Chapters (73)
- Cover
- Dedication
- Prologue
- Part IAnnie
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Part IIHarry
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Part IIIAnnie
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Part IVHarry
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- Forty-One
- Forty-Two
- Forty-Three
- Forty-Four
- Forty-Five
- Forty-Six
- Forty-Seven
- Forty-Eight
- Part VAnnie
- Forty-Nine
- Fifty
- Fifty-One
- Fifty-Two
- Fifty-Three
- Fifty-Four
- Fifty-Five
- Fifty-Six
- Fifty-Seven
- Fifty-Eight
- Fifty-Nine
- Sixty
- Sixty-One
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Also by Linwood Barclay
- About the Publisher
It was a fun afternoon, and good to get out of the house.
By chance, they ended up driving by a small regional airport outside Binghamton and stopped to watch small planes fly in and out for an hour. She and John had taken Charlie out to JFK once to see the big jets come in and take off, so watching smaller passenger planes and private craft land and depart was less dramatic but just as engaging. The airport had a snack bar, where they were able to buy a couple of hot dogs.
Continuing on, they spotted a place where you could pick your own strawberries. Annie asked Charlie if he wanted to give it a go, but he was puzzled.
“I thought strawberries came in little cardboard boxes,” Charlie said.
Annie laughed. “And where did you think they were before they ended up in little cardboard boxes?”
“I never really thought about it,” Charlie said.
Together, they filled two quart containers. Charlie was eager to pick more, but Annie said you could only eat so many berries and it wasn’t like she was going to make a pie.
On the way home, they stopped at an ice-cream stand and bought two chocolate-dipped soft ice-cream cones, and while they were sitting on a nearby bench, Charlie said, “I like your new monster guy.”
Annie stopped in mid-lick. “What?”
“The creepy thing you’ve been drawing. It’s scary.” But he didn’t look troubled. He was intrigued.
“I’m just goofing around, is all,” Annie said. “Trying something different while I figure out whether to go back to Pierce. When did you see it?”
“When you went to the bathroom I had a look. I could tell you didn’t want me to see what you were working on. Are you mad?”
“I’m not mad. I guess I was worried it might upset you.”
He shook his head, licked his ice cream. “Nope.”
And that was the end of it.
Within minutes of getting back on the road, Charlie nodded off in the backseat. At least, Annie thought, she didn’t have to hide what she was working on from him any longer. That was something of a relief, and their outing had managed to push her various anxieties to the back of her mind.
She’d had only fleeting thoughts about the night before, and had convinced herself she had not seen what she’d thought she’d seen. A brief delusion triggered by stress, she told herself. She’d been in a panic about finding Charlie. Her mind was going places it shouldn’t. And when she found him, her relief so overwhelmed her that her brain short-circuited.