by Rysa Walker
“Couldn’t sleep anyway,” he says. “It feels weird to be in the RV without you.”
“I miss you, too.”
“What on earth is that music in the background?”
I laugh. “The Mickey Mouse Club. I’m babysitting right now. Aside from Lily, none of us has had much sleep. Daniel and I didn’t get back to the room until around midnight. After we finished talking to Colonel Smith, we had to go in search of something to restrain Miller. He’s pretty resistant to Daniel’s influence, and you’d be surprised how hard it is to find duct tape in the middle of the night.”
“What did you guys find out from Smith?”
“He thinks Cregg has brokered a deal with the White House. Cregg solves the Delphi problem, and in exchange, he’s the next vice president.”
“Why would Cregg take VP? He stands a decent chance of winning outright.”
“Yeah, but an even better chance of winning in 2024 if he spends a term in the number-two slot. Third parties are always at a disadvantage, and you’ve got the whole electoral college issue to consider. Smith says he isn’t certain they’ve struck a deal, and it’s possible that even if they have reached an agreement, it’s off the table after last night. The good news, though, is that Smith agreed to fly us to the closest heliport to Sandalford. And Daniel and Smith are scheduled to talk with someone from DHS before we leave, a friend of Smith’s who’s familiar with the Delphi Project and is somewhat sympathetic to the plight of the adepts. We leave after the meeting, so we’ll be there by two at the latest.”
“So . . . that’s why Daniel isn’t in your vision.”
“Yes. One part of the mystery solved. And . . .” I sigh, really hating to deliver the next bit of news. “I also know why we’ll be nosing around the site of the explosion. I’m guessing you guys haven’t seen the news yet?”
“No,” he says, yawning. “Did something else happen?”
“Yeah. They found a body. And unless someone swiped her shoes, it’s Ashley.”
“Damn,” he says. “I thought . . . Daniel said she was holding Caleb when that thing blew up. Is Caleb okay?”
“She wasn’t killed by the blast. I think Dacia ordered Ashley to have Caleb hit the convention center, and Ashley directed his attention to the Sunsphere instead, to protect the people inside the center. When Ashley didn’t follow orders, Dacia killed her and they dumped the body there.”
“How did they do that? The place had to have been swarming with police last night.”
“Probably the same way they talked themselves past the security gate at a nuclear facility.”
“So . . . your dad is going to try and pick up her spirit? Is that a good idea, when he’s already got a dozen in his head? I mean, I’m definitely not suggesting that you do it instead, but . . .”
“Don’t worry about that,” I say as I divert Lily’s attention away from an electrical outlet with a handful of banana puffs. “Ashley would think she’s gone straight to hell if she had to cohabitate with a giant spider-rat. And I don’t know if it’s a good idea, but she could have information that will help us. Plus, we both know it doesn’t matter. It was in the vision. It’s going to happen.”
I don’t mention the other argument in favor of scooping her spirit up. Much like Hunter’s ghost back at Overhills, we can’t just leave Ashley here in Knoxville. There’s no doubt in my mind that she’s stuck on this plane of existence. She had too many questions about her sister, too many worries about Caleb, and too much guilt about what she did to Daniel to allow her to move on quickly. The odds seem strong that she died violently, and that will likely hold her here as well. Ashley will need closure before she can go gentle into that good night, and she stands a much better chance of getting that closure if she’s not left to roam around the Sunsphere in search of answers that won’t be here. Molly told me that it took months for her to make her way back to the women’s shelter, and she died only a few hours away from DC. How much longer would it take Ashley to work her way toward the answers she needs if she’s left here?
Of course, I could be entirely wrong on that point. Hitchers aren’t physical, so maybe they don’t have to walk from point A to point B. Maybe they just have to think about their last happy place really, really hard, and then they’re transported back, the way Dorothy got home from Oz.
“Just . . . be careful,” Aaron says. “Okay?”
“I will.”
“Oh, before I forget, do you have another number for Kelsey? Deo tried the number he had in his phone last night, and we couldn’t reach her. I tried again this morning, even left texts, but no response.”
“You could check my phone and see if she called from a different number when we talked . . .” I have to think back to when this was. “Day before yesterday, I guess. But I don’t think so.”
“Okay. Maybe she’ll get back with us. She’s the one who’s setting the place and time for all of us to meet up. I’m assuming it’s not too far from Sandalford, since no one there has access to a car—”
“You may be underestimating Maria and her wabbits.”
“True.”
We talk a bit more about our meeting with Smith, their night under house arrest, and engage in some idle speculation about whether the current administration is really corrupt enough that it would want to simply erase the adepts for political gain.
“If so,” Aaron says, “then Graham Cregg inadvertently did us a huge favor by releasing the formula to those dealers. Although not a favor to the . . . okay, I’m just going to borrow a label and call them the neurotypical population. Way too many of them are dying for a temporary thrill. But the government doesn’t know it’s temporary. And it’s going to be a whole lot harder to hide wiping out thousands of people than it would be wiping out dozens. And five more states vote today.”
“Maybe Cregg won’t win the primary in those states. That can’t have been good publicity for him last night. That should give the other woman . . . what’s her name? The governor of Texas? It should give her a boost, right?”
Aaron laughs bitterly. “I was going to argue your point, but I think you did it for me, babe. Juanita Breyer is still what’s-her-name to most of the public. Senator Cregg, on the other hand, just got a ton of free publicity. He’s out there, trying to engage other leaders in fighting against these terrorists, and they attack him and his followers. He’s going to be spinning this like crazy on the morning shows, the same way he did the attack by his granddaughter. And that will only make it more likely that this deal he’s brokered goes through.”
“Do you think Dacia’s still working with him? Maybe they planned this. She sounded furious at him when she was at the prison, and Sophie keeps saying that she and the Senator have some major trust issues, but . . .”
“It’s possible they’re still working together. Or the Senator could simply be doing what all good con men do—seizing every opportunity to take advantage of people when they are scared, misinformed, and at their most vulnerable.”
“Well, at least I know now why my dad needs to pick up Ashley. She’ll know whether Dacia’s anger at Cregg is an act or if she’s really a rogue bear.”
After we hang up, I check local news to see if there’s any new information about the explosion or Ashley’s murder. The only thing I find is an article claiming the attack at Oak Ridge was an accident and the video shown at the amphitheater last night was faked. I click on the comments, because I’m a masochist, and there are already a half dozen people saying any idiot should be able to see that it’s faked. No one asks the obvious question. If this was really an accident, how could WOCAN have found relevant background footage, filmed a fake attack, edited it into the foreground, and planted it at the rally in Knoxville in a little over two hours? Hopefully reporters will ask that question eventually, and push until they get answers, but from what I’ve seen over the past few years, it seems just as likely they’ll let this fade away. The press release invoked the magic words national security, which acts as
a Cloak of Invisibility to hide all logical inconsistencies.
We leave at eight and manage to get Miller out of the hotel and into the parking garage without attracting attention to the fact that his hands are bound or that I’m hiding a gun behind the diaper bag I have clutched to my chest. Before he left for his meeting with Smith and the woman from DHS, Daniel gave Miller a strong nudge, instructing him to follow my orders. But I’m not taking any chances.
I’m not too keen on being the designated driver, either. It’s not really Graham Cregg’s occasional suicidal urges that have me worried. He seems, at least for the moment, to be in cooperative mode, and I think he’d much rather have revenge on his father than plunge all of us to our deaths.
Thump.
My bigger issue is that, once we pass the point in time where I have my vision, it’s entirely possible that I could have another one. It’s unlikely, since I’ve never had them that close together, but I can’t rule it out, and then I’d be unconscious behind the wheel.
Sophie’s nose wrinkles as she crawls into the van with Lily. “What’s that smell?”
“Probably the smoke on my clothes,” Pfeifer says. “Or maybe it’s this guy. He’s pretty ripe.”
As I get into the driver’s seat, I get a good whiff, and yes, Miller needs a shower. We should probably have found a way to make that happen while we were at the hotel, since we’re going to be enclosed in a helicopter cabin with him for the next few hours.
There’s something else underlying the body odor, however. It smells a bit like something burning . . . like ozone burning.
What was it that Colonel Smith said to Miller back at the prison? I thought your boss solved that problem. And Miller responded that something hadn’t kicked in yet.
“He’s had the blocker serum,” I say out loud.
“You’re sure?” Pfeifer doesn’t wait for me to answer, just grabs the duct tape and begins securing Miller to the car seat. “That would explain a lot. Daniel was saying last night that he’d never dealt with anyone so difficult to push, and I can’t say that Miller strikes me as particularly bright or strong-minded.”
The fact that Miller doesn’t react at all to that comment, or to the fact that he’s being bound to the seat, tells me that he’s still under the influence of Daniel’s command. So either it hasn’t kicked in fully or it only suppresses, rather than fully blocks, the impact.
My dad manages to wrap the tape around Miller twice before the roll runs out. He then presses the back of his hand against Miller’s neck. “He’s hot. Not dangerously so, but that’s more evidence supporting your hypothesis.”
As we’re exiting the hotel garage, my phone rings. It’s Deo. He doesn’t waste time with hello but jumps to his point as soon as I answer.
“We’re in Corolla, where the four-wheel-drive road begins. I still can’t reach Kelsey. Can’t reach Stan, either. Taylor even called the landline.”
“And we had to leave the RV in a parking lot,” Aaron adds. “The storage place was being watched. One of Dacia’s bears . . . not in uniform, but I picked up some stray thoughts that identified him.”
“We’re scheduled to leave at nine, but I’ll call Daniel and see if—”
“Anna,” Deo says, “it’s a four-hour helicopter ride. Taylor checked. We can’t wait.”
“Damn it, D,” I begin, but I know I don’t have an argument. If our positions were reversed, I’d be storming Sandalford without them, even though there’s really not much I could do to help. Deo, on the other hand . . .
“Go. Be careful. Call me. I love you guys—wait, wait, have you tried Miranda? She and the kids may be with Jasper.”
There’s a long silence on the other end, and then Aaron says, “I’m still not sure I trust him in a high-pressure situation, Anna.”
“I’m not saying to pull Jasper in. My point is that, unless Magda gave her the weekend off, which she never does, Miranda would have been down there twice a day to cook. So she may know if anything unusual is going on. But . . . Aaron, if Miranda and his kids are at Sandalford and there’s a problem, then you absolutely do want Jasper with you when you go in. Because if they’re in danger and you don’t let him know, he’s going to consider you as much the enemy as Magda or Dacia or Cregg.”
We say our good-byes, and I toss the phone back to Sophie. “Text Daniel. Tell him what you just heard and see if they can speed things up.”
As we approach the convention center, I get a good look at the shattered Sunsphere. It no longer looks like a giant lollipop. Now it reminds me of those utensils you use to dispense honey without making a mess. Each layer of the sphere is open to view. Some layers are empty, but the ones that have furnishings—tables, chairs, and so forth—are remarkably intact. It doesn’t really look like it was the scene of a massive explosion, but more like someone opened the gold-colored blinds that were hiding the interior.
Clinch Avenue, the upper-level road that passes by the Sunsphere, is open. I’m not surprised to see traffic cones blocking off the entrance to the lower-level road, World’s Fair Park Drive. I glance around quickly, and when I don’t see any police cars, I decide to interpret those cones as a suggestion rather than an iron-clad rule and bump the passenger-side tire up onto the sidewalk in order to pass without crushing them.
The fact that the road and several walkways pass under Clinch Avenue means that there are convenient places to hide the van. I pull into one that seems to provide the best cover from the road. There are two trucks parked here as well. Maintenance vehicles, I think.
“Are you sure about this?” I ask my dad.
He gives a wry chuckle. “Not entirely. But you are.” He shakes his head when I start to protest. “There’s room for one more. At least this one won’t have abilities that your mother has to monitor.”
“But she’s going to be frantic. The newly dead are different.”
“In most cases, I’m sure they are. But your mother had to calm me down when she came on board. That is—or rather she is—the only reason I made it through everything with my mind mostly intact.”
My dad and I exit the van and step into the scene from my vision. The morning sun is amplified by the water, the stretches of white concrete, and the bright-white of the amphitheater, but most of all by the glittering glass fragments that cover everything that couldn’t be swept—the lawn, the bushes, the rocks near the railroad tracks. Even the sidewalk is only partially clear. Tiny gold specks remain, and now I’m thinking of Aaron’s eyes and remembering having that thought in the vision. Worrying about the people I love, and remembering feeling that gut-wrenching dread and pushing it away.
No. No. I will not go there. Aaron and Taylor are fine. They have to be. Deo is fine. Kelsey is fine. They are all completely fine, and I’ll see them soon.
Pfeifer crouches down next to bushes and runs his hand along the leaves. Then he touches the ground, the sidewalk, the police tape, taking his time to cover each surface carefully. His approach is analytical, scientific.
I shiver, looking around. Cars are driving on the road above. I doubt we’ll be able to stand here much longer without someone noticing. The police. And the Senator could have someone watching, waiting.
Sophie must have spotted something that alarms her, because she opens the door and waves for us to hurry.
“We need to go, Dad.”
Pfeifer looks at me, startled. As his eyebrows go up, I notice the bruise on his forehead, no longer red but now bluish purple.
“Come on,” I say. “We have to go. Sophie’s—”
“Ashley’s here, Anna. I can feel her. She’s just . . . slippery. It’s like I can’t quite latch on to her. Or maybe I was wrong, maybe it’s just too crowded and chaotic in here . . .”
Glancing down the sidewalk, I see what alarmed Sophie. Two police officers have just turned this way. I hold one palm up toward the van in a gesture that I really hope Sophie interprets as stay where you are.
And then I turn my attention to my hitche
r.
We need Ashley. And we don’t need her to be frightened. Stay in the very back. Do you understand?
I get a solitary thump in response. Of course, he’d thump if he was lying, too.
And then I dismantle one of my walls. Not all of them. My trust is exceedingly thin, and I’m not budging a single brick on the two layers at the back. If Ashley can’t exist in the cramped mental space that remains, we’ll simply have to leave her here, because this is all I have to offer.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Knoxville, Tennessee
April 28, 2020, 8:21 a.m.
When the front wall is down, I brush my hand along the upper leaves of the bush. I don’t expect an instant response, but then I feel Ashley whoosh in like a shopper when the doors open on Black Friday. She’s frantic, just as I told my dad she would be, but she’s suppressing it. Holding it back, because she knows exactly where she is and why.
My dad’s arms are wrapped around me, and I lean into him until the wave of dizziness passes. He’s talking to the police officers, one young and one middle-aged, explaining that we were walking on the upper sidewalk looking for this place a friend said had a really good breakfast buffet when I began feeling faint. He was trying to get me to the benches over by the restrooms. To get a wet paper towel. Thought maybe I was overheated.
I’m steady on my feet now, but I play along, still leaning against him. And then Sophie appears, holding Lily. She has the diaper bag slung over her shoulder.
“I couldn’t find paper towels. But then I realized I have wipes in the bag.”
One officer says we need to get back to the upper-level sidewalk. This is a crime scene. The other asks if we need an ambulance, and I decide that’s my cue for an expedited recovery.
“I think I’m okay.”
“Could we just get a cab back to the hotel and order room service?” Sophie says testily as she shuffles Lily to her other hip. “If I’d known we were going to walk this far, I’d have brought her stroller.”
The younger officer points us to the elevator that leads to the upper level. My dad thanks him, apologizes again, and then we leave.