Wildwood Road by Christopher Golden Page A

since the nation was young. Much like Boston Post Road, however, it was used by very few outsiders, because they had no idea just how far they could travel on that one street.
    Should've taken 125. Or gotten on 495.
The recriminations came unbidden into his mind. Either of those options would have been the long way around, far less direct, and yet might actually have been faster. The Danskys preferred Old Route 12 because it was peaceful and beautiful, particularly in the autumn. In addition, Michael would always prefer the most direct route, and traveling to West Newbury from the Wayside Inn made Old Route 12 by far the most direct course to take.
    He dragged the cursor over the map, using it as a guide. For a moment he retreated into his mind, trying to picture that night. His memory was gray and hazy, yet somehow the hum of his tires on the pavement was fresh in his head. He focused on that sound and was able to recall driving down Old Route 12, Jillian snoring softly in the backseat. He had nearly wrecked the car, and righted it just in time to come within scant feet of running down that lost girl.
    Where the hell had he been when that happened?
    Michael clicked on the tab that magnified the map even further. A couple of miles down Old Route 12. No more than that, surely. The entire road at that point was a scribble on the map, where it twisted and turned as it wound through the Merrimack Valley.
    Maybe if I drove out there,
he thought, peering at the screen.
    He ran a fingertip along the curves of that red line, and he paused, tapping the screen. It was a bit further along than he thought, but the most harrowing of the turns seemed the most likely place for him to have nearly run off the road. Once more he magnified the map onscreen.
    Could be.
    He drew the cursor over to the northeast corner of the map and clicked there, shifting the image in that direction, revealing the next segment of Old Route 12. Somewhere along that way was a tiny little side road, buried in the trees, that seemed an unlikely conduit to several other neighborhoods. His initial turn had been a right; he recalled that clearly.
    “Turn right here.”
    Then, a little ways further on, he had taken a left. There had been a lot of streets, plenty of houses, roads that gently rose up a long hill, at the top of which was the dilapidated mansion the little girl lived in.
    Come find me.
    “Exactly,” he said aloud. Self-conscious, he turned to make sure no one was standing in the open door to his office.
    When he looked back at the screen, he noticed for the first time how inadequate the map was. It was a tiny little square. To search for anything by shifting that square around was ridiculous. He needed a better map.
    He closed the screen and went out of his office, pausing a moment to glance around the various cubicles and at the doors, closed and open. Karlene Dietrich's cubicle had fresh flowers in a vase. Barry Waid had posters and magazine cutouts of thirties Art Deco images all over the interior walls. Those were the only two that Michael could see from just outside his door, but he ran through most of the employees in his mind, trying to figure out who could help him. On the door to Vic Birnbaum's office were crayon masterpieces done by his children.
    A thought struck him and he went back out toward the foyer. Brittany's desk was the only thing in the foyer of Krakow & Bester's offices, aside from a pair of sofas and a coffee table for people waiting to be admitted for an appointment. There were the double doors of a coat closet, and some modern art on the wall that looked more like junkyard trash. Frosted glass separated the advertising firm from the building's main corridor.
    When he came out into the foyer, she gave him a frankly appraising look.
    “Brittany,” he began.
    “What's up?”
    “You live in Boxford, don't you?”
    She shrugged. “Well, my parents do. I moved out earlier this year. Can't afford to live in Boxford myself. But I