanced at her hands on the steering wheel, the ring finger of her left hand conspicuously bare. She’d taken care of the jewelry, at least.

The sun was on the wane when she finally crossed over into Virginia. She had eaten the last pack of crackers sometime around noon, and whatever benefit she’d reaped from the hour of sleep grabbed at a New Jersey rest stop had long since worn off. She needed food and sleep, and she needed them soon. Unfortunately, she hadn’t a clue where she was. Perhaps it was time to pull out the atlas and just pick a destination.

As it turned out, she didn’t need the atlas. She had gone only a few miles when she spotted a billboard for HISTORIC DOWNTOWN SWEETWATER. The name felt familiar, conjuring images of cobbled streets and tiny hole-in-the wall galleries, a quaint inn with a wishing well in back—and Stephen. Without meaning to, she had stumbled onto one of the tiny towns they had visited on their honeymoon.