Excerpt of Included!

John Hartaside and spread out the maps. One was large scale and showed the countywhere it nestled into eastern North Carolina, not quite in the sand hills, notquite in the piedmont or the flood plains; two hours from Raleigh, maybe anhour from the coast. The northern part of the county was rough country:forest and swamp and a thirty- mile jut of granite where they used to tunnelfor gold. The river came down from the north and bisected the county, passingwithin a few miles of town. To the west was dark soil, perfect for vineyardsand farms, and to the east were the sand hills, which boasted a crescentof high- end golf courses, and, beyond that, a long string of small, poor townsthat barely managed to survive. Johnny had been through some of them, andremembered weeds that grew from the gutters, shuttered plants and packagestores, staved- in men who sat in the shade and drank from bottles in brownpaper bags. Fifty miles past the last of the failed towns, you hit Wilmingtonand the Atlantic Ocean. South Carolina was a foreign country beyond the edgeof the paper.Johnny tucked the big map back into the folder. The rest of the maps detailedthe streets in town. Red ink marked a number of streets, small Xmarks over individual addresses. Notes in his handwriting lined the margins.Some neighborhoods were still untouched; a few were crossed off completely.He looked at the western side of town, wondering what part of itJack had been talking about. He’d have to ask him. Later.Johnny studied the map for a few more seconds, then folded it and set itaside. Alyssa’s things went back into the case and the case back under the bed.He picked up the large photo and slipped a red pen into his back pocket.He was through the front door and about to lock it when the van turnedinto his driveway. Paint peeled from the hood in uneven patches; the rightfront fender was banged up and rusted. It slewed into the driveway with ashudder, and Johnny felt something like dismay. He turned his back, rolledup the map, and shoved it into the pocket that held the pen. He kept thephoto in his hand so that it would not get wrinkled. When the van stopped,Johnny saw a flash of blue through the glass; then the window came down.The face behind it was unusually pale and bloated.“Get in,” the man said.Johnny stepped off the stoop and crossed the small patch of grass andweed. He stopped before he got to the edge of the drive. “What are you doinghere, Steve?”24