The Best of Me - Nicholas Sparks [109]
Before the explosion.
Dawson stumbled, but even as he righted himself, he felt a chill pass through him.
It wasn’t possible.
It had been twenty-four years. Since then, he’d gone to prison and been released; he’d worked on oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. He’d loved and lost, then loved and lost again, and the man who’d once taken him in had died of old age. But the stranger—because he was, and always had been, a stranger—hadn’t aged at all. He looked exactly the same as he had on the night he’d been out running after seeing patients in his office, a day on which it had rained. It was him, and he could see it now: the surprised face Dawson had seen as he’d swerved off the road. He’d been carrying the load of tires that Tuck had needed, returning to Oriental—
It was here, Dawson remembered again. It was here where Dr. David Bonner, husband and father, had been killed.
Dawson drew a sharp breath and stumbled again, but the man seemed to have read his thoughts. He nodded once without smiling just as he reached the gravel drive of the parking lot. Facing forward again, he sped up, parallel now to the front of the building. Dawson felt the sweat as he stumbled into the parking lot behind him. Up ahead, the stranger—Dr. Bonner—had stopped running and was standing near the building’s entrance, bathed in the neon sign’s eerie red light.
Dawson drew near, focusing on Dr. Bonner, just as the ghost turned and entered the building.
Dawson sped up, bursting through the doorway of a dimly lit bar seconds later, but by then, Dr. Bonner was gone.
It took only an instant for Dawson to register the scene: the toppled tables and chairs, the muffled sound of a woman screaming in the background while the TV continued to blare. His cousins Ted and Abee bent over someone on the ground, beating him savagely, almost ritualistically, until they suddenly stopped to look up at him. Dawson caught a glimpse of the bloodied figure on the ground, recognizing him instantly.
Alan…
Dawson had studied the young man’s face in countless photos over the years, but now he also noticed the striking resemblance to his father. The man Dawson had been seeing all these months, the man who’d led him here.
As he took in the scene, all went still. Ted and Abee froze, neither of them apparently able to believe that someone—anyone—had suddenly arrived. Their breaths came in rasps as they stared at Dawson like wolves interrupted during a feeding frenzy.
Dr. Bonner had saved him for a reason.
The thought rushed into his head in the same instant that Ted’s eyes flashed with comprehension. Ted began to raise his gun, but by the time the trigger was pulled, Dawson was already diving out of the way, taking cover behind a table. He suddenly understood why he had been brought here—and perhaps even what his purpose had been all along.
With every gurgling breath, Alan felt as though he were being stabbed.
He couldn’t move from the floor, but through his blurriness, he could just make out what was happening.
Ever since the stranger had burst into the bar, craning his head around wildly as if pursuing someone, Ted and Abee had quit beating him and for some reason turned their entire focus on the newcomer. Alan didn’t understand it, but when he heard gunshots he curled himself into a ball and started to pray. The stranger had thrown himself behind some tables and Alan could no longer see him, but the next thing he knew, bottles of liquor were sailing over his head at Ted and Abee while gunshots ricocheted around the bar. He heard Abee cry out and the muted sound of cracking wood as pieces of a chair splintered around him. Ted had scrambled out of sight, but he could still