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He locked his room when he left, as he always did, but a lock wouldn’t keep the mysterious Abra
out if she wanted to visit. When he came back, there might be another message from her on the
blackboard.
Maybe we can become pen pals.
Sure, and maybe a cabal of Victoria’s Secret lingerie models would crack the secret of hydrogen
fusion.
Grinning, Dan went out.
5
The Anniston Public Library was having its annual summer book sale, and when Abra asked to go,
Lucy was delighted to put aside her afternoon chores and walk down to Main Street with her daughter.
Card tables loaded with various donated volumes had been set up on the lawn, and while Lucy browsed
the paperback table ($1 EACH, 6 FOR $5, YOU PICK ’EM), looking for Jodi Picoults she hadn’t read,
Abra checked out the selections on the tables marked YOUNG ADULTS. She was still a long way
from adulthood of even the youngest sort, but she was a voracious (and precocious) reader with a
particular love of fantasy and science fiction. Her favorite t-shirt had a huge, complicated machine on
the front above the declaration STEAMPUNK RULES.
Just as Lucy was deciding she’d have to settle for an old Dean Koontz and a slightly newer Lisa
Gardner, Abra came running over to her. She was smiling. “Mom! Mommy! His name is Dan!”
“Whose name is Dan, sweetheart?”
“Tony’s father! He told me to have a happy summer day!”
Lucy looked around, almost expecting to see a strange man with a boy Abra’s age in tow. There
were plenty of strangers—it was summer, after all—but no pairs like that.
Abra saw what she was doing and giggled. “Oh, he’s not here.”
“Then where is he?”
“I don’t know, exactly. But close.”
“Well . . . I guess that’s good, hon.”
Lucy had just enough time to tousle her daughter’s hair before Abra ran back to renew her hunt for
rocketeers, time travelers, and sorcerers. Lucy stood watching her, her own choices hanging forgotten
in her hand. Tell David about this when he called from Boston, or not? She thought not.
Weird radio, that was all.
Better to let it pass.
6
Dan decided to pop into Java Express, buy a couple of coffees, and take one to Billy Freeman over in
Teenytown. Although Dan’s employment by the Frazier Municipal Department had been extremely
short, the two men had remained friendly over the last ten years. Part of that was having Casey in
common—Billy’s boss, Dan’s sponsor—but mostly it was simple liking. Dan enjoyed Billy’s nobullshit
attitude.
He also enjoyed driving The Helen Rivington. Probably that inner-child thing again; he was sure a
psychiatrist would say so. Billy was usually willing to turn over the controls, and during the summer
season he often did so with relief. Between the Fourth of July and Labor Day, the Riv made the tenmile
loop out to Cloud Gap and back ten times a day, and Billy wasn’t getting any younger.
As he crossed the lawn to Cranmore Avenue, Dan spied Fred Carling sitting on a shady bench in