by Kira Peikoff
Chris gunned the engine and they rolled down the dock to the harbor’s parking lot. She had never been in an ambulance before—alive, anyway. The front seats were like thrones, straight-backed and high up. A pane of glass separated their section from the cramped interior, where an empty stretcher was surrounded by emergency medical equipment.
As Chris navigated to the main street with the siren off, she stared through the glass at the place where her lifeless body had lain. She couldn’t stop herself from picturing it. Flat on her back. Eyes swollen shut. Stuck with tubes and wires.
Someone still wants me that way.
She whipped her head back around to stare out the windshield. A shiver tore down her spine and her body gave an involuntary jerk.
Chris reached for her hand. The familiarity of the gesture surprised her, but felt appropriate. He had helped to save her life. It was only natural that his care would extend to comforting her now.
“How you doin’?” he asked. “Okay?”
“Kind of,” she mumbled.
She was grateful he didn’t pry. It was stressful enough to anticipate her mother’s reaction. They sat in silence for a while, her clammy hand resting in his warm one. She watched the palm trees go by outside. Lazy beach houses with cheerful blue and yellow shutters lined the narrow streets. The sea in the distance reflected the afternoon sun like a piece of smooth glass. Its tranquility calmed her, until she remembered that it had almost been her grave.
She turned instead to glance sidelong at Chris. Having changed from his blue scrubs into a gray T-shirt and jeans, he seemed less authoritative and more like an equal. His rounded, ruddy face looked more angular in profile—his nose jutted out from the soft plains of his cheeks. His dirty blond hair was trimmed short in military style. Resting on the oversized steering wheel, his fingers were long and bony, with short clean nails. Watching him maneuver around the traffic, Isabel thought of Galileo’s word: competent.
“So, what’s your deal?” she asked him, partly to distract herself, but also out of real curiosity. “How did you end up in this secret network?”
He smiled coyly, keeping his eyes on the road. “I was recruited like everyone else.”
“How does that happen? Or can you not say?”
He paused, as if calibrating how much to reveal. “Dr. Quinn got me in,” he finally said. “I worked in his lab at Harvard back in the day. We came as a package deal.”
“Two for the price of one?”
“Something like that.”
The effort of making conversation sapped her scarce energy, but she was intrigued.
“So you guys all live and work on the ship full-time?”
“Pretty much.” He pulled his hand away from hers to turn the wheel sharply. Her left palm was sweaty and exposed on the glove box. She didn’t want him to think he had to hold it again, so she tucked it under her thigh.
“And no one knows where you are?” she said. “What about your family?”
“I told my parents I had to go away for a special fellowship abroad. It’s not like they think I’m dead or something.”
“What if you want to, like, get married and have kids one day?”
His tone was noncommittal. “If the time comes, I’ll feel it out. I’m a spur-of–the-moment kind of guy.”
“Then we’re opposites. Before this happened to me, I was on a reality survival show, and I’d always plan my strategy a month ahead.”
He raised his eyebrows. “You mean you’re a control freak?”
The way he said it was more affectionate than insulting. “Totally,” she admitted. “I’m not good at being spontaneous.”
“I’ll show you.” With a roguish smile, he pressed a red button on his dashboard and the siren squealed to life, howling overhead. It was like being in the belly of a crying wolf. She plugged her ears, but Chris was only getting started.
He slammed on the gas and accelerated through a congested intersection as the other cars dutifully pulled over. She gripped the hanging strap near her window as he careened around a corner. They passed a middle school, where a cluster of cars waiting in line for afternoon pickup scrambled to get out of their way.
“You’re so bad,” she yelled over the siren.
“You’re in a rush to get home, aren’t you?” he shouted back.
She couldn’t argue with that. The ride was exhilarating, if a bit dizzying. Chris expertly avoided obstacles on the road, hardly letting up on the gas to swerve around cars and bikes who didn’t pull over fast enough.
Her stomach flipped when she noticed they were pulling up to her street. He slowed down to scout the addresses on the houses. She pointed him toward the one-story bungalow at the end of the block, with its leafy oak tree shading the porch. Its faded leaves littered the ground as though someone had forgotten to sweep for a few days.
He turned off the siren as he pulled into the driveway. She was as breathless as if she’d sprinted a mile.
“Do you want me to come in with you?”
“No thanks, it shouldn’t be long.”
Already she could see the front door opening and her mother’s face peeking out with a look of concern. Ambulances weren’t commonly found roaring down their block.
At the sight of her mother’s mostly bald scalp, Isabel’s heart swelled. Thin strands of black hair were growing back in fuzzy patches, a testament to her recovery, but also to her fragility. In only two days of being away, Isabel noticed how gaunt her cheeks had become. Her eyelids were pink and puffy.
“Mom!” she called, jumping out and rushing up to her, forgetting all about her fatigue.
Her mother’s fingertips flew to her lips. She sagged against the doorframe, her face draining so fast that Isabel reached out to catch her.
But instead of collapsing, she grabbed her daughter into the tightest embrace possible. “Oh my God, oh my God.”
Isabel’s innermost organs practically squeezed together, but she was grinning. All she wanted was to breathe in her mother’s familiar gardenia perfume and never let go.
“Is it really you?” her mom breathed into her hair.
“It’s me. I’m okay.”
A shaky whisper came out: “I thought you were dead.”
Isabel gently pulled away. “I was . . .”
Her mother’s eyes opened so wide that the whites were visible around her green irises. “What? What happened? I couldn’t find you at the hospital, the police had no record, you just completely vanished!” Tears spilled over her lids. “Andy and I thought we might never see you again!”
Isabel hugged her frail body. It was quivering. “I’m so sorry. I can explain.”
“I know you’ve been hiding something—Oh God, I didn’t want to believe it, but . . . honey, did someone really try to kill you?”
Isabel let out a gasp. “How could you know that?”
Her mother ran into the house and promptly returned with a plain red notebook.
“This came in the mail for you today.”
Isabel took it and flipped to the opening page.
In neat cursive, it read: The Diary of Richard Barnett.
Her lips curled in revulsion at the sight of his name. “What is this? Some kind of sick joke?” She flung it to the ground.
“Hey!” Her mother picked it up, wiping off a speck of dirt.
Isabel was so furious she could barely contain her rage. She wanted to pluck the stupid diary out of her mother’s hands and hurl it across the street.
“You don’t get it, that asshole was playing me the whole time! He has to be found and arrested.”
Her mom seemed strangely unconvinced. “Are you sure?”
“He disappeared right when he was supposed to help me. Next thing I know I’m being attacked. Clearly he was in on my death benefits.”
“I don’t think so.”
“How would you know?”
She thrust the diary into Isabel’s hands with surprising force. “Because he’s dead. He killed himself fo
r you.”
CHAPTER 23
Isabel
Key West
Isabel seized the diary and skimmed the pages as fast as she could. Richard Barnett’s careful handwriting revealed a more complicated man than she’d understood him to be. A sincere cynic. A caring loner. Hardened by death, but afraid of his own. Unwittingly complicit in a horrific scheme. Racked by guilt. Hoping for redemption through a single-malt Scotch and a bottle of Prozac.
Most shocking, the diary revealed that he’d watched his own father collapse, too. A swell of sympathy rose inside her. All this time she’d dismissed him as a callous villain, they’d shared their deepest tragedies in common without even knowing it.
When she finished reading, she looked up with a sickening feeling of remorse. The final entry was dated November 5—three days earlier.
“See?” Her mother’s eyes were glassy. “The poor guy really was trying to help.”
But Isabel was already a step ahead. “Where’s the package this came in?”
“There.” Her mom pointed to a torn manila envelope on the kitchen counter. “How come?”
Isabel made a frantic beeline to it. She flipped it over to see the return address: 307 Olivia Street.
His house was only ten minutes away, right near the famed Ernest Hemingway mansion. She’d passed it a thousand times without realizing it.
Behind her came light footsteps, then a soft hand on her shoulder. “Honey, are you okay? What’s going on?”
She whirled around. “I have to go. It might not be too late . . .” She gave her mom a quick kiss on the cheek. “I’ll explain everything soon, I promise.”
With the envelope in hand, she sprinted for the door.
“Too late for what?” her mom called to her retreating figure.
She glanced over her shoulder as she ran out. “To bring him back.”
Chris took one look at her face and turned on the siren without even asking why. The instant she climbed in, he gunned the engine, checked the rearview, and zoomed out of the driveway.
“307 Olivia,” she panted. “Go.”
Once they were out of her neighborhood, Chris shouted over the blaring noise. “Who’s in trouble?”
“This guy . . .” She trailed off, realizing she had no idea how to explain their relationship.
“What guy?”
A man who’d sold her into murder without knowing it? Who was paying the worst possible price to make it up to her?
“A friend,” she said at last. “He sent me a suicide note and he’s all alone. We might already be too late.”
“Oh, man.” Chris pumped the gas harder and the ambulance lurched forward, throwing her against her seat belt.
In only five minutes, they reached his street, a cul-de-sac punctuated with palm trees, well-tended gardens, and sleepy pastel-painted cottages. Number 307 was a squat, unremarkable house that seemed half forgotten. The paint was gray and peeling. The lawn was overgrown with tall brown grass. A bed of yellow roses was wilting in the sun. The navy shutters over the front window were closed, except for one broken slat that didn’t turn sideways like the rest.
As soon as they pulled up to the curb, they hopped out and raced to the door. Isabel knocked loudly. Nothing happened. Turned the knob. It was locked.
“I know he’s in there!”
Chris approached the front window and peered with both hands into the spot left uncovered by the broken slat. When he turned to her, his face was solemn.
“Oh God.” Her throat tightened. “You can see him?”
“I’m sorry.”
“We have to get in!”
He tried to slide the window up but it wouldn’t budge.
She edged past him to a wooden side door that led to the backyard. It was easy to reach her finger up over the latch to unlock it. She mustered all her energy to follow Chris down a narrow concrete path along the side of the house, which opened up to a fenced-in lawn with a patio table and a chaise longue.
He tugged at the obviously locked back door, but she stopped him with a whisper.
“Wait! Do you hear that?”
He froze, listening. A few birds were chirping on nearby branches. A car drove by somewhere in the distance. “No, what?”
“A TV.” Very faintly, Isabel could make out the hum of voices and dim musical chords—so dim that they could almost be mistaken for the wind.
He cocked his head. “How the hell did you notice that?”
She shrugged and rushed around the side of the house where the sound was coming from. Five feet up the wall, a large window was open an inch. A light ocean breeze billowed out its sheer white curtains. Pressing her palms on the cool glass, she slid it up the rest of the way. Chris hoisted her up inside, then climbed in after her. She found herself in Richard Barnett’s bedroom. Navy sheets were crumpled on the floor next to his unmade bed. With Chris on her heels, she followed the increasingly loud television sounds out to a hallway, past a kitchen, a bathroom, and finally to a living room at the front of the house.
Though she knew what was coming, a cry burst out of her when she saw him. Unconscious.
He was lying on his back at the foot of an old rocking chair, clothed in a T-shirt and black mesh shorts. His legs were bent at the knees and one arm was flung up near his head. His face was sallow, his lips dumbly parted. Vomit stuck to his chin. It had pooled on the floor beside him, soaking the neck of his white shirt in bile. The stench filled the room, sour and vaguely alcoholic. On his coffee table, an empty glass tumbler sat next to an empty orange prescription bottle.
Isabel dashed to his side and cupped his cheeks. His hazel eyes were open but unblinking. It was like staring into the face of his wax figure. She almost expected the real him to saunter in, puffing on a cigarette, and call off the horrifying charade.
Chris knelt beside her and pressed two fingers to his wrist.
“Is he really—?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“But can you still do something?”
Chris lifted up his shirt to examine his chest and muscle tone. “Body’s cool but not cold. No signs of rigor mortis yet. I’ve seen cases like this before—someone tries to OD, passes out, then vomits in their sleep. That probably kept him alive for a couple days but unconscious. Seems like he actually only died within the last few hours.”
Her heart gave a hopeful lurch that was immediately tempered by her own knowledge of emergency first aid. Everyone knew that a person without a pulse stood little chance of regaining any brain function after four minutes without oxygen. But what if that was outdated now? She had a sudden flash of her father’s crumpled body and her own helplessness—and all at once, she sank to her knees to pump Richard’s chest as hard as she could.
“What are you doing?” Chris demanded.
“Not—standing—around,” she huffed, as the fatigue of her biceps threatened to derail her efforts.
“What makes you think it’s not too late?”
She shot him a pointed glance. “I’m alive.”
Chris stared at Richard’s body, avoiding her gaze. “His brain cells are dying as we speak, but they’re not fully gone until about four to eight hours after death.” He paused. “I guess I could give him a dose of the X101 to try to buy time—”
She jumped to her feet, her arms rubbery and limp. “Then what are you waiting for?”
“You said he wanted this!” He glared at her. “We’re not supposed to intervene against someone’s will.”
“Are you kidding me?” Her voice was shaking. “You have the power to bring him back and you’re just going to let him die?”
“He’s already dead.”
“You know what I mean!”
Chris pressed two fingers to his temples, blinking fast. “But what if we bring him back and he’s brain-damaged? I mean, we don’t know exactly how long it’s been, and the longer that goes by, the worse the prognosis.”
“We have to try. He’s a good person, he deserves a chance.” She
didn’t add that she felt partly responsible for his suicide. If she hadn’t gotten her mastectomy, then she wouldn’t have provoked the investor’s ire and Richard’s attempts at appeasement. Then he wouldn’t have seen his death as a solution.
Chris was still shaking his head, so she squeezed her eyes shut and tried to recall everything Dr. Quinn had explained about her own resuscitation when she’d first woken up. Cooling down the body was key. Therapeutic hypothermia, he’d called it.
An image popped into her mind of frozen peas. Didn’t everyone have them? She ran to the kitchen and whipped open his freezer. Sure enough, there were two bags of peas, plus a chilled bottle of Ketel One vodka and an ice pack. She piled all of it into her arms and rushed back to his body, dropping to her knees beside his head. She lay the ice pack on his forehead, then the peas on his neck.
Chris stepped aside to get out of her way. “It’s no use. He needs the X101, plus chest compressions, an internal ice slurry, oxygenated fat molecules, an ECMO—”
“Then help me!” she screamed. “Don’t just stand there!”
He stuck his hands in his jeans pockets. “Do no harm,” he muttered.
But she could see his resolve weakening.
“Exactly,” she said. “He’s dead, you can’t make him worse. But if he has any chance at all and you walk away, you’re neglecting the one patient who needs you the most!”
“Okay, but if he comes back brain-dead, that’s on you.”
“I’m not, am I?”
Before he could reply, she marched out the front door to the ambulance and opened the back to get the stretcher. It was light enough for her to carry on her own, though she could feel the rubbery fatigue of her muscles cutting down her strength with each passing minute.
Back in the house, she set it down next to Richard’s body, while Chris lugged him under the armpits onto it. She strained to lift his heavy legs as best she could. Once he was flat on his back on the stretcher, Chris single-handedly dragged him outside and hauled him into the ambulance.
The street was deserted, but they wasted no time shutting the doors to any curious onlookers. She squatted on a side seat and held Richard’s limp hand as Chris got to work.
