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"Oh," I said, and wanted to say more but couldn’t speak

Wendy’s mother, Mary, is six years older than I aivecrush on her At that ti under the delusion that I would one day play rock-’n’-roll piano as well as Jerry Lee Lewis, be a keyboard-banging maniac who could make those ivories smoke Eventually my parents and Mary concluded--and persuadeda competent pianist was i and flying like a bird

"Wendy’s seven" Bobby said "Mary was taking her to school Backed the car out of the driveway Then realized she’d forgotten soet it When she caone With Wendy"

"No one saw anything?"

Bobby chugged the Mountain Dew: enough sugar to induce in hi-haul trucker awake through a five-hundred- hi," he confirhborhood of the blind and deaf Soious than your ot an epidemic of the shut-up-hunker-down-see-hear-smell-speak-no-evil influenza Anyway, the cops found Mary’s car abandoned in the service lane behind the Nine Pal center that lost all the tenants when Fort Wyvern closed and took with it the billion dollars a year that it had pumped into the county economy These days the shop s at Nine Palms are boarded over, weeds bristle fro lot, and six of the namesake palms are withered, brown, and so dead that they have been abandoned by tree rats

The chaht Bay the Jewel of the Central Coast The town reraced with fine architecture and lovely tree-lined streets, but the economic scars of Wyvern’s closure are visible everywhere The jewel is not as bright as it once was

"They searched all the empty shops in Nine Palms," Bobby said, "afraid they’d find Wendy’s body, but she wasn’t there"

"She’s alive," I said

Bobby looked at ly

"They’re all alive," I insisted "They have to be"

I wasn’t speaking fro from my belief in miracles

"Another crow," Bobby said "Mary called it a blackbird It was left on the car seat In the drawing, the bird is diving for prey"

"Message?"

"‘George Dulcinea will be my servant in Hell’"

Mary’s husband was Frank Dulcinea "Who the hell is George?"

"Frank’s grandfather He’s dead now Used to be a judge in the county court syste?"

"Fifteen years"

I was baffled and frustrated "If this abb is kidnapping for vengeance, what’s the point of nabbing Wendy to get even with a randfather was gone long before she was even born He never knew her How could you get satisfaction froeance on a dead man?"

"Maybe it makes perfect sense if you’re an abb," Bobby said, "with a screwed-up brain"

"I guess"

"Oris just cover, to make everyone think these kids were snatched by your standard-issue pervert, when ed in a lab somewhere"

"Maybe, maybe, you’re full of too daed "Don’t look toboardhead This killer you uy in the news He leave crows like this?"

"Not that I’ve read"

"Serial killers, don’t they sonatures Like a writer’s byline Taking credit for the work"

I checked my atch Sunset would arrive in about five hours We would be ready to go back to Wyvern by then And even if ere not ready, ould go