BOBBY PACED back and forth in his living room, feeling more agitated than he had even in his direst moments.

Paramedics had pronounced Frank the First dead at the scene. There had been nothing overly unusual about that—after all, the man had lived to see more than a century. Then the coroner had been called to take Frank away, and the other Jovingos left shortly thereafter.

Bobby’s chest felt tight. Despite Randy’s reassurances otherwise, he knew that Frank’s death was Bobby’s own fault for not properly dealing with Thane in a timely manner. But after Thane had dropped off his radar last summer, what had Bobby been expected to do? Go after him and poke him with a stick?

A knock on his door startled him out of his ruminations. Normally he would have checked the peephole to make sure nobody who hated his guts was waiting out there with a lead pipe or an Uzi, but given the evening’s circumstances, he expected it to be someone like Randy or Carly.

He pulled open the door and practically had to pick his jaw up off the threshold. Standing before him was none other than Caleb Young, his former roommate who had vanished back in July and turned out to be, of all things, the Servants’ guardian angel.

Caleb had glasses that magnified his eyes and wore khaki slacks and a blue jacket embroidered with the Autumn Ridge Community College logo. The winter wind tousled his brown hair. “May I come in?” Caleb asked.

It took several seconds for Bobby’s mouth to start working. “Yeah.”

Caleb strode past him, and Bobby stared after him, blinking. The hour grew late—it was nearly ten o’clock now—but he didn’t think it was late enough for him to start having hallucinations.

Caleb did not take the couch like Bobby had expected. Instead, he planted his hands on his hips and gave Bobby an expectant look.

“What are you doing here?” Bobby asked. Aside from speaking to Caleb in a vision, he hadn’t seen the man since he’d vanished from the rental bungalow over on Fir Street five months earlier.

“Given the circumstances, I thought that a face-to-face chat might have a better effect.”

He had a point there. “What’s going on?”

Caleb’s face was so grim it might have been carved of stone. “First, I would advise against cleansing Bradley Scholl tonight. Your mind is too full; you would have difficulty focusing on your task.”

“I…guess I can do it tomorrow, then? What else?”

“You will be required to make a choice.”

“I’ve been making plenty of those lately.”

“Not this choice. You cannot do everything. You have to choose what’s most important.”

“What, like stop Thane or finish taking care of Bradley?”

“Something along those lines.” Caleb cleared his throat. “I have to say, you aren’t the man you were when we lived together.”

“Isn’t that a good thing?”

“It could be.”

“Depending on whatever choice I make. Right?”

Caleb smiled and dipped his head. “I’ll be seeing you around.”

As Caleb moved toward the door, Bobby said, “Wait! You can’t leave now. Stay and help me.”

Caleb turned toward him. “Did you think I’d ever left?”

“Caleb, please. I—I know what you are. It’s just easier having you around like a regular person.”

“Indeed.” Caleb checked a watch on his wrist. “And before I forget, there’s one more thing I’m supposed to say. You were never meant to be together.”

“You mean me and Carly?” Bobby blurted. “Because we’re not together; all I did was buy her a necklace.”

“It means what it means. Goodbye, Bobby. I trust you’ll do the right thing.”

Then Caleb walked out the door. Bobby watched helplessly as his ex-roommate disappeared from view.

“Great.” Bobby punched a fist into the palm of his other hand. He couldn’t go after Thane—the man would undoubtedly find some indirect way to harm him like he’d done last summer. But if he didn’t do anything, more of his friends and mentors would start dropping like flies.

“I need help,” he said out loud.

Call Father Preston, the Spirit whispered.

Like the priest could answer all of Bobby’s problems. Still, it wouldn’t be a good idea to ignore such advice. He picked up his cell phone and called the priest, who picked up on the second ring. “Hello?”

Words started pouring from Bobby’s mouth before he even realized what he was saying. “Hey, Father Preston? Something bad just came up. I—I can’t work with Bradley tonight.”

Alarm colored the priest’s voice. “What? Why not?”

“Just keep him safe and comfortable, okay? Tell him I have no other choice but to leave.”

“Leave? Where are you going?”

“I—I don’t know.” Bobby hadn’t even known he’d be leaving until he said it, and now that he had, he knew it was the right action to take in these circumstances. “It’s just something I have to do. I don’t want to do it. Trust me, if I could stay here, I would.”

It took Father Preston several seconds to respond, and when he did, his voice had dropped to a whisper. “Bradley has been growing agitated all afternoon and evening. I’m not sure how long he’ll be able to hold himself together before he grows violent.”

“I get that. I really do. Look, if you need help, you know who else to call.”

He ended the call before he could give a proper farewell, then rushed into his bedroom and pulled his suitcase out of the closet. What in the blazes was he doing? Skipping town did not suit him, even though that’s what he’d always done when the going got rough.

He’d fled New York after his neighbor had been killed, and he’d scampered from Utah after members of a rock band he’d liked to hang out with got violent at a jam session, but now Bobby had responsibilities. Running away when there were people here who needed him was cowardice, plain and simple.

In fact, it made him act an awful lot like Adrian Pollard, his mother.

Bobby paused with a long-sleeved shirt clenched in his hand. Adrian had indeed run from all responsibility when she’d abandoned four children. Could Bobby really be that much like her?

Hating the implications of it all, he tossed the shirt into the suitcase and threw two more on top of it.

Another knock at the door made his breath catch in his throat. Had Caleb come back to reprimand him?

Bobby dashed back to the living room and held an eye to the peephole just to be sure.

To his complete surprise, Carly stood there holding a small suitcase of her own.

“What’s going on?” Bobby asked once he’d pulled the door open. “Why do you have a suitcase?”

Carly stepped inside and set her case on the floor. Her eyes were still bloodshot. “I had the feeling you’d scamper, and thought you might like some company.”

“No offense, but your grandpa just died. Shouldn’t you be with your family?”

“They don’t know I’ve come here.”

That didn’t answer Bobby’s rhetorical question. His shoulders slumped. “How would you even know I’m ‘scampering’? I didn’t even know I’d be scampering until about two minutes ago.”

“Because I know you. You’ll want to get as far away from Thane as possible before you start plotting a way to stop him so you’ll be out of his range.”

“His range?”

“Well, his sphere of influence. He can’t fiddle with minds everywhere, can he? I’d think it would be too hard for him.”

“I don’t know.”

Carly’s eyes narrowed. “That is why you’re scampering, right?”

“Um, right. Let me finish packing.”

Bobby went back into his room, and Carly stood in the open doorway watching as he threw in some jeans and extra socks.

“Which direction do you want to scamper in?” Carly asked. “I can start looking up places to stay.”

“Will you stop calling it ‘scampering’? It makes me look bad.” Bobby tugged the zipper shut on his case and straightened. “I don’t care where we go as long as it’s as far away from Thane as possible. For all I know, he can mess with people’s minds in Timbuktu as easily as he can here.”

“I was hoping we could stick to the continental U.S. I don’t have a passport.”

Bobby let out a pent-up breath. “I take it you’ve got everything you need?”

“Yep.”

“Then let’s get out of here.”

Bobby made sure the house was locked, then he and Carly buckled themselves into the Nissan. “Let’s stop for some supplies first,” he said.

“Okay with me.”

Bobby stopped at a 24-hour gas station to have the tank topped off, and inside they purchased a handful of energy drinks, Mountain Dew, Coke, Sprite, and half a dozen snack items that Carly insisted on paying for herself.

“You should have let me pay for those,” Bobby said once they were back in the car. “I mean, you don’t even have a job.”

To his surprise, Carly stiffened. “You’re right. I don’t. Doesn’t mean I can’t help out once in a while.”

“Okay, okay.” Not wanting to argue, Bobby changed the subject by picking up the road atlas he’d brought with them. He opened it to the Oregon page and started scanning the highways leading out of Autumn Ridge.

“You’ve seriously got to invest in a smartphone one of these days,” Carly remarked as Bobby put a finger on a route leading east out of town. “Then you could just look everything up on Google Maps.”

“I prefer Old Trusty. I could always do the atlas thing again.”

“What atlas thing?”

“The one where I randomly point at a page to figure out where to go next. That’s how I ended up here.”

She turned to face him, her expression unreadable. “You mean the only reason you came to Autumn Ridge is because you stabbed your finger at a map and that’s where it landed?”

“Pretty much.”

“Did you even know what state you’d be pointing at?”

“No. I shut my eyes and kind of riffled through the pages.”

“Wow.”

“What?”

“Here I was thinking you’d been drawn to this place by some cheesy travel ad. Stabbing your finger at a map. Honestly! The guy upstairs must have one crazy sense of humor if that’s how he got you here.” She leaned her head back, closed her eyes, and drew in a deep breath. “We’re doing the right thing, aren’t we?”

The Spirit gave Bobby a reassuring murmur. As crazy as running away seemed, apparently it came with a heavenly stamp of approval. “Yeah,” Bobby said. “Are you going to be all right?”

“I don’t see why I won’t be,” she said after a long pause. “I always get through things one way or another. Just start driving. I’d hate to still be here when Thane finds out you’re gone.”