Jack stepped out of the doorway first. Then Ava.

They walked downstairs to the rear of the building, where Bardem knew her car was parked. He waited. Chill air coming in. One minute. Two. At the rear parking lot, headlights appeared. He raised the binoculars and watched Ava’s car pull onto the street, heading west.

The little boy was not with them.

He thought about that for a minute.

He opened the glove box and took out the Hot Wheels car. He studied the toy in the dull glow of the Land Rover’s dash. A green Ferrari. He rolled the tires over the dashboard, watching the little wheels spin.

Sigh of wind. Snow.

For a moment he gazed at the motel door on the second floor. Then he dropped the toy into his shirt pocket.

He put the Land Rover into drive and crawled onto the road, heading east. His breaths puffing white in the cold. A couple hundred yards past Nuzzles Animal Shelter, he pulled off the road and stopped. There was a chain padlocked around the shelter gate, and the windows were dark. He got out and opened the tailgate. The bolt cutters in the toolbox were heavy-duty and would snip through a half inch of steel.

In the cold and the snow, he walked back along the shoulder of the road with the bolt cutters. The dark cloaked him. He wore it like a coat. Above the door of the shelter a sign read: LET LOVE WIN. ADOPT A PET TODAY.

XXV

Even now, I cannot stop thinking of Matty, who stared with such trust in his face. Whose eyes said, You told me you would always come back.

Matty slept for a while. When he woke in the night, Jack and Ava were still gone. The bathroom light was on. He lay in bed for a long time, and then he got up and walked to the motel window and parted the curtain. There were lights outside above the doors, and snow floated down through the yellow gloom. No one was coming. When he finished looking he went back to bed and turned on the television and flipped through the channels.

Over the Garden Wall was on Cartoon Network. He liked this one—Wirt sounded like Jack. He watched for almost an hour, the pad of paper in his hand. The one with the telephone number. Sometimes he watched snowflakes stick against the window. No one came.

But they’d be back.

Jack said by morning.

He was just starting to doze when now in the room he heard a noise he didn’t like. A noise that sounded spooky. He could hear the old Woodsman warning Wirt and Greg about the Beast. He opened his eyes. The TV lit the room a creepy green and scary music played. He sat up. He turned off the televison.

Quiet.

Dull bathroom light.

The snow-covered window was dark.