Back Roads

i appreciated some information my daughter gave me last night as we took our drive.  She told me that there is an entrance to Quail Hollow Ranch that the locals know about, especially the high school kids, and there is a way from Quail Hollow Ranch to Love Creek Road that goes quickly and stealthily through back roads, with just a very short drive on the other road, Glen Arbor (she pointed out that more people would recognize McClish's truck on the main road, so he would avoid Glen Arbor.  The back roads lead directly through Brookside and then Love Creek, saving about five minutes of what would have been precious time. She said all the kids who don't want to cross paths with law enforcement take the back way).

 She showed me where the "secret" entrance is, a very short, sandy road which I personally never knew was there. He could have taken his truck all the way down that road into a remote part of Quail Hollow Ranch without anyone ever noticing. The entrance is very close to where they found the backpack, so he would never have needed to even stop for very long to heave the backpack into the bushes.  Again, my theory is that he opened her backpack to get her car keys and then flung the backpack away into the dark, off the road.

I still can't get over the steepness of the ravine which stretched all the way down the side of Love Creek Road, which I saw last night: an absolute gaping maw of blackness that seemed to have no end, and huge trees with half their roots exposed, leaning precariously everywhere, over the road, dangling into the creek, and all over everything, a coating of white, sandy dust.  On this road, McClish drove like a bat INTO hell, probably kicking up dust as he made his way towards what I believe was a pre-chosen spot.  There is no way ANYONE would just traipse up that road to do what he intended to do--get rid of Asha's body--unless he knew exactly where he was going.

This book saddens me.  There is so much attendant sadness surrounding this woman and her life--so many people who are angry still, who believe her killer is innocent, that she should have terminated her pregnancy--all grasping at straws to try and undo the past, which can never be undone.

As a coda to this, I dreamed that I was standing at the bottom of Love Creek Road, staring up at the dirt road and the cleared-up landslide, and huge pink flowers, like a cross between a hibiscus and a rose, opened up all in a row on the old landslide.