The Epidemic

by Suzanne Young

  “That’s good,” I say. “Does he access his work e-mail from there?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Then this is important: Is there any way you can find out that e-mail password? Set up a camera or something?”

  She laughs as if she thinks I’m joking. “Uh, I could try,” she says. “I mean, I’m not going all 007, but I have a good idea of where to start.”

  “Perfect.” I take a deep breath and sit down at the table. I look over, and Deacon flashes me a small smile as if he can sense how deranged this plan will really be. I sometimes forget how well he can read me. I turn away, cradling the phone to my ear.

  “There’s just one other thing,” I tell Virginia. “We’re going to break into your house tonight.”

  * * *

  Surprisingly, Virginia was more than accommodating. She agreed to leave the side door to the garage unlocked while she went to the city hall meeting with her father. She also texted me the password to his office e-mail, although she didn’t say how she got it.

  Deacon and I grab a couple of sandwiches and then head over to the other side of Roseburg, where the Pritchards’ modest two-story house is located. Deacon parks down the street and plays a game on his phone while we wait for Arthur and Virginia to leave. I bite my thumbnail, watching the garage nervously. It’s crossed my mind a few times that this could be a setup, but there doesn’t seem to be much point if it is. Then again, I have no idea of Arthur’s true intentions. But I hope to solve this mystery tonight. This might finally be it.

  “I love you,” Deacon says, not taking his attention from the game, “but you’re being incredibly annoying right now.” He smiles and then glances over, motioning to my thumb. I realize that the clicking of the biting must have been driving him nuts, and I lower my arm.

  “Aren’t you nervous?” I ask. “What if they don’t go to the meeting? What if they do, and we break into this guy’s house, get caught, and go to jail—or worse, go home?”

  “Now, how can we fail with your brand of optimism on our side?”

  I swat his shoulder and he laughs, abandoning his game and setting his phone in the cup holder.

  “We’re going to be okay,” Deacon says a little more seriously. “And I hope none of your concern is guilt, because you have every right to break into this asshole’s office. He owes you.”

  “How can I feel guilty when you have such a moral conscience?” I respond. Deacon hums out his lack of caring and leans over to kiss me. I put my hand on his cheek and kiss him again.

  Movement steals my attention and I turn, making Deacon’s kiss land on the corner of my mouth instead. The white garage door at the Pritchard house goes up, and both Deacon and I instinctively sink down in our seats, watching Arthur back out of the driveway. There are two heads in the car, so I assume Virginia is with him.

  We sit silently until we’re sure they’re gone, and then Deacon turns to me, a flash of absolute exhilaration in his eyes. “It’s—” he starts.

  “Don’t you dare say ‘it’s go time.’ ”

  He snaps his jaw shut. I smile at him, glad he’s here to help temper my nerves. I wish I weren’t scared. Deacon’s right—Arthur owes me. I’m not just afraid of getting caught. I’m afraid of what I’ll find.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  DEACON AND I WALK DOWN the block, doing what we can to be completely unnoticeable, to dissolve into the background. There isn’t anyone outside that we notice, but we don’t want to turn and check more thoroughly because that would draw suspicion.

  We slip around the side of the house and find that the garage door is indeed unlocked. So far so good. With one last cautious look toward the driveway, Deacon and I enter the garage and find our way inside the house.

  Although I have lived with a doctor most of my life, our home was mostly normal-looking. But this house . . . it’s like being in a doctor’s office. And I’m not the least bit surprised.

  We enter through the kitchen. It looks recently remodeled, with white marble counters, whitewashed cabinets, and white tiled floors. I’m struck immediately by the smell of cleaning products; the place is immaculate. I lean over the sink in hopes of finding a dirty dish to prove he’s human. Nothing. It’s creepy.

  “Holy shit,” Deacon says, looking around. “Do you think they have a house cleaner, or is Pritchard an uptight prick?”

  “Not sure,” I say. “But if he’s this meticulous, I bet he keeps great files.”

  “And possibly a body wrapped in plastic in the basement,” Deacon replies with a pointed look. I laugh and head toward another part of the house.

  Virginia didn’t mention where the home office was, so we start opening and closing doors, discovering a bathroom and two bedrooms before finding the door that leads into a modest-size study with a massive wood-carved desk near the window.

  This room isn’t white. It’s rich and full of books, even a bit crowded. Interesting that his own personal space is so rich, while the world he has his daughter live in is completely sanitized.

  I quickly check the desk drawers while Deacon checks the file cabinets. Neither of us finds anything out of the ordinary. I sit in the wheeled desk chair, and Deacon grabs a second chair from the corner of the room, and we both sit at the computer.

  “Here we go,” Deacon mumbles.

  I shake the mouse to bring the monitor to life, and the screen bathes both of us in blue light. Deacon sets a timer on his phone, counting down an hour, an agreed-upon deadline. I take out my phone, and while holding it in one hand, I type in the password Virginia sent.

  GINNY1205

  The screen unlocks, and both Deacon and I breathe out a relieved sound. I imagine that the password is a combination of a nickname and a birthday, and I wonder how Virginia feels being the key to the memories her father locked away.

  I look sideways at Deacon and he flashes me an I can’t believe it fucking worked smile. I turn back to the computer and begin to scan through Arthur’s folders, trying to find one that might be related to us.

  “What about that one?” Deacon says, pointing to a folder icon labeled SC STUDIES.

  I double-click it, and at first the documents are hard to read, some of the words redacted. Luckily, the complicated terms relate back to my training in the grief department, so after a slight learning curve the sentences start to make sense.

  These are studies from outbreaks of suicide clusters in the past, from the United States, Germany, Russia, and Finland. The studies are from ten years ago and list suicide as the number one cause of death in people aged fifteen to forty-seven in developed countries. But always, seemingly with no cause, the clusters would fade away. Life returned to normal. There hasn’t been another outbreak in years.

  Until now.

  Deacon scoots closer to read the screen, giving me a wary look. The last file describes a suicide cluster right here in Roseburg, but that’s not the whole picture. The study reveals that the Pacific Northwest is only a high point of a problem spreading across the country. Just here in Oregon, the latest numbers show that the rate of death in persons under eighteen has increased to one in five.

  I draw back from the computer, stunned by the statistic.

  The idea is horrifying. Impossible. How have they kept it so quiet? Virginia was right about all of her friends dying.

  I hear Deacon’s throat click as he swallows, and he turns to me. “So this really is an epidemic,” he says in a low voice. “This really is happening.”

  The validation of it is heartbreaking. As closers, we understand death; we know what’s at stake and how it affects families. “This is the worst thing imaginable,” I say. “Maybe that’s why Arthur wanted closers to help. We’d want to stop this too.”

  Deacon nods slowly, his skin tinted from the light of the screen. In silence we continue clicking through more files. We find several studies from the CDC, a few on past treatments—including lobotomies, the pros and cons. Surely, that’s not Arthur’s plan. Despite society’s pre
vious failing on mental health care, I refuse to believe they’d go back to that archaic practice.

  And then I find a subfolder labeled THE REMEDY.

  The world goes into slow motion, my finger frozen on the edge of the mouse. This could be it, could be everything, or nothing; I could walk away and avoid both options. I can choose to not go any deeper into the rabbit hole. I feel Deacon look sideways at me, but he doesn’t say a word. It’s time for some truth. I dive headfirst and click.

  The first file is a list of closers throughout the Pacific Northwest, leading all the way up into Washington. I find my name still listed as active, but there is no notation to signify that I’m not Quinlan McKee at all. No notation that I was ever anyone else. I’m flooded with disappointment, but I continue on. I check for Reed’s name and find him listed as an active closer in Tillamook. There’s nothing to make me think he was lying when I saw him in the school parking lot. Deacon’s and Aaron’s names are both labeled inactive. I find Roger’s name in a column for Eugene, but there’s a notation that reads “special assignment only.”

  Of the thirty-five names listed, two of them are ruled suicides, one unknown. An annotation mentions that the rate of suicide in closers is much lower than the general population.

  The next file is a transition plan that details the position of a closer and the additional training needed to become a handler. There will be more therapy courses, but mostly the additions are minor compared to what we went through to become closers in the first place. I was right: We’re the best choice to help Arthur. We’re overqualified. And we’re unaffected by the epidemic—at least not at the same staggering rate.

  I read over the purpose of the handlers, slightly uneasy with Deacon next to me. I wonder how many of these apply to him. “ ‘Handlers help facilitate the role of the counselors, and in some cases forge bonds with patients to help break the cycle of self-harm. They monitor the public, looking for signs of erratic behavior, trying to predict where the next outbreak will happen.”

  I sit back in the chair, thinking that it’s unethical to fake relationships with people, but of course it’s not any less ethical than what we do with the grief department. I’m a total hypocrite. But I take some solace in the fact that clients willingly signed up. It doesn’t seem that handlers give that same option to their assignments.

  Deacon rolls his shoulders and cracks his neck, clearly uncomfortable. When I glance over at him, he’s apologetic. “I didn’t do all that,” he says. “I monitored you, but there was no extra training. No faking bonds. I didn’t pretend to love you. I just did.”

  “I know.”

  He smiles at this, and we both turn to the computer. This isn’t what I was looking for. Deacon takes the mouse and starts clicking through faster.

  “Let’s see if we can find something about you,” he says, sounding impatient.

  I let him search while I glance around the room. Books on psychology, psychotherapy, and the classics—including Frankenstein—line the bookshelves. It’s not a stretch to imagine that I’m a lot like the creature in the book, coming after the person who made me. It remains to be seen if I’ll want to destroy him, though.

  Other than handlers, I have no idea what Arthur’s solution is to the suicide outbreak. A mandate for therapy is irrational, but if I’ve learned anything in the past week, it’s that rationality seems to be out the window in the face of fear. And this epidemic has everyone scared.

  When I hear Deacon cuss, I turn back to the screen.

  “There’s nothing here,” he says. “How can you be completely off the books? How did he hide you so well?”

  “I guess he knows how to keep secrets,” I say. Deacon looks at the time on his phone—we’re down to twenty minutes—and stands up from the chair.

  “I’m going to check the other rooms,” he says. “But then we should go. The last thing I want is to run into Arthur Pritchard in the middle of his spotless kitchen.”

  “Okay,” I say, and click into the trash files, looking for more information. “I’ll be there in a second.” Deacon runs his hand under my hair and kisses my cheek before walking out.

  From the other room I hear Deacon open a door, and then shut it, moving on to the next. I continue going through the files.

  I must have missed something. I haven’t even found anything about Virginia, and I owe her. I promised I’d help get her memories back. I’m about to click out of the trash when I notice one file labeled with only numbers. I lean forward and click it open.

  My breath catches. At the top is the name Marie Devoroux. “Deacon,” I call, but I’m too busy reading her personal file to call for him again when he doesn’t answer. There’s a list of her infractions. The descriptions are vague, mostly reports of insubordination—five of them altogether—and a dismissal. But the dismissal was actually dated today, and Marie had disappeared on Thursday. They didn’t fire her, which means they’re likely just covering their asses.

  It’s in the notes that I find the most interesting information. There’s a listing for Desiree Richardson typed in a box at the bottom, along with a number and an address in Albany. It’s only twenty minutes from the grief department, from my father. So if this is Marie’s alias, she sure didn’t go far. Then again, Marie doesn’t have any family; hell, I don’t even think she has any friends other than my father. Maybe she couldn’t bring herself to completely leave it all behind.

  Like I do with all names, I immediately check through my memory to see if it’s familiar—someone I’ve role-played. But I’ve honestly never met a Desiree, and weirdly, that unsettles me. Even though I’m sure it’s just coincidence, it makes me feel completely cut out of Marie’s new life, reminds me that maybe I didn’t matter to her at all.

  I take out my phone and snap a picture of the page, zooming in to make sure I get a clear shot of the phone number. It’s Marie—it has to be. Arthur must have found her. What he plans to do with that information, I don’t know. But I hope I find Marie before he does anything.

  I close out the file. There’s nothing else to check, so I turn off the monitor. I have no idea what I’m going to tell Virginia. She got us in here, but I don’t have a way to repay the favor. I stand and push in the chair, double-checking that I haven’t left behind any sign that I’ve been here. I don’t know how observant Arthur Pritchard is, but if I were to guess, I’d say he’s quite perceptive.

  I slip my phone into my pocket and peek into the hallway, trying to guess which way Deacon went. The house is dead quiet, and I’m not sure how much time we have left. “Deacon,” I call, but there’s no answer.

  Uneasy, I go back out into the kitchen to make sure he hasn’t left. But the minute I step on the white tiles, the door leading to the garage opens, and my heart stops dead in my chest.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “VIRGINIA?” I SAY, DARTING A look behind her. Fear shakes my knees, and I stumble back a step, grabbing on to the edge of the marble countertop to keep myself upright. A quick glance out the window shows the sky has darkened. We took too long.

  “It’s okay,” Virginia says quickly, holding up her hands. “It’s just me. I called a cab while the council was wrapping up. My father will be here in about fifteen minutes—you have to go.”

  My heart is pounding so fast, and my voice is barely a whisper. “Holy shit,” I say, clutching my chest. “I . . . I . . .”

  There are footsteps behind me, and I swing around, still panicked, and see Deacon come in from the hallway. He smiles questioningly as if asking if everything is all right, and when he looks up and notices Virginia, he stops abruptly.

  But my heart is still racing—the fear so real that I can’t catch my breath. The staggering numbers of the epidemic, the panic that I’d been caught: I’m suddenly and completely overwhelmed.

  A shadow passes over my vision. At first I think someone else has entered the room, but then another shadow, and another, begin to cloud my vision. A sharp pain cracks across the side of my head like
a baseball bat.

  I tip forward, hearing Deacon call my name, feeling the floor rush up to meet me. And before I can hit the tile, a memory slams into my consciousness.

  I was at Deacon’s house, curled up on the floor and pressing my forehead to the wood slats, trying to block out the pain of another headache. The doorbell rang, and Deacon jogged past me, his voice frantic as he led my father inside. I forced myself upright just as Tom entered the room. Anger raged inside me because I knew he wasn’t my father. I knew why he was there.

  “Don’t,” I said, sliding back along the floor until I hit the couch. But my vision was blurry—memories crashing back at once, unraveling me.

  Deacon flashed a concerned look in my direction, but then he went on to tell Tom about my nosebleed and headache. I felt betrayed, even though he didn’t know what he was doing.

  “Get out, Deacon,” Tom told him calmly, although his eyes were trained on me. “I’ve got it from here. I need to get my daughter home.”

  Deacon looked conflicted, and as Tom stepped toward me, Deacon grabbed his elbow and demanded to know what was going on.

  “This is what happens when a closer gets too involved,” Tom told him cuttingly. “I warned you. I warned you both.”

  Deacon lowered his arm and turned to me, devastated as he studied me. I understood how I must have looked to him: face soaked with tears, blood from my nose running fresh again. He thought I was having a psychotic break. He thought it was his fault.

  “Get out now, Deacon,” Tom demanded. “I know what’s best for her.” He leveled his gaze on me, and I clenched my jaw, ready to fight my way out the minute I was strong enough.

  Deacon left me in the living room with that liar. And the minute he was gone, Tom McKee pulled out a syringe and stuck it into my arm. The stick hurt, but the burning sting after was even worse. Although I knew Tom wasn’t my father, even though I knew he and Marie had done this to me, the moment of betrayal was enough to break my heart. I gasped in a breath—feeling like a child. Feeling alone and scared.