—Nah. Time’s up, Suzanne. I think maybe it always was. Still love me?

Of course. She sounded sad.

—Don’t be said. I’ll see you soon.

That’s just it, Ronnie…you won’t. And we were all hoping that you’d tell us some stories and we could sing songs together and…

—What?

But there was no reply at all.

So there, in the rain, in the silence from within and without, with only the photocopied picture of a little girl he’d failed to save, Ronald James Williamson died, thinking himself a monster and wishing there had been some way he could have taken the other monsters with him…

Chapter Four

Sometime in there—the buzz getting so strong it nearly drowned out the thunder—Lucy Thompson reached into her purse and pulled out Mr. Hands, holding him tightly in her grip, aware of the caked blood and mud, now flaking away, that fell into her palms or attached itself to her fingers.

Sometime in there she started weeping for her Sarah, both surprised and relieved that she could still find it in her to mourn the loss of What Might Have Been.

And sometime in there her fury awoke from its dark hiding place in the center of her mind, threw back the covers with a snarl, turned on the lights, and decided it was time to Do Something.

And somewhere in there the spirit of Ronald James Williamson, having been left, abandoned, in the place where his body died, felt the silver thread of long-ago pull taut once again.

Lucy threw open the car door and stumbled out into the incredible storm, falling twice before she reached the gate. The rain turned her hair instantly to dead weight, heavy ice hanging in her eyes, and the merciless wind turned each drenched strand into a painful whip against her face.

She didn’t care.

She climbed over the fence and walked toward the sculpture.

Let the dead rest with the dead, she thought.

Then stood before the sculpture. She’d forgotten about the empty spaces the artist had incorporated into the piece, small, gaping holes between some of the faces—”Lost fragments of time they never lived to see,” he’d explained, further asserting his pretentiousness. She realized, looking at the way the holes formed patterns all the way to the top, that a person could climb twelve feet to the opening, if they so desired.

And she did. Drunk, crying, angry, and unsteady as hell, she was going to climb the damned thing and give Mr. Hands to the dead.

To her surprise, she only slipped a couple of times on the way up.

She looked down into the pit that was the center of the piece. Already it was filling with water and mud and dead leaves…she could even spot the remains of small, dead animals—birds, rats, squirrels, it seemed, pieces of tiny skeletons…it was a testament to death, this thing was.

She got a good grip on the rim of the piece with her left hand, then held out her right hand but did not yet open it.