As soon as he answers, Julia barks, “Who hacked my technology?”

“Excuse me?”

“Someone hacked Turlington’s TruGlass earlier today while you were with him.”

“And did what?”

“We’re still sorting that out. They sent him a text message through the device while he was meeting with you; then as soon as you left they started looping footage to throw us off the scent. Your people missed the first contact, and then my people found the hack. Now your guys are telling me they’ve ID’d inconsistencies that prove parts of the past few hours were looped.”

Cole remembers the sudden splitting headache Noah seemed to undergo right as he was leaving. Is that what Noah was reacting to? An unexpected text message inside his eye?

“Continuously?” he asks.

“Intermittently, it looks like.”

“So you’re telling me my coverage of Noah has gaps in it?”

“I’m telling you someone on your end hacked my tech! Worry about your ex-boyfriend later.”

“Who hacked your tech?” He’s thinking of their old business partners, Stephen and Philip, and the suspicious one-month delay before they can meet.

“We don’t know! Your digital services team just told me about some independent contractor none of them have met, and they don’t even know what he does or where he’s based. Or if it’s a he. Is this person behind this?”

To Scott, Cole says, “Contact the ranch right now and make sure they’ve secured Noah Turlington. I want human eyes on him at all times until further notice. His TruGlass has been compromised.”

Scott pulls out his cell phone and starts dialing.

In Cole’s ear, Julia says, “We’re Fort Knox around here, Cole! My only exposure here are the feeds I run to your team.”

“I’m handling this, Julia.”

“You better because if I—”

He hangs up on her. “I want Noah in a closet with at least three guns in his face until we figure out what the hell’s going on. And if he hasn’t already figured out his blood trackers are weaponized, let him know. In no uncertain terms.”

When the exit for 198 East appears, Charley turns hard to the right.

In another few seconds, she’s speeding west, up a dark road that travels through rolling hills dotted with the occasional oak tree. It’s beautiful, open country—by day. At night, it’s dark and desolate. If she keeps going, she’ll have to wind her way through the deep folds of the scrubby mountains that lie between here and the Great Central Valley, and she’ll probably lose cell service while she’s doing it.

“What am I looking for?” she asks.

“After three miles, there’s a distance to Coalinga sign. About a minute later, if you’re going around fifty miles per hour, you’ll come to a drainage ditch that runs under the road. It’s a short little pass, not a major bridge or anything. As soon as you cross it, pull to the shoulder and park.”

A few minutes later it all appears exactly as he said it would.

When she kills the engine, the sudden silence feels like a weight that pushes in on all sides of her. In another second, the headlights wink out. Her eyes begin adjusting to the darkness. The parcels on either side of the twisting two-lane blacktop are massive; their fences enclose grassy hills and the occasional lone farmhouse and barn.

“Parked,” she says.

“Do you have a flashlight?”

“I do. Is there anything else I’m going to need? Or will that be a surprise, too?”

“A flashlight and some short-term memory will do fine.”

She pops the trunk. A pickup blows past her so fast, she realizes the driver probably didn’t even see her parked on the shoulder. From the earthquake emergency kit Luke put together for her, she pulls out a halogen-bulbed flashlight. It’s slender as an ink pen, but it shines something fierce.

“Ready,” she says.

“Walk back to the drainage ditch and then into the drain pipe where it runs under the road.”

“Into it?”

“Yes. It’s winter, so you won’t need to worry about snakes.”

“I’m not afraid of snakes. I’m afraid of you.”

“Still?”

The ditch isn’t terribly deep, certainly not as deep as the arroyo where she used to do target practice behind her place in Arizona. She descends the grassy bank by occasionally reaching out and gripping the side of it that’s level with her shoulder. With her other hand, she angles the flashlight so that it floods the bottom of the ditch with light. Maybe her former psychiatrist got the details confused, or maybe he’s forgotten. What passes under the road isn’t a ditch, really; it’s a culvert. And at this hour, it looks like the great yawning mouth of a subterranean beast.

Fear dances up her spine, sends chills along the tops of her shoulders.

Being alone in the dark like this is not something she’s done since she experienced Zypraxon’s power, and the return of what feels like an old, childish fear first annoys, then paralyzes her.

“Charley?”

“I’m going. I’m going.”

When she steps up and into the culvert’s mouth, she knocks the flashlight against the rim by accident. A wavery metallic gong echoes through the culvert’s run.