From Sky to Sky

by Amanda G. Stevens

  Finn rested his arms on the steering wheel. “This is why Anna asked you to believe her. She knew you wouldn’t want to.”

  Her fists were balling in her lap, ever tighter as they argued. “Or the cure-maker doesn’t want us looking into things.”

  “Cady, we have to accept it.”

  “No, I don’t!”

  “Okay,” Finn said. “I’ll go back to Warrenton and go through their house for evidence. If force was involved, there’ll be signs. If I’m wrong and someone did this to them, I’ll deal with him myself.”

  She pressed a fist into her stomach. “I’m going to be sick.”

  She got out of the car. As she doubled over with one hand braced on the hood, Finn watched her. Not grieving was one thing; staying in the car while she grieved was another. Zac got out and rounded the car to stand beside her. A wave of hurt rolled into him. Her bent body heaved once with a quiet gagging sound, but she didn’t throw up.

  Zac placed his hand on her back, between her shoulders. She stood with hands clenched, turned and almost walked smack into him, as if blinded. Her forehead would have collided with his nose, so he took a step back and set his hands on her shoulders.

  “Anna,” she said, eyes unfocused. “Anna’s gone.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Someone killed Anna.”

  Maybe. “I’m so sorry, Cady.”

  After a long silent minute, she pressed her palm to his flannel shirt as if just noticing how close they stood. Her eyes met his, filling not with tears but with an anger that lifted off her like smoke.

  “Someone killed Anna.”

  On the other side of the car, Finn opened his door and got out.

  “I’ll come with you, Finn,” Cady said.

  “You’ll sleep the whole time. As long as you’re still recovering, I’ll move faster without you.”

  She glared. “He has to pay for what he did.”

  “If you’re right, I’ll make sure he does.”

  “What would be this guy’s motive?” Zac said. Someone had to talk some sense. “Why take their lives?”

  “I’ll know that when I catch up to him,” Finn said.

  When, not if. They couldn’t be expected to think straight right now. Zac held his hand out for the letter, and Finn gave it over carefully. Zac reread.

  “I don’t care why.” Cady’s tone took on a harsh frustration. “Maybe he likes killing and figured out we’re a bigger challenge.”

  Colm.

  It was impossible. But Anna hadn’t dated the letter. Suppose they’d been dead a month? No, stop. Think. “You talked to Anna. Eight days ago, you said?”

  She nodded.

  Zac’s chest emptied in a sigh. Not Colm. The man had been dead for weeks. And that left … “It’s Doc.”

  “But he’s—” Cady’s voice broke. “He’s a doctor. He cared for our town, Zac. He cared about us.”

  “Us too.”

  Her voice dropped to a whisper as if the alternative would be to scream. “Now he’s rescinding that care? Now he deceives his patients, his friends? Not Dr. Noel.”

  “If someone did coerce them into this … Who else but Doc would know us for what we are?”

  “All right,” Finn said. “If it’s Doc, I’ll find him.”

  Zac held up his hand. “How? He’s going to have to find you two.”

  Finn frowned. “He should have by now, however he found the others. Four of us lived in a ten-mile radius. How’d he miss Cady and me?”

  Zac shook his head. “And if he thinks he’s doing right by us, he shouldn’t be hiding his identity. We’re missing some things.”

  He leaned against the car and looked up at the sky and wished he understood it all. He shut his eyes for a moment. Maybe he could ask David to pray. For all of them.

  “I’ll grab a flight into St. Louis,” Finn said.

  “Finn, I’m telling you as her best friend, Anna would never do this.”

  Time to give them privacy to talk. Zac touched his palm to Cady’s shoulder. Her eyes glittered with defense, desperation, but no accusation. He wasn’t an intruder to them. Well, he wouldn’t cross that line if he could help it. He crossed the blacktop and paced the length of the diner.

  He imagined Finn hunting Doc down, the odds long on finding him, but if he did … The man who shot David in an open parking lot because he felt cornered would not wait to hear explanations, not while mourning four family members. Heck, in his place anyone would have difficulty with that.

  After a minute Finn ambled over. “Thanks.”

  “Want a wingman?”

  “Why?”

  Zac shrugged. “Looks like you could use one.”

  “Cady.” Finn glanced back at her as she got back into the car.

  “David and Tiana will keep an eye on her. Tiana is kindness personified, and—”

  “It’s not just that. I don’t see what she’s saying, Zac. I really don’t. But she did know Anna better than anyone else did, maybe even James. And if Doc or someone is after us, then he could get to her while I’m gone. She could be dead before I …” Finn covered his eyes with one hand.

  Wavering objectivity there. “Hey.”

  After a moment Finn lowered his hand and met Zac’s eyes, his expression still flat.

  “Once he decides he’s on your team, David is a first-rate guardian,” Zac said. “We’ll fill him in.”

  Finn frowned. Looked back at the car, where Cady still huddled in her seat. “I don’t know.”

  “Okay, listen. You saw us leave the park that night. After.”

  Finn nodded.

  “Who was carrying the saber?”

  “David was.”

  “I couldn’t go through with the—the execution. So David did, as”—Zac cleared his throat—“as my friend, and because it had to be done. He doesn’t flinch.”

  Finn swallowed hard. “She’ll be in good hands.”

  “Some of the best I know.”

  “You’re sure.”

  “I’d never leave her here otherwise.”

  Zac held out his hand, and Finn shook it with a firm, callused grip. “Thank you.”

  “Let’s go get this done and come back to her as soon as we can.”

  Zac didn’t say the rest: come back to stay. Somehow he already knew he wanted them to. It was a need with a scope that felt larger than his own. It would have felt like a nudge from God Himself, if those still happened to him.

  TEN

  He had told Cady, “I’m going along,” and she’d reached for his hand and squeezed it. He’d given the same news to David, recounted everything they’d pieced together so far, and received a scowl and a “mind your back.” David might have meant generally, or he might have meant vigilance against Doc, or he might have meant lingering suspicion toward Finn. Whatever.

  The fastest means would be a flight from the tiny Traverse City airport to Detroit and another flight from Detroit to St. Louis. But the limited departure times from Traverse City meant a delay of almost twenty-four hours. Finn declared they would drive to Detroit, where the next flight to St. Louis departed at 4:35 that afternoon. To make it they’d have to break a few speed limits.

  Carry-ons stowed in the back seat, Zac began the drive while beside him Finn tapped his phone to book the flight. Zac swallowed a few times, or tried to. Just yesterday he’d acknowledged his current incapability of getting on a plane. At least he didn’t have to get on two.

  “First class.”

  “’Course,” Finn said, thumbs still tapping.

  “Are they—” His throat closed. He cleared it. “Are they letting you choose seats?”

  “Nah. Too close to departure.”

  Zac kept his grip relaxed on the wheel. He wasn’t driving toward actual danger, only perceived danger. In the matter of low ceilings, his brain was unreliable. Was a major screw-up of tsunamic proportions. All he had to do was refuse to listen to his brain. He was fine. He had an Ambien in his carry-on, which he’d take b
efore they boarded.

  “Booked,” Finn said and set the phone aside.

  “You know, Simon would be good to have onsite. He was a cop, retired in 1976.”

  Finn rested his hands on his knees and continued watching out the windshield. “Walked a beat? Or detective?”

  “Both. He was in homicide when he quit. Might see something we miss.”

  “If you think he’ll come, I’d be obliged.”

  Another surprise. Figuring this man out was going to take a while. Zac brought up Simon’s contact just as he had this morning while battling to breathe. This time he went through with the call.

  “Hey,” Simon said.

  “You got a minute?”

  The hesitation was slight. “Yeah. What’s up?”

  “Did David call you?”

  “About our gunman who’s not dangerous after all?” Predictable skepticism dripped from the words.

  Zac told him everything that had happened in the last day, and Simon responded with a few grunts along the way. Finn never looked from the highway in front of them.

  “We’ve got to solve it,” Zac said. “Confirm it’s Doc. Figure out why he’s doing this. Stop him.”

  “Stop him how? Sounds like it was voluntary.”

  “Cady doesn’t think so.” Still no glance from the man beside him.

  “But Finn does.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you’re running off to Missouri to investigate.”

  Zac shrugged. “Nothing else to do.”

  “I guess you want me to join you.”

  The tone told him all he needed to know. “This affects all of us, man.”

  “Not arguing the point.”

  “But?”

  A long sigh, maybe a little strained. “Zac, I can’t leave right now. Some things here are … time sensitive.”

  “More so than someone hunting longevites and curing them to death?” The guy defied explanation. Zac shook his head at the silence on the other side of the call, free hand tightening on the wheel. “They’re family.”

  “Maybe so.”

  “But you won’t come.”

  “If I can, I will.”

  It didn’t deserve a response, but they were about a century past petty temper, so Zac said, “Okay. Thanks,” before he hung up.

  Finn said nothing.

  Zac gestured, phone still in hand. “Time sensitive. Are you kidding me? He works in a lab now. Blood work et cetera. Normal mortal job, no reason he can’t call in for a few days.”

  “He doesn’t know us,” Finn said.

  “Not the point.”

  “Sure it is. He’d come if you were dead.” The glance was the first he’d sent Zac’s way since they started driving. “Did I blunt that?”

  Zac laughed. “Well, you made it blunt.”

  “Right.”

  They’d be driving long enough for Zac to hear the man’s entire life history, if Finn wanted to tell it. Twenty wordless minutes suggested he didn’t. And this silence wasn’t the easily occupied current that buoyed Zac and David toward confronting Colm’s place. This silence was held by a man who didn’t find release in words.

  The hours dragged. Halfway down the state, Finn shifted in his seat.

  “It’s strange,” he said.

  Zac flicked a glance at him. It could refer to a lot of things at the moment.

  “Going off on a mission, the guy next to me is always James. Once we were at a concert, and this guy grabbed Cady’s purse and took off. ’Course we took after him. Got her purse back. James clocked him a good one, but we didn’t hurt him. One time some raccoons got into their chimney, and he called me yelling and cussing at like four in the morning with Anna in the background telling him to stop cussing—and I came over and we were up on the roof after those coons.”

  Stories. Life lived. Sacred ground. Zac drove and kept quiet while the torrent of words continued to cascade from Finn.

  “He made me come with him to buy her ring. I told him, ‘You’re the one marrying her, you pick it out.’ He said sure he would, he just wanted me at his shoulder while he did it. Like we were heading into battle or something.”

  Zac chuckled. “He sort of was.”

  “Y’all were in civilized country, I guess, back in the old days. Not Westerners.”

  “No,” Zac said. “Illinois.”

  “Right. You said that before.”

  “Little prairie town. I worked at the mercantile when I came of age, bought it out when I could. Worked at that until our faces forced us on, but we never went far.”

  “Me and James, we rode herd together until the twentieth century came along. He was the best man with a rope I ever saw. Don’t think he ever really got over the end of open range, even to this day.”

  Zac nodded.

  Finn looked out the side window for a few minutes then out the windshield again. “I keep thinking it ought to be him driving. Him helping me solve this thing. Only it’s him I’m putting to rest, and it just don’t seem right.”

  “It isn’t right.”

  Finn ran a hand down his face. “Death isn’t right.”

  He said not another word until they had parked Zac’s car in the airport lot. Now that Zac wasn’t driving, he dug into the side pocket of his backpack for the pill.

  “What’s that?” Finn said.

  “Ambien.” Heat crept up Zac’s neck.

  Finn’s brow furrowed.

  Shoot. He had to tell him. “Keeps me chill.”

  “Fear of heights?”

  “No, um, closed spaces.” His face grew as hot as his neck. “Should kick in by the time we board.”

  “Going to knock you out?”

  “Nah. Just keeps me from …” Trying to claw his way through the side of the plane.

  Finn nodded as if this were a normal conversation. Then his brow furrowed. “We don’t see doctors. For anything, ever.”

  Zac chuckled. “Same here.”

  “But it’s … Oh, right, cheap on the street.”

  “You’re quite the law-abiding longevite.”

  “When I can be.” His mouth pulled up, as if Zac had contributed to an inside joke. Then he hoisted his backpack. “Come on, look at the time. We might have to run.”

  And that was it. Finn knew the thing that could cripple Zac, and nothing changed. Zac took a breath, and it came deep and easy.

  They did run. Their gate was on the other side of the building, and Zac’s experience flying in three weeks ago had educated him on the labyrinth that was the Detroit airport. The exertion, such as it was, ensured he was nothing short of alert as they stepped onto the boarding ramp. By the time they found their row, cold sweat had beaded on Zac’s neck.

  “Here,” Finn said. “You want the window or—?”

  “Aisle.” He all but choked on the word. Finn didn’t seem to notice.

  Given Zac took only one or two a year, a pre-flight sleeping pill usually helped him. Usually. If this was one of the exceptions, he had to deal with it now while he could. Checklist time.

  Deep breathing. Tactile anchor: he curved his fingers around the arm of his seat. Visual anchor: he studied his hand, familiar and his, creases in the knuckles, a slightly raised vein across the back, stubbed nails. The scar on his thumb, 1883, left by the broken chimney of a kerosene lamp. The scar on his little finger, 1958, left by the top of a can of diced tomatoes. He glanced away from his hand, and his breath caught at the sight of the ceiling and the microscopic window. No. Calm down. He visualized himself relaxed in a La-Z-Boy at Moira’s, black leather upholstery that felt enough like the vinyl pressing his palm now. He was sitting in that chair. He was watching Moira paint one of her square canvases. Crazy what people would pay these days for a fourteen-by-fourteen stretched canvas. She laughed when he said so: “Crazy what people will pay for anything these days.” Her hand on the brush, the little strokes creating light on water and tufts of grass around the edge of the lakeshore. The crackling in her fireplace across the roo
m. The smooth taste of wine on his tongue as he sipped from crystal so old he couldn’t believe she still used it. But that was Moira. Nothing serviceable should be enshrined simply because of age.

  “And if it breaks?” he’d said once.

  “Then its time is ended.”

  The memory kept his lungs open until a chime sounded over his head and drew him up from the past. He blinked. His grip eased on the arm of the chair. The sweat had dried on the back of his neck. Finn was watching something on the airline TV. At Zac’s glance, he turned his head but left the earbuds in his ears.

  How much longer? Zac swallowed the pathetic question. He gave a thumbs-up, and Finn nodded and returned to his movie.

  Zac risked a look around him. Above him the seat belt light had come on, and the turbulence warning was finishing over the speakers. He felt okay, a hint of lethargy in his limbs, nowhere near the verge of hyperventilating. So the drug was doing its job after all. He stretched his legs. Checked his phone for the time. They’d been in the air about thirty-five minutes. One-third over, two-thirds remaining.

  He’d survive. He always did.

  ELEVEN

  The people for whom Ambien lasted four hours were using it to sleep, not to impede traumatic stress response; such was Zac’s reasoning for why he could disembark wide-eyed from a plane regardless of the duration of the flight. They rented a car, and he offered to do the driving again.

  The suburb of Warrenton sprawled about an hour from the airport, and the longevites had lived another fifteen minutes past it, rural outskirts where everyone owned at least five acres by ordinance. Finn navigated, the only words he spoke until Zac coasted the car up the gravel driveway he pointed out. Dusk was falling, darkness delayed here by the depth of the sky unblocked by buildings or trees. They could see without need for flashlights though seven had come and gone, daylight saving time still in effect for the next few weeks.

  The house was a beige Cape Cod with blue shutters. Behind it stood a small pole barn. Zac shut off the car and waited for Finn to move first. Long minutes they sat there, still and silent.

  “Finn,” Zac said at last.

  “They could be inside.”

  “You were here a few days ago. The letter was all you found.”