Little more than an hour had passed since Coltrane and his daughter were almost caught in the Bonners’ walk-in closet and escaped by porting out of this world to some other.

Edwin Harkenbach had known that operatives were getting close to him. Two days ago, he recognized one of Falkirk’s men in Suavidad Beach and slipped away before he could be apprehended. Having become irrationally, hysterically terrified of porting, he hadn’t used the key since going on the run, though it was the best way to disappear and foil his pursuers forever. The computer model of his psychology predicted he wouldn’t overcome his paranoid fear of the multiverse, yet he would still have too much pride to destroy the remaining key, the last proof of his life’s work, and thus would entrust it to someone. Now they knew to whom he’d given it.

Coltrane was an amateur, a fool playing with the biggest and hottest matches ever made, and he would commit a fatal mistake. He would not return home right away. He would be cautious. He might wait a day or two, a week, a month, but sooner or later he would return for one thing or another. He was a weak-minded homebody, a softhearted sentimentalist. He’d convince himself that he could visit, pack up whatever items of nostalgic value mattered to him, then safely port out again.

Men were stationed in the woods around Shadow Canyon Lane. Men were in the Bonner house until that family came back from vacation. Ultraquiet drones were flying around-the-clock surveillance over the area. And John Falkirk, with two of his best agents, would live in this bungalow until Coltrane dared return, whereupon they would shoot the sonofabitch in the head on his arrival, without asking questions or giving him the chance to port out again.

If Coltrane was stupid enough to bring the girl, Falkirk would shoot her in the head, too. It would be a pleasure. And then, before Falkirk left with the key to everything, he would put the white mouse down the garbage disposal, alive.

64

Ed needed a few minutes to use the bathroom, after which he washed his face and hands and combed his unruly mass of white hair, though the last bit of grooming had no effect.

In the waning light of the lowering moon, with dawn perhaps half an hour away, he met Michelle on the front porch. She was lovely and nervous.

“We’ll port from here to the porch in their world,” he said. “This is your second trip, so you know now there’s nothing painful about it.”

“Not the trip itself, but what happens on the other end . . .”

“Be positive, Michelle. I believe you’ve every reason to expect to be welcomed.”

“What if they’re not home?”

“They’re home. I was just there on the eleventh and saw them through a kitchen window, making breakfast together.”

“Yes, but this is the thirteenth. They could have gone away since the eleventh. Who knows what could have changed since the eleventh?” she fretted.

“If Jeffrey and Amity aren’t there, we’ll try again tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow, and the day after that.”

“But you’ve come to abhor porting.”

“Not exactly, dear. I think it’s morally wrong to meddle in the lives of people on other worlds without thought of the consequences, maybe changing their fates for the worse. And I’ve seen timelines so horrific I never want to see them again. I won’t risk subjecting myself to worlds never visited before, which may be more terrifying than some I’ve seen. But I’m not taking you anywhere dangerous.”

He extracted the key to everything from a pocket of his sport coat and switched it on.

In the distance a coyote howled sorrowfully, as if mourning the approaching end of the night hunt.

Seeing that Michelle stared at the key with as much trepidation as hope, Ed said, “The device isn’t evil, dear. It’s only a device. How bad men want to use it is where evil comes in.”

“Yes. Of course. But . . .”

“I’m not afraid of the key, and neither should you be. I’m afraid only of some places it can take me. I’ll never destroy it or let it fall into the wrong hands. There’s good I can do with it to atone for some of the wicked things that were done by others in the Everett Highways project.”

The gray light from the screen frosted his face, and he smiled at Michelle, confident that his smile was reassuring, that he looked too eccentric and improbable to frighten anyone.

She said, “How will you convince them that all this is true, a multiverse of worlds?”

“Just as I convinced you. And perhaps more easily. If I know myself well—and I do—the other me, the Edwin Harkenbach in their world, is a very sociable fellow. He, too, has taken refuge from his enemies by living in a tent in the woods, past the end of Shadow Canyon Lane, and he craves human contact. As he has gone to and from town, surely he has seen and spoken to Jeffrey. He might even have sat on his porch to chat, as I sat with you on yours many a lovely evening. I suspect that when I show up at their door, I will not be entirely a stranger to them.”

Leaning against a porch post as if her legs might fail her, wrapping her arms around herself as if chilled, she said, “Okay, yeah. But . . . maybe it would be best if I just pretend to be the Michelle who left them in their world, pretend I’ve come back to them, beg to be forgiven.”

Ed didn’t frown. The dear woman didn’t deserve frowns. He gave her a different quality of smile instead, indicating he understood and sympathized with her misgiving. “But then you would be starting the relationship with a lie—one you wouldn’t be able to sustain.”

She sighed. “You’re right.”

“Allow them the magic of the truth, Michelle. Hasn’t Jeffrey always loved fantasy novels since he was a boy? Perhaps he’s shared that interest with Amity, and maybe she’s embraced it. Bring them your love, Michelle, but also bring them the truth, because in this case the truth is so magical that it will enchant them for the rest of their lives.”

Warming to the idea of that, she stopped hugging herself and said, “All right. Let’s do this.”

Ed pressed the red button, which was marked SELECT.

The keypad appeared.

He entered the timeline catalog number for the world where another Michelle had walked out on her family and soon thereafter vanished.

This Michelle stepped to Ed’s side. She put an arm around his ample waist.

Four words appeared on the screen: PRESS STAR TO LAUNCH.

“The adventure begins,” he said, because he had a flair for drama. “Your new life, a tragedy undone.”

“I’m ready for it,” Michelle assured him. “After seven long years of grief, I’m so ready for it.”

He pressed the star.

65