The boy blinked, a bit perplexed by the question. “We had breakfast.”
Feeling more foolish than ever, Paul said, “Well . . . You better get your Monopoly set. The other kids are waiting.”
Jeremy said good-by to Jenny and Paul and to Buster, turned, looked both ways, and crossed the street.
Paul watched him until he turned the corner at the square.
“Now what?” Jenny asked.
“Rya probably ran to Sam for sympathy and protection.” He sighed. “She’s had time to calm down. Maybe she realizes that she panicked. We’ll see what her story is now.”
“If she didn’t run to Sam?”
“Then there’s no use looking for her all over town. If she wants to hide from us, she can with little trouble. Sooner or later she’ll come to the store.”
Sitting at the kitchen table, across from his mother, Jeremy recounted the conversation he’d had with Paul Annendale a few minutes ago.
When the boy finished, Salsbury said, “And he believed it?”
Jeremy frowned. “Believed what?”
“He believed that Mark was at the treehouse?”
“Well, sure. Isn’t he?”
Okay. Okay, okay, Salsbury thought. This isn’t the end of the crisis. You’ve bought some time to think. An hour or two. Maybe three hours. Eventually Annendale will go looking for his son. Two or three hours. You’ve no time to waste. Be decisive. You’ve been wonderfully decisive so far. What you’ve got to do is be decisive and get this straightened out before you have to tell Dawson about it.
Earlier, within twenty minutes of the boy’s death, he had edited the Thorp family’s memories, had erased all remembrance of the killing from their minds. That editing took no longer than two or three minutes-but it was only the first stage of a plan to conceal his involvement in the murder. If the situation were any less desperate, if a capital offense hadn’t been committed, if the entire key-lock program didn’t hang in the balance, he could have left the Thorps with blank spots in their memories, and he would have felt perfectly safe in spite of that. But the circumstances were such that he knew he should not merely wipe out the truth but that he should also replace it with a detailed set of false memories, recollections of routine events which might have happened that morning but which in reality did not.
He decided to begin with the woman. To the boy he said, “Go into the living room and sit on the couch. Don’t move from there until I call for you. Understood?”
“Yeah.” Jeremy left the room.
Salsbury thought for a minute about how to proceed.
Emma watched him, waited.
Finally he said, “Emma, what time is it?”
She looked at the clock-radio. “Twenty minutes of eleven.”
“No,” he said softly. “That’s wrong. it’s twenty minutes of nine. Twenty minutes of nine this ‘morning.”
“It is?”
“Look at the clock, Emma.”
“Twenty of nine,” she said.
“Where are you, Emma?”
“In my kitchen.”
“Who else is here?”
“Just you.”
“No.” He sat in Jeremy’s chair. “You can’t see me. You can’t see me at all. Can you, Emma?”
“No. I can’t see you.”
“You can hear me. But you know what? Whenever our little Conversation is over, you won’t remember we’ve had it. Every event that I describe to you in the next couple of minutes will become a part of your memories. You won’t remember that you were told these things. You will think that you actually experienced them. Is that clear, Emma?”
“Yes.” Her eyes glazed. Her facial muscles went slack.
“All right. What time is it?”
“Twenty minutes of nine.” “Where are you?”
“In my kitchen.”
“Who else is here?”
“No one.”
“Bob and Jeremy are here.” “Bob and Jeremy are here,” she said. “Bob’s in that chair.”
She smiled at Bob.
“Jeremy’s sitting there. The three of you are eating breakfast.”
“Yes. Breakfast.”
“Fried eggs. Toast, Orange juice.”
“Fried eggs. Toast. Orange juice.”
“Pick up that glass, Emma.”
She lifted the empty glass in front of her.
“Drink, Emma.”
She stared doubtfully at the tumbler.
“It’s filled to the top with cold, sweet orange juice. Do you see it?”
“Yes.”
“Doesn’t it look good?” “Yes.”