A prickling sensation, accompanied by a sickly-sweet smell, invaded her nose and throat, and the sound of her wheezing rattled in her ears.
The sky exploded in crimson and a boom shook the grating over the windows of the isolation chamber. Three amethyst rings supplanted the fading red, followed by a triple bang and a single, misplaced crack. Leaning against the fence, Cora listened for other incongruent noises.
Her hand drifted to her hip, where her scabbard should have been. Ever since she’d retrieved the scalpel from the pier, she’d kept it on her. Also missing was her satchel. Her fists balled, she pictured her golden guinea, bird stone, Susie’s bunny barrettes, Emmett’s locked crucifix box, Mary’s tortoiseshell comb, and the baby cap, all now in the Gettlers’ possession.
And, if the pair had scoured the island for her caches, they might have taken much more.
She smacked her palm against the grille, already vibrating from the rumble of the fireworks.
By her estimation, she’d been unconscious for twelve hours. Despite a lingering haziness, the memory of Kristian’s reaction to her was razor sharp. And it cut just as deeply.
Fortunately, Rollie’s authority over him appeared well established. So why had they gassed and caged her?
Because they were somehow altering Riverside, she decided. The misplaced rumbles meant that somewhere on this island, the two were setting off explosives. She’d been watching for flashes of local light, but the flickering of the rockets launched from the nearest platform in the East River toyed with her vision.
The sky brightened, and a series of crackles signaled that the grand finale had begun.
Rollie and Kristian had timed their clandestine operation perfectly. It was the kind of Machiavellian move Ulrich would have made, so she guessed that it had been Kristian’s idea. Cora wondered at what age he’d been introduced to their vile work. The single photograph that Ulrich had given her—what she’d endured to get it had almost shattered her—had been of Kristian at age twelve. She kept it locked in a windowless room, away from the fading effect of the sun and the physical impact of her love.
The sky darkened, and the grating over the window stilled. She slid to a seated position and continued to listen, but the mistimed booms had ended with the show. With nothing left to do but worry, she lay down.
Only subconsciousness would give her a respite from the shock and disappointment that had accompanied meeting her grown son. Yet her mind refused to succumb to sleep.
The door creaked open, and she scrambled to her feet.
A man in a containment suit filled the doorway.
Based on his height, she knew it was Rollie.
“Give me my things,” Cora demanded.
He tossed her the satchel, which she caught. “My knife?”
Rollie whipped an object across the floor to her.
She grabbed the sheath, clipped it to the loop of her jeans, and began inventorying the contents of her bag.
“It’s all there.” He pointed his flashlight to aid her effort.
Although she sensed he was telling the truth, she finished checking. “What were you doing with explosives?”
“I’m sorry for the way Kristian treated you. I’ve been trying to counter Ulrich’s teachings. They spent so much time together, without me. He’s a brilliant kid, with a lot of good in him. He’s in medical school now.”
“Another Dr. Gettler?” she said with a huff. “That’s supposed to make me feel better?”
“I suppose not. But here’s something that should: Cora, he’s not just book-smart; his curiosity and creativity are astounding. I believe, wholeheartedly, that he’ll be the one to cure you.”
“Is that before or after he tortures me in the name of science? Just like his mentor.”
“I won’t let that happen, I promise,” he said, shaking his head. “But I need him involved, as a lab assistant. Already he’s made a brilliant observation. In comparing the older data with my recent work, he noticed some anomalies in the CBCs. The composition of your blood changes when it leaves the island. We need to be extracting the antibodies from the blood samples while they’re still local.”
“This was about building a secret lab? What a waste. I would have let you set something up. So much for that ‘mutual respect’ you mentioned to your ‘son.’”
She tucked her fingers beneath the flap of the raccoon-skin case, and he backed into the hall.
Even though she couldn’t see his face, Cora could sense his unease, and it thrilled her. She pulled out the scalpel, flipped it upward, and caught it by the handle. “How stupid of you to return this.”
She flicked her wrist, and Rollie ducked behind the corridor wall just as the blade landed in the door frame.
“I know how much it means to you,” he said from out of sight.
“Where are the rest?” She darted forward to grab the handle and returned to the fence. “I’ve told you; I don’t know what Ulrich did with them,” he said, edging down the corridor. “If it’s not enough for bird-hunting, I’ll find something better. You shouldn’t be reliant on us ever again.”
“Hunting. That’s right,” she said, raising her arm. “I’ll give you a thirty-second head start.”
He snorted. “You can’t hurt me. I’m the only one who can control your son.”
Her hand fell to her side. “Why’s that?” she asked despite her premonition.
He stepped into the doorway. “Ulrich may have screwed up Kristian in a lot of ways, but he did instill in my—your—son obedience and respect. As long as he believes I’m his father, he’ll listen to me.”
Her intuition had been right. The scalpel fell to the floor with a clatter.
Rollie sighed. “Ulrich gave Kristian his diaries, one for each year, beginning in 1926. Kristian studies them like they’re medical textbooks. He now has so many astounding theories, any one of which might work. I need him focused on this puzzle.”
“Surely Kristian read about his birth.”
“There’s no mention of it. Ulrich must have been afraid that Angela would find them. After he admitted what he’d done, their marriage was never the same. Even after she began dragging him to church. Whatever the reason, he gave up on that heinous master race delusion.”
“Thank God for her.” Cora tried to swallow a lump in her throat. “What if Kristian decides to resume the experiments that Ulrich detailed in those journals?”
Rollie raised his hand. “I won’t let him touch you.”
You won’t be around forever, she thought. “Why can’t you tell him I’m his mother? He would never harm me then.”
“Because”—he stepped into the corridor and flashed the beam in each direction—“I also don’t want him rethinking his relationship with Sylvia, whom he practically worships.” Rollie winced. “That was insensitive. I’m sorry. Anyway, for years, he’s heard Ulrich refer to you only as ‘the subject’ or ‘mutt.’ In those journals, it’s no better. Sylvia’s the most effective countervoice to that cold, clinical mentality.”
Her insides roiling, Cora simultaneously hated and felt overwhelmingly grateful to that woman.
Rollie consulted a watch, looped around his utility belt, and an eerie green glow reflected off his mask. “Did you know that breast milk contains antibodies? Certainly not,” he muttered. “It was only recently discovered.”
Breast milk? He wants to talk about breast milk? This day can’t get any worse, she decided. “You’d better go,” she said, edging toward the door frame so he couldn’t lock her in again. “Your ‘son’ is probably worried about you.”
Rollie waved his hand, still holding the flashlight. “My point is, Kristian may have your same immunities.”
She squinted to shield her eyes from the shifting beam. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s only a theory, but hear me out.”
/> Cora nodded for him to continue.
“The entire time Kristian was living on the island, he was nursing, and thus receiving your antibodies. Those antibodies must have been killing the microbes you were passing to him before they had a chance to take up residence. Back then, scientists hadn’t yet discovered the benefits of breast milk. So it never occurred to Ulrich to remove that variable when assessing Kristian’s immune system while he was still living here. Cora, Kristian’s physiology may work the same way as yours.”
A warmth spread across Cora’s chest. Maybe I can have my son back, she thought. “Why didn’t Ulrich test the theory after he learned about the milk antibodies?”
“Because Ulrich loves Kristian too much to risk losing him if our theory is wrong.”
“What about infecting Kristian with something benign, like the common cold, while he’s here?”
He shook his head. “That won’t give us the data we’d need. Only the strongest of pathogens have ever been able to coexist with your immune system.”
Desperately searching for an alternative, she squeezed her temples.
“I know this is hard to hear, since I’m sure you still love him, but you need to believe me when I say you don’t want him staying at Riverside with you.”
It wasn’t Rollie’s decision to make. Before she could tell him that, the sound of gas escaping the canister on his back filled the cell, followed by the reek of chloroform.
“I wish I didn’t have to do this again, but I can’t have you following me.”
Her entire body began to tingle, except her heart. That felt like lead.
March 2008
March 21
ot. Finn smelled it before his eyes had finished sorting the light from the dark. He squinted against the blinding white that had breached the dank room through its only window. Where the hell was he? A wintry draft passed across his bare chest, not nearly as cold as the metal beneath him. Cursing, he moved to rub the spot but was stopped by a pair of plastic ties, each encircling a wrist and a rusted metal bar. He jerked his legs; they were restrained at the ankles.
Ignoring a spasm, he twisted his neck to inspect his surroundings. The decaying walls and floor were free of the pipes and machinery that had characterized the physical plant—the last place he’d been before . . . that blow to the head.
He listened for noises that would cue him into his location. Through the paneless window came the sounds of lapping water and shrieking herons. The room smelled of mildew and death. He must still be on North Brother, he decided, in one of the buildings along the river’s edge. Likely the morgue.
Finn recalled the rusty examining table he’d seen during his spine-chilling walk to the roof and feared that he was strapped to it. He tried to thrash free, but the cords held, stinging his wrists and ankles. Tucking his chin despite the misery in his neck, he tried to inspect his body but couldn’t see beyond his chest.
Already, deadly microbes might be coursing through his bloodstream. Panic, along with acid, rose in his throat.
He raised his head to sniff for the lingering presence of insect repellent on his skin. The pungent odor confirmed he still had some protection, but it couldn’t be much.
The drone of a boat’s engine intensified, then waned. No one in a motorized watercraft would hear a scream through these walls.
Where is Cora? Gritting his teeth through a pulsating headache, he flashed back to her crying in the other room, then silence. And the rush of air from a metal pipe.
Had she done this to him? Undeniably she was capable. And sufficiently angry. Her weepy reaction to Sylvia’s message could have been a ploy. Or a trigger.
Frantically, Finn inspected the cord binding his right wrist. It looked like something used in a psychiatric hospital, which Kristian easily could have procured. His brother could have also returned here on the first day feasible.
Alternatively, Cora could have stolen the ties from Kristian’s bag at some point over the years, adding them to her hoard of “resources.”
Aside from the rickety table beneath him and the rubble and dormant vines on the floor, the chamber contained only a metal cart against the far wall.
Squinting, Finn tried to discern the objects on its top shelf, which appeared sideways in his vision. The glinting of silver suggested medical instruments. Beside them rested a newspaper—quite possibly the New York Times that he’d just given her.
“Shit.”
With a disturbing premonition of what else she’d left there, he scrutinized the cart again. Beside the newspaper rested a test tube with a strip of orange near its stopper.
The ticks!
“Shit.”
Visualizing a dozen tiny arachnids crawling on him, sinking their mouth hooks into his flesh, he twisted his neck to inspect what he could see of his body—only his chest and shoulders, none of the warm, dark places ticks prefer.
Infecting him with the antibiotic-resistant strain of Borrelia burgdorferi would be fitting retribution for the sins of his family.
Pinned down, he was helpless and exposed—exactly the way she must have felt each time a member of his family had given her one of those scars.
Ten Minutes Later
esperate to escape, Finn yelled.
To combat the pounding in his injured temple he regained his composure by slowing his breathing. He listened for his aggressor.
A thwack sounded in the hallway and ricocheted. Finn snapped his attention to the interior door, his muscles tensing.
Cora wouldn’t have been so careless. Unless she didn’t care if he’d heard her.
The rusted, flaking door opened with an ear-splitting squeal, and a figure in a black biosafety suit rushed toward him.
Finn recognized his brother through the visor.
“Are you okay?” Kristian asked.
“How’d you know?” Finn responded, relieved that his brother hadn’t been the one who’d tied him down.
“I heard your scream.” With a gloved hand, Kristian pulled back Finn’s hair and peered closer. “That’s a nasty contusion on your parietal bone. You may be concussed.”
“Have you seen Cora? I think she’s planning to release those ticks on me.” He nodded his chin toward the cart. “If she hasn’t already,” he said and tried to look down at his body.
“I wouldn’t put it past her.” Kristian inspected Finn’s wrists, then his ankles. “Those lacerations will need to be treated.”
With one of her scalpels readied for an overhand throw, she could be aiming for his brother’s spine this very moment. Strapping Finn to this table might have been a stratagem to lure Kristian here for an easy kill. He craned his neck to see the doorway beyond Kristian’s bulky figure.
The space was empty, but she could be waiting on the far side of the wall.
“We need to get you to Dad’s clinic,” Kristian said.
“Where’s your kayak?”
“It’s with Lily’s in the mulberry grove.” “She’s here, too?” Finn asked, his stomach hardening.
Kristian folded his arms. “I’m sure she’ll have the same reaction to you being here.”
“She swore to me that she’d given up the idea.”
“You know her better than that.”
“Why would you help her?” Finn asked, suddenly aware of the goose bumps that had spread across his frigid, bare skin.
“She presented a very compelling case.” He shrugged. “I knew from the get-go that I would stay close to her.”
“Where’s she now?” Finn couldn’t let her see him like this.
“Safe in the tunnel.”
Finn winced. Rollie had refused to show it to him, yet Kristian had allowed his girlfriend access.
“It’s not what you think,” Kristian said, raising a hand. “Her suit ripped during our landing. She’s hunkered down, holding the g
ap closed, and probably freaking out that I’m not back yet with new gear.”
“Let’s get going then,” Finn said, rattling the cords for emphasis.
“Not quite yet,” Kristian said, ducking his head apologetically. “I’ll complete my work as quickly as possible; I don’t like her stuck down there any more than you do.”
Work? It was as if Finn had been sucker-punched. Kristian did this. Cora must be in danger, he thought. Lily, too.
“You tore her suit, didn’t you?”
Kristian drew in his breath. “I love her like a sister, even if she’ll never become one.”
Finn glared at him. “Get these cords off me.”
“She’s fine. There are no mosquitos down there, and we used bug spray.”
“What if she has a seizure?”
“The quicker I’m done with Cora, the less chance of that.”
Cora’s sudden silence, moments before the metal had met Finn’s head, likely meant that Kristian had tranquilized her, Finn reasoned through the throbbing in his temple. “Where is she?”
“Nearby, and prepped.”
Alarmed, Finn eyed the medical cart. “What’s under that newspaper?”
“You think I’m hiding something from you?” Kristian asked in an injured tone. “Why would I do that? I simply took her paper because the mutt doesn’t need to know what’s going on in the world. It’ll only increase her feelings of isolation, and the temptation to break her quarantine.”
“When did you become such an asshole?” Finn asked as he noticed the flask with red tape, signifying chloroform, beyond the one containing the ticks. Cora must have had the vials with her.
Kristian looked up, pretending to be lost in thought. “The day I read that it took three months for the Chinese government to disclose SARS to the public.” He clasped his gloved hands. “Or maybe it was the day we concluded that the IV antibiotics weren’t working for Mom.”
The Vines Page 33