heaped together like a litter of puppies, fast asleep. Nicky also appeared to be asleep, his head thudding against the window every time the truck hit a bump . . . and there were a lot of bumps.
Just after seeing a sign announcing that Millinocket was fifty miles ahead, Tim looked at his cell phone and saw that he had two bars and nine per cent power. He called Wendy, who answered on the first ring. She wanted to know if he was all right. He said he was. She asked if Luke was.
“Yes. He’s sleeping. I’ve got four more kids. There were others—I don’t know how many, quite a few—but they’re dead.”
“Dead? Jesus, Tim, what happened?”
“Can’t tell you now. I will when I can, and you might even believe it, but right now I’m in the williwags, I’ve got maybe thirty bucks in my wallet, and I don’t dare use my credit cards. There’s a hell of a mess back there, and I don’t want to risk leaving a paper trail. Also, I’m tired as hell. The truck’s still got half a tank of gas, which is good, but I’m running on fumes. Bitch-bitch-bitch, right?”
“What . . . you . . . have any . . .”
“Wendy, I’m losing you. If you hear me, I’ll call back. I love you.”
He didn’t know if she heard that last or not, or what she’d make of it if she had. He’d never said it to her before. He turned off his phone and put it in the console along with Tag Faraday’s gun. All that had happened back in DuPray seemed long ago to him, almost in a life that had been led by another person. What mattered now were these children, and what he was going to do with them.
Also, who might come after them.
“Hey, Tim.”
He looked around at Nicky. “I thought you were asleep.”
“No, just thinking. Can I tell you something?”
“Sure. Tell me a lot. Keep me awake.”
“Just wanted to say thanks. I won’t say you redeemed my faith in human nature, but coming with Lukey like you did . . . that took balls.”
“Listen, kiddo, are you reading my mind?”
Nick shook his head. “Can’t do it just now. Don’t think I could even move any of the candy wrappers on the floor of this heap, and that was my thing. If I was linked up with them . . .” He inclined his head toward the sleeping children in the back of the panel truck. “It’d be different. At least for awhile.”
“You think you’ll revert? Go back to whatever you had before?”
“Dunno. It’s not a big deal to me either way. Never was. My big deals were football and street hockey.” He peered at Tim. “Man, those aren’t bags under your eyes, those are suitcases.”
“I could use some sleep,” Tim admitted. Yes, like about twelve hours. He found himself remembering Norbert Hollister’s ramshackle establishment, where the TV didn’t work and the roaches ran free. “I suspect there are independent motels where they wouldn’t ask questions if cash was on offer, but cash is a problem, I’m afraid.”
Nicky smiled, and Tim saw the fine-looking young man he’d be—if God was good—in a few years. “I think me and my friends might be able to help you out in the cash department. Not entirely sure, but yeah, probably. Got enough gas to make it to the next town?”
“Yes.”
“Stop there,” Nicky said, and put his head back against the window.
32
Not long before the Millinocket branch of the Seaman’s Trust opened at nine o’clock on that day, a teller named Sandra Robichaux summoned the bank manager from his office.
“We have a problem,” she said. “Take a look at this.”
She seated herself at the ATM video replay. Brian Stearns sat down beside her. The unit’s camera slept between transactions, and in the small northern Maine town of Millinocket, that usually meant it slept all night, waking up for its first customers around six o’clock. The time-stamp on the screen they were looking at said 5:18 AM. As Stearns watched, five people walked up to the ATM. Four of them had their shirts pulled up over their mouths and noses, like bandit masks in an old-time Western. The fifth had a gimme cap pulled down low over his eyes. Stearns could see MAINE PAPER INDUSTRIES on the front.
“Those look like kids!”
Sandra nodded. “Unless they’re midgets, which doesn’t seem very likely. Watch this, Mr. Stearns.”
The kids joined hands and formed a circle. A few lines