"To Rumania?" Bill said, staring at her. "It's too dangerous."
"Is anyplace safe anymore?"
Even the daytime was no longer safe. A rather shaken Jack had returned a short while ago with a story of horrors hiding in the sewers and storm drains.
"This place is. And Glaeken seems to want you around."
"But why? What can I do besides help him take care of Magda? Not that I mind, but what else?"
"I don't know. Maybe you're part of the equation. I don't pretend to understand why he's doing what he's doing. Sometimes I wonder if he knows why he's doing what he's doing. But he's all we've got. And if he says we need these bits of metal from Rumania and I'm the only one left who can get them, then I'll try to get them. And if he says you're important to the solution to what's happening to the world, then I'll go along with him. He hasn't let us down yet."
" 'Part of the equation,'" she said, her throat constricting around the words. "I've been part of some sort of equation since I got pregnant and provided the little body that allowed this…this monster back into the world!" Her voice cracked. "He took my baby, Bill! He kicked out whoever my real baby might have been and took over his tiny body. And now he's going to take you!"
She felt Bill's arms go around her shoulders and pull her tight against him. His flannel shirt smelled lightly of detergent, and as its rough surface pressed against her cheek, the thought that he really should use fabric softener wafted inanely across her mind. She slipped her arms around his waist and pulled herself closer. If she could just hold him here like this, it soon would be too late for him leave, and then she wouldn't lose him.
And she realized then how much she wanted him. Not like the last time, not like back in '68 when the beast within twisted her into trying to seduce Bill from his vows. That had been lust, induced lust. This was something else. This was love. An old love, following a long and winding road from the puppy love when they'd dated in their teens, to something deep and real. In a way, perhaps she'd always loved Bill. And now that he'd turned away from his church and his old beliefs, now that the cocoon of the priesthood had been unraveled from around him, he seemed real again, flesh and blood again. She wanted to tell him how she felt but the decades-old memories of that degrading scene of attempted seduction still echoed around her and held her back. And yet, if she didn't tell him now, would she ever get the chance again?
Jack's voice shattered the moment: "Time's a-wastin', Bill. We've got to make a stop in Monroe on the way."
Monroe…her home town. Bill's too. Where Rasalom had usurped her child's body at conception. The torrent of memories was cut off as Bill pulled free of her arms.
"Got to go, Carol."
He went to kiss her on the forehead. Impulsively, Carol lifted her face and kissed him on the lips. From the way he pulled back and the way he looked at her, she knew that he hadn't forgotten 1968 either.
"Come back to me, Bill," she said softly. "I don't want to lose you too."
He swallowed, nodded. "Okay. Yeah." His voice was sandpaper dry. "I'll be back. We can talk more about this then." He picked up his duffel and started for the door, then stopped and turned. "I love you, Carol. I can't think of a moment when I didn't."
And then he was gone. But his final words lingered after him, filling Carol with a bewildering mix of emotions. She wanted to laugh with joy; instead she sat on the edge of the bed and cried.
WINS-AM
—and at sea, the QE2 appears to be missing. She was last heard from Sunday evening. It is feared she is sunk. If she had hit one of the gravity anomalies she would have radioed for help. The single air-sea rescue plane that was sent out has found no survivors.
LONG ISLAND
It took Jack longer than he'd planned to get to Monroe. A lot of traffic outbound on the Long Island Expressway. Maybe they thought it would be better out on the Island. He'd talked to Doc Bulmer on the phone this morning, and from what he'd said, things didn't seem a whole hell of a lot quieter out here.
So he did the best speed he could as the wind fluttered and whistled through the rips in the top. Nick sat in the back seat, his zombie stare fixed straight ahead. Bill wasn't much better as company. He sat in the passenger seat and said nothing, just gazed out the window, lost in a world of his own. Jack wondered what was going on between him and that Mrs. Treece. Her husband had run off and left her. Was Bill moving in? He'd been a priest for most of his life. He had a lot of lost time to make up for. Jack couldn't blame him. She was attractive, even if she had a good ten or fifteen years on Jack. But he sensed there was more to it than opportunity knocking. Those two seemed to go back a long way.
So Jack played the radio. A number of stations were gone, nothing but static in their slots on the band, but a few DJs and newsfolk were hanging in there, still playing music, still broadcasting the news, keeping their listeners informed to the best of their ability as to what was fact and what was merely rumor. He had to hand it to them. They had more guts than he would have given them credit for.
He clicked it off. He wasn't in the mood for music.
"So, Bill," he said, jerking his thumb toward the back seat. "How are you going to handle Edgar Cayce back there?"
Bill turned from the window and fixed Jack with a stare.
"Don't make fun of him. He's an old friend of mine and he's a victim, just like a lot of other people these days."
Jack instinctively bristled at the sound of someone telling him what to do, then realized that Bill was right.
"Sorry. I didn't know him before he…before he went down into the hole."
"He was brilliant. Hopefully he'll be brilliant again. A mind like a computer, but a good heart too."
"Bit of a spread in age between the two of you. How'd you meet?"
"I was his father for a few years."
When Jack shot him a questioning look, Bill went on and explained about his years as director of a Jesuit orphanage in Queens, and how a certain little boy had died and how he'd spent five years on the run as a result. The story fascinated Jack. He'd been seeing this guy every day lately and never guessed what kind of a man he was, or the hell he'd been through. How could he? Bill seemed to have built a wall around himself, as if he was practicing being a nobody.
But now that Jack had got a peek over that wall, he decided he liked Bill Ryan.
And besides that, the story made the trip pass faster. Here they were already, in Monroe, on Shore Drive.
Ba must have been watching from one of the windows. He stepped out the front door as they pulled in the driveway. He approached the car with only a Macy's shopping bag dangling from his hand. The Nash lady, Doc Buhner, and the kid, Jeffy, were all clustered at the front door to see him off, like the Cleavers sending an Oriental Wally off to war.
"I'd better get in the back," Bill said. "He'll never fit."
As he shifted to the rear, Jack got out, waved to Ba, then trotted to the front door.
"Glaeken wants me to 'urge' you folks—his word—to come stay with him in the city. He says it's going to get a lot worse out here."
"We'll be okay," the doc said. "We've got our own protection."
Jack glanced around at all the steel storm shades. The place looked like a fortress.
"Maybe you do," he said, nodding. "But I promised him I'd ask."
"You've kept your promise to Glaeken," the Nash lady said softly, and Jack thought he saw tears in her eyes. "Now keep one to me: You bring Ba back, okay?" Her voice sounded like it was going to break. "You bring him back just the way he left, you hear?"