BooksBarbecue
Back Whistle
Chapters (73)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Prologue
  4. Part IAnnie
  5. One
  6. Two
  7. Three
  8. Four
  9. Five
  10. Six
  11. Seven
  12. Part IIHarry
  13. Eight
  14. Nine
  15. Ten
  16. Eleven
  17. Twelve
  18. Thirteen
  19. Fourteen
  20. Fifteen
  21. Sixteen
  22. Seventeen
  23. Eighteen
  24. Nineteen
  25. Twenty
  26. Twenty-One
  27. Part IIIAnnie
  28. Twenty-Two
  29. Twenty-Three
  30. Twenty-Four
  31. Twenty-Five
  32. Twenty-Six
  33. Twenty-Seven
  34. Twenty-Eight
  35. Twenty-Nine
  36. Thirty
  37. Thirty-One
  38. Thirty-Two
  39. Part IVHarry
  40. Thirty-Three
  41. Thirty-Four
  42. Thirty-Five
  43. Thirty-Six
  44. Thirty-Seven
  45. Thirty-Eight
  46. Thirty-Nine
  47. Forty
  48. Forty-One
  49. Forty-Two
  50. Forty-Three
  51. Forty-Four
  52. Forty-Five
  53. Forty-Six
  54. Forty-Seven
  55. Forty-Eight
  56. Part VAnnie
  57. Forty-Nine
  58. Fifty
  59. Fifty-One
  60. Fifty-Two
  61. Fifty-Three
  62. Fifty-Four
  63. Fifty-Five
  64. Fifty-Six
  65. Fifty-Seven
  66. Fifty-Eight
  67. Fifty-Nine
  68. Sixty
  69. Sixty-One
  70. Acknowledgments
  71. About the Author
  72. Also by Linwood Barclay
  73. About the Publisher

Annie took a breath. She’d grown weary of this discussion. She was sorry she’d brought the beers over. She wanted to get up and go back to her place. She took a final swallow of her drink—the bottle was only half empty—and stood.

“I really should get back to Charlie,” she said.

“Did you not hear what I said? I don’t think you were dreaming.”

“Okay, so I heard a truck, or something. What does it matter?”

Daniel set his beer down on the step and struggled to his feet, putting his hands on his knees for leverage.

“I believe you heard it. I believe you heard a train, even though there’s no train to be heard.”

Annie didn’t know what he was driving at.

And then he said, “Because Dolores heard it, too.” He paused. “Last few days, I think even I’m hearing something.”

Twenty-Five

While Annie sketched out more versions of Penn Station Man, trying to put the unsettling conversation with Daniel out of her mind, Charlie worked on perfecting his model train village. The loop of track remained static, but what he placed within it changed. He would reposition the buildings on his main street, stand back and look at them like a sculptor, folding his arms and placing one hand to his chin, assessing his creation from afar. Charlie would find some flaw that only he could see, go back, and make some minor adjustment.

Annie watched all this with interest, and without comment. Let him do his thing, she thought.

At one point, he approached her, wanting to borrow a marker and a strip of the masking tape she used to secure her paper to the table. She slid a blank sheet of paper over her work-in-progress.

“What’s the tape for?” Annie asked.

“I have to make signs,” he said.

With scissors, he cut the tape into short, neat strips and then labeled them. flower shop. diner. fire department. (On that one, the strip of tape he’d cut was too short and the letters in the last half of department had to be squished together.) He made up several more labels and affixed them to the front of his buildings.

Annie had only one suggestion: “You should have a train store.”

Charlie perked his head up. He’d run out of tape, and there was one building left that did not have a sign.

“May I make it for you?” Annie asked.

Charlie’s tongue rested on his upper lip while he considered. “Okay.”