“He is not a bomb.” She pushed up in the bed and swung her legs over to set her feet on the floor. “Or a dog on a leash or a— He’s Finn. He’s always Finn.”
As she tilted to one side, Zac set a hand on her shoulder and braced her up. “Hey.”
“If this is how you see him, we’ll go now. We can fend for ourselves just fine.”
She said it while leaning most of her weight into Zac’s support. He squeezed her shoulder. History rippled beneath her words.
“That’s not necessary,” Zac said, rather than point out how unfit either of them would be to drive right now. “Lie back, okay? You’re looking shaky.”
She gave in and shut her eyes. David’s jaw still looked like a stone carving, but he said nothing. Cady opened her eyes again, but her voice was fainter, and she remained limp against the pillows.
“It wasn’t an accident the bullet grazed you. He made sure there was a tree behind you to catch the slug. He only wanted to get away.”
David angled the right side of his head toward her. The white scar line through his black hair was the width of a pencil lead. “Quite the risk.”
“It was a broad tree, he told me.”
A furrow dug between David’s eyes.
“He’s a crack shot, David. There was no risk. I’m sorry for the scar, though.”
“There was no reason to assault me in any way.”
“You had him cornered.”
“In the middle of a public parking lot?”
“The place wouldn’t have mattered.”
“He was the one to approach—hurling accusations and threats, I might add.”
“He told me.”
“Did he also tell you he panicked for no ascertainable reason, that I did naught to threaten him?”
“Yes, he did.”
They studied each other so long, they seemed to forget Zac’s presence. At last David settled in the desk chair, and even the air around them seemed to ease.
“What is it you’re asking of me?”
“That you judge him on more than one incident.”
A month ago Zac would have been making the same case to David. He knew better now. But how many incidents, how many years, were needed to know a man?
“He believes you’re dying,” David said.
She sighed. “I’m not. But you have to understand, we didn’t think Sean and Holly were dying either. And then I got … well, lost … in the memories. Does it happen to you all, when you’re going through this—the memory fog?”
They both nodded. Cady seemed to absorb this, to grip it as a safety line or maybe a connection between them. And in Zac’s dense brain, something clicked. He wasn’t intimidated by David’s scowl and grilling, but she was.
They were strangers. They were male. They were healthy and strong. And she was lying on a bed looking like a bad Halloween makeup job, too weak to stand up, outnumbered, not knowing what kind of men stood staring down at her.
For all that, she defended Finn and betrayed not one wit of trepidation. Wow.
Zac crossed the room to the chair in the corner. Give her space. Help her feel safe. Weariness was pressing her to the bed like a flower petal to a scrapbook page. She sighed, and the age spots seemed to darken as her pallor sharpened.
“Shall we leave you to rest?” David’s voice softened, chivalry reasserting itself.
About time, man.
“Actually, I’d like to keep talking.” She gave a small smile. “Sorry it’s in this condition.”
“We call it rejuvenation,” Zac said.
“I like that. We don’t really have a name for it.”
He wished Simon were here, able to offer her a transfusion of type-O blood that would refresh her body within a few minutes. But Simon was in Florida living his lab tech life.
“I do have a question, if you’re up to it,” Zac said, and she nodded. “Last time we saw him, Finn was convinced we’d caused your friends to age. Now he brings you here to stop your aging. Something must have changed his mind.”
Her mouth crimped. “I guess he decided to listen to me. I told him the serum in Sean and Holly aged out, and you had nothing to do with it.”
“He said you’re the only ones left.”
“What?” She shook her head. “James and Anna—we’ve been worried. They’ve been out of touch.”
“Finn said there used to be others, but now there’s only you two.”
“You misunderstood him,” she said. “They went somewhere and don’t realize they have no cell service. Or something.”
“How long since you heard from them?”
“If this is Saturday, then … eight days.”
“Ah.” Hardly long enough to assume catastrophe. Maybe that was another facet of Finn’s injury.
“But I texted Anna five days ago, and she doesn’t ignore my texts. Not for days, that’s not Anna. And when I called, I got her voice mail immediately. Like her phone’s turned off or dead.”
“Maybe they’re in some trouble,” Zac said.
“I hope not.” Her eyelids sank again. She rested against the pillows with the stillness of one who might be dying. If Cady could die.
David was nodding, no doubt adding to his mental case file. But Zac’s brain had latched onto one fact and was chewing it now, down to the bone. If James and Anna had died, Finn and Cady were alone among the mortals unless Zac and David—and Simon, if the man could be bothered, and Moira, if anyone ever heard from her again—accepted them.
“There were six of you originally?”
Cady nodded. “Me. Finn. Sean and Holly. James and Anna.”
One more than their own group had been, while Colm still lived. He imagined interactions, personalities and history melding. Maybe they’d even found love, given the way Cady spoke their names in pairs without a thought.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “About Holly and Sean.”
“Thank you.” Her voice had hushed.
“Where are you from? I hear the slightest drawl.”
She smiled. “Originally Oklahoma Territory, all six of us. But Missouri these days. Warrenton, a suburb outside St. Louis. James and Anna live there as well. Holly and Sean had been in Southern California for about four years.”
Zac’s own group had done that a few times—the four of them, before David. Lived in easy driving distance. The last time they’d moved away from one another had been the late 1970s. Could Simon be persuaded to move up here, or David to move to Florida? Probably not.
Cady pushed up on the pillows. “I wish Finn hadn’t taken me away from home with them out of touch, but maybe it’s for the best. It’ll prove to him you’re not cold-blooded, better than your online presence could do.”
Zac sat forward. “He’s, what, following my hashtags?”
“He thought we should monitor your whereabouts as long as there was a possibility you were behind … whatever happened. You haven’t made it easy since you moved here, but he wouldn’t give up.”
Hiding away had been part of the point of moving. Zac’s haunts in Denver were well known, though most people respected his space. It had never been an issue before the fall at Marble Canyon. Weird how a daredevil’s failure made him a household name more quickly than safety and success could ever do.
David scrubbed a hand over the back of his head. “So he didn’t come to Michigan to mete out justice.”
“Of course not.”
“But there is a chance the deaths by aging were unnatural?”
“By unnatural you mean murder.”
“Aye, of course.” They were the most relaxed words David had spoken since spotting Finn’s car. They slipped out unconsciously, and the r rolled a bit.
For the first time a hint of strain showed. Cady’s lips pressed tight, and a tremor ran over her. She stared past him and whimpered.
“Cady?” he said.
“Where is he?”
A shiver ran down Zac’s spine. She wasn’t speaking to him.
“Cady.
” David leaned toward her. When she flinched away, he straightened. “You’re in Harbor Vale, Michigan. It’s the twenty-first century.”
“He’s dead.” A whisper. Her hands clenched at her sides. “They’ve killed him.”
FIVE
Zac got up and sat at the bedside, eye level with her, nonthreatening. “No, Cady. No one here has killed anybody.”
Nowhere near the truth.
A tear squeezed from one eye as she shut them tight. “Oh no. What have they done?”
Zac reached for her age-spotted hand and slipped his fingers into hers. She latched on like a baby. Another tear fell.
“It’ll pass,” David said quietly, a reverence in him for the sacredness of a memory so old.
Which was crap. Remembering was hurting her. “Cady, if you can hear me, it’s Zac Wilson. Everyone’s okay.”
“God help him.” A quiet sob hitched in her chest.
He encased her clenched hand in both of his. “He’s okay, Cady. He’s okay.”
She opened her eyes, and tears stood in them, magnifying their green depths and the hazel specks near their pupils. He wanted to wipe away the final tear that tracked down her cheek, passing over a small age spot, or a large freckle. She blinked at him.
“Zac.”
“Hey, that’s right. Are you back?”
“Finn?” She nearly crushed his hand.
“He’s okay.”
“Right. Of course.” She gave a slow blink that seemed to force away the last of the memory, but her grip remained strong. “And we were talking about …”
“We don’t have to go into it now.”
Cady dug her fingers into her hair, mussing her braid and seeming not to notice. “It has to be the serum. The days of the Elderfolk are ending naturally. I knew we would someday.”
“Elderfolk?” Zac said.
“Well, what do you call us?”
“Longevites.”
Judgment pursed her lips, which for some reason brought heat to his cheeks.
“We’re not something from Tolkien,” he said.
“We’re not something from the Red Cross disease handbook, either.”
He laughed. Maybe inappropriate right now, but it burst out of him sounding like … himself. Not like the barking cynic whose best friend had been killing people.
“James and Anna,” he said. “Is it possible they were taken?”
“For what, a ransom?” Her arms opened from her sides. “We’re living obscurely. And I can’t imagine there’s a government conspiracy to nab us.”
Zac shrugged. “For the sake of exploring options … maybe there’s been an alien abduction, point-zero-zero-two percent of the population.”
David cocked an eyebrow at him.
“I’m only half serious.”
“That’s not a reassuring percentage.”
“Maybe it’s the Rapture. No, forget that.” He jabbed a finger at David. “You wouldn’t still be here.”
His friend crossed his arms. Zac almost grinned.
“Let’s for a moment rule out science fiction and the end times,” David said.
“We are science fiction, man.”
“It isn’t any of that,” Cady said quietly. “Either they’re all right, just uncharacteristically thoughtless, or … well, or their time ran out too.”
Zac touched her shoulder. “We’ll help you find out. Nothing more to talk about, okay?”
David’s sharp glance said there was plenty more. Zac shook his head. Later. Already Cady was sinking down on the pillows, eyes closing.
“You sleep for now,” Zac said.
“I don’t think I have a choice.” She sighed. “I’m sorry Finn pushed us on you like this.”
“No worries. Just rest.”
She didn’t respond.
Zac followed David from the room and braced himself for whatever the man was going to volley at him. David stalked through the dark living room, and Zac followed. Finn was silent, maybe sleeping as they passed the couch he lay on. David kept going, all the way to the garage. He moved to let the door slam, but Zac caught it on its hinges and shut it gently. David frowned.
“Migraine care 101,” Zac said. “Light, sound, smell.”
“Ah. Right.” David leaned his shoulders against the garage wall.
“Well?”
“I don’t think she’s lying,” David said.
Zac blinked. “Is that all you got out of what just happened?”
A deeper scowl. “It’s what I need to determine before the rest means anything.”
“They’re wrecked, man. Detective Galloway can step off for a few hours, at least.”
“What’s this discrepancy in their stories? Cady believes the missing two are alive, but Finn clearly thinks they’re—”
“Agh, David, stop.”
Zac’s throat was too tight to swallow; his chest throbbed with pressure. He stood in the chill damp of the garage and it rolled over and through him, all of it. Finn’s fear that produced aggression. Cady’s grief for lost ones, submerged in her concern for those still living, both reactions flowing strong and ocean-deep. She loved her friends.
“Hey,” David said after a moment.
“They’re hurting. Give them a minute to hurt.”
With a sigh the man pushed away from the wall and sat on the stoop, long legs folding his knees almost to chin level. “Aye, you’re right.”
Zac rubbed his knuckles against his chest and looked around the garage. These walls, this house, the revelations it had held less than a month ago, the distress of strangers it held now—strangers who were kin nevertheless—he hit the door opener and strode into the night.
David followed. “Zac?”
Down the sidewalk, shivering without his jacket, hands thrust into the pockets of his jeans, shoulders hunched. As he walked, the pressure on his throat and chest lessened.
“I felt it,” he said.
“Felt what?”
“What they’re going through. It’s sort of a thing with me.”
“Empathy.”
“Moira calls it an extra portion. Simon calls it oversensitive foolishness.” Colm had called it a creepy talent and joked about its potential uses.
After a few minutes of wordless walking, somebody had to say something, so Zac did. “I know what you’re going to do.”
“Oh?” David glanced at him as they passed under a streetlight.
“You’re going to pull a Marshal Dillon on them.”
A chuckle. “I’m what?”
“This is your town. They have until noon to get out of Dodge.”
Now the glance was sharp.
“Not in those words maybe,” Zac said. “But they do make it crowded, in terms of longevite population.”
“They’ve as much right to stay here as any mortal.”
Zac stopped walking and looked out on the street for a minute. David did the same.
“Something isn’t right,” Zac said.
He wanted them to be trustworthy. The same thing he’d wanted of David when he first laid eyes on the man. The thing he would always want from a fellow longevite. He shook his head to dispel the sensation of Colm sneering at him. From hell.
They’d meet there someday, no doubt.
David turned to study him. “You think someone’s lying?”
“No. They’re both telling us what they know. Or what they think they know.”
“So one of them is mistaken.”
“And until we know which one, we won’t know the true threat. If there is one.”
David ran his finger along the scar at his temple. “We’d best keep them near until the questions are answered.”
“Agreed.” At least that long. Zac wouldn’t turn them away in any case. Not family.
“Simon’s been hoping to track Finn. I suppose I’ll update him.”
“Good idea.” Zac turned and headed back for the house.
Walking beside him, David said, “Tomorrow they get a hotel.”
Zac laughed, and the heaviness on him receded, like a tide washing out that would wash in again at some future time.
Back at his apartment, he noticed an email notification on his phone. His pulse notched up. It might be Moira. He’d tried every address he’d ever known her to have to no avail, but maybe tonight she would reply. He tapped his way to the app, hoping for one particular subject line—re: talk to me?
It wasn’t her, but his mouth tugged upward anyway. Lucas. He tapped again to bring up the message.
Zac,
So I read it. It’s not perfect, but you were mostly right. It was good. I can’t believe I made it through a book from the ’60s. It’s weird that things were like that when my grandpa was my age. I mean, yeah, he’s old, but I guess he really is OLD.
He chuckled. “Thanks, kid.”
I got to the last line and had to double check if that was the first line too. And it was, which is cool. I could tell a girl wrote it. Sorry, but guys don’t talk about Gone with the Wind like that. And the poem. Except I actually liked the poem.
I watched your Warrior USA episode again and how you look like a ninja climbing the rock wall. I let it play while I did my arm and leg weights. Not really heavy, but I have to do something or they’ll turn into jelly and I’ll never be able to climb a rock wall.
I wanted to ask you something serious. Sometimes I imagine the tightrope fall, the way you were just walking up there, not going to die at all, and then death was coming at you so fast.
His mouth dried. Death came up too often with Lucas.
I want to know if you were ready. Or if you even had time to be. Or if you had time for thoughts about what would make you ready.
The kid was okay. He wouldn’t be weight training otherwise.
And then when the angel talked to you and caught you up.
I want to know how that felt.
Later,
Lucas
P.S. Any other old books I should read?
Zac set down the phone and fetched his laptop from the bedroom. Their email correspondence went to his dad Nate’s account. If Lucas had his own address, Zac didn’t know it. He settled on the couch and began to type.
Hey Lucas,
From Sky to Sky Page 5