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
Charlie, having given up trying to find his favorite channels on the living room TV, had resumed his exploration of the property. He checked out the books in his room, which included several Dog Man and Wimpy Kid adventures. While they would have been perfect for any other kid his age, Charlie had already moved on to what was known in the business as middle grade and young adult books. Few, if any, pictures, and multi-chaptered. His teachers had said his reading skills were well ahead of any of the other kids in his class. The room had also been stocked with an assortment of plastic dinosaurs, several toy cars and trucks, and a couple of Lego sets, still in the original packaging. There was an Arctic explorer ship and a car wash that was part of the City series.
Nice.
As much as he was tempted to rip both boxes open now, he decided to wait. Maybe tomorrow, or maybe some rainy day.
He wandered into the room that the previous residents had used for a studio, all set up if his mother wanted to get back to work. He hoped she would. She seemed happier when she was working. He was tired of her being sad. He was tired of being sad himself.
Charlie found a door that led to the basement. He brushed away some cobwebs as he descended a set of wooden open-backed steps. They led to an unfinished room with cinder-block walls and a beam ceiling that allowed a view of the underside of the floor above. There was a furnace, a hot water tank, a circuit breaker box, and lots of tubes and ducts and wires going here and there and everywhere, and up against one wall, an empty pegboard and a big wooden table that probably served as a workbench at one time. There were four shallow drawers built into the table, and Charlie inspected each of them. One was empty, a second contained a few sheets of glossy paper with black-and-white pictures of people on it, and the last two were filled with odd screws and nails and pipe clamps and other junk.
Curiosity satisfied, Charlie decided to head back upstairs and go outside.
The outside was so big.