together by this jagged yellow NASDAQ line, starting with Gray Haven. From there the line meanders through communities named, in order from west to east: Winslow, Stoneview, Ashford, Wickham, and East Newbury before ending at someplace called White's Cove, which perches on Cape Ann just west of Pigeon Cove.
Sue has never heard of any of these towns before, despite the fact that she's lived in Massachusetts most of her life. She certainly can't remember ever seeing any of them on a map. Of course there are literally hundreds of crappy little burgs scattered throughout New England that no amount of regional familiarity could possibly make her aware of, but it's somehow unsettling just the same.
Although let's face it, that might be due to the partially draped corpse of her nanny in the passenger seat, not to mention the stinking, Glad bag-draped thing stowed in the back.
'You've got your route laid out for you,' the voice on the phone says. 'You've got your cargo in the back and you've got nine hours of night left. If you get started now you should be back in White's Cove by seven thirtyA.M. tomorrow.'
Instinctively Sue's eyes go to the fuel gauge. Thank God she filled the tank after leaving work.
'Why do you want me to do this?'
'You'll figure it out as you go.'
'What happens when I get to White's Cove?'
'You'll know by the time you get there.'
'And that's when I get Veda back? Alive?'
'Always keep my promises, Susan.'
Sue wishes that she could believe him. Right now she wishes it more than anything. 'Where will she be?'
'The address is Eleven South Ocean Avenue. But fair warning, Susan: If you come even one minute late-or if you get there using any other route but the one marked in this map-you can still have her back. The only difference is that she'll be dead. Do you understand the terms of this agreement?'
'Eleven South Ocean Avenue,' Sue repeats, 'White's Cove.'
'Look for the statue.'
'Statue?'
'And just a reminder in case you were thinking about somehow alerting the police-'
'How do I know you're telling the truth?'
'You don't.'
Something happens in Sue's brain. A neurological event that she does not anticipate, a thing that begins where fear ends, a mother's outrage coupled with an ambulance driver's low-bullshit threshold. 'All right.' She is not yelling. She is being very quiet. 'I'll do what you ask. I'll drive through these towns with this thing in back. I won't call the police or anybody else. I'll be there tomorrow morning to pick up my daughter.But you listen to me. ' She pauses to take in a breath. It is a little disorienting to hear her voice sounding like this. As if some other persona has reemerged from a few years of civility, affluence, and good manners to remind her that, at one point, she understood with adolescent ruthlessness that the world ran on blood. 'If you kill my little girl tonight then you better make goddamn sure that you kill me as well. Because you're taking away everything I have in the world. And I will spend every waking moment for the rest of my life tracking you down. When I do, I promise you that you will die in a way so horrible that even a sick, sadistic son of a bitch like yourself would have to spend weeks trying to come up with something more painful than what I've got planned for you.' She breathes. 'Now do you understandthose terms, you cocksucker, or do I have to make it clearer?'
It is a good moment-it almost makes her feel human again-but she is greeted with nothing but a puff of cottony silence from the phone and she knows that he has hung up on her yet again. At this precise instant, however, Sue Young does not care. There are welcome times when the truth spills out of our mouths because holding it back is like suicide. This is one of those times.
She puts the Expedition in drive and, gripping the map in her right hand, starts to turn around and head east.
10:48P.M.
Ten minutes later she is flying back through Gray Haven with her foot on the accelerator, the map on her lap. It's the kind of automotive sleepwalking that people do on the most familiar roads, the roads that carry them to their jobs, to school and church, the neighborhoods of their friends and family, back and forth through the towns they'll grow old and die in. The years she spent away from here might never have elapsed-she feels as if she knows every pothole and curve from Townsend Street to the outskirts of town.
She glances down at the map, at the route and the remaining six towns that lie ahead of her. Clearly they've been combined in this order for some reason, though any attempt to find logic in a system devised by a man who kidnaps infants and plucks the eyes out of their nannies is, to say the least, ill-advised.
Still, she goes over them in her mind, one at a time, seeing the names, trying to make them add up to something.
Gray Haven.
Winslow.
Stoneview.
Ashford.
Wickham.
East Newbury.
White's Cove.
Six towns she's never heard of and one she knows inside and out.
It doesn't make any sense.
Maybe it's not supposed to make any sense.
She's near the end of Townsend when another car pulls out of a side street in front of her. Sue hits the brakes. The Expedition goes into a skid, its back end coming around and finally stopping less than five feet from the other vehicle. Sue's heart stops.
It is the old farm pickup.
It sits perfectly still in front of her, its engine burbling, its headlights on. Before Sue has time to react the door opens and the driver jumps out.
This time he's standing directly in her headlights and she sees him clearly, the outline of his body as clear and bright as a life-size cardboard cutout of a pop star in a record store. But even so, the disconnect between what she's expecting and what her eyes actually report is surprising enough that it still takes the data a moment to percolate through her consciousness.
He's just a kid.
No, she thinks, not a true kid, but young and lean, late teens, with a long face, short-cropped hair, and no expression. His eyes are cups of shadow. He's wearing a T-shirt that hangs out over his jeans, and no jacket. And he's headed toward her.
Sue is still fumbling for the wheel even as he runs over to the Expedition and comes right up to the passenger side, yanks the handle, and opens the door. He actually tries to climb inside before realizing that there's something in the way.
'What the hell is this?' He's got a surprisingly deep voice for someone his size and age, and a big Adam's apple that goes up and down as he talks. He yanks the blanket off so Marilyn's face is exposed. 'Holy shit!' He jumps backward, practically tripping over his own feet, and stares past Marilyn at Sue. 'There's a dead girl with no eyes in your front seat!'
'Who are you?' Sue asks.
'There is a dead fucking girl with no eyes in your front seat!'
'That's my daughter's nanny, Marilyn,' Sue says, and she sounds so calm saying it that she too is having some difficulty believing all of this is unfolding quite the way it seems to be. 'You don't know anything about that?'
