Two names, two numbers, two women. The widows of Doctors Horace Golden and Elmer Dalton. Nancy Golden had remarried, Grace Dalton had not. Never ceased to amaze him how many secrets could be ferreted out through the Internet.

He dialed Nancy Golden—now Nancy Emerson—then Grace Dalton. He gave them both the same message: Jeremy Bolton has disappeared from Creighton. No one's talking because no one knows where he is. Then he hung up.

Exactly thirteen minutes after the second call, a lean man in a cowboy hat and boots strode up to the cab, flicked a cigarette away, and climbed in.

Jack got out and stood by his door as the driver did some revving, then ratcheted into gear and started moving. Bolton must have worked the tape off his mouth somehow, because Jack heard him. His scream dopplered up, then down as the truck accelerated past.

He got back in and followed. The rig had barely made it to the entrance ramp when Jack's headlights picked up a gleaming line of red winding from beneath the trailer.

A line of blood… a bloodline.

… my bloodline'd kick your bloodline's ass!

Jack stared at the red streak.

There goes your bloodline.

But this was not the end of Bolton's bloodline—or Jonah Stevens's. It lived on in Thompson and in Dawn, especially in her baby. Where was Jonah's bloodline headed? The man had concentrated it for a purpose, aimed it toward some end. What?

He couldn't help thinking of Emma and his own bloodline. Where would she have taken it?

Nausea tickled his stomach. He pulled over and onto the shoulder, stopped for a few deep breaths.

Bloodline…

Had to call Levy tomorrow… set up a meet… needed some info only he could supply.

18

Hank broke off in midsentence and looked around. He'd not only forgotten what he'd been about to say, but where he was.

He looked down from his makeshift stage and saw seventy or eighty faces staring up at him. Now he remembered… he was speaking to a Kicker group in the basement of a clubhouse in Howard Beach.

But what was he supposed to say next? How could he have forgotten? He'd given this speech so many times he could repeat it in his sleep.

Something was wrong. But what?

And then he knew: Something… someone was missing.

Jeremy… Jeremy was gone.

He didn't know how or why or where, but Jeremy's light had flickered out. Hank felt it, knew it. Just as he'd known, so many years ago, that Daddy was gone and never would be coming back.

Had an Enemy gotten to him? That was the most logical explanation.

Hank searched for grief but found only fear. He'd never been that close to Jeremy, hadn't even liked him, to tell the truth. He was more concerned about being next on the Enemy's list.

He looked again at his audience. Could one of them be lurking in the crowd, waiting for a chance to kill him too?

He fought the urge to turn and run. That would be stupid. He was safe here among the Kickers. This would be the last place the Enemy would try for him.

He calmed himself and resumed speaking. But not his usual spiel. He started telling them about a young woman—alone, afraid, no family, pregnant, thinking she hadn't a friend in the world. But she did have friends and family—the Kickers. He told them how she and her baby were important to the future of the Kicker movement, to the future of the whole world, and how the Kicker family would find her and shelter her and protect her from those who feared and hated the dissimilated.

THURSDAY

1

Hank stood by the copy machine and watched as it started to spit out the brightly colored sheets. He grabbed one to double-check.

Dawn's photo looked grainy but that couldn't be helped. He'd enlarged it from one of the shots he'd taken when he'd tracked her down while Jeremy was in Creighton. The text said she was missing and offered a thousand bucks for any information leading to her discovery. He'd set up a special voice mail account for the calls. He knew a lot would be cranks, but he had plenty of manpower at his disposal to check them out.

He handed it to the nearer of the two Kickers who had accompanied him.

"This is what she looks like. This is who we're looking for."

The guy studied it for a few seconds, then handed it to his companion.

Later today he'd start handing out stacks of the flyers to the Kickers at the Lodge. They in turn would distribute bunches to all the Kickers they knew, who would spread them to all the Kickers they knew, and so on and so on.

He turned back to the newspaper he'd brought along. Still no report of the death of Jerry Bethlehem, or Jeremy Bolton. But he did find mention of an unidentifiable body dragged along the Thruway beneath a truck last night. Could that be Jeremy?

He shuddered. From now on, he wasn't traveling anywhere alone. He'd find a reason to have at least two Kickers with him at all times.

Just to be on the up and up, he'd filed missing persons reports with the NYPD on both Jerry Bethlehem and Dawn Pickering. Hank had been surprised at how seriously the cops had taken his reports. He later learned that their disappearance made them prime suspects in Dawn's mother's faked suicide. Hank had tried to glean more details but failed.

What a damn mess. The only upside was that he'd have both cops and

Kickers on the lookout for Dawn. His big worry was that she and the baby had died along with Jeremy. But he didn't think so. Through the night the tenuous link he'd had to Jeremy had been replaced by a link to the baby. He sensed it was alive and well. That meant Dawn was alive and well too. And thus findable. Hank was going to find her first. And then, just as in his dreams, the Kicker Man would snuggle that baby in its arms and protect it from all Enemies.

2

Dawn eased herself into the warm water of the tub.

Like mother, like daughter, right?

But Mom hadn't had a choice. This was Dawn's idea, her own doing.

She felt like total hell. She'd been up all night drinking rum and Diet Pepsi. Sure, the rum wasn't good for the baby—at least that was what she'd heard—but nowhere near as bad as what was about to happen to both of them.

She'd agonized over what to wear until she'd realized she was just delaying the inevitable.

She listened for any sounds from the house—like anybody trying to get in. About an hour ago, as she was working up the nerve to get off her butt and do it, she'd heard sounds outside. Thinking it was Jerry, she'd slid back into her hiding place.

But it hadn't been Jerry. Two men, strangers. She didn't know how they'd got in, but they had, and they were searching the place. They hadn't said a word, but she'd seen their feet. They went through the whole house, silent as shadows. And then they left. She'd waited a long time before coming out again.

Who were they? Had they been looking for her, or for Jerry? Whatever, it had totally spooked her into action. Get it done before someone else came nosing around—like the local cops "processing" the crime scene—and totally ruined her chance.

So now, dressed in the same clothes she'd worn all yesterday and last night, she unwrapped the razor blade she'd found in the garage and held it up to the light. It looked so sharp. Little bits of rust flecked the edges. Couldn't rust give you tetanus? Not that it mattered.

Okay… had to get up the nerve to do it.

She'd known girls in school who cut their arms with blades like this. How did they do that? Why? Yeah, short, shallow little slices that probably didn't hurt too much, but it had so never made sense to her.

Had to do this now before she totally lost her nerve.