She got out, looked toward the two cars, and saw not a soul. Maybe someone had picked the drivers up, but more likely they’d gone up to the restaurant. Julie doubted if they’d find much there; it had been closed down since the previous September. Julie herself had often stopped at Mile 81 for a TCBY cone, but these days made her snack-stop twenty miles north, at Damon’s in Augusta.

She went around to the trailer and her new horse — DeeDee by name — poked her nose out. Julie stroked it. “Soo, baby, soo. This’ll just take a minute.”

She opened the doors so she could get at the locker built into the trailer’s left side. DeeDee decided this would be a fine time to exit the vehicle, but Julie restrained her with one beefy shoulder, once again murmuring “Soo, baby, soo.”

She unlatched the locker. Inside, sitting on top of the tools, were a few road flares and two fluorescent-pink mini traffic cones. Julie hooked her fingers into the hollow tops of the cones (no need for flares on an afternoon that was slowly beginning to brighten). She closed the locker and latched it, not wanting DeeDee to step a hoof in and maybe hurt herself. Then she closed the back doors. DeeDee once more poked her head out. Julie didn’t really believe a horse could look anxious, but DeeDee sort of did.

“Not long,” she said, then placed the traffic cones behind the trailer and headed for the two cars.

The Prius was empty but unlocked. Julie didn’t particularly care for that, given the fact that there was a suitcase and a fairly expensive-looking briefcase in the backseat. The driver’s door of the old station wagon was hanging open. Julie started toward it, then stopped, frowning. Lying on the pavement beside the open door was a cell phone and what just about had to be a wedding ring. There was a big crack zigzagging up the phone’s casing, as if it had been dropped. And on the little glass window where the numbers appeared — was that a drop of blood?