Ethan led them along the edge of the Sweet Onion River, through lush water reeds, to a narrow slice of water only ten feet wide, with black stepping stones that he himself had laid fifteen years before, for a dry crossing. “Okay, Joanna, you go first, then Autumn. I’ll come across last.”

“Why don’t we pick up the black rocks so they won’t know where we’ve crossed?”

He said simply, “I want them to know.”

Joanna looked at his rifle, then back up at his face.

When they reached the other side of the river, Ethan pulled out his cell and dialed Savich. “We won’t have service for much longer.”

Two rings, then, “Savich.”

“Ethan here. Grace sprang Blessed. If you want the full story, call Ox. Joanna, Autumn, and I are heading into Titus Hitch Wilderness, a place I know better than you know Washington.”

“We just left the Backmans’ place. No bodies to be found, so they moved them. Do you want us back there?”

“You can’t get to us out here any more easily than they can,” Ethan said. “It has to end, Savich. I hope to end it here.”

“He can’t stymie me, Ethan.”

“There’s no time.”

“Can you get a distance shot?”

Ethan grinned into his cell. “Exactly what I’m hoping for. We’re going to keep moving and then camp for the night. If we don’t run across them, I’m planning to lead Joanna and Autumn out across the north boundary in the morning.”

“Have you called your deputies in after you?”

“No. I thought about that, but I want the only one trailing us to be Blessed. I don’t want to take the chance he’d stymie my deputies. Call Ox and let him know, will you? We’ve got to move.”

There was a pause, then, “Good luck, Ethan.”

Ethan pocketed his cell phone, then turned to Joanna and Autumn. “Either of you need to rest, you just holler, okay? We’re going to be going through some pretty rough terrain. I’m the only one without good footwear.” He kicked a stone with the toe of his low-heeled boots. “Your sneakers will be fine. Stay close. We’ve got a ways to go before we get to Locksley Manor.”

One of Joanna’s eyebrows went up. “Robin Hood’s house?”

“You’ll see,” Ethan said, and took the lead.

He pictured Mr. Spalding hanging in that tree, the bear ripping him down. He had no intention of ending up like him. He prayed they wouldn’t run into hikers. He prayed harder that any hikers didn’t get close to Blessed and Grace.

They walked a few hundred yards on narrow trails until Ethan hooked off-trail to the right, and they walked, always upward, through thick brush dotted with brilliant daisies and jasmine.

45

BRICKER’S BOWL, GEORGIA

Late Wednesday afternoon

“We need to go back to Titusville, Dillon. We can’t leave Ethan on his own, even if he asked us to.”

“We’ll be on a flight this evening, Sherlock,” Savich said, and turned the Camry onto the main road, heading east from Bricker’s Bowl. “Right now I’ve got a surprise for you.”

“Anything to make this headache go away.”

“How about MAX found the address of the Children of Twilight?”

“He’s been working on that for days. You’re not kidding me?”

He shook his head. “Nope, got it.”

“Oh, yeah, that’ll do it.” She snapped her fingers. “Headache’s gone in four-point-five seconds. How did MAX find out where they’re located?”

“Whistler’s mother.”

She punched him in the arm.

He grinned. “MAX couldn’t find any property in Caldicot Whistler’s name, so we dug into Caldicot Whistler’s antecedents, his father, then his mother. Father’s dead, so is the mother, but I had him do a property search within a hundred-mile radius of Bricker’s Bowl, flag anything that might be suspect. He finally found a good-sized property hidden within two holding companies, the first under the proprietary name of the second. That second company’s name was listed as C. W. Huntingdon, Limited. The initials C.W.—as in Caldicot Whistler—triggered MAX’s algorithm, and he went for it. Underneath all the layers, MAX discovered the property actually belonged to Mrs. Agatha Whistler as sole trustee. She inherited it from her husband when he died some fifteen years ago. Although the trust isn’t in the public record, it must have been passed to Caldicot when she died only last year at the age of eighty-five years. Caldicot is her only surviving child, now age fifty-two. Her other child was much older and is also dead.