Meet me here.
Roy tried to reach in: fist size, but for a smaller fist. Adele knelt beside him, stuck her hand inside, felt around. Her hand reappeared, and in the palm she held a yellowed square of paper, folded small. Eyes wide, she gave it to Roy. His hands shook so badly he could barely unfold it.
Roy,
I knew you’d find me. I hope it’s soon, not for my own sake—if you’re reading this, I’m dead—but for your own, and the child’s. Oh, Roy. Have you figured out about the Hobbes Institute yet? It’s a clandestine service, a secret operation run out of the vice president’s office, funded by a few rich Texans. Completely illegal, of course—would land the VP in jail if it got out, and impeach him if he ever makes it to the White House. Is he there yet? If so, you’re in danger. After what happened they’re probably erasing H.I. from existence now, or already have. Be careful, Roy. They don’t have boundaries. Watch out for a woman named Lenore.
So, the obvious question—and one of the things I like—love—about you, Roy, is how you never ask them: What did she know and when did she know it?
Nothing at first. I swear. So gradual—like learning to walk. Maybe I wasn’t curious enough about where the money came from. But all the work was so positive. At first. There really was a Venezuelan project—conch fisheries. Then some negatives crept in. It’s a dangerous world and will get more so, maybe has by the time you’re reading this. But in the end I could only stomach so much. Maybe too much, you’re thinking. The VP angle I didn’t know till way too late. And I was young. I am young!
Operation Pineapple—stupid name, Tom’s overdeveloped sense of irony—was going to be the end of it for me, even before it played out the way it did. I was so close to telling you, Roy! When Paul came to get me, remember, when you said he could wait five minutes? I had to bite the inside of my mouth till blood came. Maybe if you’d just said always time for bacon and eggs or what’s the point of life? one more time.
There’s a horrible prison down in the Moroccan desert. They’re supposed to be on our side, but they were going to release this very bad guy—you may hear about him one day. I hope not. Anyway, it all went wrong. Dust storm, chopper down, all this screaming in different languages. I yanked Paul back inside the cockpit but too late—the way he looked at me when he knew he was dying, how something planned at a desk could end like this, my God. The fact that I’d been shot didn’t dawn on me till we were airborne. In the head, Roy, but don’t worry. They got it out—where I’m not even sure, that part’s hazy—and brought me down here to recuperate. Did they feed you some line about being delayed in Venezuela? Way past that now, which tells me what I need to know about their plans. Problem is I said a few things in the heat of the moment—my true beliefs, but, Christ, I should have kept my mouth shut—and they don’t trust me. Rightly so.
But I’m much stronger than they think now, and I’ve got an escape plan—for me and Baby, both. That’s what I call her for now—Baby—till I get your input. You’re going to love her, Roy. (She’s got your hands.)
Keeping all this from you tore me up—please believe me. But I didn’t want you hurt in any way, Roy, and yes—I was ashamed to tell you.
Forgive me.
Delia
Roy handed the letter to Adele. He went outside. The buzzard flew off the roof, rose into that dusty sky, spiraling up and up. Tears came, silent and not many. Even though she’d ended up dying on him twice, who had time for tears?
Adele came out, looked up at him. Her tears were streaming down her face. “So you’re my dad, for sure?”
“I am,” Roy said.
“What are we going to do?”
“You’re going to stay right here,” Roy said: his first parental decision.
Adele wiped her face with the back of her arm. “No way,” she said.
They got in the pickup, Roy behind the wheel. He pressed the button that activated Freddy’s wire. Then he read Delia’s letter out loud, voice steady almost to the end. This time, on second reading, he could see how some people might find it a bit self-serving. But so what? As for forgiveness, he was the one who needed it: so many clues he’d missed, so many chances to find out. Roy knew he had failed her. He folded the letter with care and put it in his pocket.
“Is someone listening?” Adele said.
“Better be,” said Roy.
Adele nodded. They seemed to understand each other without much effort. Wishful thinking? Was that so bad? He glanced at her, saw something very soft and childlike in the skin at the back of her neck, something that didn’t remind him of Delia—or himself—at all.
“I don’t really understand what’s going on,” Adele said, “but I never liked being around him, even though he’s been so generous. That made me feel guilty.”
“You can stop,” Roy said. He wasn’t going to fail her. He turned the key and drove back along the track, across the dry plain to the green oasis of the compound.
Roy parked behind the stables. “Stay here till I come for you.”
“Why?”
“I’ll explain then.”
She looked annoyed for a second, then laughed, a lovely, unself-conscious sound. It followed him, at least in his mind, as he crossed the gardens. Beautiful gardens with all kinds of blooming flowers: Roy felt like his old self almost the whole way. But just as he came to the huge double doors of the gallery—now wide open—the demon sprang up and got its claws around his heart again, quick and sneaky, before his heart could soar away, out of reach. Then the demon gave a sharper squeeze than any in the past, as though squashing a frog. Roy gasped, doubled up, slumped behind one of the doors.
After a moment or two, the pain lessened slightly. Roy tried to take a breath—all his air gone in that gasp—and couldn’t, as though his lungs were petrifying. At the same time, he heard Spanish voices. Men in work clothes came out of the gallery, lunch boxes in their hands, and took a path toward an outbuilding beyond the stables. None looked back, so no one saw him in that horrible emergency breathing position, chest stuck way out, elbows pulled way back. It worked, a little. Air entered his body, opened a miserly pathway, enough to keep going. Roy straightened and walked into Calvin Truesdale’s private museum.
No sign of the tarpaulin-covered platform: Delia stood in her alcove, scaffolding on one side. The roof was open now and daylight flooded in. That strange dusty light gave Delia a sepia effect Roy didn’t like. He entered the alcove, saw that she was looking out on a pond with a wide-spreading tree on the far shore. One of those buzzards was perched on an upper branch.
Footsteps sounded on the marble floor. Roy turned. Calvin Truesdale came into the alcove, a camera in his hand. He saw Roy, missed a step, staggered.
“Changed my mind,” Roy said. “You can’t have her.” His own calmness surprised him.
“Roy?” Truesdale’s mouth opened, closed, opened again. “I don’t quite understand.” His face hardened, composure quickly returning. “Didn’t I see your obituary?” Roy said nothing; he could feel the rapid workings of Truesdale’s mind. “Is this another case of not being able to believe what’s in the papers?” he said. “Or—oh my goodness—you wouldn’t be party to some sort of conspiracy, would you, Roy?” He glanced around. Fear on his face? Yes, if only for a second. That was nice.
“It’s over,” Roy said. A distant hum came through the open roof. “The Hobbes Institute, whatever you’re doing now—everything’s coming out.”
“Supposing I knew what you were talking about—” Truesdale began, but Roy interrupted.
“You don’t think Tom talked? Or Westie?” Truesdale’s head came forward, an aggressive, reptilian thrust. “Or Delia?” Roy said.
Truesdale licked his lips. “Delia?”
“She wrote me a letter.” Roy took it out of his pocket. “It’s all here—the way you kept her prisoner, Operation Pineapple, the president.”
Truesdale’s eyes went to the letter. He laid the camera on a footstool. Roy backed up a step, bumped against
the scaffold.
“Where did you get that?” Truesdale said.
Loose ends: they began tying themselves together in Roy’s mind. “You’ve been wondering about that drawing on the wall for years, haven’t you? Then, when Lenore started poking around in Ethan Valley, she found out about the mountain hut and you thought you’d matched things up.”
“Where did you get it?” Truesdale said.
“You’ll find out in court,” Roy said. A remark the demon didn’t seem to care for: claws twitched around Roy’s heart.
“Court?” said Truesdale.
“There’ll be trials,” Roy said. “Lots of them.”
Truesdale took another step. Backed against the scaffold, Roy had nowhere to go. “Things don’t always work that way,” Truesdale said. “We have enemies. I’m talking about our nation. Our nation has mortal enemies. They don’t follow civilized rules. Think of the ammunition you’d be handing them, the damage to our institutions, to the presidency itself. Do you see the problem?”
But at that moment Roy felt on top of things, actually problem-free. “She was never going to walk out of that bunkhouse, was she?” he said. “You meant to kill her from the start.”
“Certainly not,” said Truesdale. “She was much too valuable.”
“And I don’t want to hear that she was the boss,” Roy said.
“Everyone sees the world in a way that makes him look good—don’t you know that?” Truesdale said. “Call her a midlevel manager if that makes you happier.” The humming sound, louder now, divided into separate drones. Roy glanced up through the open roof, saw empty sky. When he looked back down, Truesdale had a gun in his hand. “I’ll have that letter now.”
“You’re not touching it,” Roy said.
A knuckle on Truesdale’s trigger finger went yellow. Then came a blast from the muzzle. Roy felt a blow to his arm—but his left arm, not too useful these days anyway, and there was no pain. The only bad part was the fact that he’d had the letter in his left hand. It slipped free and glided across the alcove. They both went for it, but Truesdale got there first, a race not even close. He scooped it up with a surprisingly quick movement, and then the gun was leveled again at Roy.
“You made me do this,” Truesdale said, as if Roy was already in the past.
The remark enraged him; the sight of the letter in Truesdale’s leathery hand enraged him more. Roy was up on the balls of his feet, rocking forward, when a roar came from above, a roaring whap-whap-whap. They both gazed up: helicopters, lots of them. Helicopters would be the death of him, but not these: all of these helicopters bore the markings of news organizations.
Truesdale’s mouth opened. Roy charged at him, not much of a charge, more of an uncontrolled stumble. Truesdale saw him coming, but too late. Roy fell against Truesdale’s legs. They both went down. Truesdale’s head struck the edge of one of those rads on the lower part of Delia, making a sound like splitting wood, audible even over all the noise from above. He didn’t move after that.
The letter lay on the floor. Roy picked it up. He rose, dusted himself off, walked toward the double doors. A helicopter swept in low, a cameraman leaning out, focused on Roy. Roy gave him a smile and a little wave.
Yes, feeling problem-free. Nothing to forgive, baby. An idea for a brand-new piece came to him—something less massive than what he’d been doing, more along the lines of—
But at that point, the demon had had enough. It gave Roy’s heart a special squeeze, to make clear the order of things, once and for all. Next, Roy was on his back, the smell of flowers all around. Was it snowing?
Faces gazed down at him: Turk, Freddy. And high above, all those helicopters. Whap-whap-whap. Victory—yes, a double triumph.
“Where’s Adele?” he said.
“Right here,” she said. She knelt beside him, stroked his forehead. Her hand, not quite steady, felt good just the same. “Help is on the way.”
“Good news,” said Roy. Had to be optimistic with your kid: Wasn’t that basic? As for the work still undone, did it matter now? He’d rearranged the scraps of his own life, found coherence. The igloo closed in around him, those icy bricks going up awful fast, the speed superhuman. In the end there was this daughter of his, an unexpected bonus, even a blessing.
About the Author
PETER ABRAHAMS is the author of sixteen crime novels, including End of Story, Oblivion and the Edgar Award–nominated Lights Out, as well as the Echo Falls mystery series for young adults, the first of which, Down the Rabbit Hole, was also nominated for an Edgar Award and won the Agatha. He lives on Cape Cod.
www.peterabrahams.com
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ALSO BY PETER ABRAHAMS
End of Story
Oblivion
Their Wildest Dreams
The Tutor
Last of the Dixie Heroes
Crying Wolf
A Perfect Crime
The Fan
Lights Out
Revolution #9
Pressure Drop
Hard Rain
Red Message
Tongues of Fire
The Fury of Rachel Monette
FOR YOUNGER READERS
Down the Rabbit Hole
Behind the Curtain
Credits
Jacket design by Eric Fuentecilla
Jacket photograph © by Michael Heiki/Jupiter images
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
NERVE DAMAGE. Copyright © 2007 by Peter Abrahams. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Mobipocket Reader February 2007 ISBN 978-0-06-128936-1
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