"Sometimes a pattern's there. We just don't recognize it."
"Yeah, well, my pattern's been aimless." Something Payne had said caught up to me-the somber way he'd said it. "Ann had a doctor's appointment? Is everything okay?"
"We'll see."
"… Oh."
He hesitated. "A lump on her breast, but it might just be a cyst. The doctor's doing a biopsy."
I took a tired breath. "I'll say a prayer."
"Thanks."
"Before all this began, that isn't something I'd have said."
"That you'd pray for somebody?" he asked.
"The last few days, I spoke to a couple of ministers and a very religious, very decent lady. I guess some of their attitudes wore off on me. The trouble is, I also learned about a man whose parents turned him into a monster. Lester Dant."
"You believe in him now."
"Oh, I believe in him all right. God help me."
"Another prayer," Payne said.
"I'll be starting home tomorrow. I'll phone as soon as I get back. Maybe you'll have the results of the biopsy by then."
"Maybe." Payne's voice sank. "Have a safe trip."
I murmured, "Thanks," and hung up.
Please, God, keep his wife healthy, I thought.
I lay on the bed and closed my eyes. The draperies shut out the late-afternoon light. I wanted to sleep forever.
Please, God, I hope you didn't let Kate and Jason suffer. I couldn't help thinking about the good and bad things that religion could do to people. I couldn't help thinking about Lester Dant running from one church and showing up at another and…
5
The shock of the idea made me sit up. I found myself standing excitedly, thinking about what Lester Dant, posing as my brother, had told me more than a year earlier.
"As I wandered from town to town, I learned that an easy way to get a free meal was to show up at church socials after Sunday-morning services."
Jesus, I thought, he would have continued doing what worked. He'd have gone to another church in another small town. Payne had been right. The pattern was there. I just hadn't recognized it.
In a rush, I arranged my computer and printer on a table next to the bed. I unplugged the room's phone from the wall and attached my own phone line, connecting it to my computer. Then I turned on the computer and made adjustments to my Internet-access program so I could shift from AOLs Denver phone number to one that it used in the Loganville area.
The next thing, I logged on to an Internet geography site and printed a map for Ohio, along with ones for the surrounding states of Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania. What I wanted was a list of towns. Dant would have avoided cities. I was sure of it. After the smothering closeness of having been imprisoned underground, I imagined him recoiling from the congestion of cities.
The maps gave me hundreds of names. Too many to be of use, but a start. I made the list more practical by eliminating the names of towns that were on the extreme reaches of the other states. I further reduced the list by eliminating Indiana, convinced that Dant would have avoided going back to where he'd been imprisoned. That left Ohio, Michigan to the north of it, Kentucky and West Virginia to the south, and Pennsylvania to the east.
But the towns in them weren't what I cared about. What I wanted were the names of churches in those towns. I typed "Churches in Ohio" into the Internet's "Search For" box. A list appeared, complete with their locations and their Web site addresses. I matched them with the towns on my list. I did the same with churches in Kentucky, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. I eliminated any church with a saint's name in it, certain that Dant would have avoided Catholic, Anglican, and Greek Orthodox churches. Their theology and ritual would have been alien to him. I need to identify Protestant congregations, I thought, and then I can-
A loud knock on the door distracted me.
I jerked my head in that direction.
Sunlight had long since faded from behind the draperies. I looked at my watch. Almost seven hours had passed. The hands were close to midnight.
The loud knock was repeated. "Mr. Denning?" a man's voice asked.
When I stood, my legs ached from having sat so long. I went to the door, squinted through the tiny lens, and saw an elderly man in a jacket and tie. I kept the security chain on the door when I opened it and peered through the five-inch gap. "What is it?" The stark floodlights in the parking lot made me blink.
"I just wanted to make sure that everything was all right. Our computer shows that you've been on the phone since around five o'clock, but when I tried to access the line to make sure you hadn't fallen asleep and left the phone off the hook, all I got was static."
"I've been catching up on office work."
The man looked puzzled.
"On the Internet," I said, pointing toward my computer on the corner table, which I later realized he couldn't see.
The man looked more puzzled.
"You have my credit-card number," I said. "I'll gladly pay all the phone charges."
"As long as everything's okay."
"Couldn't be better."
"Have a nice night."
He left, and I became aware of throbbing in my head, of cramps in my stomach. Through the crack in the door, I saw a harsh red-and-blue neon sign across the street. The words it flashed were steaks 'n' suds. Two eighteen-wheeler trucks were at the edge of the crowded parking lot. Begrudging the time I'd be wasting but telling myself that I couldn't be any use to Kate and Jason if I didn't maintain my strength, I disconnected from the Internet, locked the room behind me, and walked toward country music-a jukebox playing something about a one-man woman and a two-timing man-coming from the restaurant's open windows.
6
Forty minutes later, the steak sandwich I'd eaten felt heavy in my stomach. I recalled the strict healthy diet that I'd put myself on in preparation for my search. Tomorrow, I'll rededicate myself, I vowed. Tomorrow.
"Here's your coffee to go," the waitress said.
"Thanks."
As I left the restaurant, about to cross the parking lot, a noise made me pause. The jukebox had stopped, but the conversations of the crowd inside were loud enough that I had to strain to listen harder. On my right. Around the side of the restaurant. I heard it again. A groan.
A woman's groan.
"Think you can leave me?" A man's muffled voice came from around the corner. "You're dumber than I always said you were."
I heard a metallic thump, as if someone had fallen against a car. Another groan.
Inside, the jukebox started playing again: something about lonely rooms and empty hearts. The careful Brad I'd once been would have gone back into the restaurant and told the manager to call the police. But how long would it take the police to arrive, and what would happen in the meantime?
Imagining Kate being punched, I unzipped the fanny pack I always wore. Knowing that I could draw the pistol if I needed it, I walked to the restaurant's corner. There were only a few windows on that side. Away from the glare of the neon lights, my eyes needed a moment to adjust before I saw moving shadows between two parked cars: a man striking a woman.
"Stop," I said.
The man spun toward my voice. The minimal light showed a beefy face. A chain on his belt was attached to a big wallet in his back pocket. "This is a private conversation. Stay out of it." He shoved the woman to the asphalt. "You don't want to live with me anymore? Well, either you live with me or you don't live at all."
"I told you to stop."
"Get lost, pal, or when I finish my family business, I'll start on you."
"Get lost? You just said the two words I hate the most."
"You heard me, buddy." The man jerked the woman to her feet and pushed her into a car. When she tried to struggle out, he struck her again.