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
Why did Charlie want to go to Lucknow? Did he imagine his toy train world to be that town? He had told his mother that this was where his father now lived. When he’d said that, Annie had written it off as the wishful imaginings of a heartbroken child. But what if he hadn’t so much imagined it, as the idea had somehow been implanted in him?
What if Charlie, and now Annie, was being lured to Lucknow? And if that was true, by whom, and for what possible reason?
It didn’t make any sense. But so many things that had happened lately fell into that category. After a while, you almost started to get used to it. In fact, there was a small comfort in believing she and Charlie were being drawn to Lucknow for an unknown reason. It meant that something was looking out for them, that Charlie was okay.
She had just crossed the New York–Vermont state line when Sherpa informed Annie that she was nearly to her destination, and that the exit was ahead on her right.
She saw a sign that said lucknow 6, but nailed over it was a narrow yellow strip with black letters reading closed. She took the right anyway, and a mile later she found the road barred by a ten-foot-high stretch of chain-link gate from which similar fencing ran off in both directions, into the forest. More than the road to Lucknow was closed off. There’d clearly been a perimeter fence established around the entire town.
There were several signs attached to the gate.
keep out
no trespassing
violators will be arrested and prosecuted
by order of the vermont state police
Annie hadn’t finished reading that piece in the Times she’d found on her phone, but she was willing to bet the entire town was an environmental no-go. While the chlorine gas in the air would have eventually dissipated, whatever liquids had leaked out of those derailed tanker cars could have leached down into the ground and poisoned the town’s water supply.
All of which suggested that there was nothing going on in the town’s center, and no reason for Charlie to be there. Would there have been a way for him to have made it through this barrier? Maybe there were gaps somewhere, or access into the town from another direction.
Annie left the engine running as she got out of the car and walked up to the gate. It was secured in the middle by a chain and lock. Annie gave it a tug, on the off chance it hadn’t been secured, but there was no luck there.