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12<br />
“Let go of me, you guys,” Dan said. His voice was his own again. “I’m all right. I think.”<br />
John and Dave let go, ready to grab him again if he staggered, but he didn’t. What he did was<br />
touch himself: hair, face, chest, legs. Then he nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m here.” He looked around.<br />
“Which is where?”<br />
“Fox Run Mall,” John said. “Sixty miles or so from Boston.”<br />
“Okay, let’s get back on the road.”<br />
“Abra,” Dave said. “What about Abra?”<br />
“Abra’s fine. Back where she belongs.”<br />
“She belongs at home,” Dave said, and with more than a touch of resentment. “In her room. IM’ing<br />
with her friends or listening to those stupid ’Round Here kids on her iPod.”<br />
She is at home, Dan thought. If a person’s body is their home, she’s there.<br />
“She’s with Billy. Billy will take care of her.”<br />
“What about the one who kidnapped her? This Crow?”<br />
Dan paused beside the back door of John’s Suburban. “You don’t have to worry about him anymore.<br />
The one we have to worry about now is Rose.”<br />
13<br />
The Crown Motel was actually over the state line, in Crownville, New York. It was a rattletrap place<br />
with a flickering sign out front reading VAC NCY and M NY CAB E CHAN ELS! Only four cars<br />
were parked in the thirty or so slots. The man behind the counter was a descending mountain of fat,<br />
with a ponytail that trickled to a stop halfway down his back. He ran Billy’s Visa and gave him the<br />
keys to two rooms without taking his eyes from the TV, where two women on a red velvet sofa were<br />
engaged in strenuous osculation.<br />
“Do they connect?” Billy asked. And, looking at the women: “The rooms, I mean.”<br />
“Yeah, yeah, they all connect, just open the doors.”<br />
“Thanks.”<br />
He drove down the rank of units to twenty-three and twenty-four, and parked the truck. Abra was<br />
curled up on the seat with her head pillowed on one arm, fast asleep. Billy unlocked the rooms, turned<br />
on the lights, and opened the connecting doors. He judged the accommodations shabby but not quite<br />
desperate. All he wanted now was to get the two of them inside and go to sleep himself. Preferably for<br />
about ten hours. He rarely felt old, but tonight he felt ancient.<br />
Abra woke up a little as he laid her on the bed. “Where are we?”<br />
“Crownville, New York. We’re safe. I’ll be in the next room.”<br />
“I want my dad. And I want Dan.”<br />
“Soon.” Hoping he was right about that.<br />
Her eyes closed, then slowly opened again. “I talked to that woman. That bitch.”<br />
“Did you?” Billy had no idea what she meant.<br />
“She knows what we did. She felt it. And it hurt.” A harsh light gleamed momentarily in Abra’s<br />
eyes. Billy thought it was like seeing a peek of sun at the end of a cold, overcast day in February. “I’m<br />
glad.”<br />
“Go to sleep, hon.”<br />
That cold winter light still shone out of the pale and tired face. “She knows I’m coming for her.”
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