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“You could send Leo.”

“I could.”

“Carlos, then. Carlos has got nothing going on.”

“Get in the truck.”

He got in the truck. Sling, seat belt, and a running commentary about the height of the step that I have chosen not to record.

Leo swung the gate and leaned in the way he does when he’s decided a conversation is happening. “Clinic?”

“Follow-up on his drain.”

“Isn’t Doc back Friday?”

“Drain doesn’t wait for Friday.”

“Right.” He nodded. Kept nodding. “Right, no. That makes sense.”

“Leo.”

“Yeah?”

“Eighteen months you’ve been on this gate.”

He nodded. “Eighteen months and nine days.”

“You counted.”

“Every Prospect counts, Patch. We just don’t say it out loud.”

I let the truck idle. “Who’s covering you at ten?”

“Brazil. Then Carlos at two, then me again at six.”

“Say it back to me without thinking about it.”

“Brazil at ten, Carlos at two, me at six.” He didn’t even blink. “Yankee’s back from Arkansas, Breaker’s in from Memphis, everybody’s accounted for except you two, and you’re going out.”

First time in eighteen months the kid had given me the whole board without being walked through it.

“Good,” I said and pulled through before he could get his face under control.

County 9 went by in the dark.

“You’re not going to ask,” Freak said, somewhere around the halfway point.

“Ask what?”

“Why I stepped in front of him. Fox asked. Brazil asked twice. You haven’t.” He shifted against the door. “Which means you’ve already decided what the answer is, and you’re letting me sit with it, and I’d like it on record that I know exactly what you’re doing.”

“Noted.”

He was quiet for eight or nine miles.

“She’s going to ask me how I’m sleeping,” he said. “And I’m going to lie.”

“She’ll know.”