He slid her limp body under a table holding her father’s few tools. Then he thumbed the button that opened the garage door and stepped out, being sure to slap on that big old Henry Rothman smile before he did. The key to survival in the world of rubes was to look as if you belonged, as if you were always on the goodfoot, and no one was better at it than Crow. He walked briskly down to the truck and moved the geezer again, this time to the middle of the bench seat. As Crow turned in to the Stone driveway, Billy’s head lolled against his shoulder.
“Gettin a little chummy there, aren’t you, oldtimer?” Crow asked, and laughed as he drove the red truck into the garage. His friends were dead and this situation was horribly dangerous, but there was one big compensation: he felt totally alive and aware for the first time in a great many years, the world bursting with color and humming like a powerline. He had her, by God. In spite of all her weird strength and nasty tricks, he had her. Now he would bring her to Rose. A love offering.
“Jackpot,” he said, and gave the dashboard one hard, exultant hit.
He stripped off Abra’s backpack, left it under the worktable, and lifted her into the truck on the passenger side. He seatbelted both of his snoozing passengers. It had certainly occurred to him to snap the geezer’s neck and leave his body in the garage, but the geezer might come in handy. If the drug didn’t kill him, that was. Crow checked for a pulse on the side of the grizzled old neck and felt it, slow but strong. There was no question about the girl; she was leaning against the passenger window and he could see her breath fogging the glass. Excellent.
Crow took a second to inventory his stock. No gun—the True Knot never traveled with firearms—but he still had two full hypos of the noddy-time night-night stuff. He didn’t know how far two would get him, but the girl was his priority. Crow had an idea that the geezer’s period of usefulness might prove to be extremely limited. Oh, well. Rubes came and rubes went.
He took out his cell and this time it was Rose he hit on the speed dial. She answered just as he had resigned himself to leaving a message. Her voice was slow, her pronunciation slurry. It was a little like talking to a drunk.
“Rose? What’s up with you?”
“The girl messed with me a trifle more than I expected, but I’m all right. I don’t hear her anymore. Tell me you have her.”
“I do, and she’s having a nice nap, but she’s got friends. I don’t want to meet them. I’ll head west immediately, and I’ve got no time to be f**king with maps. I need secondary roads that’ll take me across Vermont and into New York.”
“I’ll put Toady Slim on it.”
“You need to send someone east to meet me immediately, Rosie, and with whatever you can lay your hands on that’ll keep Little Miss Nitro pacified, because I don’t have much left. Look in Nut’s supplies. He must have something—”
“Don’t tell me my business,” she snapped. “Toady will coordinate everything. You know enough to get started?”
“Yes. Rosie darlin, that picnic area was a trap. The little girl f**king deked us. What if her friends call the cops? I’m riding in an old F-150 with a couple of zombies next to me in the cab. I might as well have KIDNAPPER tattooed on my forehead.”
But he was grinning. Damned if he wasn’t grinning. There was a pause at the other end. Crow sat behind the wheel in the Stones’ garage, waiting.
At last Rose said, “If you see blue lights behind you or a roadblock ahead of you, strangle the girl and suck out as much of her steam as you can while she goes. Then surrender. We’ll take care of you eventually, you know that.”
It was Crow’s turn to pause. At last he said, “Are you sure that’s the right way to go, darlin?”
“I am.” Her voice was stony. “She’s responsible for the deaths of Jimmy, Nut, and Snakebite. I mourn them all, but it’s Andi I feel the worst about, because I Turned her myself and she only had a taste of the life. Then there’s Sarey . . .”
She trailed off with a sigh. Crow said nothing. There was really nothing to say. Andi Steiner had been with a lot of women during her early years with the True—not a surprise, steam always made newbies especially randy—but she and Sarah Carter had been a couple for the last ten years, and devoted to each other. In some ways, Andi had seemed more like Silent Sarey’s daughter than her lover.
“Sarey’s inconsolable,” Rose said, “and Black-Eyed Susie’s not much better about Nut. That little girl is going to answer for taking those three from us. One way or the other, her rube life is over. Any more questions?”
Crow had none.
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