In the bank, Gibson left fifty dollars in his account and withdrew the balance: $810. His credit cards had both been frozen due to nonpayment; he couldn’t afford to pay them off and wouldn’t be able to sign up for new ones without a job and a home address. The bank would have issued him a new debit card, but given his shopping list, it would be better not to leave an electronic footprint. So, all of his worldly possessions came down to these: $860, the contents of his duffel bag, and Charles Merrick’s gold watch. His old landlord would have long since evicted him from his apartment and sent his things to the dump. Financially, no great loss; the apartment had been only the approximation of a home, and he hadn’t owned anything of monetary value. But he was sorry to lose his personal effects, especially the photographs of Ellie.
Gibson made a series of stops after the bank. A navy surplus store for a winter-clothes starter kit and boots. A computer-repair shop for a used laptop. A house with a room for rent on Craigslist that would have been perfect except it had no separate entrance. Gibson couldn’t have anyone keeping tabs on his comings and goings. So until he found something that fit his needs, he took a room at a rundown motel. At a convenience store, he bought two flip phones to replace his smartphone, which couldn’t be reactivated without a credit card. While the manager rang up his purchase, Gibson stared at the tired rotisserie hot dogs making their lazy circuit. It was time, he realized, to give Sana that hug.
The holidays were in full swing at the Nighthawk. Toby took his festivity very seriously. Every square inch of the diner had been decorated. The Vince Guaraldi Trio played over the stereo, and Gibson felt the warm crush of voices as he pushed through the door. He grinned despite himself. Sana came out from behind the counter and wrapped her arms around him. When they broke away, Sana cupped a hand to his cheek and frowned at him.
“I will not forgive you for shaving before I saw you.”
“Your husband thought it best.”
Sana harrumphed. “He is so delicate, I swear.”
She thrust a menu in his hand and promised to visit when things quieted down. Gibson took his favored booth in the back and ran his hands over the familiar table. The very spot where George Abe had once recruited him to join Jenn Charles and Dan Hendricks in the search for Bear. In a way, it had all started right here. As much as anything can ever be the start of anything. Gibson recognized in himself the basic human need to arrange the events of his life into digestible stories. Stories needed beginnings; this was his. One of them anyway.
Accepting George Abe’s offer had been the first in a series of choices that had led him to his present circumstances. The strange part was that, despite all that he had endured, he was hard-pressed to say which decision he would undo, given the chance. Individually, each had seemed necessary and right. It was only when he took a step back and looked at the big picture of his life that he saw where they had led him. Led them all.
George Abe had been missing since Atlanta.
Jenn had gone after him. Alone. No one had heard from her since.
Of the original team, only Dan Hendricks had so far eluded the curse. He lived an isolated existence in California, keeping a low and extremely paranoid profile. He’d skirmished with the same contract killer who had tried to hang Gibson. It had rattled Hendricks, who believed with fatalistic certainty that eventually the killer would return to finish what he’d started. Maybe he hadn’t eluded the curse after all.
Before his disappearance, Gibson had talked to Hendricks every couple of weeks. Checked in to trade notes and see if he had heard from Jenn. Gibson remembered clearly the morning that he had said good-bye to her at the motel outside Atlanta. They’d been through one hell of an ordeal to solve Suzanne Lombard’s disappearance, and it had frayed their uneasy alliance. By the end, they had all needed to go their separate ways, but that was one decision that he would have made differently if he’d known it was the last time he’d see Jenn.
When the waiter came, Gibson asked for a black-and-white milkshake and ordered his father’s favorite breakfast. Milkshakes and eggs—picturing Jenn’s horrified reaction to the combination made him smile. Maybe he should reach out to Hendricks. It had been eighteen months. There had to be news, one way or the other. But if it were bad news, Gibson didn’t know if he could hear it. He’d already heard all that he could stand. Instead, he stared out the window until Toby put his food on the table.
“It’s not such a bad face,” Toby said with a smile. “But on second thought, I prefer the beard.”
“Thank you.” Gibson held up the car keys and the hundred dollars.
“Why do you have your bag with you?” Toby wanted to know.
“I still had a little money in my checking account, so I rented a room,” Gibson lied.
“Good. That’s a good step. I’m impressed. What will you do next?”
“Well, I thought I’d eat and do a little job hunting.” It was the truth. If he wanted any chance of getting away with what he had in store for Damon Washburn, he would need to construct a convincing narrative of a man attempting to rebuild his life. A permanent address was his first priority, but a job would be an important next step.
“Then I will leave you to it,” Toby said.
“What?” Gibson asked. Toby had a funny look on his face.
“It’s hard to believe you are the same man I collected from the police two days ago. It shows character, my friend. You are going to be all right.”
Toby squeezed his shoulder and left the table before Gibson could reply. He ate slowly while the diner filled with the evening rush. Once, a bustling diner had provided comforting, peaceful background noise, but now all the sound and movement felt oppressive. He couldn’t keep up with all the stimuli, and his vision distorted at the edges like a television channel with bad reception. Something out of another era, which is how he felt. He mopped up the eggs with his toast and looked around, hoping to catch sight of Bear or Duke.
He hadn’t seen either one since the bank. All afternoon, he’d counted that as a sign that maybe he could function without them. But he’d depended on them to survive that cell, and he missed them now. It also worried him that knowing Bear and Duke weren’t real did nothing to diminish his affection for them. Then again, no one understood what he’d been through the way they did.
He looked around for them again.
This was not healthy. He knew that rationally. They were a crutch of his mind. Missing figments of your imagination was insane. They weren’t his friends because they weren’t real. He repeated it over and over to himself without conviction. Something inside him felt irreparably broken, and he didn’t see how to do what needed doing while entertaining the ghosts of his past.
“Don’t be so melodramatic, son,” Duke admonished him. “Glad to see you still clean your plate.”
Right on cue.
Gibson pushed his plate away and ignored his father.
“Very mature,” Duke said.
“I’m not talking to you in here. People will think I’m crazy.”
“You are crazy,” Duke pointed out.
“Am I?”
“You are now. In there, you were sane. Out here . . . not so much.”
“So stop talking to me.”