Lisey risked another look. Tears were running down Amanda's cheeks. Maybe tears didn't fall on those stone benches, but yes, here they were the smucking human condish.
"I knew I was going," Amanda said. "All the time we were in Scott's study...all the time I was writing meaningless numbers in that stupid little notebook, I knew..."
"That little notebook turned out to be the key to everything," Lisey said, remembering that HOLLYHOCKS as well as mein gott had been printed there...something like a message in a bottle. Or another bool - Lisey, here's where I am, please come find me.
"Do you mean it?" Amanda asked.
"I do."
"That's so funny. Scott gave me those notebooks, you know - damn near a lifetime supply. For my birthday."
"He did?"
"Yes, the year before he died. He said they might come in handy." She managed a smile. "I guess one of them actually did."
"Yes," Lisey said, wondering if mein gott was written on the backs of all the others, in tiny dark letters just below the trade name. Someday, maybe, she would check. If she and Amanda got out of this alive, that was.
4
When Lisey slowed in downtown Castle Rock, preparing to turn in at the Sheriff's Office, Amanda clutched her arm and asked what in God's name she thought she was doing. She listened to her sister's reply with mounting amazement.
"And what am I supposed to do while you're making your report and filling out forms?" Amanda asked in tones etched with acid. "Sit on the bench outside Animal Registry in these pajamas, with my tits poking out on top and my woofy showing down south? Or should I just sit out here and listen to the radio? How are you going to explain showing up barefoot? Or what if someone from Greenlawn has already called to tell the Sheriff's Department that they ought to keep an eye out for the writer's widow, she was visiting her sister up there at Crackerjack Manor and now they're both gone?"
Lisey was what her less-than-brilliant father would have called hard flummoxed. She had been so fixated on the problems of getting Manda back from Nowhere Land and coping with Jim Dooley that she had completely forgotten their current state of dishabille, not to mention any possible repercussions of the Great Escape. By now they were nestled in a slant-parkingspace in front of the brick Sheriff's Department building, with a visiting State Police cruiser to their left and a Ford sedan with CASTLE COUNTY SHERIFF'S DEPT. painted on the side to their right, and Lisey began to feel decidedly claustrophobic. The title of a country song - "What Was I Thinking?" - popped into her mind.
Ridiculous, of course - she wasn't a fugitive, Greenlawn wasn't a prison, and Amanda wasn't exactly a prisoner, but her bare feet...how was she going to explain her smucking bare feet? And - I haven't been thinking at all, not really, I've just been following the steps. The recipe. And this is like turning a page in the cookbook and finding the next one blank.
"Also," Amanda was continuing, "there's Darla and Canty to think about. You did fine this morning, Lisey, I'm not criticizing, but - "
"Yes you are," Lisey said. "And you're right to criticize. If
this isn't a mess already, it soon will be. I didn't want to go to your house too soon or stay there too long in case Dooley's keeping an eye on that, too - "
"Does he know about me?"
I got an idear you got some kind of sister-twister goin on as well, isn't that so?
"I think..." Lisey began, then stopped. That kind of equivocation wouldn't do. "I know he does, Manda."
"Still, he's not Karnak the Great. He can't be both places at the same time."
"No, but I don't want the cops coming by, either. I don't want them in this at all."
"Drive us up to the View, Lisey. You know, Pretty View."
Pretty View was what locals called the picnic area overlooking Castle Lake and Little Kin Pond. It was the entrance to Castle Rock State Park, and there was plenty of parking, even a couple of Portosans. And at mid-afternoon, with thunderstorms rolling in, it would very likely be deserted. A good place to stop, think, take stock, and kill some time. Maybe Amanda really was a genius.
"Come on, get us off Main Street," Amanda said, plucking at the neckline of her pajama top. "I feel like a stripper in church."
Lisey backed carefully out onto the street - now that she wanted nothing to do with the County Sheriff's Department, she was absurdly sure she was going to get into a fender-bender before she could put it behind her - and turned west. Ten minutes later she was turning in at the sign reading.
THIS PARK CLOSES AT SUNDOWN BARREL-PICKING PROHIBITED FOR YOUR HEALTH
BY LAW
5
Lisey's was the only car in the parking lot, and the picnic area was deserted - not even a single backpacker getting high on nature (or Montpelier Gold). Amanda walked toward one of the picnic tables. The soles of her feet were very pink, and even with the sun hidden, she was clearly nude under the green pajamas.
"Amanda, do you really think that's - "