"Renée, the internet. Does it work at all?"
"Sometimes. It's satellite. It's bad when it rains."
"Try anyway. Make an email. Send yourself one of those pictures, the small ones, one at a time if you have to. Send it to the DEP if you can find an address. Send it to anybody. Every picture that goes out of this building is one more thing they can't stop."
She nodded.
"Bev. You've got a CB in that truck?"
"I've got a CB in that truck that'll reach Wellsboro on a clear night," Bev said, and a slow fierce smile spread over her face. "And there's a whole lot of trucks on Six tonight, hon. Water haulers. Log trucks. Every one of them's got a radio on nineteen. And I can tell you right now, there's a lot of drivers on this mountain who knew Jesse Kline."
"Can you get to it?"
She looked out the wired glass of the back door. "I'm parked out front, past the canopy. Forty yards."
"Too far," Hollis said. "Not yet." He thought about it. "Ferris. What kind of phone is in the office? Is it cordless?"
"It's older than the boy's mother."
"Good. That means it works if the power goes. Toby." He crouched down in front of the pickle bucket, his knees cracking, until he was eye level with the boy. "This is the hardest part. I need you to call 911 again. On that phone. And I need you to tell the lady everything you told me. Every single thing. Jesse, the pancakes, the stars, the window, Curt Shuler, the man with the beard, the gray truck. Everything. They record those calls, son. Every word. Once you tell it, it's on a tape in Coudersport, and it doesn't matter anymore what happens to anybody in this building. It's out. You understand?"
Toby looked at him. "And then they won't want me anymore?"
It was such a terrible, simple question that for a second Hollis could not answer it. He thought about lying. He had been a very good liar once.