The motel outside of Lone Rock that Vanessa checked into was nothing short of seedy, but she had few options, considering her current salary and the last-minute nature of her trip. It was either the motel or a youth hostel, and she was way beyond her hostel days. Besides, her stay would hopefully be short. It needed to be short, really, because every minute mattered—Eli had certainly made that clear.

Oh, how had she let Eli talk her into this? What exactly did he expect her to do? Dig into the past, that's what. This Damien Jensen, whoever he was, presented the entire world with a riveting mystery: who was he? Where had he come from? Why was he doing what he was doing? And most importantly—how could he be stopped? His name hadn't been released to the public yet, but surely his mysterious and dangerous maneuvers were on everyone's mind.

News from Palm Valley hadn't changed in the six hours since Vanessa had sat down with her old coworker. She knew Eli would keep her up to date, and yet the fact that information was so slow in coming was itself worrisome. In most hostage situations, the demands or desires of the perpetrator were clear within under an hour of their actions. To not only claim an entire building of people but also take time in communicating terms was unprecedented. Whatever this Damien was getting at, whatever fueled him, it was something more important to him than money or safety or even prestige. He'd have surely announced himself if he wanted fame; he hadn't been lacking security prior to his actions; and money? well, surely he would've asked for that by now, if it were his motivation. The whole thing was bizarre and unpredictable, as were many conflicts with cults.

Eli had told her how the event had occured, based on the limited footage from a neighboring house's front door camera. At around three o'clock in the morning, some unidentifiable figure had approached the outer gymnasium doors of the high school and hovered for a while. Within fifteen minutes, a total of something like twenty or thirty other darkly-clothed people who looked to be carrying packages (the low graphics quality of the camera hadn't made it clear enough to tell) had arrived on foot in small groups and waited until one of the gym doors opened, apparently from the inside. After that, all of the figures sneaked in. Being an older building in a quiet town, the high school had a poor security system, consisting only of basic locks and a few indoor security cameras which were never in use. Law enforcement learned of these nighttime activities only long after it was too late, when they'd been given the footage and had time to review it.

The fact that the gym door had opened from the inside was a point of intense interest because it indicated that someone in the high school, possibly a member of the janitorial crew or maybe even a coach or a teacher, had known these people were coming and prepared for it. Much fuss was being made over investigating the staff of Palm Valley High, but that was none of Vanessa's concern. She had her own criminal to worry about.

Entering her dark and dingy room, tossing the key onto the bedside table, and sinking onto the squeaking mattress, Vanessa closed her eyes and breathed deeply. She couldn't remember the last time she'd stayed in a motel (although she knew she had) but it hadn't been so long that she'd forgotten the abject depressiveness of them. This one was like any other: sagging bed, cigarette-stained walls, dated decor, unraveling carpet. It was clean, or at least it smelled of cleaner, so that meant something, and on her own, she didn't require amenities or luxury anyway. She'd spent enough time in rugged and remote areas to get over any pretension when it came to a place to stay.

Still, Vanessa wasn't going to stay in this room. Though night had settled in, every passing moment made it more likely the situation at Palm Valley would worsen. Eli would keep her updated on each development, but that didn't mean she could waste time. Her starting point? Dive bars, always the place to begin when one wanted local gossip and insight.

Taking hold of the stiff curtains at the sides of the massive window, Vanessa paused for a moment when she saw the pastels of the setting sun. This portion of the world, while somewhat barren, was stunning. She'd admired the not-so-distant snow-tipped Sierras while driving in, how they set a majestic yet somewhat frightening backdrop for the small town set on a smaller rectangle of low-lying land before them. Mountains tended to have a sort of edifying effect, forcing a startling reckoning of how small, how insignificant one was against the sheer audacity and indifference of nature. Perhaps Vanessa had needed a reminder of that. Sometimes her world felt small and stifling, but a mountainous vista surrounded by rocky, unihabited land could do wonders for one's sense of enlightenment. She could understand why someone from this place might aim for grand ambitions, feeling that heady concoction of awe and immateriality the environment brought on. Two paths existed for people whose lives had been spent against such grandness: taking it all for granted and nonchalantly going about one's life, or giving in to the pressure of attempting to live up to the grandness. Vanessa had a sense Damien Jensen was of the latter variety.

The woman at last drew the curtains and then opened her small suitcase, dug around for her toiletries, and went into the bathroom to touch up a bit of eyeliner. She didn't wear much makeup, didn't really care or need to, and that was fortunate, because the lighting was too dim and yellowish to properly see by. No need to look more than casual, Vanessa told herself. She wasn't trying to attract anything more than some conversation. Still, it wouldn't hurt to tuck her shirt into her jeans to show off her tiny waist and let her thick black hair down around her face. Though she hated the fact, she knew people would be more likely to pay her some time if she looked a certain way.

They would've paid her attention anyway, though, she realized after driving the couple miles to and entering the nearest establishment. In a small town like Lone Rock, locals recognized outsiders immediately. Most tourists ended up at the cleaner, more gimmicky string of bars on the main strip, so to see someone so obviously not from the area stroll into Arlo's with the confidence of a regular intrigued the few patrons inside.

Arlo's wasn't exactly in Lone Rock central; it was purposefully distant from the busiest eateries and the youth hostel, not close enough to the big houses to the west of town, the ones with the paved streets and purposeful landscaping. It was a narrow, ramshackle brick building standing all on its lonesome near the town border, somewhat southeast, not too far from the reservation and smaller communities that lay scattered beyond. It was two floors (though only the lower was used as a bar) and narrow enough that it gave the illusion of having at one point been part of a longer strip of buildings that had been razed on either side. There was no sign, just a neon "Arlo's" in a window by the front door, though it was more like "A-lo's," as the "r" was fizzling out. Vanessa sauntered up to the bar as if she didn't even notice anyone looking at her, reveling in the tang of beer seeping out of every physical surface in the place. She'd never been much of a beer drinker, and yet there was something about a dive bar that inspired a bit of a rebel in her.

"Give me the best you have on tap," she ordered, sliding onto a stool. "I trust your judgment."

The bartender appeared somewhat chagrined but put down the glass he'd been wiping and followed through, offering some overt side-eye the while. When he pushed the pilsner toward her, he couldn't help himself: "Where you from?"

Vanessa knew some version of the truth was always best, better not to fabricate a web she'd struggle to get out of later on. "Just in town a few days," she prevaricated. "Work brings me through."

"Not a tourist, then?"

"No. Lived in Reno most of my life. Never been to Lone Rock but definitely spent a lot of time out in this area, growing up." She had. Her Daddy had been quite into the outdoors, taking her camping and on hikes, lots of roughing it. They hadn't had much, the two of them. Her parents had come to the United States from Malaysia sometime in their early twenties. Her mother had given birth only the one time and promptly bled out in a friend's home. She and her husband had been living in the US with expired work visas and been too fearful of deportment to go to a doctor. Of course, Vanessa didn't remember any of that. She'd been raised by those family friends for most of her childhood because her father had, indeed, been sent back to Malaysia. He'd managed to return, to undergo naturalization and become a legitimate citizen, when his daughter was somewhere around twelve, and though it'd taken time to get used to one another, their outdoor adventures had bonded them. It'd been quite a blow when her father had died unexpectedly. She could still see his face surrounded in white, trying to get out words, to tell her—

But she didn't want to think about that trauma; it led nowhere comprehensible. Why had this place brought back bad memories? It wasn't just this place, she knew. It was the whole situation, seeing Eli . . . all of it. She'd lived a long while able to ignore if not forget most of those murky memories, and now they were threatening to solidify, to make her think of them, just because of one phone call from Fran.

"What's your line of work?"

Vanessa pricked back to attention. She felt the eyes of the bar's five or six other patrons on her back and shoulders. No lies, she told herself. Lies get you in trouble. "Archiving," she responded. "Conservatorship. You know, deaing with historical info and documents and so on." No need to mention the sort of work she'd actually been sent for.

The bartender, who must've been somewhere in his low-to-mid thirties (though the years sat young on him—a narrow head of trim dark hair, a beardless chin that looked as if it'd never gone through puberty), nodded. He scratched the back of his neck, looked tired.

Vanessa wondered if he actually listened to a band called Alien Sex Fiend or whether he just wore their shirt for the shock effect. "Doing something about local history," she quickly added, catching herself staring a little too long at the man's chest and not wanting him to get the wrong idea.

Someone came up behind her and nodded to the bartender, distracting him. He gave Vanessa a penetrating glare before turning to fill a glass.

"Oh? Some local history about what's happening over there in Palm Valley, is it?" the woman who'd drawn up at Vanessa's side stated more than asked.

Of course they'd heard of it. Everyone had heard of it. "Well, yes. It's connected, actually," she admitted. No lies. And yet . . . "Why would you asume that, though?" She tried not to be overt in observing the woman, who couldn't have been much older than she but showed every year of her hard living.

"We just keep waiting for the right people to come through, detectives or something. The media, maybe. Someone who can actually help. Not a—what did you say you were?"

"An archivist."

"Uh huh." The woman accentuated her lack of enthusiasm with an eyeroll. "That."

Feeling she'd earned the right to scrutinize after such unwarranted sarcasm, Vanessa turned her full body toward the woman at her left. She took in the aroma of cheap perfume, the brown mop of hair pulled into a messy bird's-nest bun, the fitted dress cut to reveal the assets still worth displaying. But Vanessa also recognized the weariness beneath the woman's concealer and mascara, the despondency in her pale eyes, which pulled down a bit at the corners to reveal a watery bit of pink.

"Don't think we don't know who it is over there at that school," the unknown woman went on, catching a poorly French-tipped nail on one of her enormous hoop earrings.

Vanessa couldn't believe her luck. She'd only just arrived, and here already was someone who sounded as if she might have information.

But she'd grown excited too quickly. The woman took the bottle the bartender offered her, turned unsteadily about, and headed for the door, stating, "Come by later and I'll pay you for it," before she was gone.

The few other patrons—a trio of men and an older couple—looked back to their conversations, and Vanessa was left feeling rather deflated. She wouldn't show it, though. While she'd hoped the woman would offer a bit more than surliness, Vanessa could at least conjecture that the locals knew of this Damien and weren't surprised at his actions. How willing they'd be to talk about him was a different matter.

"Arlo, is it? This is your bar?" Vanessa chanced, meeting the bartender's dark eye once again. "What did she mean? Do you know who's holding those kids hostage? Because as far as I've heard, they have no idea. I'd think the news would've said."

The man placed his palms flat on the back bar, regarded her with the stoicism of a Roman. "Couldn't tell you, lady. That woman's not playing with a full deck half the time." He lifted a hand and tapped his temple with a finger, as if Vanessa needed the visual.

She didn't believe him for a minute. "What's her name?"

He lowered his brow and surely wouldn't have said anything, but a heavy-set bearded gentleman with a large neck tattoo growled from his seat with his peers, "Anabelle Rouge. Don't put nothing in what she says; woman's been drinking like a fish ever since her boy went missing. Surprised she's not dead of cirrhosis by now."

Vanessa raised her eyebrows and figured that was enough prying on her part. She'd look up this Annabelle Rouge, maybe even pay her a visit before she slept. It wasn't too late, yet, and her time was limited. But she didn't want to cause suspicion, so she'd finish her beer first, just sit quietly and let everyone get back to their routines. Leave them alone. She'd small-talked as much as possible without arousing too much interest and needed to put together what to say to this Anabelle when she found her. The woman had seemed willing enough to spill, but there was something off about her, too, a mercurial nature.

"Where are you staying, then?"

Vanessa snapped her face up to Arlo, having almost forgotten he was there. "Oh, a crappy motel outside of town." Why had she told him? The words had just fallen out of her mouth. God, was the beer already affecting her? Maybe best to stop. She pushed the glass away. "Not my favorite," she tried to cover. Then she slipped from her stool and made a beeline for the door, sensing the attention burning a hole in her back as she went.