Bag of Bones   ::   Кинг Стивен

He looked like a newly ordained ministergetting ready to marry his first couple. “You two talk on the telephone if you need to,” he said, “always remembering that one or both lines may be tapped. Meet in the market if you happen to. Mike, you might feel a need to drop by the local library and check out a book.”

“Not until you renew your card, though,” Mattie said, giving me a demure glance. “But no more visits to Mattie’s trailer. Is that understood?” I said yes; she said yes; John Storrow looked unconvinced. It made me wonder if he was seeing something in our faces or bodies that shouldn’t be there. “They are committed to a line of attack which probably isn’t going to work,” he said. “We can’t risk giving them the chance to change course. That means innuendos about the two of you; it also means innuendos about Mike and Kyra.” Mattie’s shocked expression made her look twelve again. “Mike and Kyra! What are you talking about?”

“Allegations of child molestation thrown up by people so desperate they’ll try anything.”

“That’s ridiculous,” she said. “And if my father-in-law wanted to sling that kind of mud—” John nodded. “Yes, we’d be obligated to sling it right back. Newspaper coverage from coast to coast would follow, maybe even Court TV, God bless and save us. We want none of that if we can avoid it. It’s not good for the grownups, and it’s not good for the child. Now or later.”

He bent and kissed Mattie’s cheek. “I’m sorry about all this,” he said, and he did sound genuinely sorry. “Custody’s just this way.”

“I think you warned me. It’s just that. . the idea someone might make a thing like that up just because there was no other way for them to win…”

“Let me warn you again,” he said. His face came as close to grim as its young and good-natured features would probably allow. “What we have is a very rich man with a very shaky case. The combination could be like working with old dynamite.” I turned to Mattie. “Are you still worried about Ki? Still feel she’s in danger?” I saw her think about hedging her response—out of plain old Yankee reserve, quite likely—and then deciding not to. Deciding, perhaps, that hedging was a luxury she couldn’t afford. “Yes. But it’s just a feeling, you know.” John was frowning. I supposed the idea that Devore might resort to extralegal means of obtaining what he wanted had occurred to him, as well. “Keep your eye on her as much as you can,” he said. “I respect intuition.