So…questions. If Scrabblemancy was just a lark to Murphy and Nancy, why would he want his own gear? Had an amusement grown into an obsession? But assuming that Calida wasn’t a fraud, that she was a gifted diviner, the gear itself was of no use to people without her power. Did Murphy fancy himself some kind of medium?
That seemed absurd. People who made it to fifty by coasting happily along on an it’ll-be-what-it’ll-be mantra, whose relationship with fate was guided by a don’t-ask-don’t-tell mentality, who never exhibited a passing interest in philosophical issues, who lived for work and surf and surfers’ simple pleasures, didn’t abruptly become occultists any more than they became true-believing Jehovah’s Witnesses, passing out pamphlets door to door. And if her father had gone over the edge, her mother had gone with him, because in a fundamental way, each had always been the other; perhaps their foremost saving grace was their commitment to each other, deep and unshakeable. If anything, Nancy would be less likely than Murphy to become a seeker of hidden knowledge. She was top agent, hard-nosed flogger of dream homes and fixer-uppers, a surfer babe who insisted on shag-cut hair because it saved her X number of minutes each day that could better be spent on maintaining a tan and catching some waves, drinker of tequila shots and beer, eater of jalape?os and habaneros, and all but certainly more enthusiastic in her marriage bed than her daughter cared to contemplate. Nancy was far too earthy to be floated off her feet by the helium of occult pursuits. And if not Nancy, then never Murphy. Divination with Scrabble tiles could be no more to them than a party game.
After working awhile longer with the computer, Bibi took a break to use the bathroom. On the vanity, beside the sink, she found a bottle of alcohol, a packet of seamstress’s needles, and a white-cotton cloth crusted with old bloodstains and damp with new ones.
Bibi would make no assumptions about her mom and dad, neither about their interest in the occult nor anything else. She loved them and she trusted them. The silver bowl, the lettered tiles, and the blood evidence could not possibly mean what they seemed to mean. She pushed it all to the back of her mind, until some simple explanation asserted itself, which was sure to happen, some sudden understanding that presented an entirely different interpretation of the facts, some answer so blazingly obvious that she would feel stupid for not having grasped it immediately upon finding the items in the bathroom.
Exhausted after an eventful day, she got a cold bottle of beer from the office refrigerator and sat in an armchair. Maybe the beer would chill her in the good sense of the word and help her catch a few hours of sleep.
Having stopped speculating about Nancy and Murphy, she brooded now about the person whose life she was supposed to save as payment for her cancer going into remission. She repeatedly reviewed what Terezin had said on the phone. His confidence that he would kill Bibi before she got close to Ashley did not come solely from his assessment of Bibi as an easy target. The logical thing to infer was that he knew Ashley Bell’s whereabouts, and therefore he knew how hard it would be for Bibi to find her. Which seemed to point to one of two possibilities. First, maybe Ashley Bell was one of them, one of the Wrong People, and capable of using paranormal means to remain hidden if she did not want to be found. Second, and more likely, she was their prisoner, held for the usual wicked reasons…or for some purpose uniquely horrifying. If that proved to be the case, Bibi would have to descend through several levels of their homemade Hell to free her.
To free her.
To save Ashley Bell.
At her kitchen table with Calida, Bibi had insisted that she possessed neither the passion nor the skills to become the comic-book rescuer of people she didn’t even know. Yet now she contemplated that very task. Something had changed. Not necessarily for the better. Perhaps she hadn’t gained confidence in her skills, hadn’t discovered in herself a greater depth of courage than she had believed existed; perhaps instead she was finding it easier to accept unreason than to resist it.