He’d failed her. More than anything else in the world, he had wanted to protect her, save her, keep her from becoming trapped like all the rest of them, but in that he had failed utterly. He had not been there for her when she’d needed him, had been too afraid for himself to go back for her.

The smart thing now would be for him to keep moving, not look back, to grieve for Kristen on his own, in his own way, and to continue on with his life. He had not gone home in all this time; there was no reason for him to return now. Everything would be auctioned off and sold in an estate sale when he could not be located and then it would all be over.

But he could not do that. Not this time. He owed it to Kristen to tie things up, to go back.

And he had to know how she’d died.

Dawn was giving way to morning, and outside the window he could see date palms where before there had only been trees. He picked up his cup, drank the last dredges of the cold coffee. Denny’s was starting to fill up. There were families of travelers in two of the booths to his right, casually clothed construction workers ordering breakfast at the counter.

Mark reached down for his backpack. Through the door walked an old woman and her teenage niece or granddaughter. The young girl was dark, with long black hair, and for some reason she reminded him of Kristen. All of a sudden he felt like crying.

He scooted out of the booth, left a dollar in the ashtray for the coffee and a tip, and walked quickly outside.

He stood in front of the restaurant, breathing deeply. The air was warm and dry and felt good in his lungs, each breath seeming to siphon away the tears threatening to well up in his eyes.

What had Kristen been like as an adult? he wondered. Or had she ever been an adult? She was twenty-six years old, but years meant nothing. In his mind, he still saw her the way she was when he’d left, obsessed with cute boys and popular music and schoolgirl gossip. He remembered how she’d cried when he left and how he’d promised to come back and visit, and he remembered the way her arms had felt around him as she’d hugged him good-bye.

He began to cry.