By the time Lizzie and Donny finished their apple pie, Nathan Thomas had wrapped up his conversation with a friendly and helpful Dr. Overtin and made the twenty-mile journey south to mile marker 314, three miles north of the former small town of Wayside, Texas.
He pulled over, parked, and stepped out of his car, immediately missing the blasts of cool air he'd been surrounded by inside the vehicle.
Nathan eased to the edge and looked down at the drainage ditch some thirty feet below the shoulder of the road. Not much rain at all had come through the region since Toby's body had been found, so traces of the biodegradable pink spray paint sometimes used by crime scene techs at outdoor scenes remained.
After surveying the slope for a moment, he opted to proceed downward at an angle rather t
