The Living End Read Online Free PDF Page B

didn’t pull away.
    “Your old life wasn’t there anymore,” I said, trying to be gentle. “I know. You can do all the same things, visit all the same places, but it’ll never be the same. It can’t be, now that you know the world isn’t the way you thought it was.”
    “I keep thinking about what you told me in the van. About…people like me holding back the dark. So I came back here to try and help. It’s all I can do.”
    “And that’s why I’m going to find your missing people for you,” I said.
    Me and my big mouth. The look of relief in her eyes told me that I needed to deliver the goods if I didn’t want her heart to break. I just wished I knew where to start.
    She gave me everything she had to go on, which amounted to a notebook full of scribbles and a couple of digital snapshots from St. Jude’s Christmas Eve party. It wasn’t much, but in a world where people can vanish off the grid without leaving a trace behind, it was the best lead I was going to get.
    • • •
    I took a cab back to Bentley and Corman’s place. They ran the Scrivener’s Nook, a used and rare bookstore. It looked like Charles Dickens was their interior decorator. A very drunk and disorganized Charles Dickens. Corman, built like a boxer going to seed, with hair the color of faded chestnut varnish, sat on a wooden stool behind the antique cash register and watched a video the size of a postage stamp on his phone. I heard the tinny crack of bat meeting baseball, sending it flying over the digitized roar of the crowd.
    “Really?” I said, strolling over. “Surrounded by thousands of books and you’re watching ESPN?”
    Corman stretched his arms out, stifling a yawn. “I am as long as Bentley’s out on a grocery run. Gotta rest up and recharge the ol’ batteries after spending that much time outside my own skin. How’d the meeting go?”
    “Well, Perkins is…he’s definitely a lawyer, I’ll say that.”
    “That good or bad?”
    “He’s pretty sure he can squash the lesser charges,” I said. “That just leaves us with the feds to deal with.”
    “Don’t worry, kiddo. We’ll figure something out. We always do.” He jerked a thumb towards a stack of envelopes at the edge of the counter. “Somebody called for you about half an hour ago. I wrote their number down and put it with the mail.”
    Weird. I couldn’t think of anyone who would be looking for me. I wandered over and flipped through the pile. Gas bill for the building, electric bill, new copy of
Publishers Weekly
, Stash Tea catalog for Bentley—then I found Corman’s scribbled note at the bottom of the stack, written on the back of a greasy pizza receipt, and I furrowed my brow.
    Napa Hospital call re: Dr. Plank.
    I dialed the number he’d jotted down. They picked up on the second ring.
    “Napa State Hospital, how may I direct your call?”
    “Hi,” I said. “My name’s Daniel Faust. I got a message asking me to call about a patient there. Eugene Planck?”
    The line went quiet for so long I would have thought I’d been disconnected if it wasn’t for the faint clatter of equipment in the background and the occasional garbled PA announcement.
    “Yes,” the voice on the other end finally said. “Dr. Planck listed you as his emergency contact. I have some bad news. I’m afraid…I’m afraid he’s dead. It happened this morning, around eleven o’clock.”
    While we were walking into a trap down in Chloride
, I thought. I gripped the edge of the counter, holding on tight as the world slid out from under my feet.
    “How?” I said.
    “It looks like a heart attack. It was very quick. He didn’t suffer.”
    Yes, he did
, I thought, because I knew what really killed him. Lauren. While we were chasing her shadow two states away, she was in California, tying up loose ends. I knew she had a soft spot for her old professor, and she’d spared his life once before. I’d thought that meant he was safe from her.
    So there was one more victim I