Dreamland

The desk clerk. Jesus. Dea seriously regretted the hundred bucks she’d given him.

“Co

“That means you can be found,” Kate interrupted her. “Exactly. I don’t want to waste your time.”

“What do you want?” Co

Kate leaned forward, elbows to knees. “I told you. I want the truth.” The weirdest thing was that Dea believed her. “Look, Co

“I don’t think that,” Co

Kate smiled faintly. “Fair. But I do care. I care about the victims.” Co

Co

“I know you didn’t do it.” Kate paused, letting that sink in. “That’s why I’m writing this book. This case should never have gone cold. Living witness, closed crime scene, likely committed by someone the victims knew. Someone screwed up big time. I want to know who, and why.”

Co

“The point,” Kate said, “is that your family deserves answers. You deserve answers.” She hesitated. “Don’t you want to know?”

Co

Kate set her coffee by her feet and spread her hands. “Just to talk,” she said. “Take me through it. Tell me what you remember. Help me, Co

In the silence that followed, Dea found herself hoping that Co

The idea flashed: Did that mean the monsters would stop, too?

Outside, Dea heard the muffled sound of voices. It took a moment for her brain to bring them into focus, but then she stood up, her heart rocketing into her mouth, her body high-wired on alert.

The clerk was babbling excuses. “They paid cash, I had no idea they were in trouble, I never would’ve let them in. Don’t tell my boss, okay?”

“My uncle,” Co

“Co

Kate was on her feet. “You,” she said in a low voice, pointing at Dea, then jerking her thumb toward the bathroom. “Window. Now.”

Co

“Co

“Now,” Kate repeated in a whisper, snapping her fingers in Dea’s direction. Dea cast one look at Co

The door handle rattled.

“I’m putting my boxers on. Give me a minute.” Co

She didn’t bother with the shoes—she could barely walk in them anyway, much less run. She slipped into the bathroom and closed the door just as the cops poured into the motel room: rapid-fire voices; walkie-talkie static; Co

And the phrase, endlessly repeated, like a terrible drumbeat: “Where is she? Where is she, Co

Kate was talking over everyone, trying to be heard. “It was my fault. I thought if I could get finally get Co

There was only one way out: a small, dirt-encrusted window just above the toilet, its frame warped from years of sweltering summertime heat. Dea leaned against the window frame. For a second, it stuck, and she experienced a moment of total fear, full-body panic, like being caught again in the stifling mouth of airless sand.

She pushed. Outside the door, the voices crested and changed melodies, triumphant and terrifying: “The shoes. Look at these shoes. She’s here somewhere. Find her.”

Find her.

The window released. She shoved it open, striking out the screen with a palm. It landed with a clatter. She doubted that anyone had heard, but it wouldn’t matter anyway: in a few seconds, they would find her. Already, she could hear voices coalescing, massing around a single word: bathroom.

Find her. Bathroom.

She climbed up on the toilet and went headfirst through the window, into the cold gray air, struggling momentarily to fit her hips through the frame. She fell the last foot to the pavement, keeping her head protected, ski

She’d emerged at the back of the motel, cluttered with Dumpsters and accumulated trash. A narrow spit of pavement ran up against bare fields, glittering coldly in the new day. Through a line of thin trees, she saw rundown houses, mobile homes, a bunch of rusted cars perched on cinderblocks. Beyond them, she knew, would be more fields, more farms, more woods and hiding places.

She ran.

TWENTY-ONE

She wouldn’t get very far and she knew it. She wasn’t in great shape—she never had been, because of her heart—and her feet were cut up and swollen with cold. She was cold. Once she stopped ru

Still, she managed to evade the cops all morning. She stuck to the woods whenever she could; when she couldn’t, she cut across backyards and ducked under laundry lines where towels swelled like puffed-up sails, always staying off the roads. When she was so cold she thought she might die, she found an abandoned Volvo and climbed inside to get warm for a bit, stuffing her feet into the holes in the upholstery until feeling returned to her toes.

She wasn’t thinking about leaving Co

It was risky, but she decided to stop in the next town she came to: Sawyerville, probably four times the size of Fielding, a dumpy cluster of bars and big-box chain stores. Shoes first. Her toes had lost all feeling again, and she was worried that she might get frostbite and end up having to amputate with a penknife like she’d seen someone stranded in an avalanche do once on TV. She stopped at a Lady Foot Locker—not her first choice for style, but she was in no position to be choosy.