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“Abra got in touch telepathically. She told Rose that she was coming after her.”
“She what?”
“That temper of hers,” Dave said quietly. “I’ve told her a hundred times it would get her in
trouble.”
“She’s not going anywhere near that woman, or her child-killing friends,” Lucy said.
Dan thought: Yes . . . and no. He took Lucy’s hand. She started to pull away, then didn’t.
“The thing you have to understand is really quite simple,” he said. “They will never stop.”
“But—”
“No buts, Lucy. Under other circumstances, Rose still might have decided to disengage—this is
one crafty old she-wolf—but there’s one other factor.”
“Which is?”
“They’re sick,” John said. “Abra says it’s the measles. They might even have caught it from the
Trevor boy. I don’t know if you’d call that divine retribution or just irony.”
“Measles?”
“I know it doesn’t sound like much, but believe me, it is. You know how, in the old days, measles
could run through a whole family of kids? If that’s happening to this True Knot, it could wipe them
out.”
“Good!” Lucy cried. The angry smile on her face was one Dan knew well.
“Not if they think Abra’s supersteam will cure them,” Dave said. “That’s what you need to
understand, hon. This isn’t just a skirmish. To this bitch it’s a fight to the death.” He struggled and
then brought out the rest of it. Because it had to be said. “If Rose gets the chance, she’ll eat our
daughter alive.”
13
Lucy asked, “Where are they? This True Knot, where are they?”
“Colorado,” Dan said. “At a place called the Bluebell Campground in the town of Sidewinder.”
That the site of the campground was the very place where he had once almost died at his father’s hands
was a thing he didn’t want to say, because it would lead to more questions and more cries of
coincidence. The one thing of which Dan was sure was that there were no coincidences.
“This Sidewinder must have a police department,” Lucy said. “We’ll call them and get them on
this.”
“By telling them what?” John’s tone was gentle, nonargumentative.
“Well . . . that . . .”
“If you actually got the cops to go up there to the campground,” Dan said, “they’d find nothing but
a bunch of middle-aged-going-on-older Americans. Harmless RV folks, the kind who always want to
show you pictures of their grandkids. Their papers would all be in apple-pie order, from dog licenses
to land deeds. The police wouldn’t find guns if they managed to get a search warrant—which they
wouldn’t, no probable cause—because the True Knot doesn’t need guns. Their weapons are up here.”
Dan tapped his forehead. “You’d be the crazy lady from New Hampshire, Abra would be your crazy
daughter who ran away from home, and we’d be your crazy friends.”
Lucy pressed her palms to her temples. “I can’t believe this is happening.”
“If you did a search of records, I think you’d find that the True Knot—under whatever name they
might be incorporated—has been very generous to that particular Colorado town. You don’t shit in
your nest, you feather it. Then, if bad times come, you have lots of friends.”