Chapter 2
The curving path of Alternate 48 as it left the farmlands of Evans County and sank into the valley toward the Clinch River and Estonoa was even more beautiful than Chris Higgens remembered.
A heavy fog—thicker up in Woodcastle than down toward the river for reasons no one seemed to understand—enhanced the lovely landscape as much as obscuring it. Chris caught glimpses of fiery oaks, poplars, and maples putting on an autumn show contrasting with bright gray rock in the road cuts.
The only thing that might be prettier was when water froze in those sharp, towering road cuts, creating a fairyland of solid ice waterfalls.
He rolled down the window in his rental sedan, not entirely an effort to wake up his younger sister. Even in her early forties, if Janie slept too hard in the ca
