NOS4A2(168)

Outside, the night throbbed with peepers, a sound that made Vic think of a great electrical generator, humming in pulses.

“I made it go away,” she said. “The bridge. So no one could follow me across it. That’s . . . that’s why I’m warm. I’ve been across it a few times in the last two days. It makes me a little feverish. It’s okay, though. It’s nothing.”

Lou sank into a chair across from her. The wood creaked. He looked ridiculous, sitting at the little wooden table, like a bear in a tutu.

Her father leaned against the kitchen counter, his arms crossed over his slender, sunken chest. The darkness, she thought, was a relief to them both. Here they were both shadows, and he could be himself again, the man who sat in her bedroom when she was sick and told her stories about places he had gone on his motorcycle, scrapes he’d been in. She could be the person she was when they shared the same house, a girl she liked very much, missed very much, and with whom she had little in common.

“You used to get like this when you were small,” her father said, his thoughts perhaps running along the same course. “You’d come in from riding around town on your bike, usually with something in one hand. A lost doll. A lost bracelet. And you’d be a little warm and telling lies. Your mom and I used to talk about it all the time. About where you went. We thought maybe you had light fingers, that you were . . . ah, borrowing things, then bringing them back when people noticed they were gone.”

“You didn’t think that,” she said. “You didn’t think I was out stealing.”

“No. I guess that one was mostly your mother’s theory.”

“What was your theory?”

“That you were using your bike like a dowsing rod. You know about dowsing rods? Old-timers in these parts would get a piece of yew or hazel and wave it around looking for water. Sounds crazy, but where I grew up, you didn’t dig a well without talking to a dowser first.”

“You’re not too far off. You remember the Shorter Way?”

He lowered his head in thought. In profile he looked almost exactly like the man he had been at thirty.

“Covered bridge,” he said. “You and the other kids used to dare each other to cross it. Thing gave me fits. Looked ready to fall into the river. They took it down—1985?”

“’86. Except it never really came down for me. When I needed to find something, I could ride out into the woods and it would reappear, and I could go across it to whatever was missing. As a kid I used my Raleigh. Remember the Tuff Burner you got me for my birthday?”

“It was too big for you,” he said.

“I grew into it. Like you said I would.” She paused, then nodded back in the direction of the screen door. “Now I’ve got my Triumph out there. Next time I go across the Shorter Way Bridge, it’ll be to meet Charlie Manx. He’s the one who has Wayne.”

Her father did not reply. His head remained bowed.

“For what it’s worth, Mr. McQueen,” Lou said, “I believe every crazy-ass word of this.”

“You just came across it? Just now?” her father asked. “This bridge of yours?”

“Three minutes ago I was in Iowa. Seeing a woman who knows—knew—about Manx.”

Lou frowned, heard Vic putting Maggie in past tense, but she went on before he could interrupt and ask a question she couldn’t bear to answer.

“You don’t have to take it on faith. Once you tell me how to use the ANFO, I’ll make the bridge reappear, so I can be on my way. You’ll see it. It’s bigger than your house. Remember Snuffleupagus on Sesame Street?”

“Big Bird’s imaginary friend?” her father asked, and she could sense him smiling in the dark.

“The bridge isn’t like that. It isn’t some make-believe thing only I can see. If you absolutely had to see it, I could bring it back right now, but . . . but I’d rather not until it’s time to go.” She reached, unconsciously, to rub at the cheekbone below her left eye. “It’s getting to be like a bomb going off in my head.”

“You’re not riding off right now anyway,” he said. “You just got here. Look at you. You’re in no shape. You need rest. A doctor, probably.”

“I’ve had all the rest I need, and if I head to a hospital, any doctor I see is going to prescribe a pair of handcuffs and a trip to the lockup. The feds think—I don’t know what they think. That I killed Wayne, maybe. Or that I’m into something illegal and he was snatched to teach me a lesson. They don’t believe me about Charlie Manx. I can’t blame them. Manx died. A doctor even performed a partial autopsy on him. I sound like a f*cking nutjob.” She caught herself, eyed him in the dark. “How come you believe me?”

“Because you’re my girl,” he said.

He said it so plainly and gently that she couldn’t help hating him, felt a sudden, unexpected sickness rising in her breast. She had to look away. Had to take a deep breath to keep her voice from shuddering with emotion.

“You left me, Dad. You didn’t just leave Mom. You left us. I was in trouble, and you took off.”

He said, “By the time I knew it was a mistake, it was too late to come back. That’s usually how it is. I asked your mom to take me back, and she said no, and she was right to.”