In the night room Page 0,67

really the oddest people.”

She smiled at Willy. “I’m surprised that I don’t know your name. We do a great YA business in this store, and I do my best to keep up with all the authors. You know what? If you won the Newbery, we have multiple copies of your books. Would you mind signing some of them? I’ll just run over to the children’s section and bring you a nice little stack, all right?”

Willy had been fearing that her new friend Katherine would intrude herself into the conversation she had to have with Tim Underhill, and she embraced the opportunity of sending her off to another part of the store.

“Sure,” she said. “Take as long as you like.”

Katherine Hyndman strode off.

Willy watched Underhill stare at the receding back of the peculiar book collector and wished that he would look instead at her. As if she had touched his mind with hers, Underhill turned slowly in his chair and gazed at her in a way that combined close observation with appreciation. He seemed to measure and weigh her, to calculate her age, nearly to count her teeth. His warmth and good humor turned what could have been objectionable or even insulting into a kind of affectionate, observant approval. It seemed to Willy that being looked at in exactly this way was one of the things she truly needed, and he had given it to her unasked.

Then she saw him take in the blurry bloodstains on her shirt. He understood what they were, and that final detail seemed to lock some other understanding into place. Willy moved forward, now beyond wondering what she might say to him, and saw an amazing series of expressions flow across his face: disbelief, shock, love, fear, and total recognition. He said, This can’t be happening. Is your name Willy?

He knew her name. By extraordinary, unrepeatable means, Willy had found her way to the one person who could both make sense of her life and save it, and when she spoke, it was from the center of her soul. “I think I need your help. Do we know each other?”

23

From Timothy Underhill’s journal

Cyrax told me yr gr8 moment comes 2nite, but he never said that it would scare me silly. Well, he added that I would have to do rite & b strong & brave, so I guess he knew what he was talking about. Two completely contradictory impulses fought for control of my body: I wanted to put my arms around her, and I wanted to scram, to get out of there as fast as possible. Then Reason intervened to inform me that I was being ridiculous. This, Reason insisted, was merely a coincidence, albeit a coincidence of a very high order. Willy, this Willy, if that in fact was her name, had slipped into the room at the same moment that “Lucy Cleveland” slipped into the pages of my book. And because I had never imagined my heroine’s face in specific detail, this woman’s resemblance to fictional Willy Bryce Patrick was all in my head.

Reason, of course, had no idea what it was talking about.

It’s 4:30 in the morning. Willy finally fell asleep about half an hour ago. As far as I can tell, we’re safe here. A discreet look around the motel’s parking lot found not a trace of Faber’s silver-gray Mercedes. (About this, more later.)

To go back to the bookstore: after our first words, Willy said, “You seem like someone I’ve known for a long time. It’s the strangest thing—as soon as I saw you, I felt that you were of enormous importance to me.”

This did nothing to support my shaky belief that her appearance, in both senses, was no more than a kind of coincidence.

“You know my name,” she said. “Willy. You said it.”

“Is that really your name?”

“Maybe you know me from my work?” she said. Her next words demolished all hope that the world was still ticking on in the old manner. “Willy Patrick. Willy Bryce Patrick?”

She looked utterly charming, which made things much worse. I could just about feel the earth separating beneath me. In a second I was going to be in free fall.

“This is very embarrassing,” she said, and hesitated. “I don’t usually go up to other authors and say crazy things to them. Actually, I hardly ever meet other authors. Except, well, for . . .”

Instead of a name, what came out of her mouth was a muffled whisper. “I’m sorry,” she said in a voice