“Of course you have. I’ll show you the way.”
But Holly lingered for a moment, looking through the archway and into the Andersons’ living room. “Your intruder was sitting just there when you came downstairs?”
“Yes. In one of our kitchen chairs.” She pointed, then crossed her arms and cupped her elbows. “At first I could only see him from the knees down. Then the word on his fingers. MUST. Then he leaned forward and I could see his face.”
“Bolton’s face.”
“Yes.”
Holly considered this, then broke into a radiant smile that surprised both Ralph and his wife. It made her look years younger. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m off to dreamland.”
Jeannie led her upstairs, chatting away. Setting her at ease in a way I never could, Ralph thought. It’s a talent, and it will probably work even on this extremely peculiar woman.
Peculiar she might be, but she was strangely likeable, in spite of her mad ideas about Terry Maitland and Heath Holmes.
Mad ideas that just happen to fit the facts.
But it was impossible.
That fit them like a glove.
“Still impossible,” he murmured.
Upstairs, the two women laughed. Hearing that made Ralph smile. He waited where he was until he heard Jeannie’s steps heading back to their room, then he went up himself. The door to the guest room at the end of the hall was firmly closed. The sheaf of papers—the fruits of Jeannie’s hurried research—was lying on his pillow. He undressed, lay down, and began to read about Ms. Holly Gibney, co-owner of a skip-tracing firm called Finders Keepers.
17
Outside and down the block, Jack watched as the woman in the suit turned into Anderson’s driveway. Anderson came out and helped her with her things. She didn’t have much, traveling light. One of her bags was from Walmart. So that was where she’d gone. Maybe to get a nightie and a toothbrush. Judging from the look of her, the nightie would be ugly and the bristles of the toothbrush would be hard enough to draw blood from her gums.
He took a nip from his flask, and as he was screwing on the cap and thinking about going home （why not, since all the good little children were in for the night）， he realized he was no longer alone in the truck. Someone was sitting on the passenger side. He had just appeared in the corner of Hoskins’s eye. That was impossible, of course, but he couldn’t have been there all along. Could he?
Hoskins looked straight ahead. The sunburn on his neck, which had been relatively quiet, began to throb again, and very painfully.
A hand came into his peripheral vision, floating. It seemed he could almost see the seat through it. Written on the fingers in faded blue ink was the word MUST. Hoskins closed his eyes, praying that his visitor would not touch him.
“You need to take a drive,” the visitor said. “Unless you want to die the way your mother died, that is. Do you remember how she screamed?”
Yes, Jack remembered. Until she couldn’t scream anymore.
“Until she couldn’t scream anymore,” said the passenger. The hand touched his thigh, very lightly, and Jack knew the skin there would soon begin to burn, just like the back of his neck. The pants he was wearing would be no protection; the poison would seep right through. “Yes, you remember. How could you forget?”
“Where do you want me to go?”
The passenger told him, and then the touch of that awful hand disappeared. Jack opened his eyes and looked around. The other side of the bench seat was empty. The lights in the Anderson house were out. He looked at his watch and saw it was fifteen minutes to eleven. He had fallen asleep. He could almost believe he’d just had a dream. A very bad one. Except for one thing.
He started the truck and put it in gear. He would stop to gas up at the Hi station on Route 17 outside of town. That was the right place, because the guy who worked the night shift—Cody, his name was—always had a good supply of little white pills. Cody sold them to the truckers either highballing north to Chicago or down south to Texas. For Jack Hoskins of the Flint City PD, there would be no charge.
The truck’s dashboard was dusty. At the first stop sign, he leaned over to his right and wiped it clean, getting rid of the word his passenger’s finger had left there.
MUST.
NO END TO THE UNIVERSE
July 26th
1
What sleep Ralph got was thin and broken by bad dreams. In one of them, he held the dying Terry Maitland in his arms, and Terry said, “You robbed my children.”
Ralph woke at four thirty and knew there would be no more sleep. He felt as if he had entered some heretofore unsuspected plane of existence, and told himself everyone felt that way in the small hours. That was good enough to get him into the bathroom, where he brushed his teeth.