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didn’t stay long. He invited us to dinner, but then he didn’t show up. Do you know where he went?”
    â€œI lost him during the afternoon. He began to wander around in all those woods east of Warner Pier. I didn’t dare follow too closely, and I got all confused.”
    Joe grinned. “Did the trees scare you?”
    Tess looked puzzled, and I smiled back at Joe as I answered. “The part of Texas where Tess grew up has lots of trees. It’s only a plains person like me who’s scared of them. Go on, Tess.”
    She still looked puzzled, but she continued her story. “I finally gave up and came back to Warner Pier. I was watching the tracker on my phone, and it came back to town, too. Then Jeff went down Lake Shore Drive. I thought he was coming here, to your house.”
    â€œNo sign of him here,” I said.
    â€œHis car was parked someplace around here for at least an hour. Then it moved back to the area east of Warner Pier, according to the tracking device. And it didn’t move again. I looked all around over there, and I didn’t find anything likely. I finally decided he’d found the bug and tossed it in the bushes. I had to get a motel in Holland and try again this morning.”
    â€œBut the bug is still working?” I asked.
    Tess nodded. “The location of the bug hasn’t changed, and this afternoon I decided I’d try again, make one more effort to track him down. And all that happened was that y’all had to rescue me. I went to the area indicated, but I couldn’t find him.”
    Joe leaned forward. “Was that the end of Big Pine Road?”
    â€œThat’s how I interpreted the information. But it’s just woods out there. There are no roads, no houses. Nothing.”
    â€œYou ran into the border of a state forest,” Joe said absently. “Let me look at your tracker.”
    Tess dug her smartphone out of her purse, and she showed Joe how the app operated. Joe looked it over. “It seems to be working,” he said.
    â€œI probably did something wrong,” Tess said.
    â€œShow me.”
    She demonstrated how she had operated the tracker app. Joe frowned. “That looks right to me,” he said. “I’m going to ask Hogan about this.”
    Joe went into the bedroom to call Hogan. He apparently was told to bring the gadget over. At least he came out of the bedroom and walked swiftly out the back door, headed for his truck. He yelled over his shoulder, “I want to get over to Hogan’s before dark!”
    I hobbled right after him. “Joe! Joe! What’s going on?”
    He jumped into the truck and rolled down the window. “Hogan wants to take a look at the tracker right now, Lee.”
    â€œWhy the hurry? We know Jeff’s not out there.”
    â€œHogan’s afraid he is.”
    â€œHow could that be?”
    â€œIf I’m reading it right, then the tracker
is
out at the end of Big Pine Road. It could mean Jeff ran off the road. Or something. Or maybe nothing, Lee. It may be perfectly all right.”
    I stood back, almost stunned, and Joe spoke again. “You keep an eye on Tess,” he said. Then the truck dug out of our drive, throwing gravel behind it.
    He left me scared to death.
    Joe had stimulated my imagination with thoughts I didn’t like. If the bug was working correctly Jeff was—well, lost in the woods.
    Of course, Jeff really might have found the bug and tossed it into the bushes at the end of Big Pine Road. But if he hadn’t done that—well, the logical conclusion was terrifying.
    It would mean something had happened to Jeff.
    Jeff’s car might be in one of the most remote and heavily wooded parts of Warner County. And it could be in a situation where it wasn’t easily seen from the road. If it were, Tess would have spotted it.
    I imagined Jeff’s car in a ravine, hidden by trees and bushes. I pictured it upside down in a creek.