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“What else can we do?” Dave asked, and then his fragile calm broke. He began to weep, and held
Abra’s stuffed rabbit to his face. “What am I going to tell my wife? That I was shooting people in
Cloud Gap while some bogeyman was stealing our daughter?”
“First things first,” Dan said. He didn’t think AA slogans like Let go and let God or Take it easy
would fly with Abra’s dad right now. “You should call the Deanes when you get cell coverage. I think
you’ll reach them, and they’ll be fine.”
“You think this why?”
“In my last communication with Abra, I told her to have her friend’s mom call the police.”
Dave blinked. “You really did? Or are you just saying that now to cover your ass?”
“I really did. Abra started to answer. She said ‘I’m not,’ and then I lost her. I think she was going to
tell me she wasn’t at the Deanes’ anymore.”
“Is she alive?” Dave grasped Dan’s elbow with a hand that was dead cold. “Is my daughter still
alive?”
“I haven’t heard from her, but I’m sure she is.”
“Of course you’d say that,” Dave whispered. “CYA, right?”
Dan bit back a retort. If they started squabbling, any thin chance of getting Abra back would
become no chance.
“It makes sense,” John said. Although he was still pale and his hands weren’t quite steady, he was
using his calm bedside manner voice. “Dead, she’s no good to the one who’s left. The one who grabbed
her. Alive, she’s a hostage. Also, they want her for . . . well . . .”
“They want her for her essence,” Dan said. “The steam.”
“Another thing,” John said. “What are you going to tell the cops about the men we killed? That
they started cycling in and out of invisibility until they disappeared completely? And then we got rid
of their . . . their leavings?”
“I can’t believe I let you get me into this.” Dave was twisting the rabbit from side to side. Soon the
old toy would split open and spill its stuffing. Dan wasn’t sure he could bear to see that.
John said, “Listen, Dave. For your daughter’s sake, you have to clear your mind. She’s been in this
ever since she saw that boy’s picture in the Shopper and tried to find out about him. As soon as the one
Abra calls the hat woman was aware of her, she almost had to come after her. I don’t know about
steam, and I know very little about what Dan calls the shining, but I know people like the ones we’re
dealing with don’t leave witnesses. And when it comes to the Iowa boy, that’s what your daughter
was.”
“Call the Deanes but keep it light,” Dan said.
“Light? Light?” He looked like a man trying out a word in Swedish.
“Say you want to ask Abra if there’s anything you should pick up at the store—bread or milk or
something like that. If they say she went home, just say fine, you’ll reach her there.”
“Then what?”
Dan didn’t know. All he knew was that he needed to think. He needed to think about what was
forgotten.
John did know. “Then you try to reach Billy Freeman.”
It was dusk, with the Riv’s headlight cutting a visible cone up the aisle of the tracks, before Dave
got bars on his phone. He called the Deanes’, and although he was clutching the now-deformed Hoppy
in a mighty grip and large beads of sweat were trickling down his face, Dan thought he did a pretty
good job. Could Abby come to the phone for a minute and tell him if they needed anything at the
Stop & Shop? Oh? She did? Then he’d try her at home. He listened a moment longer, said he’d be sure
to do that, and ended the call. He looked at Dan, his eyes white-rimmed holes in his face.