The Whisper Man

At bedtime, Tom finishes reading The Power of Three to Jake, and he recalls his own childhood, which Jake can hardly believe. Tom puts Jake to bed, still relieved to have him home. He’s aware of how he was ready to die for his son.

He goes to his office and goes to the document he was working on. He had forgotten what was in it, and the letter to Rebecca about seeing Karen surprises him. Karen has been a close comfort to him during the last two weeks, and though their relationship hasn’t yet turned into romance, Tom knows it could.

Tom deletes the letter except for his wife’s name, knowing that he must start again, tell her everything that’s happened—but that doesn’t seem right either, so he changes it to a letter to Jake. He then begins to write the letter that appears in the book’s prologue.

He hears Jake talking to someone and goes to listen. When he asks Jake who he was talking to, Jake is initially silent but after a moment says, “Your daddy read that book to you when you were young” (349). Tom realizes that’s probably true, but Jake has fallen asleep before he can explain where he learned this fact.

Amanda arrives home to a letter that’s clearly from Frank Carter, likely gloating about Pete’s death. She pours a glass of wine, raises it to Pete, and then begins weeping. She now knows that Pete was an alcoholic, but she thinks that he’d understand her need to cope in her own way. She realizes that she’s going to be like Pete: She’ll carry the ugly cases with her. She focuses on the positives of rescuing Jake and catching Francis Carter before opening the letter—it’s from Frank Carter, as suspected, but it’s him thanking Pete.

Francis is in his cell, waiting for a confrontation with his father. It’s past lights out, and he knows that Frank will be coming to see him. He thinks that he’s a grown man now and has no reason to be afraid anymore. He saw his father a few days earlier in the canteen, and though the people with Frank looked his way, Frank himself stared straight ahead and ate his food.

Francis reminds himself that he’s grown and unafraid, but the footsteps he hears shake his confidence, and when Frank finally steps into his cell, Francis becomes a terrified child all over again. Frank steps forward, and Francis pulls his own shirt up to cover his face, just like Frank did to his victims 20 years earlier.