“What’s not what I think, Amy? What do you mean?”
“This. You. Me. Everything. We need to find Abernathy. It’s—”
Amy’s head snapped back at the same time a crack pierced the air. Even as her body slumped against the car and another shot cracked like thunder, Peter was on his knees, then his stomach.
Amy’s body collapsed next to him.
The woman had fallen asleep holding her daughter in her arms, stroking her hair, wishing with every ounce of strength and faith left in her that their circumstance would change. Someway. Somehow.
But her daughter’s soft voice, like the muted babbling of a stream in a dense forest, murmuring something incoherent, had awakened her. She put her nose to the girl’s hair and drew in a long breath.
Again her daughter mumbled, her voice as soft and gentle as the whisperings of wind through the slender branches of a willow. This time the woman caught the word Daddy. She kissed her precious girl on the head even as a lump formed in her throat.
Her daughter stirred, exhaled, lifted her head. There was sleep in her eyes, a glassy faraway gaze that focused on nothing. “Mommy?”
“Shh. It’s okay, baby. You’re all right. Go back to sleep.”
“Mommy, I fell asleep.”
The woman ran her hand over her daughter’s hair. “I know. You sleep now. Get your rest.”
But instead her girl pushed herself to a sitting position and rubbed her eyes. She looked around the room as if it were her first time seeing it, and the woman couldn’t tell if she was awake or still asleep.
The woman put her hand on her daughter’s cheek. “Sweetie, are you awake?”
The girl’s gaze shifted quickly to the woman and made perfect contact. Clarity filled her eyes now. “Yes. I’m awake. I was dreaming of Daddy.”
“I know.”
“Was I talking in my sleep again?”
“You were, yes.”
Her daughter was quiet for a moment, thinking. She thought a lot. The woman would often notice her just sitting and staring and when asked what she was doing, she’d respond that she was thinking. But rarely did she reveal the details of what she thought about.
“Mommy,” her sweet girl said, inching closer and putting her head on her mother’s shoulder. “Do you think Daddy knows where we are? Do you think he’s coming for us?”
Tears stung the woman’s eyes, and her throat swelled. She sniffed and swallowed past the lump. “I think he’s doing everything he can to be with his family again.”
At first the girl had believed her father was dead when the men told them he was, that he had died a hero’s death and had been given a hero’s burial overseas. They said the woman and her daughter should be proud, that he had served his country valiantly and would want them to do the same. But as time passed, her daughter grew more and more resolute that her daddy was not, in fact, dead but was very much alive and searching for them. The woman never corrected her daughter, never argued the point, never dashed her hope. Hope was all they had left in this place, and to take that away from her daughter would be cruel and senseless.
The fact was, though, that the woman couldn’t trust the men who fed her the information. There were two of them; they’d come in suits and neatly combed hair. Their faces showed remorse but their eyes betrayed them. They had the eyes of wolves, hungry for power, hungry for dominance. And why should she trust them anyway? These were the same men who experimented on her daughter, who did things to her she would not even speak of. They said her husband was dead, but they very well could have lied.
In fact, she told herself often that they had lied. That her husband was still alive. That even now he was on his way to find them and rescue them. But in her heart, in the silence that resided there when her daughter was gone and she was alone with torturous thoughts, she questioned her own hope and whether it was misplaced, whether it was nonsense and only wishful thinking. The deluded optimism of a grieving and frightened wife.
Primarily, the doubt came when she was alone and felt nothing. Oh, she tried. She tried to feel, to sense that he was still alive. A wife would know, wouldn’t she? Shouldn’t she? But she didn’t. She felt nothing. Was that what it felt like when your husband was dead? Nothing?
Her daughter’s body grew heavy against her shoulder. She was asleep again. She laid the girl down on the bed and stroked her hair, kissed her on the cheek. Then she sat on the bed next to her and offered a whispered prayer to heaven. “God, please let him still be alive.”
“He is,” her daughter whispered back.
The woman patted the girl’s head. “Shh. Go back to sleep now.”
With no time to think or plan or even check for Amy’s pulse, Peter rolled to the edge of the road, then scurried into the woods, taking cover behind a stand of serviceberries. The shot had come from across the road. A fourth gunman must have slipped from the wreckage as unnoticed as any ghoul and taken refuge behind the veil of darkness.
Quietly Peter stood and moved from tree to tree toward the back of the Tahoe. The taillights illuminated the area in a bloody glow. He remained in the woods, hidden in darkness, and moved with the stealth of a cat.
When he was thirty feet behind the wreckage, Peter stepped out of the woods, crouched at the knees and waist, and scanned the area. He checked the woods along both sides of the road, looking for anything that didn’t belong, any shadow out of place, any glint of metal. But the darkness was too oppressive. The trees seemed to swallow up any light from the starry sky, and the residual illumination from the vehicles only made it to the edges of the road, lighting the first line of trees and underbrush. Beyond that, deep darkness resided and somewhere in there, the man who had shot Amy.
Still crouched and moving silently, Peter took two, three steps toward the wreckage, then stopped and listened. Without the luxury of light, both he and the gunman would have to rely on their other senses. Hidden by the darkness, they could move about almost freely, but any sound—the scuff of shoes on the asphalt, the crackle of a leaf, the snap of a twig—would give away their location. Peter only hoped his own hearing was better than his rival’s.
When he started moving again, Peter sidestepped across the road to the far shoulder. And there he waited. Minutes passed, and with each tick of the clock, Peter grew more anxious. It was another minute wasted, another minute that Amy could be clinging to her last strands of life. He had to do something.
In desperation, Peter decided to expose himself, to make himself the bait needed to catch that elusive last fish. Launching himself from the roadside like a man dashing through six lanes of rush-hour traffic, he sprinted across the asphalt toward the wreckage, keeping his eyes on the dark woods to his left where he presumed the gunman to be. The crack of gunfire sounded and with it a muzzle flash. Still running, Peter aimed his weapon and fired at where the muzzle flash had been, then two more shots to the right of the flash. He was taking a chance, assuming the gunman was right-handed and, after firing once, would quickly move to his right.
He assumed correctly. A grunt came from the darkness, followed by a complicated rustle of leaves. Another flash, and a bullet whizzed by Peter’s head. Slowing, he fired twice more, each shot a little to the right of where the flash had been. Another grunt, more rustling of leaves, branches snapping, then a heavy thud.
All was quiet, but Peter had to make sure. He rushed to the tree line, staying low and ready, his heart doing double time, every sense on alert. From there he moved from tree to tree until he reached the area where the last flash was seen.
There he found the gunman, not breathing, no pulse.
In a near panic, Peter returned to Amy and felt for her neck. “C’mon, Amy, be here.”
He couldn’t find a pulse. “C’mon. C’mon.”
Still nothing. She was gone.
Peter wanted to grieve; he wanted to sit by Amy’s side and not move; he wanted to stay with her until . . . until what? Until his pursuers showed up and apologized for having no idea thin
gs would get so out of hand and people would lose their lives? Until they suggested a truce and a round of hugs?
He had to get out of there. It was a public road, and though it was in a remote area and no doubt saw very little traffic this time of night, there was always the chance that some unsuspecting traveler on his way home from work or en route to a night of poker playing with his buddies would stumble upon the collision and find Peter there with five dead bodies.
It took him less than fifteen minutes to change the tire on the Tahoe. It was in bad shape, but hopefully the vehicle could get him far enough to find a new one—one without a tracking device. He gleaned everything he could use from the four dead gunmen and their SUV: two automatic rifles, four handguns, and a dozen magazines.
Leaving everything else exactly as it was, Peter touched Amy’s shoulder, said again that he was sorry, then jumped into the Tahoe and headed off. He had to find a new vehicle and get back on track to Centralia. Tomorrow would bring a new set of challenges.
Lawrence Habit was a patient man, but he hadn’t started out that way. As a young man, he was as impulsive and stupid as a monkey in a mall. He functioned primarily on instinct and reactions. He did what he wanted, when he wanted, where he wanted and simply walked over anyone who opposed him or got in his way. But the military had drilled that out of him. He’d learned discipline, honor, the importance of planning, and respect. And his time with Patrick had taught him patience.
Now that patience would be tested. He’d arrived at his destination an hour ago, concealed his vehicle under a blanket of heavy brush, and settled in for a long wait. From where he sat in the driver’s seat, he could see the incoming road and any traffic on it.
It would be a sleepless night. He was fairly certain Patrick wouldn’t arrive until daybreak, but he didn’t want to take any chance of missing an early arrival. He knew the agency had dispatched another team to take care of Patrick. It was simply their way of dealing with problems. But he also knew that team had failed as well.
Because he knew Patrick.
He admired Patrick, respected him. The world needed more men like him. The deal to bring him in had been business and nothing more. But now that the deal was off and Lawrence had become a target himself—a target for discontinuation—the two shared a bond. Lawrence could use that bond to his advantage.
The agency would be coming for Lawrence, so he needed to get to them first and destroy them. But he couldn’t do it without Patrick. The man possessed skills that Lawrence had never seen before. His ability to stay calm under the most stressful situations was remarkable. And his aim was dead-on. The man simply didn’t miss. He was, in every aspect of the term, the perfect soldier. Tough, resilient, flexible, loyal, intelligent, he was the complete package. Even outside the war zone, outside that valley of death, he’d proven to be all those things. The memory hit Lawrence again, the one he’d kept buried for too long. Not because he didn’t want to remember it, but because he thought it no longer held any relevance; he’d thought he’d never see Patrick again.
Patrick had talked him down off that ledge, convinced him to pull the handgun away from his head and lay it on the bed. The apartment was quiet, empty; the only thing to fill it was Patrick’s voice over the phone. It was the voice of reason, of truth, of hope. He’d proven that day that he wasn’t only a loyal soldier; he was just as much a loyal friend.
Lawrence had thought Patrick was dead, that he’d been discontinued.
Sipping a cold coffee, watching the empty road, Lawrence smiled. It’d be just like old times.
He was in the house again. The same one as always. He never got a look at the exterior but could tell from the layout and architectural details that it was an old home. The decorative molding around the windows and doors, the hardwood flooring, the large double-hung windows, the archways between rooms, the ornate brass chandelier in the foyer area.
There wasn’t much on the first floor. The rooms were mostly empty with only a few stray items of furniture: an oak straight-back chair with a caned seat in the dining room, a cherry pedestal table in the living room, an old toaster on the granite counter in the kitchen. But each room had a feeling about it that it was waiting for something, waiting to be filled with objects, with furniture, with memories. He’d been through the first floor multiple times, searched each room as if it were a rare archaeological find and he a treasure hunter. And every time he’d found nothing but dust and splinters and a couple loose nails. And that persistent feeling of expectancy, of waiting, of longing.
The real intrigue, though, for Peter, was always the second floor.
Up the staircase he plodded, the aged wood of the steps creaking under his weight, a curious excitement building in his chest. The closer to the top he drew, the harder and more rapid his heartbeat.
Just like always.
And as always, he expected to find something up there, something of value or a piece of important evidence, anything that would trigger more memories, clear the fog, and clue him in to what was going on.
The sensation he experienced in this house was like none he’d ever had before. He was dreaming and yet he knew he was dreaming and was in a kind of semiconscious state. Yet he was fully asleep. It was a dream like any other dream he’d had at any other time in his life, but he could think, he could reason, he was aware of where he was and what he was doing. He was in control and not at the whim of the irrational side of his subconsciousness.
Once he reached the top of the steps, he rested his hand on the banister and surveyed the hallway. Four rooms lined one side, three with their doors open as if inviting him in. But that last door, the fourth one, remained closed, warning him away.
He needed to do a more thorough search of each of the open rooms. He hoped that in them he’d find clues, signs to point him to even more clues, and puzzle pieces. This was where he needed to focus his efforts, not on discovering the source of the longing on the first floor, not on finding the key to the locked door and exposing the source of the shadow. These rooms, the ones open to him, begging him to explore, to find, to remember, were where he’d find his answers.
The first room consisted of a dresser, a bookshelf, a desk, and a floor lamp. No bed. No closet. No mirrors. And there were boxes of all sizes. Shoe boxes, gift boxes, trunks, lockboxes . . . all stacked and arranged in a haphazard manner. On and around the boxes were objects from Peter’s past—mementos, photos of times he didn’t remember, toys he had no recollection of ever playing with yet knew were his. There was his baseball glove, worn and flimsy though he couldn’t remember using it, not even once. He picked it up and slipped his hand into it. The glove was too small now, but still it felt right, like he’d worn it for hundreds of hours and caught thousands of balls with it. Why couldn’t he remember ever playing baseball?
Peter walked to the dresser and pulled open the top drawer. It was stuffed with underwear and socks, nothing out of the ordinary. In the second drawer he found shirts, ties, sweaters. The third drawer held pants, mostly khakis. No jeans or shorts. In the bottom drawer were four lab coats, white, mid-thigh length. Over the left breast of each was stitched Peter Ryan, Biology.
Peter pulled out one of the coats, unfolded it, and tried it on. He wore one just like it when he worked in the lab. He slipped out of the coat and let it fall back into the drawer without bothering to refold it.
The bookshelf reached from floor to ceiling and consisted of seven shelves, all stuffed full of books, mostly biology texts and reference books. One shelf was reserved for journals and another for a variety of other books, ranging from classics—Jack London, Edgar Allan Poe, Dickens, Austen, and Henry James—to biographies. On the end, separated from the other books as if it were something too precious to be in the presence of other texts, was a book that caught his eye: a Bible.
Sliding the Bible off the shelf, he cracked open its faded leather cover. On the first page was the handwritten inscription: May these words always be a lamp to your feet and a light to y
our path. Love, Mom and Dad.
Mom and Dad. He thought it odd that he had no memory of his parents. No real memory, anyway. Nothing specific, nothing that made them any different from every other mom and dad out there. It was as though he’d been raised in some television life, where everything was scripted and stereotyped and nauseatingly typical but nothing was real.
Peter flipped through the thin, crisp pages and landed in the book of John. He scanned the page and finally came to rest on some familiar words, comforting words. Words he’d read before. Words that at one time had meaning to him. His eyes lingered on those words, drew them in as a mother welcomes her newborn, the child she feels she’s known all her life but has only just met. He lifted a hand and ran his fingers over each word. The feeling he had when reading them was incredible. Such peace. Such hope.
And then it vanished as quickly as a mist is dispelled by the wind.
He returned the Bible and moved to the desk on the other side of the room. It was a wide, thick partners desk made of oak. The top surface was as wide and deep as a dining room table and littered with papers and photos and forms and receipts. It was an exact replica of his desk at home in his study.
On the left side of the desk was a notepad, one of those small steno pads detectives and reporters used to jot down phone numbers and important information. Peter reached for it and opened it. A phone number was on the first page, written by Peter’s hand. He didn’t recognize the number, but the name under it—Nichols—was oddly familiar. He knew it from somewhere but couldn’t place where; he’d said that name before, used it in conversation, used it to address a man of some stature. But no specific memories were attached to it, only a distant familiarity. Peter closed the pad and placed it back on the desk. He needed to remember that name when he woke up.
On the right corner of the desktop, a brochure attracted his attention. A photo of a school and a smiling boy standing with his parents adorned the cover. Across the top in a scrolling font, it read The Andrews Academy.
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