And the beautiful, terrible truth was that while they slept, believing themselves the masters of the situation, they were in fact rolling helplessly across the northern plains, out of contact, unable to change a single thing, toward a station platform where everything they had done would be waiting for them.

There is no cell service in Montana.

It is a fact I have come to think of almost fondly.

It meant that for two full days, Julian and Chloe lived inside a version of reality that had already ceased to exist, and could not be warned.

Chapter 13 — The Judge’s Decision

Arthur looked, for a long moment, at his youngest son.

Marcus had sunk down onto the bottom step of the grand staircase, and was weeping into his hands, silently, his shoulders shaking, a good man absorbing the worst betrayal of his life.