Page 138 of Whistle

“Hop in and I’ll take you to Lucknow. Your dad can’t wait to see you.”

Charlie had stopped crying, but now he was ready to start again. Only this time they’d be tears of joy running down his cheek. He could feel himself being drawn toward the van. This guy knew him, knew where he was going and why. And he couldn’t have come along at a better time.

“I guess... it would be okay,” Charlie said, and grabbed the bike by the handlebars, getting ready to wheel it across the road.

“You can leave that,” the man said. “You’re not going to need it anymore. You won’t need that backpack, either.”

Charlie paused, looked at the bike that had served him so well up to now. But it really had reached the end of the road. He let it fall, then flung his backpack into the ditch.

“Come around and hop in.”

Charlie hardly needed to since there were no other cars on the road, but out of habit looked both ways before he crossed, ran around the front of the van to the passenger door, reached up for the handle, pulled it open, and climbed in.

“Nice to meet you, Charlie,” the man said. “My name is Edwin.”

“Hi, Edwin,” Charlie said.

“You know what would be fun? You try to name all the railroad patches I’ve got on my vest.”

Charlie grinned. That did sound like fun.

Fifty-One

Annie had decided it didn’t matter whether Lucknow had become a ghost town. Just because there was no one there didn’t mean Charlie wouldn’t still consider it his destination. When he left, he probably didn’t know any more about that place’s history than she had before reading about it on her phone.

After an hour’s sleep at the service center, she continued on, and was traveling some secondary roads north of Albany, asking Sherpa how much longer it would take to reach Lucknow as dawn began to break.

Her cell phone rang.

Her heart leapt. The first thing she thought was that it would be Charlie, but Charlie did not have a cell phone. But it could have been someone calling on his behalf, a Good Samaritan who had found her son and was trying to reunite them.

She thumbed a button to accept the call.

“Hello?”

“Ms. Blunt?”

“Yes?”

“It’s Officer Standish.”

Annie said nothing.

“Hello? Are you there?”

“I’m here,” Annie said, suddenly thinking that her trip to Lucknow was pointless, that maybe Standish had news. And that it wasn’t good. “Have you found Charlie?”

“I’m sorry, no, but we’re back out this morning. Where are you, Ms. Blunt?”

“I’m out looking for my son.”

“And where is it that you’re looking?”

“Just around.”

“I came by your place last night and you weren’t there, and you’re not there this morning. What is your location?”

“I’m kind of on the move.”

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