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CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CROW
1
Get with me, Daddy, Barry the Chink had said. Lean close.
This was just after Snake had started the first of the porn DVDs. Crow got with Barry, even held
his hand while the dying man struggled through his next cycle. And when he came back . . .
Listen to me. She’s been watching, all right. Only when that porno started up . . .
Explaining to someone who couldn’t do the locator thing was hard, especially when the one doing
the talking was mortally ill, but Crow got the gist of it. The fucksome frolickers by the pool had
shocked the girl, just as Rose had hoped they might, but they had done more than make her quit
spying and pull back. For a moment or two, Barry’s sense of her location seemed to double. She was
still on the midget train with her dad, riding to the place where they were going to have their picnic,
but her shock had produced a ghost image that made no sense. In this she was in a bathroom, taking a
leak.
“Maybe you were seeing a memory,” Crow said. “Could that be?”
“Yeah,” Barry said. “Rubes think all kinds of crazy shit. Most likely it’s nothing. But for a minute
it was like she was twins, you know?”
Crow didn’t, exactly, but he nodded.
“Only if that’s not it, she might be running some kind of game. Gimme the map.”
Jimmy Numbers had all of New Hampshire on his laptop. Crow held it up in front of Barry.
“Here’s where she is,” Barry said, tapping the screen. “On her way to this Cloud Glen place with
her dad.”
“Gap,” Crow said. “Cloud Gap.”
“Whatever the fuck.” Barry moved his finger northeast. “And this is where the ghost-blip came
from.”
Crow took the laptop and looked through the bead of no doubt infected sweat Barry had left on the
screen. “Anniston? That’s her hometown, Bar. She’s probably left psychic traces of herself all over it.
Like dead skin.”
“Sure. Memories. Daydreams. All kinds of crazy shit. What I said.”
“And it’s gone now.”
“Yeah, but . . .” Barry grasped Crow’s wrist. “If she’s as strong as Rose says, it’s just possible that
she really is gaming us. Throwing her voice, like.”
“Have you ever run across a steamhead that could do that?”
“No, but there’s a first time for everything. I’m almost positive she’s with her father, but you’re the
one who has to decide if almost positive is good enough for . . .”
That was when Barry began cycling again, and all meaningful communication ceased. Crow was
left with a difficult decision. It was his mission, and he was confident he could handle it, but it was
Rose’s plan and—more important—Rose’s obsession. If he screwed up, there would be hell to pay.