CHAPTER 37
TOPPER’S JEEP WAS the only car on the road. The blacktop crossed over the sparsely populated peninsula, passing through small communities and clusters of roadside concerns. Topper saw a beauty parlor, a tiny real estate office, a drive-through coffee shack, and wondered how these places stayed solvent. Could there be enough repeat business here to support these isolated enterprises? They seemed the antithesis of “location, location, location.”
He was well away from the water now, driving west, and it appeared to be snowing. Topper knew the tiny flakes that fell were not snow, but ash. The prevailing winds would drive huge loads of ash to the east, dumping over cities like Spokane, into Idaho, probably reaching six or seven states. But here, it merely dusted down like a light s
