Tuck had grown older since Cole last saw him. His beard was mostly gray now, and the lines beside his mouth had deepened into something that looked less like age than long practice at withholding opinions. Briggs was still broad-shouldered and solemn, with hands like pieces of rough timber and a jaw that had healed crooked after an accident years earlier. The two men stood just inside the door, making no effort to remove their helmets until Cole reached them.
"Outside," Cole said.
Tuck glanced toward Mara's booth. He saw Eli looking back at them, the boy's photograph held against his chest. Something moved behind Tuck's tired expression. He nodded once, pushed the door open, and followed Cole out. Briggs came last, letting the door close softly behind him as though he were trying not to disturb anyone.
Rain had dwindled to a fine mist that settled on the gravel and the parked motorcycles. A single yellow lamp above the entrance lit the three men unevenly. The night was quiet enough for Cole to hear the sheriff's cruiser idling at the far end of the lot and the rattle of a loose sign above the diner window.
"How'd you find me?" Cole asked.
"We weren't tracking you directly," Tuck replied. He took a cigarette from a damp pack and held it between his fingers without lighting it. "Cain put your name out on the circuit. Three days ago. Said if anyone saw you, he needed to know."
"Cain doesn't send messages unless he wants something."
"He wants you at the old equipment building off Haramman Road tomorrow."
"Why?"
Tuck looked at Briggs. Briggs kept his eyes on the gravel. Cole had seen that exchange before, during difficult meetings when a question had only one answer and nobody was prepared to say it first.
"There's movement on the Rowan matter," Tuck said finally.
Cole felt his body become completely still. "Don't call him a matter."
"All right. There is new information about Evan."
"New to whom?"
A slow silence followed. Tuck finally lit the cigarette. He stared at the flame a second longer than necessary, then snapped the lighter closed. "Cain's been sitting on information for years. Something changed recently, and he wants to speak to you before it goes anywhere else."
"How many years?"
"Cole—"
"Tell me how many."
Tuck looked up. "Since the beginning."
The words did not produce the explosion Tuck seemed to expect. Cole simply turned toward his bike and walked to it. He placed one hand against the cool handlebar grip and looked out at Route 9 while a semitrailer swept past in the rain. There was a period in which his mind refused to accommodate the information. He had spent eight years telling himself that Evan disappeared because two friends failed to hold on to each other. If Cain had known what happened all along, then the private guilt that governed so much of Cole's life had been maintained by someone who could have corrected it.
"He knew," Cole said without turning.
"Yes."