Did you find the woman, too—Abbey Hanley, Abbey Dunbar? Is that how you got it?
Yes.
Penny told you about her, didn’t she?
Before she died.
She told you, you found her, and she even gave you the book—and the Murderer looked at Clay, and the boy was sculpted himself now, as if made of blood and stone.
I’m here, said Michael Dunbar.
I left you, I know, but I’m here.
Think that over, Clay.
And he did.
In the tide of Dunbar past, three and a half years passed, and Clay lay in bed, awake. He was thirteen years old. He was dark-haired, boyish and skinny, and his heartbeat stung in the stillness. There was fire in each of his eyes.
In a moment he slid from bed, he was dressed.
He was in shorts and a T-shirt, barefoot.
He escaped out to the racing quarter, and he ran the streets and screamed. He did all of it without speaking:
Dad!
DAD!
WHERE ARE YOU, DAD?!
It was spring, just before first light, and he ran at the bodies of buildings; the rumored placement of houses. The lights of cars would shine at him, twin ghosts, then by, then gone.
Dad, he called.
Dad.
His footsteps slowed, then stopped.
Where were you, Michael Dunbar?
* * *
—
Earlier that year, it happened:
Penelope was dead.
She’d died in March.
The dying took three years; it was supposed to last six months. She was the ultimate in Jimmy Hartnelling—it could kill her all it wanted, but Penelope wouldn’t die. When finally she’d succumbed, though, the tyranny started immediately.
From our father we hoped for hope, I think—for courage, and close proximity—like hugging us one by one, or to carry us up from our lowest.
But nothing l
ike that had come: