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“You think Alex will find what he’s looking for down there?” Pinkie asked.
Bree glanced at the big man, who seemed sincerely concerned.
“I hope so,” she said. “But to be honest, Pinkie, I don’t think Alex knows exactly what he’s looking for. Closure, I guess.”
“Does that happen?” Pinkie asked. “I mean, I never really knew my dad. Died when I was pretty young. Still, I think about him, and there’s nothing closed about it.”
Sydney Fox’s ex came out of the liquor store. Bree started the Taurus. She let Davis get ahead of her in light traffic, then pulled out and followed as he headed south out of Starksville. Two miles beyond the town boundary, the Bronco took a right onto a dirt road that wound up into the forest.
“Takes you up to Stark Lake,” Pinkie said. “There won’t be much traffic to hide in.”
“But there will be people up there?” she asked.
“Sure, summer vacationers and all. Campers at the state park.”
“Colored folk?”
“That too.”
“Then we’ll take our chances,” Bree said. She waited until Finn’s taillights disappeared into the trees before turning in after him.
Stark Lake did not resemble its name. The forest was lush all around it. Cabins dotted the shore; they were nothing like Marvin Bell’s place, but they were nice, well maintained. Bree drove along slowly, as if she were following directions, and peered down every driveway looking for the Bronco.
The road ahead cut hard right into a hairpin around a narrow cove.
“Stop,” Pinkie said. “Back up and turn around as if you’re lost.”
“You see him?” Bree said, braking the car to a stop.
“Turning into a cottage on the other side of that cove,” Pinkie said as she threw the car in reverse, U-turned, and drove away around a bend. “Pull in ahead there and kill your lights.”
Bree backed into the driveway of a dark cabin. They got out and ran to a stand of trees opposite that hairpin around the narrow cove. The water was no more than forty yards across and she had a good look at the cottage and the Bronco. No movement. No sound.
The cottage was nice, newer and more modern than the other places she’d seen on the lake so far. It wasn’t as nice as Marvin Bell’s, but it was still a trophy house by most people’s standards, certainly Bree’s.
A girl of nine, maybe ten, came out onto a wraparound porch that faced the water. Finn Davis came out on the porch after her. He was followed by a second man that Bree couldn’t see well. She raised her binoculars as the man turned to shake Davis’s hand, and she recognized him.
“Sonofabitch,” Bree whispered.
“What?” Pinkie said.
“Wait,” Bree said, staring through the binoculars to be sure it wasn’t a trick of the light on the porch.
No trick. That was Detective Guy Pedelini smiling and taking an envelope from Finn Davis. He tucked it nonchalantly in his pants pocket before putting his arm around the girl, whom Bree took to be one of Pedelini’s daughters. Davis headed for the Bronco.
Bree kept her attention on Detective Pedelini, saw his smile evaporate the second Finn Davis climbed into his vehicle. The detective and his daughter went back inside the cottage.
“Jesus,” Bree said, turning to run back to their car.
“What’s going on?” Pinkie demanded, huffing along beside her.
“That expensive cottage belongs to Guy Pedelini, the one man in Starksville that Alex and I thought was straight, and now it looks like he’s on the take from Finn Davis and probably Marvin Bell,” Bree said. “He’s also the cop who found Rashawn Turnbull and the detective investigating the drugs Marvin Bell’s niece planted on Jannie.”
“Fuck. Some things never change about Starksville.” Pinkie panted as headlights flashed back along the cove. “You can’t trust anyone but family.”
Davis’s headlights were coming closer. Bree and Pinkie skidded to a stop behind a big pine tree fifty feet from the rental. Finn Davis drove on by.
They ran to the Taurus, jumped in. Bree fired up the car, kept the headlights off, and drove out of the driveway and after Davis.
