At the hospital, while Paul slept, Dennis pored through notes on several of their projects, and worked on stories of his own. On more than one occasion, Dennis had seen the nightmares that plagued Paul.
“How do you know that you weren't dreaming?” Dennis asked. “You were up late, then you fell asleep, and then you're getting messages on your computer. Do you have any evidence that someone was on your computer? That it wasn't just a dream?”
“I don't have any evidence, but I wasn't dreaming,” Paul said. “Now just listen. I think this is important, and it’s why I called you down here at the crack of dawn.”
“Okay. Sorry.”
“On my computer, I don't know how they did it, but someone, somehow, got onto my computer and started passing along these messages. At first I thought it must be a virus or something, or that it was some sort of mistake, but they knew who I was.”
Dennis folded his arms and thought for a minute before responding. In their previous discussions, Dennis had made it clear that he didn't want anything more to do with this, that whoever wanted the attack in Miami to be covered up wanted to keep it that way. He pointed out that Paul had gotten too close and had gotten himself shot as a result.
Dennis knew that Paul’s theory was likely correct, but he was scared, and Paul couldn't blame him for that.
“How did they know it was you?” Dennis asked, looking as though he would regret even asking that question.
“They knew about my knee, and that Morales was the one who shot me. Remember, after the initial report where I stated who it was that shot me, the report disappeared. No record of it all. Besides the people at the hospital, and you, there isn't anyone who even knows what happened.”
“Your ex-wife?”
“No. I don't think she even knows that I was hurt, and probably doesn't care.”
“She and my wife would get along.” Dennis took a bite of his toast and thought for a few seconds before saying, “Okay, so they knew who you were. They contacted you, inexplicably, on your computer in the middle of the night. What'd they say about Morales?”
“They knew his real name, about where he came from, that he was in Miami during the attack, and that he's disappeared now, all record of him wiped clean. I think that the power these guys have is more than we ever thought. It's gotta be extra-governmental. I don't see how even a sophisticated government could pull off the intricate cover-ups here. We're talking hospital records, police records, gone. The reach and scope of this thing is mind-blowing.”
“And that isn't a big, fat warning to you?” Dennis asked. “I don't get you, Paul. They shot you. They covered up a terrorist attack where hundreds of people died.”
“Cover-ups have happened before. I mean look at Benghazi, Syria, people died there too. People have a right to know what is going on.”
“Why do they have a right, Paul? Why?” Dennis whispered. “Where is it written that people must know the truth? Has it ever occurred to you that maybe people don't want to know? Look around you, Paul. People don't want to know about murders in their own neighborhood. They don't want to know that the homeless man they see on the street corner is going to die during the night because of exposure. They go about their business, watching shows, surfing the net, and texting, and what's the latest YouTube video, or the aspect ratio of the newest iPhone, and doing everything they can to remain inside the blinders. They don't want to know the truth, and neither do I.”
“How can you say that?” Paul said after the silence had settled in for several seconds. “We're talking families who lost loved ones, spouses, sons and daughters, they died and all because of an accident that wasn't an accident. An explosion of a gas line, and poof, these people died and there was no reason.”
“People die for no reason, all the time,” Dennis said, his voice rising. “As much a part of life as living, my friend.”
“But this is different, and you know it.”
Dennis looked down at his coffee and shook his head in disgust and frustration. “I could sit here and list all the people, large groups of 'em, who die without any reason at all, but I doubt it would make a difference to you and this story of yours. I don't know what your obsession with this thing is, maybe to prove that you aren't some crazy conspiracy theorist, but I can't figure out just why you want to die. I can't figure it out, and I've long since given up on the idea that I will ever understand what is driving you with this story. I just don't want to add my name to the list of people who died for no reason. I don't want to be shot, and I don't want to disappear while walking back to work from my lunch break.
“I've got a wife, maybe a family coming along in the not too distant future, I've got a job that I like, and I sure don't want to die for your little crusade for the truth.”
When he finished his little speech, Dennis began to push the salt and pepper shakers around with his fingers. Paul recognized Dennis's fidgeting. When he was nervous or excited, Dennis couldn't keep his fingers and hands still. Paul had seen him tear apart napkin after napkin, folding the little scraps into shapes, then tearing apart the shapes. He was nervous, and Paul supposed that he had a right to be nervous, standing up to his boss like that. Dennis had no problem expressing his opinion, but even if he disagreed with Paul, he would always follow through with an assignment.
Until now. Dennis was clearly scared, and maybe not just about telling Paul what he thought about Miami and Morales and the whole shebang. He seemed genuinely afraid that digging around in this story would get him killed.
Dennis pushed the salt and pepper shakers, avoiding Paul's gaze, and Paul changed the cinnamon fireball from one cheek to the other.
“It's not for me, Dennis. There is something bigger here than either me or you. Something that could affect you down the road—”
“Of course this is about you,” Dennis said, his eyes flashing with a rare spot of anger. “There is a reason your wife left you, Paul, and I know that's a pretty crappy thing to say, but you're obsessed, and you're going to get yourself killed. Already, you've been shot, and I don't want to be around when they come to finish the job.”
Silence settled over their table, and Paul became distinctly aware of the sounds that came from the kitchen, the soft clinks and scrapes on plates, and the ruffle of napkins. He suddenly heard other customers in the cafe, talking low over steaming cups of drip coffee or lattes, some of them into their phones. The morning waned, and the cafe was filling up.
“Paul.” Dennis hesitated for several long seconds before continuing, “I can't work with you anymore, at least not right now. You've got to get this thing out of your system and put it behind you, or you're gonna get yourself killed.”
Paul reached into his pocket and took out another piece of cinnamon candy. He played with it in his fingers for a few seconds before popping it from the wrapper. Dennis watched this, and Paul thought that he looked as much sad as he did frustrated.
“I like you, Paul, despite your annoying quirks and habits, and that my wife hates you and makes my life miserable because you're such a big part of it. I like working for you, but not on this. If these people, whoever they are, want to cover up what happened in Miami bad enough to kill innocent people at a hospital, including cops, then I say let them cover it up. I don't want to mess with it, and you shouldn't either.”
Dennis stood up, took a few bills from his wallet, and laid them on the table.
“I've got to go to work,” Dennis said. “I'm assuming you won't be there. That's okay because I've got other projects to work on, some for you and some that I'd like to do on my own. I'm sorry Paul, but if there's got to be a line drawn in the sand, this is it. I can't do it.”
Dennis started walking out of the restaurant, but before he got far enough to be out of earshot, Paul said, “The last thing they said was to 'follow the Contionum.'“
Dennis stopped walking and turned back to Paul, his eyebrows arched. Paul knew that he remembered. Back when he'd written his first article about Ground Zero
and Miami, and mentioned his theory that the destruction of the building in Miami was covered up by the authorities, conspiracy theorists had flooded from the woodwork to compare notes with him. Most of them were nut jobs, if not all of them, but one person had used that word before.
Contionum.
At the time, Paul had written that off as the crazy ramblings of someone who believed Obama was the anti-Christ. The word meant nothing to him, and when he had shared his notes with Dennis, they didn't even discuss it.
It had taken Paul less than a second to see the word on his computer screen, and remember that someone had sent him that word in an email so long ago. He knew that Dennis remembered it too, and that his curiosity would get the better of him.
“Come back, please.” Paul said. “I know that I'm overboard sometimes with this stuff, but I need you to help with this. I can't do it alone.”
“Contionum,” Dennis said, looking into a faraway place and thinking hard. He wet his lips, and for a second Paul was sure that he would come back and sit down. Dennis had that intense streak of curiosity and drive for truth that was necessary in this business, and Paul was glad.
But Dennis shook his head.
“I can't boss, not this time,” he said, and left the cafe.
Paul watched him go, much like he'd watched his wife leave their house so long ago. He rubbed at the handle of his coffee mug with his thumb and tried to ignore the throbbing in his leg.
Paul paid the check for Dennis, then lingered for a few moments longer to finish his coffee and reflect on what Dennis had said. It made sense, and maybe it was time to just let this go. His obsession with this cover up and whatever else was going on had cost him plenty, and maybe much more than he should have been willing to give. He'd lost his wife and family. His career had been right on track but was now derailed, and his mental state was slowly losing its grip on reality. He thought about the intruder that he'd imagined the night before, and he would have taken some comfort if he'd been asleep and dreamed the whole thing. But he was sure that he was quite awake, and that it was his conscious mind that'd allowed the whole panic-stricken scenario to play out. Not to mention that he'd been shot, and that his knee may never work in the normal way again.
And to what end? Dennis was right that the people probably didn't care, that one more scandal or cover up or corrupt organization would simply join with every other problem with society. It all was just so much noise, and there came a point where the noise was too much, that you had to just push it to the background and ignore it.
His phone trilled and vibrated in his pocket. He glanced at his watch and wrinkled his forehead. The only person who would call him this early in the morning was Dennis, but that probably wasn't happening. Besides, “UNKNOWN” was displayed across the screen, where the number should have been.
He answered the phone and placed it by his ear.
“Hello?”
“Glad the mush session is over,” a woman's voice said to him, and he didn't quite realize what she was talking about until she'd moved on. “Don't look now, but you've got a coupla guys waiting for you outside the diner, and I'm pretty sure they're not interested in niceties.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
“Thank you for bringing me here.” Mae swung slowly back and forth on the tire swing. Even though she wore gloves, the chain was cold in her grip, the frozen branches above creaked and groaned under her weight, and bits of ice and snow fluttered down around her. She felt his hands on her shoulders and back, pushing her gently on the swing, and the feeling of being weightless returned with the soft pressure of his touch. She thought about Ryan only briefly, telling herself that she couldn't do anything wrong because she didn't owe anything to Ryan.
But that felt wrong to her, because she liked Ryan. On the other hand, she didn't want to ruin this moment, which she'd been waiting for so long. To feel his touch, the gentle pressing of his body against hers, like on the mountain ridge, with the autumn leaves and the wisps of October mist in the trees. He pushed her again on the swing, and her world expanded and contracted, and the butterflies in her stomach took flight.
“You really haven't been back here since you left?” Adam asked, looking at her a bit skeptically. “The house looks pretty good, like someone's living there, but I don't think anyone is.”
Mae shrugged. The house where she'd grown up looked the same, although different at the same time. For one thing, it seemed smaller, but she supposed that was because she'd grown. The house did look as though someone was taking care of it and making sure it didn't fall victim to the elements.
“I don't know, but I doubt anyone I know is taking care of it. There's no one left but me.”
“I still don't understand where you've been, why you were gone.” Adam shivered in the cold. “So many questions.”
“Did you get my letters?”
“I got one,” he said, “a long time ago. A couple of months after you ... left.”
He hesitated on that last word, and she knew why. She didn't leave, so much as she was taken. She remembered the screams down the hallway at her school, some of them her own, and looks of horror on the faces of her classmates.
People were hurt then, too, struck with flying desks and chairs as she was taken and bound. They'd given her a shot, she remembered that much. Stuck a needle into her neck, and whatever they'd injected into her felt like peanut butter, thick and slow moving as it spread throughout her body. Mae remembered Adam there too, watching with that same expression of horror on his face. She remembered that last wave flow out of her one last time before falling into unconsciousness. One final wave of energy pushing out to protect her from the strangers who were trying to take her.
Not all of them were strangers.
Her dad's face had been there in the crowd as well, but he didn't look scared like the others, he looked determined, his jaw set and his eyes focused on her.
“They're trying to help you. Us,” her father had said, his hand gripping her arm tightly. He was a ghost now, his voice echoing from the past. One final wave of energy had exploded from her, and everyone nearby was thrown against the walls. She remembered the cracks of bone, the screams and the clacks of heads hitting the concrete walls, and the ensuing silence that followed.
What did Adam think of her now? What did any of her classmates think of her since that day? So many ghosts in her past, flitting in and out, and she'd hardly thought about any one of them. Except for Adam. He'd always been there in the back of her mind, through all of the studies and experiments, and then later the running and hiding with her mom. The memories of Adam had remained.
“What are you thinking about?” Adam asked softly, shaking her from these memories. She hadn't intended to open the flood gates like this, but it was the house. Her house, and it brought so many things back to her.
“Just thinking about how everything was then, and how different it is now.”
He pushed her again, this time with a little more force, and she floated higher above the snow-blanketed lawn and giggled. Warmth and dizziness flurried inside of her. She couldn't help but think about Ryan again, and that brought a pang of guilt. Mae felt that same feeling when she was around Ryan, and she wondered what he would say if he saw her here with Adam. Mae had no idea where Ryan was and right here and now, she was with Adam.
With Adam. She barely believed it herself. She was with Adam. He had found her after so many years.
“Tell me about it,” he said. She looked back at him and shot him a questioning smile.
“Tell me about what you’re thinking about,” he said. “Everything then and now.”
“It seems smaller than it used to be.”
“You've grown since then.”
“I was thinking that too,” Mae said, and laughed. She didn't know why she felt so nervous right then. She studied the trees and the bushes, covered in a layer of snow and ice, and everything was so still and peaceful and quiet.
“I think about when we went on
the hike,” she said. “I think about—”
“When we kissed?” Adam caught her on the return swing, and hugged her close to him, planting a quick kiss on her cheek.
“There,” he said. “Now you can think about that one too.”
The feeling that she was on a roller coaster intensified with the feel of his lips on her cheek, and she laughed.
“You always were just so spontaneous.”
“I thought you liked that about me.”
“I did,” she said. “Do. I do.”
She hesitated for a few seconds, not sure where to begin. There was so much going on in her head, so many memories swirling around and around, and she wanted to see and experience it all again.
“Do you remember the mint ice cream in the Berkshires?” she asked. He thought for a few minutes, and then laughed.
“Yeah. Oh, that's right.”
Even though Mae couldn't see his face right then, she thought he was smiling at the memory.
“It had real mint, not just some flavoring, but crushed mint leaves, and dark chocolate. It's still the best ice cream I've ever tasted,” Mae said.
“And that's the first time we really talked, isn't it?”
“Yeah, it was. The first time you touched my hand.” Mae immediately regretted saying it. She could feel her face turning red and was thankful for the cold wind on her skin, already causing the blossoming red in her cheeks.
“Touched your hand?” he asked, laughing. “I don't remember that part.”
“You held my hand actually, just a little bit.”
“Oh yeah?” He caught her again on the upswing and held her close. He nuzzled against her cheek and kissed her ear. She thought, fleetingly, that it was weird for such physical attraction after having not seen Adam for so long, and it was weird that he was so affectionate. She wondered if he had girlfriend, and she couldn't help but think about Ryan.
The Snow Swept Trilogy Page 36