The first place was a bust.

In fact, a few more hours and a few more truck stops passed before they got a lead.

The woman behind the cash register at the Pilot in Wignall seemed to remember one of the waitresses, Tabitha, mentioning something strange about a little girl after her shift a few nights before.

But she knew nothing more and Tabitha wouldn't be in for a few hours.

That gave them time to kill. Time that, to Carol, seemed like an eternity.

For the first hour they drank iced tea, and Merle badgered Carol out of all of her quarters until he'd played every Lynyrd Skynyrd song on the jukebox. Carol thought if she never heard "Tuesday's Gone" again, it would be too soon.

Daryl ordered peach cobbler for her, which was very sweet of him, but she only managed one bite and he finished off the rest.

Another hour passed with no sign of Tabitha; the waiting was starting to get to Carol. She couldn't sit still. She couldn't breathe.

She left Merle inside, hitting on the poor, frazzled waitresses, and went out to pace the parking lot. Daryl followed and leaned against the building, watching her with a stillness that was almost unnerving.

"How do you do that?" she asked after a few minutes, feeling as though she might explode from either exasperation or too much sugar.

His heard jerked up as she stopped in front of him, "What?"

"How do you stand so still? Like a statue?"

He shifted, "Don't know. Guess it comes from hunting. Got to listen and be still or you'll give yourself away."

She considered that for a moment, "Is that what you're worried about?"

"What?"

She shook her head, "Nothing. Can I bum another cigarette?"

He squinted at her as though trying to make out something written in tiny print but dug the crumpled pack out of his pocket and held it out to her.

She took one and put it between her lips, eyes on his hand and hand on his wrist as she leaned forward to catch the flame from his lighter.

"So I guess you hunt a lot, huh?" she asked after a while, blowing smoke above his head.

"Not as much as I used to."

He lit a cigarette of his own.

"You liked hunting when you were a kid? It didn't bother you to kill Bambi?" she teased, trying to picture him as a child and finding it difficult.

"Needed the food," he shrugged, eyes on the ground beneath her feet.

"Oh," she said stupidly, looking away from his face as her own burned with embarrassment. Her cigarette burned too, forgotten between her fingers. "Oh, I – I'm sorry. I didn't –"

He cleared his throat, cutting her off, "Don't worry about it."

A semi passed by, heading for the highway with gears grinding and engine humming.

"I've never been," she told him, when it was quiet again. "Hunting, I mean. Ed wasn't a hunter and neither was my father. I guess I never understood the appeal."

He shrugged again, "Most people don't get it. But it ain't all about the kill every time, unless you're hungry. Sometimes it's just nice to get away from everything and get out where it's quiet."

She closed her eyes, listening to the highway sounds and smelling diesel fuel, "That does sound nice."

She opened them just in time to catch him looking at her.

"Maybe – maybe you'll take me along one day? After all this is over?" she asked before she could stop herself, biting her lip as he turned his eyes back to hers.

Just imagining a future where she had Sophia back, where all was well, alleviated some of the pain in her chest that was making it so difficult to breathe.

"Yeah," he nodded slowly . "Yeah, that'd be alright."

She offered him as much of a smile as she could manage and laid her hand on his arm, thumb stroking across his skin as she spoke, "Good. I'm going to go call Aunt Angela, okay?"

He looked down at her hand and then up to her face, "Go ahead. I'll be right here."

She knew he would. He was always right there.

The payphone was over by the fuel island and she studied it as she walked towards it, wondering if that's where Ed had been when he called her that night.

She brushed that thought aside as she dialed the sticky numbers and pressed the receiver to her ear.

As it rang, she glanced up at the sky to find it was still gray. But to her surprise, the first weak signs of sunlight were starting to peek through the clouds.

By the time she hung up the phone and headed back around front, the Dixons were talking to a young woman in a waitress uniform.

Merle nodded his head in Carol's direction as she stepped up onto the sidewalk next to Daryl, "This here is Carol."

"Tabitha," the woman told her, giving Carol's hand a firm enough shake to rattle the dozen or so mismatched bangles on her arm.

Carol nodded, noticing the woman's smile didn't quite reach her dark eyes.

"You got the pictures?" Daryl nudged her and Carol reached into her purse for them.

Tabitha studied the two photographs quickly, her expression wary.

She looked up and then over at Merle, "I – I don't know. I don't want any trouble."

"We don't want any trouble either," Carol said quickly, drawing the woman's attention back to her. "I just want to find my little girl."

Tabitha studied her for a long moment, chewing her bottom lip, but finally nodded her head towards the door, "Alright, come with me."

The three of them followed her to a small employee break room with a humming refrigerator and a buzzing overhead light. They sat down in hard plastic chairs around a table littered with old fast food napkins.

"So," Tabitha started, looking down at the photographs again before handing them back to Carol, "is this guy your husband?"

Carol shook her head, "No, but he's my daughter's father. He left me while I was pregnant with her. He'd never even seen her before he took off with her."

"She was screaming her little head off when he brought her in," Tabitha told her quietly, tapping her fingernails on the table. "I thought she was just cranky."

Carol's stomach turned.

"Was she okay?" she asked, her throat tight. "Was she hurt?"

"No," Tabitha answered quickly, eyes meeting hers. "No, she wasn't hurt."

Carol released the breath she'd been holding, automatically glancing across the table at Daryl. He was worrying the skin around his thumbnail with his teeth but lifted his head and sat up straighter under her gaze.

"The kitchen was closing up when they got here but I went in the back and got her a bowl of ice cream with sprinkles," Tabitha told them, tapping her fingernails again, a sharp rat-a-tat-tat. She glanced over at Carol, "I hope that was okay."

Carol nodded, smiling tightly.

Tabitha smiled back, "That seemed to cheer her up. Then she wanted to go over to the big claw machine. To win a stuffed animal? But I ran out of quarters before we got anything."

Daryl butted in, finding Carol's eyes as he spoke, "Where was Ed during all this?"

"He was in and out. Mostly out," Tabitha said, biting at her lip again. "That's why I stayed after my shift was over. He kept leaving her to go out to the payphone. When he was inside, he was pacing and watching the clock or looking out the windows."

She paused, looking stricken, "I just thought he was waiting on someone or had somewhere to be, you know? But it was so late, I should have realized – "

Carol cut her off, "You couldn't have known."

"Anything else happen?" Merle prompted after a moment in that rough, raspy voice of his. "He say anything to you?"

Tabitha's eyes narrowed in thought and she stared down at the table, "Not really. I handed her over to him when I got ready to leave and told him not to leave her alone because you never know what kind of people are around here. He ignored me and told her they were going home soon."

Carol's eyes met Daryl's and he raised his eyebrows.

"And she was okay when you left?" Carol asked, looking back to Tabitha.

She nodded, "She was getting sleepy. I would have stayed with her but I – I had to go."

A woman opened the door just then and peeked her head in, "Tabby? We need you out here, sweetie."

Tabitha nodded and told her she'd be right out.

"I'm sorry, I've got to get to work," she told them as they all stood. "Was there anything else you needed to know?"

Carol shook her head, "No, I don't think so. But thank you so much for your help and for taking care of my little girl while she was here."

Tabitha nodded, looking away, but she caught Carol by the arm before she could follow the Dixons out into the hallway.

"I've got three at home myself, honey," she told her, eyes bright. "I hope you find your baby."

Carol squeezed her hand, tears stinging at her eyes as something strong, something powerful rose up within her.

"I will."

"So," Merle asked as they climbed back into the Cherokee, "where's home to Ed Peletier?"

Carol took a deep, steadying breath, "Last I heard, he was living down in Florida with some woman named Brenda."

"Where at in Florida?" Daryl twisted around in his seat to face her.

"North Florida," she told him, eyes absently focusing on his lips as she racked her brain for the name of the town. "It was Lake something or other. Lake…Lake Butler, maybe?"

Merle piped up from the driver's seat, "You think that's where he's at?"

"I don't know. The only other place I can think of is Virginia since that's where he's from. He's still got family there."

The brothers exchanged a look.

"Might as well hit Florida first," Daryl said. "We're as close as we'll ever be."

"Hell yeah! Wouldn't mind a little sunshine," Merle crowed, putting the Cherokee into reverse. He caught Carol's eyes in the rearview mirror and winked. "Hope you packed your bikini, sugar."