12
“Let go of me, you guys,” Dan said. His voice was his own again. “I’m all right. I think.”
John and Dave let go, ready to grab him again if he staggered, but he didn’t. What he did was touch himself: hair, face, chest, legs. Then he nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m here.” He looked around. “Which is where?”
“Fox Run Mall,” John said. “Sixty miles or so from Boston.”
“Okay, let’s get back on the road.”
“Abra,” Dave said. “What about Abra?”
“Abra’s fine. Back where she belongs.”
“She belongs at home,” Dave said, and with more than a touch of resentment. “In her room. IM’ing with her friends or listening to those stupid ’Round Here kids on her iPod.”
She is at home, Dan thought. If a person’s body is their home, she’s there.
“She’s with Billy. Billy will take care of her.”
“What about the one who kidnapped her? This Crow?”
Dan paused beside the back door of John’s Suburban. “You don’t have to worry about him anymore. The one we have to worry about now is Rose.”
13
The Crown Motel was actually over the state line, in Crownville, New York. It was a rattletrap place with a flickering sign out front reading VAC NCY and M NY CAB E CHAN ELS! Only four cars were parked in the thirty or so slots. The man behind the counter was a descending mountain of fat, with a ponytail that trickled to a stop halfway down his back. He ran Billy’s Visa and gave him the keys to two rooms without taking his eyes from the TV, where two women on a red velvet sofa were engaged in strenuous osculation.
“Do they connect?” Billy asked. And, looking at the women: “The rooms, I mean.”
“Yeah, yeah, they all connect, just open the doors.”
“Thanks.”
He drove down the rank of units to twenty-three and twenty-four, and parked the truck. Abra was curled up on the seat with her head pillowed on one arm, fast asleep. Billy unlocked the rooms, turned on the lights, and opened the connecting doors. He judged the accommodations shabby but not quite desperate. All he wanted now was to get the two of them inside and go to sleep himself. Preferably for about ten hours. He rarely felt old, but tonight he felt ancient.
Abra woke up a little as he laid her on the bed. “Where are we?”
“Crownville, New York. We’re safe. I’ll be in the next room.”
“I want my dad. And I want Dan.”
“Soon.” Hoping he was right about that.
Her eyes closed, then slowly opened again. “I talked to that woman. That bitch.”
“Did you?” Billy had no idea what she meant.
“She knows what we did. She felt it. And it hurt.” A harsh light gleamed momentarily in Abra’s eyes. Billy thought it was like seeing a peek of sun at the end of a cold, overcast day in February. “I’m glad.”
“Go to sleep, hon.”
That cold winter light still shone out of the pale and tired face. “She knows I’m coming for her.”
Billy thought of brushing her hair out of her eyes, but what if she bit? Probably that was silly, but . . . the light in her eyes. His mother had looked like that sometimes, just before she lost her temper and whopped one of the kids. “You’ll feel better in the morning. I’d like it if we could go back tonight—I’m sure your dad feels that way, too—but I’m in no shape to drive. I was lucky to get this far without running off the road.”
“I wish I could talk to my mom and dad.”
Billy’s own mother and father—never candidates for Parents of the Year, even at their best—were long dead and he wished only for sleep. He looked longingly through the open door at the bed in the other room. Soon, but not quite yet. He took out his cell phone and flipped it open. It rang twice, and then he was talking to Dan. After a few moments, he handed the phone to Abra. “Your father. Knock yourself out.”
Abra seized the phone. “Dad? Dad?” Tears began to fill her eyes. “Yes, I’m . . . stop, Dad, I’m all right. Just so sleepy I can hardly—” Her eyes widened as a thought struck her. “Are you okay?”
She listened. Billy’s eyes drifted shut and he snapped them open with an effort. The girl was crying hard now, and he was sort of glad. The tears had doused that light in her eyes.
She handed the phone back. “It’s Dan. He wants to talk to you again.”
He took the phone and listened. Then he said, “Abra, Dan wants to know if you think there are any other bad guys. Ones close enough to get here tonight.”
“No. I think the Crow was going to meet some others, but they’re still a long way away. And they can’t figure out where we are”—she broke off for a huge yawn—“without him to tell them. Tell Dan we’re safe. And tell him to make sure my dad gets that.”
Billy relayed this message. When he ended the call, Abra was curled up on the bed, knees to chest, snoring softly. Billy covered her with a blanket from the closet, then went to the door and ran the chain. He considered, then propped the desk chair under the knob for good measure. Always safe, never sorry, his father had liked to say.
14
Rose opened the compartment under the floor and took out one of the canisters. Still on her knees between the EarthCruiser’s front seats, she cracked it and put her mouth over the hissing lid. Her jaw unhinged all the way to her chest, and the bottom of her head became a dark hole in which a single tooth jutted. Her eyes, ordinarily uptilted, bled downward and darkened. Her face became a doleful deathmask with the skull standing out clear beneath.
She took steam.
When she was done, she replaced the canister and sat behind the wheel of her RV, looking straight ahead. Don’t bother coming to me, Rose—I’ll come to you. That was what she had said. What she had dared to say to her, Rose O’Hara, Rose the Hat. Not just strong, then; strong and vengeful. Angry.
“Come ahead, darling,” she said. “And stay angry. The angrier you are, the more foolhardy you’ll be. Come and see your auntie Rose.”
There was a snap. She looked down and saw she had broken off the lower half of the EarthCruiser’s steering wheel. Steam conveyed strength. Her hands were bleeding. Rose threw the jagged arc of plastic aside, raised her palms to her face, and began to lick them.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THAT WHICH WAS FORGOTTEN
1
The moment Dan closed his phone, Dave said, “Let’s pick up Lucy and go get her.”
Dan shook his head. “She says they’re okay, and I believe her.”
“She’s been drugged, though,” John said. “Her judgment might not be the best right now.”
“She was clear enough to help me take care of the one she calls the Crow,” Dan said, “and I trust her on this. Let them sleep off whatever the bastard drugged them with. We have other things to do. Important things. You’ve got to trust me a little here. You’ll be with your daughter soon enough, David. For the moment, though, listen to me carefully. We’re going to drop you off at your grandmother-in-law’s place. You’re going to bring your wife to the hospital.”
“I don’t know if she’ll believe me when I tell her what happened today. I don’t know how convincing I can be when I hardly believe it myself.”
“Tell her the story has to wait until we’re all together. And that includes Abra’s momo.”
“I doubt if they’ll let you in to see her.” Dave glanced at his watch. “Visiting hours are long over, and she’s very ill.”
“Floor staff doesn’t pay much attention to the visiting rules when patients are near the end,” Dan said.
Dave looked at John, who shrugged. “The man works in a hospice. I think you can trust him on that.”
“She may not even be conscious,” Dave said.
“Let’s worry about one thing at a time.”
“What does Chetta have to do with this, anyway? She doesn’t know anything about it!”
Dan said, “I’m pretty sure she knows more than you think.”
2
They dropped Dave off at the condo on Marlborough Street and watched from the curb as he mounted the steps and rang one of the bells.
“He looks like a little kid who knows he’s going to the woodshed for a pants-down butt whippin,” John said. “This is going to strain the hell out of his marriage, no matter how it turns out.”
“When a natural disaster happens, no one’s to blame.”
“Try to make Lucy Stone see that. She’s going to think, ‘You left your daughter alone and a crazy guy snatched her.’ On some level, she’s always going to think it.”
“Abra might change her mind about that. As for today, we did what we could, and so far we’re not doing too badly.”
“But it’s not over.”
“Not by a long shot.”
Dave was ringing the bell again and peering into the little lobby when the elevator opened and Lucy Stone came rushing out. Her face was strained and pale. Dave started to talk as soon as she opened the door. So did she. Lucy pulled him in—yanked him in—by both arms.
“Ah, man,” John said softly. “That reminds me of too many nights when I rolled in drunk at three in the morning.”
“Either he’ll convince her or he won’t,” Dan said. “We’ve got other business.”
3
Dan Torrance and John Dalton arrived at Massachusetts General Hospital shortly after ten thirty. It was slack tide on the intensive care floor. A deflating helium balloon with FEEL BETTER SOON printed on it in particolored letters drifted halfheartedly along the hallway ceiling, casting a jellyfish shadow. Dan approached the nurses’ station, identified himself as a staffer at the hospice to which Ms. Reynolds was scheduled to be moved, showed his Helen Rivington House ID, and introduced John Dalton as the family doctor (a stretch, but not an actual lie).
“We need to assess her condition prior to the transfer,” Dan said, “and two family members have asked to be present. They are Ms. Reynolds’s granddaughter and her granddaughter’s husband. I’m sorry about the lateness of the hour, but it was unavoidable. They’ll be here shortly.”
“I’ve met the Stones,” the head nurse said. “They’re lovely people. Lucy in particular has been very attentive to her gran. Concetta’s special. I’ve been reading her poems, and they’re wonderful. But if you’re expecting any input from her, gentlemen, you’re going to be disappointed. She’s slipped into a coma.”
We’ll see about that, Dan thought.
“And . . .” The nurse looked at John doubtfully. “Well . . . it’s really not my place to say . . .”
“Go on,” John said. “I’ve never met a head nurse who didn’t know what the score was.”
She smiled at him, then turned her attention back to Dan. “I’ve heard wonderful things about the Rivington hospice, but I doubt very much if Concetta will be going there. Even if she lasts until Monday, I’m not sure there’s any point in moving her. It might be kinder to let her finish her journey here. If I’m stepping out of line, I’m sorry.”
“You’re not,” Dan said, “and we’ll take that into consideration. John, would you go down to the lobby and escort the Stones up when they arrive? I can start without you.”
“Are you sure—”
“Yes,” Dan said, holding his eyes. “I am.”
“She’s in Room Nine,” the head nurse said. “It’s the single at the end of the hall. If you need me, ring her call bell.”