“Yes!” I punched a fist in the air and danced around as much as anyone can in a bathroom. Thrilled that Dan was finally getting the picture, I waited for him to take that final leap of faith that would tell me that at last, I had an ally.
“If Pepper isn’t Pepper . . .” He spoke slowly, like even he couldn’t believe what was coming out of his mouth, and I leaned forward and held my breath. “If she’s not Pepper. If she’s Maddy . . .”
He swallowed so hard, his Adam’s apple jumped. Grabbing another towel, he scrubbed it over his hair, tossed it aside, and walked out of the bathroom.
Anxious to have a front row seat for the big scene of our little drama, I followed. That meant I was right behind him when he quietly walked up behind Madeline. She was so busy clicking her way around a website devoted to job openings for psychologists, she was oblivious.
And Dan?
Dan watched her for a minute, then carefully backed out of the room and went into the bedroom. Stunned, he sat down on the bed.
“Somehow things got changed around and . . .”
I nodded some more and smiled, too, as if it could encourage him to finish.
“Pepper is really Maddy.” He stood and looked out toward the dining room, and for the first time since I’d written that message on the mirror and he’d read it, the expression on his face changed.
No more shock.
No more confusion.
Oh no, that would have been too easy, and way simpler to accept than the smile as big as all of Chicago that split his face when Dan said, “I finally have my wife back!”
19
“Hey, you’re not getting discouraged, are you?” I had a feeling Ernie would have put a comforting hand on my shoulder if he felt we knew each other well enough, and who knows, maybe I would have appreciated it. The way it was, I wasn’t exactly in the mood for consolation.
“Discouraged? Why should I be?” Oh yeah, that was my voice, all right. The one that sounded cynical. Not to mention bitter. “The man who said he was going to bed with me because he liked me has just realized he’s got his wife back and he’s so happy about it, I doubt if he’ll ever even think of me again. And hey, what about . . . ?” I’d been so busy feeling sorry for myself, that when this new thought hit, it took my breath away.
“What about my mom and dad? Maybe they won’t know she’s not me, and maybe they won’t care. And Quinn?” I didn’t like the picture that formed inside my head. The image of Madeline taking my place in bed next to Quinn. “Maybe he won’t notice, either. Maybe he won’t give a damn. Maybe nobody does.”
Was it right to take my bad mood out on Ernie? Probably not. Which is why I felt lousy about it instantly.
“Sorry.” I’d been pacing at the mouth of the alley outside the clinic and I stopped near him. “It’s just that—”
“No apologies necessary.” He waved away my words. “I understand. You thought you had one chance to set things right and now—”
“What am I going to do?” My shoulders slumped. My eyes filled with tears. “You should have seen the look on his face, Ernie. Happy doesn’t begin to describe what Dan’s feeling. This is what he’s been wanting for three long years. It’s what he’s been praying for and working for. And it was impossible. I mean, it should have been, right? Madeline was dead and that should have been that, right? And there’s no way Dan should have been able to have another chance at being with her. But it happened, anyway. And now . . . hell, I’ll bet he doesn’t even care how it happened. He doesn’t care about me. Why should he? Why should anyone?”
“I do.” Ernie wasn’t looking for thanks, so I didn’t give him any, even though these simple words of friendship meant more than I could say. “There’s got to be something more you can do.”
“I dunno.” I shrugged. “I’ve tried to think, but it’s getting me nowhere.”
“Then let me try.” Ernie did just that, his brows low, his mouth thinned. “What are they doing tonight? You know, Dan and that Madeline woman?”
Was my snort as monumental as I feared? I didn’t much care, and from the way he snickered, I could tell Ernie didn’t, either. “Now that Dan knows his precious Madeline is back, they’ll probably never get out of bed.”
“Is that where they were? I mean, when you left that condo and came back here?”
Thinking back to the scene in the Lincoln Park condo, I shivered. “I didn’t wait to find out,” I admitted. “I’d already seen enough. I mean, there I was, invisible, and there wasn’t a thing I could do but stand there and watch the way Dan thought through everything that was happening, Madeline’s weird reactions to everything, my message on the mirror. I knew the very moment he realized what was really going on. I saw the way his eyes lit. After that . . .” I didn’t know I was crying until I had to sniff away my tears. “He’s never going to help me. Not now that his dream has come true and he’s got his precious Madeline back. Why would he?”
“Maybe because he’s a good man?”
Another sniff. At least my tears weren’t turning to ice in the frosty wind. “I thought he was.”
“Then give him another chance.”
“But—”
When Ernie looked me in the eye, he stopped my protest. “You’ve got to believe. Remember? You’ve got to—What is it?” When he saw that something had caught my eye, he turned to look over his shoulder toward the street.
And he saw just what I saw: Madeline got out of a cab, told it to wait, and walked toward the clinic.
“What’s she doing here?” he asked. “It’s the middle of the night.”
I didn’t know for sure, but I found out when a familiar-looking guy stepped out of the shadows and into the light thrown by the security lamp above the front door. Baseball cap, spiky hair, dirty Army jacket. I’d recognize Mr. Homeless FBI Agent anywhere.
I also couldn’t fail to notice a big, fat noncoincidence when I saw one up close and personal.
“I’ll be right back,” I told Ernie, and OK, so I’ve bellyached about it plenty, but being invisible is good for something. I hurried over and joined in the meeting taking place just outside the illumination thrown by the security light.
“I was surprised when you called, Miss Martin.” I was shoulder to shoulder with the FBI agent when he stepped forward and shook Madeline’s hand. “Last time we talked, I didn’t get the impression you wanted to help.”
“Last time we talked . . .” I could practically see the wheels spinning inside Madeline’s head.
“You remember,” I told her, and it was too bad she couldn’t hear me, because my words dripped with sarcasm. “The day that shadow chased me. And then I bumped into this guy. That day I went over to—”
“Graceland Cemetery! Yes, of course.” I remembered too late that Madeline had been there. Damn it, she was able to recover and go on. “I hope you’ll forgive me, Agent . . .”
“Baskins. Scott Baskins.” He supplied the name along with a curt nod. “I’m just surprised, that’s all. What made you change your mind?”
“Oh, this and that.” Madeline giggled the way I never would have. “It’s so easy for a girl like me to get all mixed up. I mean, thinking straight, well, it’s not something I always do well. But when I finally had the chance to think about everything that was happening . . .” She lifted her chin. “I hope you understand, I just want to do the right thing.”
“Right thing?” I stepped closer and spoke the question like a challenge. More than anything (well, just about anything, not including getting my body back), I wanted to pin her down on this. “Right thing about what?”
“So you’re willing to talk? About Doctor Gerard?”
She nodded. “I’ve got some information about the finances here at the clinic. I can supply all the facts and figures to support what I say. I think you’ll be surprised to see where some of the fundraising money is going.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that.” Agent Baskins rocked back on the heels of his beat-up sneakers. “We
have our suspicions about Doctor Gerard. Have had for years. But if you’ve got the proof you say you have . . .”
“I do.” Madeline stepped forward. “I’ve got more than that. I’ve got everything to prove that Dan Callahan is involved in the fraud, too.”
“What?”
Maybe I wasn’t as faded as I thought I was. Madeline might not have been able to hear me when I screeched the single, disbelieving word, but she twitched. Like she could feel the anger that oozed from my every pore.
“You bitch!” I screamed. “You told me back in Winnetka that you’d made up all that stuff about Dan being in on Doctor Gerard’s shady scheme. Now you’re going to lie to this guy and tell him it’s all true?”
“I’ll tell you everything,” Madeline said as if answering my outraged questions. “And I’ll provide all the proof you need.”
“Then we need to talk again.” Madeline stepped toward her cab, and Agent Baskins stepped back into the shadows. “Tomorrow?” he asked. “I’m around here all day, but it might be best if you come after dark. If you bring me that proof you talked about, our people can start going over the numbers.”
When the cab pulled away with Madeline in it, my mouth was still hanging open. That’s how Ernie found me.
“So she’s gonna turn him in, huh?” Ernie had been hovering in the background. He stepped forward and shook his head. “What are you going to do about it?”
“What can I do?” I pushed my hands into the pockets of my lab coat and started my pacing again. “Even if I could communicate with Dan the way I did back at the condo, I’m pretty much between a rock and a hard place. I mean, if I keep my mouth shut, he’s going to end up in prison.”
“And if you don’t?”
I sighed. “If I can find a way to tell him . . . if he believes me . . . then he’ll find out that Madeline is a no-good, rotten liar and that she never really loved him. And that would break his heart.”
He thought for a moment. “Seems to me there’s only one thing you can do.”
I’d already decided that. Which would explain why I was grumbling again. “What do you think?” I asked Ernie. “Think I can whoosh my way into a library?”
He nodded. “What are we going to investigate?” he asked.
“The names on that list I got from Sister Maggie, for one. And we’re going to need to steal a cell phone, too. One that can send text messages.”
“I’m in.” He stepped forward, and I knew he was coming with me, only before we went anywhere, I needed one more moment of reassurance.
“You don’t think . . .” I looked down at the shapeless skirt and the lab coat that wouldn’t have looked good on anybody, not even me back when I still had my own body. “I mean, you don’t think the part of her personality that’s good at research is kicking in, do you? That I’m actually starting to turn into her?”
Ernie laughed. But he never really answered.
It was not the reassurance I needed.
I may have been dressed like Madeline, but my brain wasn’t anywhere near as dorky. Once we were inside the nearest library, it took a while to figure out what we were looking for and then even longer to find the information. Ernie and I researched long into the next morning. By the time we were done, though, I at least had some ammunition. We’d found newspaper articles that mentioned a couple of the people on my list. Both were brief police blotter-type blurbs. Both said that acquaintances had reported the people missing, and both used the word homeless prominently. I had no illusions. I knew it was code for who cares anyway.
Still, I wasn’t discouraged. The articles confirmed what I knew, and with any luck, they’d provide the proof I needed.
Oh, not about how Madeline had stolen my body. Or even about how she was going to double-cross Dan.
Those were problems so huge, I couldn’t wrap my brain around them.
At that point, all I was worried about was Doctor Gerard, that crazy hospital of his, and all the brains in those jars.
If I could do something about that, if I could keep him from scooping up anybody else from the streets and using them to try and contact the Other Side...
Well, I wouldn’t exactly be happy, but at least I could say I’d accomplished something before I faded into oblivion.
By the time we were done and after all the energy I used looking through the library’s computer files, I was pretty whooped. But I couldn’t stop. Not yet. Like I’d actually done some purse snatching in the past, I cruised the library with an expert eye and found just the victim I was looking for as she was reading in the magazine section. She was young enough to understand technology and savvy enough (after all, she was wearing Armani, so she must have been) to keep up with the latest trends. I waited for her to get up and get a copy of the newest issue of Vogue and thanked my lucky stars that she didn’t take her purse with her. It was a boneheaded move on her part; anyone smart enough to wear Armani should have known that. But I wasn’t complaining. I slipped my hand into her Coach bag and came out with her iPhone.
“Done,” I said. Phone in hand, I zoomed past Ernie quickly, as if I might actually get caught. “Let’s get out of here.”
He was right behind me when I stepped back into the street. “And go where?” he asked.
I hung on to that iPhone for dear life because I didn’t want to lose it when we whooshed to wherever we were about to go. “There’s only one person who will believe any of what’s going on. Even if he doesn’t want to help me, he’ll want to help you. He’ll want to help everyone who’s been kidnapped and killed. You’re right, Ernie, he’s one of the good guys and I’ve got to trust him. That’s why we’re going back to see Dan.”
Just like I expected, the world tipped and we whizzed across town. Yeah, I was a little afraid I’d land next to the bed in that Lincoln Park condo. That’s why I squeezed my eyes shut and kept them that way, even after the world stopped whirring by. At least, that is, until I smelled the heavenly scent of morning coffee and the aroma of fresh-baked muffins.
When I opened my eyes, I grinned. I’d recognize the standard-issue decor anywhere. “Starbucks,” I told Ernie, and glanced around. Madeline was sitting at a table for two over near the windows, and Dan was headed her way with a tray.
Before he came into her line of vision, he paused for a moment, just standing there, looking at her as if she were a banquet—and he were the starving man who found himself with an unexpected invitation.
My stomach flipped, but I reminded myself I couldn’t lose heart. Not if I expected to help all the people who’d been killed by Hilton Gerard.
“She’s going to do you wrong,” I warned Dan, but of course, he couldn’t hear me. He shook himself out of his daydream and sat down.
He set the tray on the table, put down a plate of blueberry muffins, and slid a Grande Latte across to Madeline. “I’m surprised you didn’t get skim.”
She had been reading the front page of the Tribune and looked up as if she forgot she wasn’t alone. “Skim? Milk?” She wrinkled her nose and gave her coffee a quizzical look. “Do I usually?”
His smile was a little strained. At least for a moment. The next second, it blossomed like the morning sun. “You’re full of surprises these past couple days,” he said. “That’s why I want to talk to you.”
She skimmed the front page while she took another sip of coffee. “About what?”
“About something important.” He reached across the table and touched her hand, and Madeline got the message.
I could just about see the effort it took her to pretend she was actually interested. “Of course. You’ve always got something important to talk about, don’t you? I forget sometimes. You know, on account of how I’m not very—”
“Bright. Yeah. I figured you were going to say that.” He didn’t sound happy about it. “That’s what I have to talk to you about, Pepper. You’re not acting like yourself.”
“So...” Interested, I scurried closer. “You haven’t told her yet, have you?”
I asked Dan, fully expecting not to get an answer. “You’ve spent the last day thinking about your theory. About how Pepper isn’t Pepper. About how Madeline is back. I can practically see the wheels spinning in that too-smart brain of yours. You want to make sure you don’t make any mistakes, say anything stupid. She doesn’t know that you know!”
This scenario had never occurred to me, of course, because if I were in Dan’s place, it’s not how I would have handled the situation. The moment I found out the person I was with might not really be the person I thought I was with but might really be a dead person who I really wanted to see only I never thought I would again because—
Night of the Loving Dead Page 24