"I think ... I might have voted in favor," Mr. Steckerman said.
"Not if you knew these boys. The Kid we could help without any problems. Tyler Ping? He was very unstable. Son of a spy ... he didn't exactly come from a background that teaches the virtue of loyalty. There were drug problems, credit card theft, one of the psychological illnesses—obsessive-compulsive disorder, I think. Hodji says it's probably all related to his mother, that Tyler was an ace until he was forced to live with her shenanigans, and then he started getting confused. But the cause is not the problem, if you know what I'm saying. The other agents felt we would have spent a fortune weed-whacking at policy, finding them a new place, and supporting them for months, and Ping would have announced whatever he felt like, wherever he felt like it. Besides, even if his mother is a complete pig, stunts like faking deaths have a way of working against you. If the media ever found out, how do you explain to every parent in America that you lied to a mother and told her that her minor son was dead? Even if she's in jail, that doesn't look good. In fact, it would give her a sympathy vote with the public that might eventually get her some parole—"
"What happened that made them think Tyler might not have done this?" Steckerman asked.
"Hodji was in the middle of a phone call with his son, Twain, when he started getting beep-ins from Tyler and Shahzad. It was like, you know, one of the only phone calls in the world he couldn't interrupt. If you can believe this, his son stayed pissed and finally hung up on him, after all that. Hodji was on one of those external runway delays when an emergency call arrived for him via the captain. Their nurse said the house was on fire. He had the pilots turn the plane around and drop him back at JFK. But by the time he got to where the kid was staying, the firemen, cops, and even the TV crew were already there."
"It's very coincidental timing for a suicide, I agree," Steckerman said. His sigh sounded far off. "I was correct last night. We've got blood on our hands."
"I don't think our actions—or lack thereof in the past few days—could have prevented this, Alan. There's still a chance it was Ping setting off that pong bomb in a dry, rickety old house. Some agents said they pegged him as suicidal. And again, there's still a chance it was an accident."
"Tragic loss ... tragic, tragic loss to Intelligence." Alan was back to whispering. They were quiet for so long that I floated back into the center of it.
"Where's this VaporStrike now?" I asked, seeing what I could get away with. I hadn't detected any insincerity yet. In fact, it felt like information overload, considering how morphed-out I was.
"We don't know," Alan said. "We do know that Omar had a sizable lab in South Jersey somewhere. We haven't located it yet. But it's still active."
I knew that already. But still. This was like having won a shopping spree at Best Buy. I could pick out whatever I wanted.
"Omar might try to get to the lab?"
"Yes."
"What's he got in there?"
"A new strain of tularemia Omar was playing with back in March."
"Worse than what the Kid had?"
"About twenty times worse. Some dead animals turned up in Griffith's Landing last night that looked like experimental lab monkeys."
I flipped my eyes to him slowly. Rain and the strange not-quite-a-snakebite. I brought it up.
"We have no reason to feel it's related," Alan said, and added quickly, "though if we did—if let's say we realized Omar's lab was in this neck of the woods—we would move you kids in a heartbeat. They've no interest in you, but we wouldn't risk anything like you getting in the line of fire of any experiments they might dream up to try on animals."
I watched him and decided he was being very sincere.
"We believe Rain and Owen about the bones and the bell, and we think Owen just can't quite remember where it was. There is a goat missing, the Professor, as Mrs. Starn calls him, and there used to be as many as six, back when the school kids used to visit the place for field trips. But these goats have free rein. There's no fences, and it's not out of character for them to wander a mile or more before heading back. That's how the missing goat sparked the concept of the bells. He's a runner. We're thinking at this point that Rain sustained a bee sting. Godfrey's got her blood. Nothing weird is showing in it. He's far more worried about the antivenin and what it could do to her liver. He's watching that carefully. As for you? You did a great job, kid. You're worth your weight in gold around here."
I told myself it was a good thing it hadn't happened an hour or two later, when I was so desperate to get out of my pain that I was manipulating morphine out of people. Cora cleared her throat and I turned. She really did not look good. I reached my limp arm up until my hand found her face. Burning up.
"Go lie down," I told her.
"I'm fine, thanks."
But she wasn't fine. Even with my world rock-and-rolling, I could sense her tension, her overload of USIC business. She was part of this but wanted to spring out of here. Rock in a slingshot. She gripped the sleeve of my T-shirt and twisted, something she'd done compulsively at St. Ann's a few times that I never called her attention to.
"Go. Don't argue with me." I pushed her fingers away, though some of the tension left her, like it could do when I was being Imposter Dad. Go figure.
I was glad she left. Because it got kind of smarmy in here, and I wasn't up for anyone else being here to witness it.
"Something for you," Alan said.
I felt a thump on my chest, and I put my fingers around something cold. It was a badge, obviously a USIC badge. I looked at it to make sure. Silver, with a USIC emblem in the center.
Okay ... so these guys think I'm dying and are trying to save my life any way possible. You don't have to be off drugs to see some things. I'd hoped for something like this, though the badge was a touch I hadn't even dreamed of.
Mom's back. I'm jumping on the couch again, and 21 Jump Street blares from the TV.
"If you boys don't stop roughhousing, I'm turning off your favorite show!"
"Ma, I'm done. I'm sitting. See?"
I want to be Johnny Depp, the teenage cop with his crew of teenage cop friends. They go to high school but work undercover. I want a badge like they have. I want to be them—
Gripping the badge, I could feel one corner of my mouth roll upward. You can laugh at the strangest stuff. I read somewhere last year that Johnny Depp had always hated playing that role on 21 Jump Street. He had trouble believing it himself. I understood. I knew I was getting something here that was damn near impossible, might have been completely impossible for a guy who hadn't signed a DNR form, with full assurance that Alan Steckerman would hear about it.
Alan was watching me, like, maybe with a tear in his eye. I couldn't resist a wisecrack. "So. You gonna call me Nancy Drew when my back is turned?"
"Not on your life."
"Hardy Boys?"
He sighed. "Okay ... You can give it back if you want."
He reached for the badge, only to realize he'd have to pry it out of my fingers with a crowbar.
THIRTY-THREE
CORA HOLMAN
SUNDAY, MAY 5, 2002
8:50 A.M.
HER BEDROOM
I DIDN'T WANT TO LEAVE SCOTT, but it was like being forced to leave someone in a burning building when your back is already on fire. I threw myself onto my bed but couldn't bang all the bad words out of my head even when covering it with four bed pillows. VaporStrike, house fire, tularemia, funeral, hackers, terrorists, nosebleed, bleed out, Omar... Shutting the light out only made the images grow stronger ... Bloody tissues, morphine drips, hypodermic needles ... I had trained myself to think at the age of fourteen that my life would be peaceful again if only I could get Aleese out of it. Peace, embedded in that dream of a condo down in the marshes of Trinity, was all I'd ever wanted.
But I was drowning in muck and growing compulsive about imagining her ghost. I pulled the cell phone Henry had given me out of my pocket and speed-dialed. I got his voice mail and, tryin
g not to show my disappointment, left a message. Aleese was behind me, suddenly. Good going. It'll take your mind off lover boy. Steer clear of him. You know what I mean...
I shot straight up and yelled, "Marg!" loudly, though I knew it would startle Scott. Her footsteps came flying out of Rain's room, and I grabbed my lips and pulled as she stuck her head in my door, going, "Shhh. That's why we have buttons."
"I'm sorry." I shut my eyes, rubbing my forehead.
"What's wrong?"
"I want off a certain drug. Today."
"Which one?"
"I don't know. Scott knows. The one that keeps making me imagine I'm being haunted by my mother."
I lay back on my pillows, avoiding her gaze by keeping my eyes closed.
"The Nabilone can make patients foggy—"
"Yes. That's it."
She kept standing there, and I sensed a lecture coming. She didn't disappoint. "I can talk to Dr. Godfrey about switching you. But consider. You may continue to have whatever thoughts are disturbing you."
"What do you mean?"
"Just that generally speaking, medications don't conjure things that aren't there anyway. They just make those sensations stronger, or they make you confused about what's really going on. Maybe you need more closure. Maybe you should listen to that voice ... so long as it's not aloud—I wouldn't like that."
"No, it's not aloud. It's just very annoying."
"Is there some problem with dwelling on your mom sometimes? Maybe ... thinking of why you're, um, hearing what you're hearing?"
"Only the fact that I couldn't stand her, and when she died, I had great feelings of relief." I felt like a caterpillar who's supposed to become a butterfly, only I was becoming a bat. It was a horrible thing to say.
"What I mean, Cora, is that the voice you're attributing to your mother could be some part of yourself."
Just what I need to hear. I have a gremlin side, and, oh, I enjoy leading myself to make bad decisions. "And will you please close the door again on your way out?"
She hadn't said she was leaving. "I'll talk to Dr. Godfrey..."
I laid the cell phone on my nightstand so I could hear it if Henry returned my call, and I went to sleep.
No relief. I kept dreaming of Aleese or of Mrs. Kellerton rising out of the pond, sometimes the two of them. At times they were covered in muck. At times they shone like angels. In one, Jeanine Fitzpatrick was standing beside an RV camper, shouting, "Rise, rise!" In all the dreams, Aleese would reach her hand out and try to talk me into coming in swimming. She knew I couldn't swim and would break out in harsh cackles when I tried to run from her.
I awoke with a disgusted sigh, probably for the dozenth time, rolled over, and was just snuggling into the soft mattress and pillows yet again when Marg brought in a big arrangement of roses.
We hadn't gotten any flowers in over a month. I sat straight up and reached for the card, dizzily finding a smile.
"They were hand delivered," Marg said, setting them on the table beside me. "Red roses. I don't know about this ... How old are you again?"
I glanced at her in confusion, opening the envelope. I didn't see the need to be a certain age to receive flowers. "I'll be eighteen September second."
"I didn't think I read that wrong in your file." She smiled, befuddled.
The card read,
Sorry you weren't feeling well enough to go walking today.
I hope to see you soon. All the best, Henry
A tidal wave of relief poured out of me. Henry had done better than call. Life wasn't all bad.
"They're beautiful," I said, but pinched at my throat, which was starting to hurt.
"They're red." she said. Then she added in a singsongy voice, "Red is for romance."
My eyes flew to her sneaker, which was tapping with some sort of anxiety. And I was starting to think Marg's hands had a permanent home on her hips.
"You sound like Scott," I said dryly.
"He's not so very stupid about the ways of the world."
You should hear what he dreams about you. "How is he?"
"Better. Gave us a good scare. You should be able to see him in an hour or so."
I wanted to, so badly. And yet he was tied up with thoughts of medicine and symptoms and terrorists and USIC schemes. I just wanted to sleep. "Please tell him I'm glad he's all right."
"You don't want to tell him yourself, huh?"
I had no answer. Fortunately, she said it for me. "You're sick of sickness, aren't you? That's perfectly understandable. Let's bring Henry up here and give you a few minutes of relief. Just keep in mind: Red roses mean romance. You didn't know that?"
I shook my head, embarrassed by my lack of working knowledge of all things romantic. "He'll be thirty soon. That's ... very old," I said dismissively. "And as an absent-minded, brilliant professor, he probably knows less about color schemes than I do. I'm sure he understands the situation with our health."
"He's not stupid, but he's probably an optimist. Your condition shouldn't last forever."
I turned my fiery cheeks from her gaze to glance at my clock. It was already after three. I'd been asleep for more than six hours. She pulled a thermometer from her pocket, stuck it in my mouth, and waited for the beep. I felt achy and feverish, but she merely shrugged as she read the results. We didn't worry about fevers under a hundred and one.
"Other symptoms?"
"Just throat," I said.
"I'll bring you a slushy, and I'll bring him, too." She sized up the red roses again in a wary way that made me realize, She's serious. She's taking these red roses at face value.
I knew better, but curious thoughts drifted through me that had a Well, what if? undercurrent to them. The only boy who'd ever shown any interest in me was Jon Dempsey, and as Jon's tastes were basically indiscriminate, I never paid any attention. The idea of somebody older being interested had never crossed my mind. I wasn't quite sure how I felt about it. But Henry was so completely unaffected by all that went on around us that I craved his company.
She disappeared, and I found myself groping in the nightstand for my hairbrush and running it through my hair so numbly that I didn't feel the smile forming on my face again. Older men. It was an entirely new concept for me in my denseness, but it was like the door to a whole new world had opened just a crack and a line of sun was trying to break in.
Marg arrived with Henry—and she put a slushy down on the table and left again.
I thanked him for the flowers, watching his face, which looked friendly, cheerful—not with that piercing stare Jon Dempsey could give, which left me feeling like he was looking through my clothes. I figured Marg had made too much of it.
"I won't stay long. I was concerned and wanted to see for myself that you were all right. Getting lost in the woods would have to be stressful to you."
I rolled my eyes. "That was the easiest part of the day," I said, before realizing I shouldn't tell him about Griffith's Landing or the scary staring men.
"You had worse adventures than getting lost in the woods?" He was taking off a summer windbreaker, mumbling about it being warm up here. All I could feel was the breeze, which was again making me cold.
I felt that biting annoyance that USIC could come between me and what could conceivably amount to my first romantic interest, however unlikely the odds.
"Well ... Scott came down with the kind of headache that is really cause for concern," I said, avoiding our secrets with enough grace that I felt surprisingly proud.
"So I heard from Mrs. Starn. She was here this afternoon. But he's all right now?"
I nodded, sending off a prayer of gratitude, which I hoped would make up for my lack of interest in going back in that room. I was about to point out a chair on the far side of the huge bed, but he sat down on the bed beside me.
"I brought you something else." He was close enough that I could smell him, smell soap and fresh spring air, which left me feeling like I was perched on a swing. I lay nearly frozen as he pulled a si
zable frame out of a large shopping bag he'd been carrying.
He turned the frame around, and it was an enlarged print of the picture he took of me yesterday. I've always hated pictures of myself, thinking my eyes were too dark and I looked stoned on some drug that dilated my pupils. But in this enchanted wooded setting, they fit. I looked mystified and yet somehow...
"Alluring," he said.
"Excuse me?"
"I may hang this in the gallery at school. You're supposed to give it a name. I can't think of one except...'Alluring.'"
He didn't watch me or touch me or do anything to make me feel uncomfortable, but he sensed my discomfort, I think, because he went on about the woods being alluring, seeming to beckon people, and I was the Guardian of the Keep.
I thanked him again, and he set the picture by the side of the bed. "I went down to the basement today to leave you some organic chemicals in the darkroom. I thought they would be better for your health."
"Organic chemicals," I repeated. "I didn't even know there was such a thing."
"You can find organic just-about-anything these days if you're willing to pay. I've been using them this year. Of course, the ultimate answer is to give up film development and switch entirely to digital. But what fun is that?"
"No fun," I agreed, feeling my heart sinking over Tyler and Shahzad. Their needs and mine had been miles apart yesterday. Today, we were eternities apart. I forced myself to mumble a thank-you.
"You're welcome. The problem was, I couldn't get in. The door was locked." He chuckled. "I've been using that room for two years and didn't even know it had a key."
"I didn't either," I said in confusion, then remembered Mr. Tiger saying he would put electricity down there. I wondered if he'd moved that quickly, getting electricity and locking rooms where important prints were being kept.
This time, I almost sighed in aggravation. I said, "It's probably Rain's dad. He's ... you know, the Mounted Police."