by Meg Gardiner
He searched her face. His gaze hardened. “You’re positive?”
“Yes.”
He turned and began waving people back. “Clear the area.” He called to a fire captain. “Get people off these planes.”
“What’s wrong?”
Jo turned. Kanan was calling to her.
“Ian, your backpack’s in the truck. Slick’s eating through the seal in your computer battery, and when it does, it’s going to explode.”
“When?”
“Any second. It’s past the time you estimated.”
“I estimated? Why would I set it to . . .” He turned and stared in horror at the airliners and emergency vehicles. “We have to get it out of here.”
“How?” Jo said.
He struggled to his feet. “Drive it away from here. Keep it in an enclosed space.”
“Like an SUV?” She pointed to the Tahoe.
“Yes.” He took a step, patting his pockets. “Keys.”
“In the ignition.”
The firefighters lifted Seth onto a stretcher and rushed him toward an ambulance. Misty hadn’t moved.
Kanan reached into his pocket and pulled out a ring. He looked at it, puzzled.
From inside the wrecked pickup came a whump and an unladylike grunt. Calder had managed to undo her seat belt. She slithered from the wreck covered in firefighting foam.
She had the backpack in her hands. Kanan limped toward her.
“No,” Misty said. “Ian, stop.”
Kanan looked at the rifle he had set on the tarmac, at Seth, and back at his wife. “How did he get hit?”
Jo and Misty said nothing. He scanned their faces. It sank in.
“I’ll be back,” he said.
“Ian, no.” Misty rushed toward him. “Don’t do this. You promised. You said you’d never let us out of your sight. Stop—a second exposure will kill you.”
A cop ran over and ushered her away from the pickup. “Come on. Move, quick.”
Kanan checked his watch. To Jo he said, “I have time. I can do it.”
Calder dropped to her knees on the tarmac and pulled the computer battery from the backpack. She looked across the runway, toward the waiting Chira-Sayf corporate jet, as though she might try to crawl to it. Through the firefighting foam, the battery was bubbling.
Misty fought to get loose from the cop. “Ian, don’t leave us. You can’t. We need you. For God’s sake, don’t. You’ll be contaminated with a second dose. You’ll die. You can’t do this to us.”
Kanan looked at her and his face broke. His resolve crumbled.
He turned to Jo. “I can’t.”
A suffocating fear took hold of her. Aboard the 737 she saw people jostling frantically in the aisles. Inside the terminal, pandemonium had erupted. Amid sirens and shouting, firefighters were loading Seth into the ambulance.
Misty battled the cop as he ushered her away. “Stop. Get your hands off me.”
Kanan watched. With a broken breath, he said, “Let me forget.”
“What?” Jo said.
“I can do it if I forget all this.” He limped toward her. “If I forget I have my family back. And forget what will happen if I’m exposed again. Then I can do it.”
Jo stared at him in horror. “Ian—”
“I caused this. I have to undo it.”
She got control of her voice. “If you drive too long, you’ll forget what’s happening. Go too far and you’ll keep going. You might head straight back to a populated area.”
He pointed at a patch of dirt a quarter of a mile down the runway. “Twenty seconds.”
Her heart pounded. “You sure?”
“Help me. Keep Misty and Seth out of my sight.”
She held his gaze. Then she turned and dashed to the firefighting crew. “Put Mrs. Kanan in the back of the ambulance with Seth and shut the door. I don’t have time to explain. Just do it.”
Misty was struggling to get free of the police officer. The firefighters called to him. “Bring Mrs. Kanan to the ambulance. Hurry.”
The cop dragged Misty toward it. She twisted in his grasp.
“What’s happening?” She looked at Jo, and then at her husband. “What are you doing?”
The cop and firefighters lifted her bodily into the ambulance and shut the doors.
Jo turned to Kanan. “Follow me.”
She led him out of sight of the ambulance. “Close your eyes.”
He did. Opened them again. “Wait.”
“There’s no time to wait.”
He took her gloved hand and set Misty’s wedding ring in her palm. “Give it to her.”
Jo nodded tightly. “Close your eyes and count to ten.”
He counted. She breathed along, her chest constricting.
“Ten.”
“Open your eyes.”
He looked at her without recognition.
“Ian, we’re at San Jose airport and you have to get your computer battery from Riva. Don’t ask questions, just do it. Seth and Misty’s lives depend on it. You have ten seconds to grab it and drive your Tahoe to that dirt patch at end of the runway.”
Kanan stared at her uncertainly.
“Do it. Riva kidnapped them. Get the battery from her and drive it away from here. This second. Or they’ll die.”
For an interminable moment he continued staring at her. Then he turned. Calder sat on the tarmac covered in firefighting foam, clutching the battery. Kanan limped over to her, grabbed her by the arm, and wrestled it free. The seal was still bubbling.
She cried out and grabbed his leg. “Ian. Stay with me.”
He pulled loose and hobbled to the Tahoe. Groaning in pain, he climbed in and started the engine.
Through the back window of the ambulance, Misty saw him. She ducked past the firefighters, threw the door open, and leaped out. “Ian, no.”
The path to the runway was clear. He put the Tahoe in gear. Misty bolted toward it. Jo ran and threw herself at her. With a full-body tackle, she brought her down. They fell heavily on the tarmac.
“Misty, you can’t.”
“He’ll die. Ian!”
Jo clapped a hand over Misty’s mouth and held her down. The Tahoe revved. Kanan accelerated around the tail of the jet, around the fire trucks, and raced for the runway.
Gabe hit the traffic jam a mile from the San Jose airport. Nothing but taillights, a bright red river stretching up the freeway as far as he could see. Everybody was slowing to gawk at what was happening at the airfield.
His cell phone was still connected to Jo, but all he heard was fuzz and muffled voices. Jo, talk to me, he thought. Come back.
Beyond the airport perimeter fence he saw the blue and red pulse of emergency lights flashing off buildings and aircraft.
The explosion was furious and brilliant.
The fireball flashed white. The roar clapped through his 4Runner. The flames spread and fell, yellow, orange, smoke pouring up to obscure them in a black shroud.
“Jo,” he yelled.
He spun the wheel, drove onto the shoulder of the freeway, and floored it toward the perimeter fence.
At the distant end of the runway, orange flame consumed the interior of the Chevy Tahoe. The SUV rolled down the concrete and onto the dirt and slowed to a stop. Nobody got out.
Facedown on the tarmac, Jo held on to Misty Kanan. Misty lay suspended in those eerie seconds between the sight of truth and its impact. Jo bit back the tears that were rising in her throat. The door of the ambulance opened and Seth stumbled out.
“Mom.”
Misty crawled away from Jo’s grasp, staggered to her feet, and went to him. He fell into her arms and began to cry.
Jo climbed to her feet. Heat rolled over her. Aboard airliners and in the terminal, people stared horrified at the fire. Their faces wore the reflection of flames on glass. She closed her eyes and heard sirens and sobbing. In her clenched hand, she felt the ring.
She turned and walked, head hammering, to Misty’s side. Collapsed o
n the tarmac, Misty held Seth while his hands clawed her shirt and he wept against her shoulder. She raised her head. Jo would remember the look on her face until the day she died.
“Leave,” Misty said.
“He wanted—” Jo’s voice caught. “Asked me to give . . .”
She unfurled her hand. Firelight swam across the gold in Misty’s wedding ring.
Misty took it and turned her head away.
Jo stepped back. The heat of the fire was painless in comparison.
Through the spinning emergency lights she saw a man run beneath an airliner, jump and slide across the hood of an aviation tractor, and sprint onto the runway, heading toward the burning hulk of the Tahoe.
She didn’t think she had a voice left, but she raised her hands and called out. “Gabe.”
When he heard her, he turned his head. She was already running. She didn’t stop until she reached his arms.
40
The sky flew blue above the park in the morning sun. Under the breeze, Monterey pines trembled and the sage and purple heather bent toward the bay. Gabe stretched his legs and spread his arms across the back of the park bench. On the basketball court, Sophie dribbled toward the hoop and shot a layup. It knocked against the rim and dropped in.
“Two points for Quintana,” Gabe said.
Sophie gave him a shy, pleased smile and retrieved the ball. Strands of brown hair haloed around her face.
Jo paced along the sideline, phone to her ear. Amy Tang sounded cranky.
“You got me involved in this case, Beckett. You owe me a beer. I think I have permanent gluteal damage from sitting on the cement floor in that basement.”
Jo rubbed her eyes and almost laughed. “I owe you a beer because I got you involved. I owe you a new car for getting me off the hook with the police and TSA.”
She gazed across the park, past her house and across city rooftops, to the Golden Gate Bridge. Beyond it were the windswept green hills of the Marin headlands. Then sky, and forever.
“One question, Amy—how, precisely, did you escape?”
“That support pole my hands were bound behind? It was a couple of feet from the wall, and near the top it had a bracket clamped around it. I crammed my legs underneath me and managed to stand up. Then I put my back to the pole, pressed my feet flat against the wall, and shinnied up. When I got high enough, I sawed the tape back and forth against the bracket. It took me an hour, but I cut it.”
“And?”
She paused. “That’s when Officer Liu and the SWAT team broke down the door.”
“And found you—”
“Seven feet off the floor, feet planted wide against the wall, with my back to the support and a rubber ball in my mouth.”
Jo smiled broadly. “You pole-danced your way to freedom?”
“If you ever speak of this again—”
“Did SWAT get photos?”
“Beckett ...”
Jo laughed.
“Any word on Alec Shepard?” Tang said.
“He’s in intensive care. When the officer got to him he was hypothermic and had inhaled water. They’re calling it a near-drowning. But they’re optimistic.”
“You want to sit in when we interrogate Riva Calder?”
Jo hesitated. “I think I’ve seen enough of Calder.”
“She’s going to be a case study.”
“I know. Anterograde amnesia brought on by nanoparticle exposure. But I don’t think I care to watch her stare out the door, forever hoping Ian Kanan’s going to walk through it.”
Tang was quiet a moment. “You counted how many of your nine lives you used up last night, cat?”
“I’m glad you’re okay too, Tang. Get some rest.”
She walked to the park bench, sat down beside Gabe, and gave him back his phone. He handed her a cup of coffee.
“Hope it’s not too strong,” he said.
She drank. “Rocket fuel. That’s the ticket.”
He put an arm around her shoulder. She snugged into her sweater and leaned against him.
“Last night at the airport, before the ambulance took Seth to the hospital, I tried to talk to Misty. She wouldn’t look at me,” she said.
“She may never forgive you. Harsh, but there’s no way around it,” he said. “But Kanan understood the risk, and he acted of his own free will. He saved his family and God knows how many other people.”
“The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few? I don’t think Misty’s going to buy that.”
“Kanan sacrificed himself. But he wasn’t simply acting selflessly. He was atoning.”
“For?”
“Killing people. Contaminating others. Bringing ruin to his family.”
“He was brave. He loved them,” she said.
He held her tighter. “You were brave. Helping him took guts.” His voice softened. “I’m sorry about how it turned out, Jo.”
She brushed the hair back from her forehead. “Ian knew he would forget they were safe. He knew he was trapped in an endless loop, an eternal present of crisis without resolution.”
“Sounds like hell.”
“Living without memory would be like dying every minute. Forgetting everything as soon as it happens—having your experiences vanish, all the joy, all the tragedy . . . God, what an empty existence.” She watched the trees sway in the wind. “You only live fully when you bring the past into your life and make it part of you.”
He gazed at her, pensive. “You hear yourself?”
“I do. We have to embrace both past and present. No matter how painful, or how deep the scars.”
The wind swept her hair into her eyes again. Gabe took an index finger and hooked it behind her ear.
“Thank you. For everything,” she said.
His gaze remained pensive. “Jo, about me . . .”
She shook her head. “Don’t. Not now. Tell me when you’re ready.”
“I know you’ve been wondering what’s bugging me. Why I’ve been distant. It’s not you.”
Shit. “It’s you?”
“I know I’ve been preoccupied.” He looked at her. “I may be called up.”
She stilled. “Called up to active duty?”
“It’s not a done deal, but that’s the rumor.”
Jo’s heart clenched. Gabe looked at Sophie.
“Have you told her?” she said.
“No. I don’t want her to worry.”
The little girl didn’t need to worry. Jo was already doing it for her. Sophie needs a father, not a hero. Jo took his hand.
“If I go, it’ll be a twelve-month tour,” he said.
“If you go, you know where I’ll be. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Yes, you are. Anywhere I am, you’re in my thoughts, chica.”
Jo leaned in and kissed him. He took her face in his hands and kissed her back.
“You know how I feel?” he said.
“No, but I think you’re going to tell me. And even if you don’t, I can live with the uncertainty.”
“Then you’re tougher than I am. ’Cause I’ve got to know—if it’s clear tonight, do I get to claim that rain check?”
She just smiled.
Sophie bounced the ball under the basket. “Guys, want to play?”
They looked up. “Yeah,” Jo said.
She stood and pulled Gabe to his feet. “You never know what’ll happen. You can only wake up and get in the game, every single day.”
His smile was rueful. They headed onto the court.
Gabe clapped his hands. “Throw me the ball.”
Acknowledgments
For their encouragement and their help with this novel, I thank Ben Sevier; Deborah Schneider; Sheila Crowley; Sara Gardiner, M.D.; John Plombon, Ph.D.; Kelly Gerrard; Adrienne Dines; Mary Albanese; Luigge Romanillo; Lejon Boudreaux; Leif Eiriksson; and Paul Shreve.
About the Author
Meg Gardiner is originally from Southern California, where she practiced law in Los Angeles and taught at
the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is the author of The Dirty Secrets Club and the Evan Delaney novels, including China Lake, Mission Canyon, Jericho Point, Crosscut, and Kill Chain. She lives with her family near London.
