“Uh-huh. And did you happen to notice that the one motel we passed looks an awful lot like the sort that would have Norman Bates behind the desk?”

“I noticed. Though I thought of it as your typical small-town no-tell motel.” Miranda shrugged. “And we both know it may not matter. If this victim fits the pattern, then where he was found is only a small piece of the puzzle. In which case we won’t be staying here long.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure about that.”

She looked at him, her own brows rising.

“Hunch,” he explained. “We’re only about thirty miles away from The Lodge, as the crow flies, and there were a lot of unnatural goings-on there for a very long time.”

“You and Diana put that to rest,” Miranda reminded him. { see }

“Well, we—she, mostly—put part of it to rest. Hopefully the worst part. But that doesn’t mean we got it all.”

“It’s been a year,” she reminded him.

“Yeah, to the month. Hell, almost to the day. Which I’m finding more than a bit unsettling.”

Miranda Bishop was not in the habit of discounting either a hunch or an uneasy feeling expressed by someone around her, especially by a fellow team member, and she didn’t start now. “Okay. But, so far, nothing leads us in the direction of The Lodge. No connection to the place or to anyone there, not that we’ve found.”

“I know. Wish I could say that reassured me, but it doesn’t.”

“Do you want to drive over to The Lodge, take a look around?”

“If anybody goes, it should be someone with a fresh eye and no baggage,” Quentin answered, so promptly that she knew the question had been on his mind for a while. “And probably a medium, given the age and… nature of the place.”