‘Yep. Okay.’
There seemed to be nothing more to say, so Nathan waited as McKenna got into the police car and drove away. He watched until it was small, then walked back up the slope to the others.
‘What are those?’ Xander was looking at the cards in Nathan’s hand, and Nathan passed them out. Bub rolled his eyes.
Harry was looking out to the west, his expression its usual mask once more. ‘I want to go home along the tracks. Stop by the grave on the way.’
‘There’s nothing to see,’ Bub said.
‘Still.’ Harry slipped the helpline card into his pocket, Nathan noticed.
They all looked at Cameron’s car.
‘Who wants to drive it back?’ Bub asked, and there was a silence.
‘We’ll do it,’ Nathan said with a glance at Xander, who nodded.
‘All right.’ Harry turned to head down the slope to his car. ‘Stick close. Just in case Cam did have some sort of engine trouble.’
‘No worries.’ It was clear none of them really believed that.
As Bub followed Harry down the slope, Nathan untied the police tape from Cameron’s door handles and climbed in. The driver’s seat was worn smooth, and he reached down and raked it back and forth until it was the right distance from the pedals.Its contours felt unfamiliar, having been broken in by his brother’s lighter frame. Nathan adjusted the rear-view mirror and saw his own eyes reflected back at him. They looked enough like Cam’s to make him look away.
‘Harry knew where to turn.’ Xander’s voice was quiet from the passenger seat.
‘What?’
‘He knew.’ He nodded at Harry’s car. ‘On the way here. He knew which track led through the rocks to Cam’s car.’
‘Because Bub told him. I heard him.’
‘No. Bub said it after Harry had already started the turn.’
‘No.’ Nathan tried to picture it. ‘It was before.’ Wasn’t it? He’d been lost in his own thoughts at the time, not paying attention. ‘Anyway, Harry knew where the car was. He’d been told.’
‘I know. But you and I knew yesterday, and we still missed it. We’d even been here once with Bub and we still got it wrong when we drove the other cop out. How did Harry know which gap to take?’
‘Because he knows this whole area like the back of his hand. He knows it as well as anyone. He would have been able to guess.’
At the bottom of the slope, Harry’s car roared to life. Nathan shook his head and turned Cameron’s keys. The car started perfectly, as it had yesterday. Slowly, with his foot poised on the brake, he eased the car into motion and began to follow Harry and Bub towards the grave. Harry stuck to the fence line, retracing the journey they’d made the day before. Nathan could see shadowy heads moving in the car in front as the two men spoke to each other.
‘He would’ve just worked it out,’ Nathan said again.
‘Yeah,’ Xander said finally. He slumped back in his seat. ‘Yeah, probably. Sorry. It’s been a weird couple of days.’
‘I know.’
Harry’s car started to pull ahead and Nathan pressed the accelerator to keep up. He couldn’t see Harry and Bub moving anymore. Perhaps they’d said everything they wanted to say. Nathan watched the car pull further away and felt a tiny prickle. Like the start of a rash, small and manageable but the wrong side of comfortable. He told himself to damp it down. This was Uncle Harry. Nathan had known the man literally his entire life. If anyone could read the land, it was Harry. It was not unreasonable at all that he could make an educated guess.
Still, a tiny voice whispered in Nathan’s ear. It was a big land, and it was a good guess.
Chapter 10
Cameron’s abandoned food was starting to smell in the back and Nathan wound down the window a crack.
‘We could dump it,’ Xander said, clearly thinking the same thing.
‘Yeah.’ Nathan nodded, but didn’t slow down. The stuff in the back was Cameron’s survival gear. For reasons he couldn’t quite articulate, it felt strangely reckless to discard any of it now.
