I don’t believe in aliens, I have no faith in psychics, and tales of the Loch Ness monster leave me cold. So I can’t begin to explain what made me believe that Quinn had stolen my invitation and taken some sort of spiritual road trip to God-knows-where. Call it unwanted intuition, but whatever it was, I simply knew. “It’s not that we don’t believe you, Blake,” Maggie said. “It’s just that you need to see this from our side.” By twenty past two I was in the Volvo with Russ and Maggie, because I knew I couldn’t face this trip alone. I had driven to their houses and woken them up with long blasts of my horn—woken up half the neighborhood, I imagine—and practically dragged them out of bed. “You wanted to go,” I’d told them. “Now you’ve got your chance.” I slammed my brakes at a stop sign. Russ and Maggie jolted forward from the backseat, their seat belts digging into their shoulders. “Thanks. That woke me up,” said Russ. “This is crazy,” Maggie said.
