cell number, and the number at Wolfjaw. “There may be aftereffects.”
She nodded. “Pastor Danny filled me in. Mr. Jacobs, I mean. It’s hard for me to get used to calling him that. He said she might be prone to sleepwalking until her brainwaves re-regulate themselves. Four to six months, he said. I’ve seen that behavior in people who overdo stuff like Ambien and Lunesta.”
“Yes, that’s the most likely.” Although there was also dirt-eating, compulsive walking, Tourette’s syndrome, kleptomania, and Hugh Yates’s prismatics. So far as I knew, Ambien didn’t cause any of those things. “But if there’s anything else . . . call.”
“How worried are you?” she asked. “Tell me what to expect.”
“I don’t really know, and she’ll probably be fine.” Most of them were, after all, at least according to Jacobs. And as little as I trusted him, I had to count on that, because it was too late to do anything else. The thing was done.
Jenny stood on tiptoe and kissed my cheek. “She’s better. That’s God’s grace, Jamie, no matter what Mr. Jacobs may think now that he’s fallen away. Without it—without him—she would have been dead in six weeks.”
• • •
Astrid rode down the handicapped ramp in her wheelchair, but got into Jenny’s Subaru on her own. Jacobs closed her door. She reached through the open window, grasped one of his hands in both of her own, and thanked him again.
“It was my pleasure,” he said. “Just remember your promise.” He pulled his hand free so he could put a finger to her lips. “Mum’s the word.”
I bent down and kissed her forehead. “Eat,” I said. “Rest. Do therapy. And enjoy your life.”
“Roger, Captain,” she said. She looked past me, saw Jacobs slowly climbing the steps to the porch, then met my eyes and repeated what she’d said earlier. “Be careful.”
“Don’t worry.”
“But I will.” Her eyes on mine, full of grave concern. She was getting old now, as I was, but with the disease banished from her body, I could see the girl who had stood in front of the stage with Hattie, Carol, and Suzanne, the four of them shaking their moneymakers while Chrome Roses played “Knock on Wood” or “Nutbush City Limits.” The girl I had kissed under the fire escape. “I will worry.”
I rejoined Charlie Jacobs on the porch, and we watched Jenny Knowlton’s trim little Outback roll down the road that led to the gate. It had been a fine melt-day, and the snow had pulled back, revealing grass that was already turning green. Poor man’s fertilizer, I thought. That’s what we used to call it.
“Will those women keep their mouths shut?” Jacobs asked.
“Yes.” Maybe not forever, but until his work was done, if he was as close to finished as he claimed. “They promised.”
“And you, Jamie? Will you keep your promise?”
“Yes.”
That seemed to satisfy him. “Stay the night, why don’t you?”
I shook my head. “I booked a room at Embassy Suites. I’ve got an early flight.”
And I can’t wait to get away from this place, just as I couldn’t wait to get away from The Latches.
I didn’t say this, but I’m sure he knew it.
“Fine. Just be ready when I call.”
“What do you need, Charlie? A written statement? I said I’ll come, and I will.”
“Good. We’ve been bouncing off each other like a couple of billiard balls for most of our lives, but that’s almost over. By the end of July—mid-August at the latest—we’ll be finished with each other.”
He was right about that. God help him, he was.
Always assuming He’s there, of course.
• • •
Even with a change of planes in Cincinnati, I was back in Denver the next day before 1 PM—when it comes to time travel, nothing beats flying west in a jet plane. I woke up my phone and saw I had two messages. The first was from Jenny. She said that she had locked the door of Astrid’s bedroom last night before turning in herself, but there hadn’t been a peep from the baby monitor, and when she got up at six-thirty, Astrid was still conked out.
“When she got up, she ate a soft-boiled egg and two pieces of toast. And the way she looks . . . I have to keep telling myself it’s not some kind of illusion.”
That was the good message. The bad one was from Brianna Donlin—now Brianna Donlin-Hughes. She’d left it only minutes before my United flight touched down. “Robert Rivard is dead, Jamie. I don’t know the details.” But by that