It got steeper and began to wind and went on climbing. The moon rose, a full moon, misty and enormous, sometimes in the windshield, sometimes at the window as the road switchbacked. The moonlight shone on the standing pines, on a forest that seemed to go on forever all around me, vanishing from sight in the deep shadow that closed over the distance. I kept driving, up the hill.I figured there’d be a place at the end of the road. I figured Stark would be waiting there. He’d be waiting for the car, expecting it. He’d be expecting the thug to bring me to him. I figured when he saw the car, he would think I was the thug and come out to greet me. I figured that’s when I would shoot him and put an end to this. That was my plan anyway.The road crested suddenly and I saw the cabin, just as I’d figured. But it looked empty. There were no lights on. It was just a black shape in the moonlit mist: a rustic one-story house stretched against what looked like the edge of a cliff. I had been wrong then.
