Doctor Sleep

he waited for her final breath.
    It came.
    6
    He was still sitting there, holding her hands in his, when the door burst open and Lucy Stone came striding in. Her husband and her daughter’s pediatrician followed, but not too closely; it was as if they feared being burned by the fear, fury, and confused outrage that surrounded her in a crackling aura so strong it was almost visible.
    She seized Dan by the shoulder, her fingernails digginglike claws into the shoulder beneath his shirt. “Get away from her. You don’t know her. You have no more business with my grandmother than you do with my daugh—”
    “Lower your voice,” Dan said without turning. “You’re in the presence of death.”
    The rage that had stiffened her ran out all at once, loosening her joints. She sagged to the bed beside Dan and looked at the waxen cameo that was nowher grandmother’s face. Then she looked at the haggard, beard-scruffy man who sat holding the dead hands, in which the rosary was still entwined. Unnoticed tears began rolling down Lucy’s cheeks in big clear drops.
    “I can’t make out half of what they’ve been trying to tell me. Just that Abra was kidnapped, but now she’s all right—supposedly—and she’s in a motel with some man named Billy and they’reboth sleeping.”
    “All that’s true,” Dan said.
    “Then spare me your holier-than-thou pronouncements, if you please. I’ll mourn my momo after I see Abra. When I’ve got my arms around her. For now, I want to know . . . I want . . .” She trailed off, looking from Dan to her dead grandmother and back to Dan again. Her husband stood behind her. John had closed the door of Room 9 and was leaning againstit. “Your name is Torrance? Daniel Torrance?”
    “Yes.”
    Again that slow look from her grandmother’s still profile tothe man who had been present when she died. “Who are you, Mr. Torrance?”
    Dan let go of Chetta’s hands and took Lucy’s. “Walk with me. Not far. Just across the room.”
    She stood up without protest, still looking into his face. He led her to the bathroom door, which was standing open.He turned on the light and pointed to the mirror above the washbasin, where they were framed as if in a photograph. Seen that way, there could be little doubt. None, really.
    He said, “My father was your father, Lucy. I’m your half brother.”
    7
    After notifying the head nurse that there had been a death on the floor, they went to the hospital’s small nondenominational chapel. Lucy knew the way;although not much of a believer, she had spent a good many hours there, thinking and remembering. It was a comforting place to do those things, which are necessary when a loved one nears the end. At this hour, they had it all to themselves.
    “First things first,” Dan said. “I have to ask if you believe me. We can do the DNA test when there’s time, but . . . do we need to?”
    Lucy shook her headdazedly, never taking her eyes from his face. She seemed to be trying to memorize it. “Dear Jesus. I can hardly get my breath.”
    “I thought you looked familiar the first time I saw you,” Dave said to Dan. “Now I know why. I would have gotten it sooner, I think, if it hadn’t been . . . you know . . .”
    “So right in front of you,” John said. “Dan, does Abra know?”
    “Sure.” Dan smiled, rememberingAbra’s theory of relativity.
    “She got it from your mind?” Lucy asked. “Using her telepathy thing?”
    “No, because I didn’t know. Even someone as talented as Abra can’t read something that isn’t there. But on a deeper level, we bothknew. Hell, we even said it out loud. If anyone asked what we were doing together, we were going to say I was her uncle. Which I am. I should have realized consciouslysooner than I did.”
    “This is coincidence beyond coincidence,” Dave said, shaking his head.
    “It’s not. It’s the farthest thing in the world from coincidence. Lucy, I understand that you’re confused and angry. I’ll tell you everything I know, but it will take some time. Thanks to John and your husband and Abra—her most of all—we’ve got some.”
    “On the way,” Lucy said. “You can tell me on the wayto Abra.”
    “All right,” Dan said, “on the way. But three hours’ sleep first.”
    She was shaking her head before he finished. “No, now. I have to see her as soon as I possibly can. Don’t you understand? She’s my daughter, she’s been kidnapped, and I have to see her