Chapter 21: The Calloway Mine — Going In

The junction where Calloway Road met the fire road was marked by a rusted barricade and a sign that had weathered past legibility, and Gordon Hale was already there when Mara and Denny arrived, sitting on the barricade with his kit bag on his lap and his inhaler in his breast pocket and the particular focused blankness on his face that meant he had been up since at least three.

He looked at them both. He looked at Denny specifically in the way he had, the way that wasn't assessment so much as cataloguing, and then he looked away.

"Claudette's not here yet," he said.