“You’d be better off taking the Harley.”
They all pivoted to gawk at Paul. His eyes were open. Lucy was beside him in seconds—checking his vitals, his pupils, his color.
“I’m old, but I’m not dead. You’re a good doctor.” He struggled to a sitting position.
Three people rushed forward to help him. Sally appeared with a glass of water. Billy offered him a shot of whiskey. When Paul wisely refused, Billy shrugged and swallowed it himself.
“Why should we take the bike?” Dean squatted at his side.
“The reconnaissance on the UAVs will have noted the license number of every vehicle parked on the streets.” Paul coughed twice. “They won’t have the license yet on the bike. It’s parked inside the loading bay. Plus it’s smaller and faster. Less heat signature. With any luck at all, they’ll miss you.”
Jazmine sat to the side, knees drawn up. “What he says makes sense, though a bike makes you vulnerable to the air.”
Paul shook his head. “There’s two helmets—one on the bike, another in my locker.”
“We could wear masks under the helmets,” Lucy suggested.
“Phase two is probably a hunt for specific targets. They’re looking for an agent, Dean—not a crusty old bartender. If they see the bike, they’ll think it’s me, taking one of the girls home.”
“It’s a good plan. Let’s do it.”
“Dean.” Paul’s voice wavered for the first time since he’d regained consciousness. “I owe you an apology. I’m sorry I doubted you. I’m sorry I got us into this.”
“You were protecting the people you care about. Emily would have made her move tonight. You forced her into the alley.” Dean looked around at the townsfolk he’d come to know so well in such a short time—people Emily might have killed if she’d confronted Jazmine in the bar. “You saved someone’s life tonight, Paul. You took the bullet she would have put into me. No apology necessary.”
“Keys are on the hook.” Paul reached out his hand, and Dean grasped it. “Don’t forget you have the late shift tomorrow. And take care of my doctor.”
Lucy leaned forward and kissed Paul’s weathered cheek. She wanted to assure him she would be back, but a shiver passed through her. Some part of her mind recognized she had not finished with death this night. Before she could utter a promise she might not be able to keep, she rose and followed Dean into the store room.
Dean wound his way through the women and children who had taken refuge in the back room. Most of the kids had managed to fall asleep. The women’s eyes rose to meet his, and he did his best to return their looks with confidence. In truth, he thought they would be safe as long as they remained where they were. If the payload wasn’t contagious.
Too many ifs.
He dropped his eyes from the gaze of a mother holding two infants. If the terrorists had switched to the infectious strain, one of the three would be dead within hours.
Dean increased his pace, snagging Paul’s keys from the hook.
He was standing by the bike, checking his pockets for extra ammo when he heard footsteps.
Lucy arrived, a backpack slung over her shoulder.
“What’s in the pack?”
“Supplies. Water, flashlight, extra batteries, medical kit. Two of the men donated their pistols.”
“So, your average date stuff.”
“Pretty much.”
She held out his mask. Her eyes locked with his, but the smile he loved trembled on her lips—trembled and faltered.
“You’re doing great, Lucy.” Instead of taking the mask, he took her in his arms. Sinking his hands into her hair, he let his thumbs trace the beautiful outline of her face. Breathing in the scent of her, he pulled her even closer and kissed her lips.
“Ick. I didn’t know Captain America likes to kiss girls.” The five-year-old stood practically pressed against their knees, looking up at them quizzically.
Lucy laughed and pulled back. The boy frowned at her, opened his mouth to protest more, but stopped when a sleepy redhead called him over.
Dean studied the loading bay. The southernmost end had large rolling doors. They could be raised for trucks to back in and unload their supplies. The Harley sat near the doors, as if waiting for its mission.
“Will the particles still be airborne?” Dean held his mask in one hand, his bike helmet in the other.
“No. They settle rapidly due to weight, which makes them good weapons. Instead of hanging in the air, they’re inhaled quickly. As long as we don’t fly under or in the path of a UAV, we’ll be all right.”
Dean nodded. “I’ll drive with the lights off, until we’re out of town. And keep to the side roads. The main streets may be empty, but the streetlights are on. I want to draw as little attention as possible from any high-altitude reconnaissance craft.”
“They’ll also have heat-sensing equipment?”
“Yes, but they won’t be able to distinguish us from the surrounding buildings and people. It’ll be a problem once we’re clear of town limits.” Dean shrugged. “Nothing we can do about it.”
Sally, Jason, and John entered the storeroom.
“Ready?” John asked.
Dean waited for Lucy’s grim smile, then nodded. Lucy zipped up her jacket and shrugged into her backpack. He walked the bike around to the bay’s door. Jason stood ready to open it.
“Keep your feet here.” Dean pointed to the place for Lucy’s feet, but she stopped him.
“I owned a Shadow my first four years of med school. Do you need me to drive?”
Jason chuckled, and Sally snorted.
“Why am I not surprised? Get on.” Dean kissed her again, then donned his mask and helmet.
She did the same, wrapping her arms tightly around him.
“Godspeed,” John said. Jason opened the bay door, and Dean walked the bike out. Jason closed the door quickly. The darkness engulfed them, and Dean fought an urge to hold his breath. After coasting the bike to the street, he checked both ways.
Main remained deserted. Both Dean and Lucy looked up, but only stars shone overhead. They had offered their light for eons and would continue to do so, even when this nightmare was over.
Dean cranked the Harley and turned right.
THE RIDE OUT OF TOWN was uneventful. Whether everyone stayed inside because of the shock of the last twenty-four hours, or because they were suffering the effects of the weaponized virus, Dean couldn’t guess. He didn’t see any corpses to indicate more were dead or dying. With their headlights off and no traffic, they were making good time. Dean had dispensed with formalities like complete stops and merely slowed down at each intersection.
They saw the UAVs twice.
The first time Lucy touched his shoulder and pointed. The UAV seemed larger at this vantage point than the glimpse he’d had from Felix Canyon. Larger and faster. A Volkswagen Beetle had pulled out from a convenience store and made it as far as the intersection when the UAV swooped down from above and hovered. The two vehicles remained there, as if suspended in time and space, then the UAV sped on.
The Beetle’s driver had his arm slung out the window. When the UAV pulled off, the driver of the Volkswagen shook his fist at the object in the sky. The Beetle, which had to be a vintage sixty-five or older, seemed to agree. It shuttered once or twice, then caught in first gear and chugged off.
Dean realized with a jolt the driver would be dead within twenty-four hours. He felt Lucy’s arms tighten around his waist, and he gunned the Harley.
The second time they saw the UAV, they had just taken Buchanan Road and entered the remote part of their route. The light from a million stars brightened the night, and a three-quarter moon hung in the sky. Dean had finally switched on the headlight, afraid of killing them in a collision with a deer before a UAV had the chance.
When the UAV appeared, Lucy’s grasp on his waist tightened into a death grip.
He brought the bike to a halt and followed her gaze. Two UAVS streaked across the desert at full
speed, perpendicular to where they sat. Dean understood the uselessness of trying to outrun something today’s military had constructed. He knew the object’s speed could top five hundred kilometers per hour. Fortunately, it didn’t adjust course to their position.
Fifteen minutes later, they turned west onto Mossman. With no streetlights, the road stretched before them, pitch black, the houses set well apart from each other. He felt like they were sitting ducks, their headlight a beacon.
A single light burned at the back of Emily’s house. Dean cut the engine, let the bike coast under the carport. By the time they’d made their way up the gravel path, Emily’s husband had opened the front door. Joe didn’t look surprised to see them, even though they hadn’t removed their helmets.
Looking resigned, Joe motioned them in. He glanced up at the sky once before he shut the door.
Ω
Inside, Lucy lifted off her helmet; Dean did likewise. As he exchanged a few words with Joe, Lucy stared at the shrine on the living room wall, dominated by the portrait of a young staff sergeant.
“Did Emily tell you about Bodie?” Joe asked.
Lucy shook her head.
“Killed by a car bomb in Afghanistan, December of 2001.”
Dean joined them at the wall of honor. “We didn’t lose many in the first three months. I’m sorry he was one.”
“Twelve of them died.” Joe stared at the portrait of his son with eyes that had moved past grief to a place Lucy somehow understood. “He served in the Third Battalion. They were advancing on Kandahar. The bomb took out Bodie and two others.”
They gazed at the young man who would never return home.
“I realize it sounds inadequate, but I am sorry for your loss.” Lucy reached out, touched Joe’s arm.
“Thank you. Bodie knew the dangers when he went, but he loved the Army and his country.”
An awkward silence fell. Studying Joe, Lucy wondered if perhaps he had caught the mutated disease, or maybe Emily had given him something else. The man appeared even more gaunt than when Lucy had last seen him at E.T.’s a week ago. As he stared first at her then Dean, she noted how sunken his eyes had become. She suspected he’d lost at least ten pounds in the last week.
“Joe, you look like you need to get off your feet.” Dean nodded toward the couch.
Joe sat, and Lucy moved beside him. Dean pulled up the ottoman from the wing-back chair.
“I suppose this is about Emily. I knew someone would come eventually. Didn’t expect you two, though. Expected the authorities.”
Dean exchanged a look with Lucy. “We are the authorities.”
“But you work at—”
“We don’t have time to explain it all now. Tell us about Emily.”
Joe shrugged. And then he started talking. “She went crazy at first when Bodie died, just crazy with grief. I didn’t think it could get any worse those first few months. Emily used to be a good-looking woman—a kind woman. Bodie’s death changed everything.”
He met Lucy’s eyes, then shifted his gaze to Dean. “She’s dead. Isn’t she?”
Dean nodded. “I’m sorry.”
Joe stared down at the carpet. When he looked up, the shadows had deepened, but no tears tracked down his cheeks. “I figured as much, when I saw you ride up. I guess I knew.”
“How did you know, Joe?”
He waited so long, Lucy thought he wouldn’t answer. When he did, she had to lean in to catch all of his words.
“After they came—they came all the way out here like you did. After they came to tell us Bodie had died, she screamed for three weeks solid. I don’t mean crying or sobbing, I mean screams like a hurt animal will make. I thought I might lose my mind. The doctors tried to give her something to settle her down, but she wouldn’t take it. They wanted to put her in the hospital. I thought if she stayed out here, maybe she’d find some peace. She always loved it out here.”
Lucy went to the kitchen for a glass of water. Joe accepted it from her with shaking hands, drank half, then looked out the single window, out at the night sky.
“Then she stopped screaming. Only, she never recovered afterwards. She’d died with him. For a long while I told myself to give her time. One year became two, and what dreams had lived inside our marriage blew away. Like so many dried up tumbleweeds. It disintegrated into an empty, barren thing.”
Lucy thought he might cry then, but he didn’t.
“Paul said he saw you two just the other night.” Dean leaned forward. “He said you seemed happy.”
“Yeah.” Joe tried to smile, failed. “We could fake it when we needed to. I don’t know why we bothered.”
“Did you suspect Emily might be involved in something illegal?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I did. I wasn’t sure what to do about it. Didn’t know who I could trust.”
Lucy leaned forward. “Who you could trust with what, Joe?”
“With what I found. I’m a computer geek, remember? Emily became good at covering her trail. Once I knew to look for something though, she didn’t stand a chance. I started compiling evidence. I didn’t know who to give it to, and I wasn’t sure if I was ready to testify in court against my wife. Even if she had tried to kill me.”
“She tried to kill you?” Dean’s voice cracked.
“Twice. Maybe I should show you what I’ve found.”
“I think you should.” Dean eyed the clock as it chimed eleven.
Lucy felt trapped inside the longest night of her life. Joe led them into an office. It faced the rear of the house. The windows were draped with blackout curtains.
Joe whirled on them and asked, “How did Emily die?”
“I shot her.” Lucy forced her eyes to meet his, didn’t allow herself to look away.
Joe’s shoulders slumped even more. He sat in front of the computer and entered a password. The computer sprang to life. Pausing with his hands over the keyboard, he said, “I’m glad you did it, Lucy. I bought a gun, but I don’t think I could have done it.”
Then, he showed them what he had found.
An hour later, Dean gratefully accepted the coffee Lucy handed him. Joe had shown them everything he’d compiled. It was a lot. Dean knew they didn’t have time to go through it all, so he’d judiciously chosen what they would have time to analyze. Lucy had taken the printouts and organized them into preliminary categories, taking notes as she went.
The coffee wasn’t a luxury. The hour had slipped past midnight, and they’d had less than six hours sleep the night before. Their bodies had pumped out a lot of adrenaline over the last twelve hours. They were starting to drag. The caffeine would help. Dean surprised himself when he reached for one of the sandwiches. He couldn’t believe he had an appetite, especially given what he’d just seen.
Joe refused the food, but accepted the coffee.
“Why have you stopped eating, Joe?”
He stared down at his hands.
“She’s a doctor. It’s hard to slip much past her.”
Joe studied Lucy as he sipped his coffee. “Can’t say I’m surprised.”
“What gave me away?”
“Your hands. You don’t have waitress hands. I noticed both times you waited on me at E.T.’s, the way you set down my plate, how precise you were. Do you realize you set the food down with the meat at six o’clock?”
“Seriously?” Dean reached for another sandwich.
“The meat belongs directly in front of you. Stop avoiding my questions. Why did you quit eating?”
Joe teetered, like a man on the edge of a very deep lake, then plunged in.
“The first time Emily tried to kill me was the night they came for her. She’d cooked, which I thought a little odd. When I got home from work, she insisted I go ahead and eat before everything got cold.” He shook his head at the memory. “Two days before I had discovered she was deleting files, cleaning out caches, erasing anything traceable on the computer. When I asked her about it, she evaded. Things were tense between us. I couldn’t s
tand the thought of eating in the dining room alone. So, I took my plate out onto the patio. She stood there watching me, smoking.”
His hands began to shake. “I can’t eat when I’m upset—acid reflux acts up. But I forced down a few bites, and she seemed satisfied. She went inside, and I fed the rest to Dakota, our Labrador.”
Lucy glanced around for evidence of a dog.
“I went in and washed off my plate. She was waiting at the sink when I got there. Even asked me if I liked it. I said yeah, it tasted good. Thanked her for making dinner. I guess part of me hoped maybe things were better. Maybe I was paranoid about the computer stuff. I’d worked a twelve-hour shift, so I told her I needed to go to bed. Told her I had a headache.”
Joe stood up, started pacing. “She reached into the medicine cabinet and got me three Tylenol, but I saw her take three pills out of the Tylenol PM bottle.”
“Tylenol PM contains Benadryl,” Lucy said. “She probably put some sort of slow acting poison in your food. The Benadryl would have caused you to go to sleep—”
“And never wake up,” Dean added.
“It also might have masked any toxicology results if an autopsy were done.” Lucy looked at Joe apologetically.
“Emily kept insisting it was regular Tylenol. We argued about it. I’d taken my contacts out when I washed up, and I couldn’t see the lettering on the side, but I could see the bottle’s color which she’d shoved back into the cabinet. She got all puffed up, and I told her to just give me the pills.”
“PM is usually a different color, as well.”
“Yeah. I figured that out later. Honestly I don’t usually take anything—just sleep it off.”
“Did you take them?” Lucy reached for a sandwich, appalled by his story.
“Tucked them under my tongue and swallowed the entire glass of water. My heart was hammering. I just knew she was trying to kill me. As soon as she left, I spit them out, threw up all of the food, but I was careful to do it quietly—always flushing the toilet and running the water to cover any sounds. Praying she didn’t hear me. I went on to my bed—we’d had separate rooms for a couple of years—mine’s at the front of the house. I lay there in the dark waiting, wondering what she would do next. Around three in the morning she made her move.”
Roswell's Secret Page 24
