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Pigs were searching for a dark green van with a Georgia license platei

Good, Mary thought She was half dozing, her feet up on the Barcalounger and the TV on before her in the cozy little den By the tis found the van in Rocky Road&039;s barn, she&039;d be long gone with Dru bowl of potato salad, a cup of hot vegetable soup, a can of applesauce, andof Oreo cookies She had fed Drummer his formula - warmed on the stove, which he appreciated - burped hione out like a light, in the bed shared by Rocky Road and Cherry Vanilla

Mary watched the TV through eyelids at half , the newscaster had said on the ten o&039;clock news from Iowa City, sixteen miles west of the farmhouse she&039;d invited herself to visit Baskin was the name on the mailbox Mary used to buy ice cream at Baskin-Robbins in atlanta Her favorite flavor was Rocky Road He&039;d looked like Rocky Road, dark-haired and chunky, enough of a roll of flab around his belly to make him soft and slow and oh-so-easy His as blond and petite, with rosy cheeks Cherry Vanilla, she was The fourteen-year-old boy was dark-haired like his father, but ured he&039;d be if he were a flavor

There were fa faces, all They no longer se were two vehicles: a brown pickup truck with a University of Iowa sticker on the rear bumper, and a dark blue Jeep Cherokee The Cherokee was rooas all she&039;d have to do is move her suitcases, the baby supplies, and her Doors records from the van, and she&039;d be ready to roll an added prize had been finding Rocky Road&039;s gun cabinet He had three rifles and a Smith Wesson38 revolver, with plenty of anum when she packed the Cherokee

Mary had taken a shower Had washed her hair and scrubbed her face, and carefully cleaned her wounds with a solution of rubbing alcohol and war with pain on the bathroom floor Her forearlint of bone down in the crusted ers fro the air But it was her torn thigh that kept oozing blood and hurting like a barefoot walk on razor blades Her knee had turned purple and had swollen up, too, and the bruises advanced all the way to her hip Mary had packed cotton against the wounds, put bandages from the medicine cabinet on top of those, and bound her forearh with strips of torn sheets Then she&039;d put on one of Rocky Road&039;s woolen bathrobes, gotten herself a Bud froer to wait out the night

The newscast&039;s weather segment came on a woman with blond hair sculpted into a spray-frozen helrowing up in northwest Canada Should be hitting the Iowa City-Cedar Rapids area in thirty-six to forty-eight hours, she said Good news for the ski resorts, she said, and bad news for travelers

Mary reached over beside her chair and picked up the road atlas she&039;d found in Fudge Ripple&039;s rooraphy homework papers It was opened to the hways I-80 would be theher through Iowa, Nebraska, curving up into Wyoh Nevada and finally into northern California If she kept her speed at sixty-five and the weather wasn&039;t too bad, she could make Freestone in another couple of days When she left here depended on how she felt in the ht in a deadfive times since she&039;d herded them into the barn at six o&039;clock, and that ht be the ht be the belle of the farm-life social set You never knew So it was best to clear out as soon as her bones could take the highway again

She eary, and she ached Growing old, she thought Giving in to pain and getting weak

Ten years ago she could have strangled Bedelia Morse with one hand Should&039;ve beat her to death with a piece of wood, she thought Or shot her with the Magnus had beenso fast, and she&039;d known she was torn up and she was deep-down scared she was going to pass out before she and Druoing to finish Laura Clayborne off, but now she ishing she&039;d been certain

I panicked, she thought I panicked and left thes had done a nue done to herself Should have killed her, Mary fretted Should have run over her with the van before I left No, no; Laura Clayborne was finished If she was still alive, she was gasping in a hospital bed so for trying to stealold, getting panicked, and leaving loose strings

Mary slowly and painfully got out of the lounger and li soundly on the bed, cuddled up in a clean blue blanket, the pacifier clenched in his mouth, and his cherub face scraped fro hih but she didn&039;t el, sent froift for Jack He was so very beautiful, and he was hers

"I love you," Mary whispered in the quiet

Jack was going to love him, too She kneould

Mary picked up her bloody jeans froht out the clipping froore Then she limped back to the den, and the telephone there She found a phone book, got the area code she needed, and dialed directory assistance in northern California "Freestone," she told the operator "I&039;d like the nuh" She had to spell the last name

It was rattled off by one of those computer voices that sound human Mary wrote the number down on a sheet of yellow notepad paper Then Mary dialed directory assistance a second time "Freestone I&039;d like the number of Nick Hudley"

It joined the first phone number on the sheet a third call: "Freestone Dean Walker"

"The number you have requested is not available at this ti up, and put a question mark beside Dean Walker&039;s name an unlisted numberi Did the man not have a phonei She sat in a chair next to the phone, her leg really hurting again She stared at Keith Cavanaugh&039;s nunized Jack&039;s voicei Or what if she dialed both numbers and neither voice was Jack&039;si Then that would leave Dean Walker, wouldn&039;t iti She picked up the receiver again; her fingers did their clutching dance, and she had to put the phone down for a minute until the spasms had ceased

Then she dialed the area code and the nu Two Three Mary&039;s throat had dried up Her heart was pounding What would she sayi What could she sayi Four rings Five and on and on, without an answer

She hung up It was a little after nine o&039;clock in Freestone Not too late to be calling, after all these years She dialed Nick Hudley&039;s nus, Mary heard the phone click as it was being picked up Her stomach had knotted with tension

"Helloi" a woman&039;s voice Hard to say how old

"Hi Is Nick Hudley there, pleasei"

"No, I&039; Can I take afuriously "I&039;m a friend of Nick&039;s," she said "I haven&039;t seen hi time"