"Go back to the house and stay where he can find you if he comes home," Jonah said. "I'll check the creek path from this side. If we don't find him immediately, we call for help."
"The storm's getting worse."
"I know. I'm already moving."
Megan disliked being told to wait, but she returned to the house because she understood the sense in Jonah's plan. She left the porch light on and the kitchen door unlocked. The casserole sat untouched on the stove, the oven switched off long ago. She looked at the plate she had set out for Eli and felt an irrational surge of anger at the ordinary way it waited for him.
For three years she had done this alone. Her husband's departure had arrived first as a separation, then a promise of a conversation, then a long silence that became a new reality without either of them agreeing that it should. Eli's father sent money occasionally and called when guilt overcame distance, but he had not once been present when a school bus was late or a fever rose in the night. Megan had learned to keep herself steady because a frightened child needed somebody who could answer questions. Tonight, for the first time in a long while, she found herself unable to answer the question that mattered most.
Where was her boy?
She stood at the kitchen window and watched rain sweep across the empty yard. She told herself that he might already be sheltering somewhere. She told herself that Jonah knew those trails. She imagined Eli sitting under the hardware store awning with Rascal pressed against his leg, waiting for the weather to pass. She wanted very badly to believe the ordinary explanation because the alternatives were too large to hold in a room with one light over the stove.
On the Iron Hollow ridge, the rear entrance light had disappeared. Boone could no longer see the person moving near the platform. Rain obscured the view, and the storm had made even the nearest trees seem distant. Ronan asked him exactly where the light had been and whether he had seen a face. Boone said he had not. He could only confirm that somebody carrying a flashlight had approached the hidden access from outside.
"Could be one of the rescue crews," Cutter suggested.
"They haven't reached the property," Mara said. "And anyone responding would use the road and the main entrance."
Ronan glanced toward the windows, where the final club members were waiting. The building was too dangerous to defend and too compromised to investigate without specialized help. Every good decision pointed toward evacuation, but an unknown person at the entrance meant that the equipment might be accessed again before everyone reached safety.
"We stay on the evacuation," Ronan said. "Cutter, send the description to Hamish. Tell him there may be an intruder returning to the systems room. And if you can reach dispatch, ask them to keep people away from the north passage as well."