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
He ran past the door that said men’s and pushed open one that said staff only. That took him into the kitchen, where two women and a man were busily preparing meals.
“Hey, kid!” the man shouted. “Can’t come back here!”
Charlie ran. He spotted another door and aimed for it, hoping it would lead outside. He turned the knob and pushed and he was out back of the restaurant, and there was his bike, right where he’d left it.
He hopped on and took off as fast as he could.
Even a Super Slam lasted for only so long.
By dusk, Charlie was getting hungry again, and now that he was out in the country somewhere, between towns, there was no place to get something to eat. There were still some stale bagels in his backpack if he got really desperate. And now he had to start thinking about where he would spend the night. It wasn’t like he could check into a motel. He didn’t have enough money for that. He was starting to wonder if he hadn’t thought this through as well as he could have.
Especially when the chain on his bike broke.
He’d been going along pretty good when suddenly the pedals offered no resistance and he could hear something clicking and whacking down by his ankles, and he looked down and saw that the chain had snapped.
And I put out eight bucks for this thing, he thought.
Charlie wobbled the bike to the shoulder, got off, and inspected the damage. There was no way he could fix this. The bike was toast. He let it fall to the gravel shoulder.
He was in the middle of nowhere and in another hour it would be dark.
For the first time since embarking on this adventure, Charlie was scared. He didn’t know what to do. He had to get to Lucknow. He’d come too far to give up now. Would he hitchhike the rest of the way? No, he couldn’t do that. No one was going to pick up a kid unless it was to take him to the police station.
Or something much, much worse. Charlie was a kid from New York. He knew the stories.
Maybe someone nice would come along and take him and the bike to a repair shop. Except they’d all be closed now, and anyway, Charlie didn’t have any money left.
He started to cry.
Up ahead, he could hear a vehicle approaching. There hadn’t been a lot of traffic on this road, and there was no telling when the next car might go by. Should he take a chance and flag it down, ask for help? He knew there were risks doing something like that.