“Where do we go when we get there?” she asked.

“Are there people in town who were friends with you and Jeffy back in the day, people that he might have remained friends with in that world, after you walked out on him and Amity?”

“Not me. I never did. That was the other Michelle. Yeah, I can think of a few friends from then who’re still in this town and maybe still in the one we’re going to. Jeffy was true blue. He never gave up on anyone.”

“Then we’ll check them out and hope that he and your girl have gone into hiding at one of their houses.”

He pressed RETURN, and after passing through a blizzard of light, they arrived in the world where there was hope, however fragile, of a family reunion.

72

No sooner had Duke spoken one last time with Andy Taylor and left the hotel than his cell phone rang. He paused at the crosswalk on the west side of the highway and took the call as light morning traffic grumbled past.

Chief Phil Esterhaus said, “I’m not even to the beach yet to start my run, I get a call about Falkirk. He was shot five times.”

“Dead?”

“No. He was wearing Kevlar. Four rounds were stopped, but one took him in the left thigh. He’s in the hospital, no doubt making the entire staff wish they’d never pursued a career in medicine. You know who shot him?”

“Not me.”

“I didn’t think you. If I thought you, the first thing I’d have said is, I’ll pay for dinner, after all.”

“So who shot him?”

“Two hulks in his goon squad were stationed across the street from where it happened. They’re raising hell with my people, as if they never told us to back off. They want arrests made yesterday. Anyway, it was dark, but they had night-vision gear, so they saw a little. They say it was this traitor Harkenbach and some woman. The perps got away, which makes no sense to me, with Falkirk’s crew of numbnuts right there and armed to the teeth.”

“Who do they want you to arrest?”

“Well, Harkenbach and the woman—”

“What woman?”

“They don’t know. The kind of law these guys enforce, any woman might work for them, plus they want the guy who owns the house.”

“Who owns the house?”

“Well, that’s the thing I find most interesting. It’s a guy named Jeffrey Coltrane, lives there with his daughter, Amity. Would those be the friends of yours you mentioned, the ones who live on Shadow Canyon Lane and got ‘caught up in this through no fault of their own’?”

“I’ve heard of them,” Duke conceded.

“Is Coltrane a killer?”

“Is Mary Poppins?”

“I wouldn’t vouch for anyone these days,” Phil said. “Listen, these guys with Falkirk are like The Sopranos, but they have for-real legal authority and a desire to abuse the hell out of it. If the shit hits the fan, I can’t pull the plug for you.”

“Thanks for the heads-up. See you for dinner tomorrow night.”

“I love the lobster bisque.”

Duke terminated the call and crossed the street against the light, holding up one hand to stop the traffic, with which he had more success than King Canute did when he commanded the sea to be still.

73

In this timeline, no breeze issued off the ocean, no ball of red yarn appeared, but Michelle’s sense of an impending shock did not diminish.

She glanced left and right, thinking, and then told Ed, “Jane and Larry Barnaby. They had a daughter, Keri, the same year Amity was born. We went through that sleepless first year together, babysat for each other. I’ve stayed friends with them since Jeffy and Amity died. He would have, too, after I . . . after the other Michelle walked out on him.”

“Where do these Barnaby people live? If they’re still in this town at all.”

“Quickest way is out to Pacific Coast Highway and turn south. It’s maybe a ten-minute walk.”

As she and Ed started west along the alley, a man turned the corner ahead and approached them at a brisk pace. Tall and barrel-chested and broad-shouldered, he might have been a guy who earned his living breaking knees or necks or heads, whatever was wanted of him. Even though he wore a suit and tie, though he carried himself with his spine as straight as a knight’s lance, an air of menace clung to him.

Michelle moved to the right side of the alley, as did Ed, giving the stranger a wide berth. The man glanced at them, seemed disinterested, but then did a double take and changed course, crossing directly to Michelle.

“Mrs. Coltrane?”

She strove to suppress her surprise. “What? No. You’ve mistaken me for someone else.”

As she tried to sidle past this stranger, he blocked her.

Ed eased one hand under his coat, to the pistol in his belt holster.

Without looking away from Michelle, his bottle-green eyes decanting pure suspicion, the big man said to Ed, “Cool it, pal. Don’t make me break your hand. You don’t need a gun, anyway.”

“Really,” Michelle said, “you’re making a mistake. I don’t know any Coltrane.”

He snatched off her baseball cap, and she gasped, and he said, “You’re older, of course, but you look the same as those photos in your daughter’s wallet that she’s so proud of. She showed them to me not two hours ago. You don’t even need to put your hair down. You’re Michelle, all right.”

Oddly enough, a sudden breeze, scented with cinnamon, stirred litter along the alley. Later than in the world they recently left, the ball of red yarn came rolling past them, unraveling as it went.

This time the scarlet filament didn’t call to mind a thread of blood or a lit fuse. Instead, she dared to think of it as a marker that, like Hansel and Gretel’s white pebbles in the fairy tale, was meant to lead her through the dark forest of her life and home to family.

Unsettled but also exhilarated by the way this encounter was unfolding, she said, “You know where Jeffy and Amity are?”

“They’re at my house.” He seemed to have transformed from ogre into friendly giant. “I’ll take you to them.”

Astonished, she looked at Ed, who beamed back at her and, as if this had been his plan all along, said, “The Ed factor. Things tend to happen around me.”

“You’re Harkenbach?” the stranger asked.

Ed rubbed his bald head with one hand. “In my sadly depilated condition, I may not look like him—”

“I don’t know what he looks like,” the stranger said. “I’ve never seen a picture. I only met Jeffy and Amity this morning, and they didn’t much describe you. So you’re Jeffy’s friend.”

“Actually, that’s quite another Ed, the Ed of this world. I’m the Ed of this Michelle’s world, a braver specimen of myself, I’m happy to say. I know I sound as though I’m talking gibberish—”

“I get you,” the big man said. He smiled at Michelle. “You’re not the mother who walked out on the girl. Maybe like they’ve been hunting another you, you’ve been hunting another them. You must have a damn good story to tell. Best save it till we get to my place, so you don’t have to repeat it for your husband and daughter. My name’s Charlie Pellafino, by the way. Friends call me Duke, and I’m pretty damn sure we’re going to be friends.”

As Duke escorted them eastward along the alley, Michelle said, “You met them only this morning?”

“Yes, ma’am. Your husband is a stand-up guy, and your girl is a charmer. She called me Uncle Duke.”

“But how could you know all that you know . . . how could you have come to believe it if you met them only a few hours ago?”

“Seeing is believing,” Duke said. “I accidentally got myself sent to hell with your daughter. We just about got carved up by this scary-as-shit bug-form robot in a version of the hotel that won’t ever again turn a profit.”

Ed Harkenbach said, “Earth one point seventy-seven. I’ve been to some worse, but not many.”

The ball of yarn had entirely unraveled. As Michelle hurried along with Ed and Duke, her bright excitement was tarnished somewhat by the fear that this might not be a direct route out of the dark forest of her life, as she’d thought. The moon-white pebbles dropped by Hansel didn’t help him and Gretel find their way safely through the woods, nor did the bread crumbs with which he later marked a trail. Ahead might lie a wicked witch with a warm oven and a taste for cannibalism. Or something worse.

74