“Have a good trip,” the woman from behind the counter said.

“Thanks . . . I’ll try.”

As I opened the car door, I remembered the conversation I’d had with Neale days earlier when I began the journey back to the cliff. He was the only friend I felt comfortable talking to about the obsession since he had been with me from the very beginning, and his wisdom had already served me well in many ways. Since I was beginning the journey from my new home in Portland, I had to stop in Ashland and call to make sure he was home.

“There’s obviously a reason for the vision,” he said as we sat in his kitchen. “Something like that doesn’t keep showing up unless there’s something we need to learn, or there’s something connected to it.”

“But what could I possibly have to learn from that?” I asked him. “We almost died, which would have made a tragic situation infinitely worse. Maybe I feel guilty for deciding to take that highway in the first place. I should have known better and should have decided to stay on the interstate. To think that I put us at so much risk . . .”

“That’s possible, but I have the feeling that there’s something more. What does that spot represent to you?”

“I guess it represents how easily things can happen, and how quickly we can go from just driving down the road to something that changes us forever.”

“Which is what happened to Linda,” he continued. “She had no idea something like that was going to happen to her, even ten minutes before it did. She was probably in her apartment cleaning up or getting her clothes ready for work the next day. Life can be that uncertain, and you experienced that when you almost went over the cliff.”

“That’s all true,” I said, “but I also have the feeling that there’s something more. It’s like the place is calling me, as if I need to go back for something.”

“Why would you need to go back there?”

“I have no idea, but I feel like Richard Dreyfus’s character in Close Encounters. He became obsessed with the mountain because he was being called to go there. Maybe I’m being called back to the same mountain pass where we almost died. What if something’s supposed to happen there?”

“What could possibly need to happen?”

“I don’t know, Neale, but I can’t get it out of my mind.”

“Then follow it and see where it leads,” he said. “I think you should do whatever you think is going to give you some kind of closure. This may sound harsher than it’s intended to sound, but three and a half years have passed since Linda was killed. Don’t you think she would want you to move on?”

“I just have this feeling that I won’t be able to do that until I go back. Something’s waiting for me, either at the cliff or . . . I don’t even know . . . I just know I need to see it again, then maybe it will all be over.”

The time passed quickly as I drove, and I was almost surprised when I began entering into the most treacherous area, not far from the spot I had every confidence of finding. The steep-sided, sharp-crested ridges spotted with juniper trees are among of the most rugged in the area. Deep V-shaped valleys shot off from the cliffs far below, and I began to see just how easy it would be to plummet to the bottom. Most stretches of the road have no guardrails, meaning that a single mishap would be disastrous. It was one thing to sense this in the midst of a dark, blinding snowstorm, but seeing it in the light of day was something much more terrifying. Elevations ranged anywhere from 4,000 feet to the high point of Parrot Peak at 8,400. It was stunning and dangerous, and I sensed that I was moving straight into the heart of a dark mystery.