Adam woke, shivering, still sitting with his back against the tree in front of Iris’s house. He couldn’t say a burden had been lifted, but he did feel he had the understanding to help bear it.
He stood, retrieved the spare key from beneath the edge of the house, and went inside. The phone rang before he reached the stairs, and he picked his way carefully through the dark house to the kitchen, both hoping it was and praying it wasn’t about Harlan.
“Hello?” he said, grabbing Iris’s ancient landline from its cradle. “Hello?”
“I’m glad you know I couldn’t do it,” a deep, rough man’s voice said. “Not even with him whispering in my ear, and not even to save her. Your mother meant everything to me.”
“Where are you? Is Teddy with you?”
“Don’t worry; I’ll stay away now. You won’t be seeing me,
