Endings by Linda Richards (e ink manga reader txt) 📕

key.” A hesitation. Then, “This is a bit of a jumble, but stay with me.”

“Yes.”

“I’m getting verde, which, of course, is Spanish for green, yet somehow I am certain we are not in Mexico. Or Spain, for that matter.”

“Okay.” Again, specificity. More notes.

“Maybe Camp Verde or Verde Road or something like that.”

“Finding something called verde in California. Well, that should be hard.”

“Right. Well, okay. Still. That’s what I’m getting. Then there is a long road, whether this is Verde anything or not is unclear. But it is not a highway. Like a back road? Unpaved. It ends at a white cliff.”

“I must be careful not to fall over it?” I feel as though I am humoring her now.

“No, no! The cliff is above you. Sorry. I shared that imperfectly.”

“Above me. All right. Got it. A cliff.”

“And I see three boulders blocking a path. I’m sorry. This seems especially meaningless to me, but it’s just the visual I’m getting. Just stay aware and alert for them.”

“Three boulders. Right.”

“Yeah. Big rocks. Blocking a path. It’s as though they have been intentionally used to stop cars, you understand what I’m getting at? Like not boulders that have fallen here by nature’s hand. They are large rocks. Intentionally placed. Across a path or narrow road.”

I take more notes. “Okay. Got it.”

“That is not the end of your quest, but I sense it is part of it. A distinct part. And then another. This feels like a whole different reading. I should charge you another fifty bucks.”

“Really?”

“No. Sorry. Weird psychic humor.”

“Don’t give up your day job,” I say dryly. We both laugh, though I think mine has a nervous sound.

“So the different reading part. The visual I am getting now is another location. Not near the first. And nothing to do with the boulders. I see an empty house on top of a mountain. The sea is nearby. And he is dead there.” I’m imagining Snow White, some wicked dwarves. I’m imagining a whole bunch of pictures that make no sense. “Or badly injured,” she continues. “Sorry. I can’t tell. But he is flat out.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know. But it’s a male form.”

“He’s dead there now? Or whatever? At this abandoned house?”

“Empty,” she corrects. “I didn’t say abandoned. And no, I can’t see that. This is a future vision. I’m fairly certain. It hasn’t happened yet.”

“Fairly certain,” I repeat.

“Yes. That means that there’s no surety to any of it. Or even less surety. That’s because our actions in the present can impact whatever is coming towards us.”

I’ve seen enough sci-fi-type movies to know what she is talking about. Time-space continuum, that sort of thing. But I feel pretty skeptical. “Is that everything?”

“Yes, that’s all I’ve got.”

“Well… thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” Her voice is warm. Almost effusive. “And good luck on your quest!”

“My quest?”

“Yes. William Atwater. I think you will be successful. Whatever that means for you.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

AFTER THE CALL, I think about what I’ve learned. More to the point, I think about if I’ve learned anything at all. Verde something. A cliff above me. Three boulders. An empty, but not abandoned, house at the end of a road. This does not seem a lot to go on, and I feel as though the fifty bucks might have better been spent on gas or hamburgers or maybe toys for the dog. But it’s all I’ve got, and the competent and friendly sound of her voice encourages me forward. It was more, in any case, than I’d gotten from the doctor.

And so, with my notebook and my laptop beside me, I order a cup of coffee and I begin.

The first thing I do is look for occurrences of the word Verde in San Pasado County. Like I figured, there are many: it’s an area that has a lot of green and aspirations to green. There is a subdivision called Verde Springs, but it is on the other side of the county. I discount it because that was never Atwater’s territory and I have no reason to think he would suddenly go so far afield. There are several roads called “Verde.” There is a Verde Court Motor Inn and a Verde Chili Restaurant and a couple of Verde Beaches: North and South. For a second, one of these last two seems like a possibility until I realize they are also far out of my pinned area.

Of the “Verdes” in the area I had mapped for him, I find three that seem like real possibilities. Verde Park is at the eastern edge of the mapped area. One of the Verde Roads occurs close to where the day care Ashley was taken from is located and where I had found Atwater the last time. There is also a Verde Field, a small military airbase that, when I Google, proves to have been closed for the last twenty years.

The old airbase seems a good bet. It would be the kind of place I would hole up in if it were me doing the hiding. That seems as good a reason to try it first as any. I pack up, go back to the car and the dog, and we set out.

The drive to Verde Field is pleasant. Picturesque. If I were not currently so concerned with finding my prey, it is a ride I would enjoy. Gnarled oaks line a lonely, crack-sided highway where white-faced cattle graze in fields that look as though nothing new has grown there for months. Years. I find myself feeling sorry for those cattle, shuffling hopelessly across arid fields. Do they carry the memory of springy green under their feet, I wonder? Or is today the only memory that matters, and no other reality came before?

After a while, I make a turn and the road becomes even more desolate. I drive on an old and unkempt highway for half an hour and don’t see another car. I remind myself that California has a population of around forty million souls. As I drive, I wonder idly where everyone