and one mostly detached ear, remained. Above these things was a jagged bowl half filled with a rising pool of rain.
He’d watched the accident from less than a foot away, but this somehow seemed worse. To see his father’s body tossed to the side, collecting rain like a backyard birdbath, made him want to scream.
He heard wet smacking sounds behind him and turned. The pair of stained leather boots was backing away from the overturned station wagon.
The man above the boots hunched over, tugging at something inside the car, but even so, Davy could tell he was tall and husky. He wore his checked flannel shirt tucked into the waist of a tight pair of jeans. Davy couldn’t make out his face; a mane of dark, shaggy hair covered the back of the man’s head. The rain running out of this hairy jungle was brown and thick, as if the guy hadn’t washed the dirt out of his hair in months.
Before Davy could think to do anything at all, he saw what was happening. One of the side windows had shattered. What first appeared to be a long, white branch growing out through the frame turned out to be a pale, limp arm. The man, holding tight to the wrist, yanked the way Davy’s Daddy yanked the lawnmower’s start cord. Davy continued to stare; the booted man jerked on the arm again, and Davy’s mother came sliding through the window.
The man backed away from the station wagon, never letting go of the arm. Moving carefully but deliberately backward, he dragged Davy’s mother through the mud toward Davy and finally let her drop to the ground. The mud splatter from her falling body hit Davy across both eyes, but not before he’d seen the blank, lifeless expression on his mother’s tumbling face.
Dead. Like his father. Gone.
He wanted to deny it, to tell himself she was okay, that she’d look over at him any second and smile, but he knew better. He wouldn’t let his mind play tricks on him.
Mr. Boots turned back to the car without saying a word. He came close enough to the station wagon to touch it, dropped to his knees, and poked his head in through the windowless frame.
Davy turned to his mother. She had landed with her face pointed mostly away from him, but Davy could still see the caked blood on her cheek and a single vacant eye. He flipped onto his elbows and crawled to her. Her hair floated in the mud around her head. Davy reached out and tilted her face so her glazed eyes faced the sky. The rain had already washed away most of the blood, but Davy knew it couldn’t wash away the deep gash running from her cheek to her jaw to her neck. He dropped his forehead to hers and cried.
It wasn’t fair. His daddy and his mommy both in one night. How could something like this happen?
He heard more noises from the car. Mr. Boots emerged from the shattered window with a furry, writhing body curled into the crook of one arm.
Manny.
Davy said the dog’s name, and the sound coming out of his mouth sounded so wrong, so high-pitched and alien, that he immediately wished he could take it back.
“Not gonna make it,” Mr. Boots said, his voice deep, booming. Mr. Boots dropped the beagle to the ground the same way he had dropped Davy’s mother. Manny bounced once, like a half-deflated basketball, and then lay still. He moaned. Davy didn’t think he’d ever be able to forget that sound. Manny didn’t quiet until Mr. Boots lifted one of his own hefty legs and brought his boot down hard on the dog’s throat.
Davy choked again, and this time he lost his breath altogether. He gasped and cried and tried to scream all at once.
Mr. Boots looked over at him and brought his foot down again, softer than the first time but hard enough to snap at least a few more bones in Manny’s poor, unmoving body.
Davy’s own worthless body continued to betray him. When Mr. Boots walked over to Davy, all the boy could do was drop to his mother’s chest and cling to it like an infant.
“It’s just you and me now,” Mr. Boots said and reached down to pull Davy onto his knees.
Davy shook his head, trying to stifle another bout of hysterical sobs. “Nuh…hu, no. My broth…my Georgie.” He couldn’t believe his family was gone. His
Mr. Boots frowned. His face had deep wrinkles, but in other ways he didn’t look any older than Davy’s father. The man’s frown suddenly reversed itself, and the smile revealed half a dozen toothless gaps. Mr. Boots pulled Davy to his feet and pointed over the car wreck.
He saw Georgie, his brother, pinned to a tree trunk fifteen feet away, dangling so the toes of his sneakers floated two feet above the ground, jabbed onto the sharp stub of a broken limb. Davy couldn’t understand how Georgie could have flown from the car and ended up so close to the final wreck site. It wasn’t possible, was it?
Davy looked up at the man in the checkered shirt, Mr. Boots, and the stranger giggled.
“You and me,” he repeated. “Just the two of us.” He jammed his hands beneath Davy’s armpits and lifted him until their noses came within an inch of touching. “Someone up there’s been listening.” He looked up into the growing storm and then back into Davy’s eyes. Without warning, he pulled the boy close and kissed him on the lips.
Davy tried to squirm away, but the stranger had a superhero’s strength. With nothing else to do, Davy closed his eyes and cringed until the man’s lips left his face.
“Don’t worry,” the stranger crooned. “We’ll get this mess all cleaned up before anybody does so much as
PART I
TWENTY-THREE YEARS LATER
ONE
The city of Foothill wasn’t exactly a metropolis, but it did have the Mountain View Mall, and you could hardly call any place large enough to boast such an extravagant shopping center the boondocks.
That Friday, the mall’s parking lots were full, and inside, although it was just past four in the afternoon, the food court bustled. There wasn’t a single line in the place less than fifteen customers long—with the exception of the one leading to Wu’s Chinese, which the local paper had recently vilified for failing a health inspection with nearly a dozen violations. The more popular eateries were just about overrun.
It took Libby and Trevor Pullman almost twenty minutes to get their tacos. By the time Libby accepted her change from the cashier and dropped her wallet into her purse, she felt like she’d been standing for a week. Trevor, peeking frequently back at his mom to be sure he hadn’t lost her, carried the tray toward an empty two-seat table at the far end of the room. Libby followed behind with their shopping bags, watching the tray in Trevor’s small hands, wondering if he might lose his grip and spill their long-awaited supper on the floor. She didn’t ask Trevor to be careful because that would have only made him nervous. She didn’t want to make a worrier out of her son; even something small like letting him carry the tray would help build his confidence, and as far as confidence went, she hoped he would someday have a gutful.
In the large open area at the end of the food court, the area where the mall would soon hold their big back- to-school extravaganza and set up Santa when Christmastime eventually rolled around, the mall overseers had, for the summer months, erected an enormous glittering carousel on a raised platform. The ride, a beautiful Victorianesque number, must have cost the mall a whole bag full of pretty pennies, and the line of people waiting to mount one of the painted animals was so long and unorganized that you probably could have called it a
