Doctor Sleep: A Novel

less rustic: NO TRESPASSING. The chain was good. It meant Bob and Dot hadn’t decided on a getaway weekend at their happy place, and a quarter of a mile from the highway was enough to assure them of some privacy. There was another bonus: a culvert with water trickling out of it.
    He killed the lights and engine, then turned to Billy. “See that culvert? Go wash the soda off your face. Splash up good. You need to be as wide awake as you can get.”
    “I’m awake,” Billy said.
    “Not enough. Try to keep your shirt dry. And when you’re done, comb your hair. You’re going to have to meet the public.”
    “Where are we?”
    “Vermont.”
    “Where’s the guy who hijacked me?”
    “Dead.”
    “Good goddam riddance!” Billy exclaimed. Then, after a moment’s thought: “How about the body? Where’s that?”
    An excellent question, but not one Dan wanted to answer. What he wanted was for this to be over. It was exhausting, and disorienting in a thousand ways. “Gone. That’s really all you need to know.”
    “But—”
    “Not now. Wash your face, then walk up and down this road a few times. Swing your arms, take deep breaths, and get as clear as you can.”
    “I’ve got one bitch of a headache.”
    Dan wasn’t surprised. “When you come back, the girl is probably going to be the girl again, which means you’ll have to drive. If you feel sober enough to be plausible, go to the next town that has a motel and check in. You’re traveling with your granddaughter, got it?”
    “Yeah,” Billy said. “My granddaughter. Abby Freeman.”
    “Once you’re in, call me on my cell.”
    “Because you’ll be wherever . . . wherever the rest of you is.”
    “Right.”
    “This is fucked to the sky, buddy.”
    “Yes,” Dan said. “It certainly is. Our job now is to unfuck it.”
    “Okay. What is the next town?”
    “No idea. I don’t want you having an accident, Billy. If you can’t get clear enough to drive twenty or thirty miles and then check into a motel without having the guy on the counter call the cops, you and Abra will have to spend the night in the cab of this truck. It won’t be comfortable, but it should be safe.”
    Billy opened the passenger-side door. “Give me ten minutes. I’ll be able to pass for sober. Done it before.” He gave the girl behind the steering wheel a wink. “I work for Casey Kingsley. Death on drinkin, remember?”
    Dan watched him go to the culvert and kneel there, then closed Abra’s eyes.
    In a parking lot outside the Fox Run Mall, Abra closed Dan’s.
    ( Abra )
    ( I’m here )
    ( are you awake )
    ( yes sort of )
    ( we need to turn the wheel again can you help me )
    This time, she could.
    12
    “Let go of me, you guys,” Dan said. His voice was his own again. “I’m all right. I think.”
    John and Dave let go, ready to grab him again if he staggered, but he didn’t. What he did was touch himself: hair, face, chest, legs. Then he nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m here.” He looked around. “Which is where?”
    “Fox Run Mall,” John said. “Sixty miles or so from Boston.”
    “Okay, let’s get back on the road.”
    “Abra,” Dave said. “What about Abra?”
    “Abra’s fine. Back where she belongs.”
    “She belongs at home,” Dave said, and with more than a touch of resentment. “In her room. IM’ing with her friends or listening to those stupid ’Round Here kids on her iPod.”
    She is at home, Dan thought. If a person’s body is their home, she’s there .
    “She’s with Billy. Billy will take care of her.”
    “What about the one who kidnapped her? This Crow?”
    Dan paused beside the back door of John’s Suburban. “You don’t have to worry about him anymore. The one we have to worry about now is Rose.”
    13
    The Crown Motel was actually over the state line, in Crownville, New York. It was a rattletrap place with a flickering sign out front reading VAC NCY and M NY CAB E CHAN ELS! Only four cars were parked in the thirty or so slots. The man behind the counter was a descending mountain of fat, with a ponytail that trickled to a stop halfway down his back. He ran Billy’s Visa and gave him the keys to two rooms without taking his eyes from the TV, where two women on a red velvet sofa were engaged in strenuous osculation.
    “Do they connect?” Billy asked. And, looking at the women: “The rooms, I mean.”
    “Yeah, yeah, they all connect, just open the doors.”
    “Thanks.”
    He drove down the rank of units to