Page 60 of I Will Find You

“Let me be, Sarah, okay?”

“It’s gross.”

“It helps me think.”

Sarah sighed.

“So what’s our working theory?”

“Burroughs escapes with the help of Philip and Adam Mackenzie,” Sarah began.

“We are sure the Mackenzies are in it?”

“I think we are.”

“I think we are too,” Max said. “Continue.”

“Burroughs gets out of the warden’s car in the underground parking garage at the outlet center. He calls Rachel Anderson, who is waiting for his call at the Nesbitt Station Diner. Rachel drives over to the outlet center. With me so far, Max?”

“Yep. Keep going.”

“She meets up with Burroughs. Burroughs gets in her car.”

“And then?”

“They head up north. We have that last phone ping.”

“Which is odd.”

“How so?”

“Why turn the phone off then?” Max asked. “Why not earlier?”

“If she turns it off at the outlet center, we would know that’s where she went.”

Max frowned. “Yeah, I guess, maybe.”

“But?”

Max shook it off. “Go on.”

“They keep driving to that general store—”

“The Katahdin General Store,” Max added, “in Millinocket.”

“Right, where he buys the survival gear. Based on the traffic patterns and timeline I put together, I’d say she had time to drive him farther north for another half hour or so. Either way, Rachel drops Burroughs off in some heavily wooded area. We have copters and dogs covering it, but the area is black-hole vast.”

“And then?”

Sarah shrugged. “And then that’s it.”

“So what’s Burroughs’s plan now?”

“I’m not sure, Max. Maybe he plans to hide in the national parks. Wait us out. Maybe he plans to sneak across the border into Canada.”

Max worked the fingernail hard.

“You don’t buy it,” Sarah said.