The Dark (A Detective Alice Madison Novel)(96)

“We might have three names.”

Gilman and his colleagues.

“Three?”

“Two are very recently dead; one is alive.”

It was a dark irony that at the precise moment when they could finally talk about what had happened on August 28, 1985, the restrictions imposed by their surroundings made it seriously inadvisable.

“It’s a start,” Cameron said. “It’s a start.”

To sit there and talk in riddles seemed ludicrous, but no more so than many other aspects of their friendship.

“Do you need anything?” Quinn asked Cameron, aware of how ridiculous the question sounded.

Cameron smiled a crooked smile, and for the first time he looked like himself.

Quinn nodded. “Days,” he said.


As he left the jail from the visitors’ entrance, Quinn made a quick call to his driver, who had been waiting nearby—the regulations being that he could not wait for him in the jail’s parking lot during the visit—and decided that he’d have to go back to driving himself as soon as possible. He’d have to go back to whatever normal was for him ASAP. And for the first time ever in his life he wondered what that was and if it meant anything anymore.


November 1985. Nathan had not gone back to the East Coast after David’s memorial service. He had stayed in Seattle watching over his parents as reality had dimmed to a never-ending wake with neither color nor relief. The police were doing what little they could, and he felt a constant weight on his chest that would not let him breathe.

The Camerons were in the process of selling their house and moving to the Laurelhurst neighborhood. They wanted to create a whole new set of memories for Jack in a place that bore no connection to August 28 and Jackson Pond.

Nathan had volunteered to look after Jack that Saturday afternoon and leave the parents free to pack. It was a glorious fall day, and he was thinking about a movie, ice creams, and a pizza, too, if Jack was hungry.

Jack had seemed to be recovering very well physically—the cuts on his arms and hand were healing; however, neither he nor Jimmy had ever really talked about what had happened in the forest and, watching the slight little boy, Nathan saw slow changes like roots digging into soft earth and the odd flash of rage that Jack—always aware of his parents’ concern—was quick to cover.

After seeing The Goonies, they walked to Pike Place Market and then two floors down to the home of Golden Age Collectibles. Jack seemed to be in good spirits, and Nathan felt like a very young, very ill-equipped parent. More than anything, he felt Jack’s sharp eyes watching him and knowing that he was measuring his every smile and every joke. Their companionable silence was a comfort to both, though, and Nathan wondered for a moment whether he was looking after Jack or vice versa.

The comics in the shop were always a good diversion, and Jack used some loot left over from a birthday to buy a couple of new ones. They both marveled at the price of the collectors’ editions in the glass case and went to pay. Jack’s school’s picture had been splashed all over the newspapers in the last ten weeks, but, whether out of courtesy or genuine ignorance, the clerk ignored him and rang up his purchase without a second look.

It was the first time since August 28 that Nathan had been alone with Jack. Sitting in the Athenian Restaurant at a table in the back—one with a view over the bay—Nathan felt he had to say something, do something, or he might not bear another day. And it was that understanding as he watched Jack slowly demolish his cheesecake that pushed him to speak. Was that why he had offered to take him out today? So that the boy would be alone with him?

“Jack,” he said, trying to keep his voice soft, “you know that you can tell me anything, right?”

It was so awkward that it made him wince, but Jack looked up.

“I mean,” Nathan continued, “if there was anything you couldn’t say to anyone else, you know, about what happened, you could tell me . . .” The words had just burst out, so rough and crude compared to the subtle phrasing Nathan had turned over and over in his mind.

Jack froze.

Nathan wanted to be there to comfort him and protect him in a way he couldn’t with David, and yet his voice shook as he spoke, and the sudden bubble of grief caught him unprepared.

“If there was ever anything you’d like to say about what happened, anything that could help us find the men who did it . . . would you tell me?”

Jack nodded.

“Is there anything?”

Jack shook his head.

“Anything at all?”

Jack shook his head.

Nathan wiped his face with his hands and looked out to the piers and the ferries for a few minutes. Jack let him, and when their eyes met again, he seemed to Nathan impossibly old.