Chapter Twenty-Eight
The way Mark looked at it, facts were what you made of them, and too many cops, even good cops, overlooked facts that stared them in the face.
Mark knew Roland Greer had a twin sister he was separated from.
He’d found her a few times when they were younger, and eventually her name had been changed—probably out of necessity due to Greer’s obsessive behavior.
Some time thereafter, she’d moved to a new city.
Mark looked out the window and gave a deep, long sigh before drawing his eyes back to the highway.
He remembered the Civil War Museum clip that had been shown on the news.
The museum was in Williamsport. Greer’s sister must have been in that clip.
Greer had acted too strangely when he’d seen it.
Mark wasn’t an idiot. He saw the facts. The only questions that remained were, what was Marissa Greer’s new name, and how would he find her?
Mark drove down the ramp of the Williamsport exit at six p.m. and into small town U.S.A.
He drove past the empty McDonald’s parking lot, his stomach growling.
He ignored the reminder to eat and drove on.
A soft spritzing of rain speckled his windshield.
He drove past Byron Memorial Park, slowing, recognizing the gazebo from the newspaper clipping on Roland’s wall. He was in the right place.
He drove along a narrow street, feeling as if he’d stepped back in time.
The houses were all from the nineteen-thirties, with not a new one in sight.
No markets adorned the streets. The town reeked of blue jeans and wife-beater t-shirts.
Rain pelted his windshield, as if it had heard his thoughts and the small town’s sky was revolting. He flicked on the windshield wipers.
Downspouts propped up with poles at the edge of the street ran from each ancient roofline.
Chipped and ratty lattice ran beneath every house.
Three stories high, the houses stood like aged sentinels over the empty streets.
Mark passed a Sheetz gas station and crossed over Artizan Street.
He couldn’t pronounce the next street. The name was too long to catch as he drove by. Conoca-something-or-other.
He stopped at another stoplight. Mark disliked small towns for that very reason—stoplights every hundred feet. The light changed, and he followed the road down the steep incline to the canal.
Mark turned into the gravel parking lot of the canal, and parked his car next to a Dodge Neon with an empty bike rack attached to the trunk.
Wet ride, Mark thought. He turned the car off and looked in the direction of the footpath.
To the right, an umbrella of trees created an inviting trail.
To his left, the footpath widened, with trees on one side and an open field on the other.
Mark leaned forward, watching the Route 11 bridge through the driving rain.
Mark sat back, feeling as if he were chasing his tail.
Something told him this was where he’d find Roland’s sister, but he had no proof.
He was in the right town, now he had to pinpoint Roland’s whereabouts.
This isn’t Maynor, he told himself. He couldn’t be wrong again.