Novels 11 Adam Page 23

  He nodded.

  Lori glanced at the pulled curtain. “Tell me it was worth it.”

  He considered telling her everything, then discarded the notion, thinking that until he figured it out himself, telling her might be dangerous. For all of them.

  “Did you see the door?” she whispered.

  “Yes.”

  “You opened it?”

  “Yes.”

  “And?”

  How did he explain the fact that the near-death experience he’d just had didn’t make sense, at least not entirely? He could understand why his mind had seen the boy again. In fact, he’d expected the experience. The demand that he remove himself from the Eve case made sense—he’d subconsciously struggled with guilt for two years for pursuing the case at Heather’s expense.

  But this business about heading southhhhhhh, as the boy put it, was less obvious. There were only a few explanations for why his mind had dredged up the thought: maybe something else had happened in that moment before Eve killed him in Manitou Springs; maybe the killer really had visited the end of his bed while he slept and said something Daniel only now remembered.

  Or maybe his mind, confronted by death, was grasping at straws.

  Lori could guess as well as he could, but none of it would be more than speculation.

  “Please, just tell me what happened,” Lori said, brow wrinkled in concern. Her hand took his.

  “That’s just it. Nothing really happened.”

  “You said you opened the door!” She gave the slit in the curtains a quick look, then lowered her voice. “You didn’t see Eve?”

  “No, I did. The boy said he was Eve.” He lifted a hand to his head and considered asking for more pain medication, but quickly decided admitting pain now would only slow him when he made his break.

  The thought caught him off guard. He was going to follow the boy’s demands, wasn’t he? If there was even a slim chance that doing so might save Heather, he would do it and he would do it alone, as the boy had ordered.

  “No.” Lori shook her head. “No, that can’t be right.”

  “Of course it can. The boy is my subconscious lashing out at me for my failings. For failing Heather, for failing to stop Eve.”

  “Yes, but . . . Nothing else? You’re saying this had nothing to do with seeing him that night?”

  He couldn’t tell her his intentions. If, by some strange twist of fate that he couldn’t yet understand, his heading south did lead to Eve, she couldn’t know about it. If Eve had demonstrated one thing over the past year, it was that he could and would do precisely what he said.

  “I don’t think so, no. Nothing to do with that night.”

  “Which means what?” she demanded.

  “That we’re back to square one.” He sat up.

  “Lie back,” Lori snapped, clearly disturbed by more than his sitting. “You need rest.”

  “I’ve got enough epinephrine in me to keep a horse awake for a week. Trust me, rest isn’t in the picture, not without drugs.”

  “Then we’ll get some. Nothing’s going to happen before dawn at this point.”

  “No drugs. I’m done.” He looked at the clock—nearly two in the morning.

  Southhhhhhh. The boy’s putrid breath hung in his nostrils. Southhhhhhh, Daniel. I see you. Daniel swallowed, trying to ignore the urgency nudging him. Southhhhhhh now, Daniel. Now!

  “Some ibuprofen for the swelling and this headache, maybe,” he said. “Nothing more.”

  Lori looked at him, then stood. “This whole thing was a mistake. We’re lucky you’re alive.” She shook her head. “I can’t believe we did this. Again.”

  He nodded his agreement.

  Southhhhhhh, Daniel. Want me to poke her eyes out?

  “I’m alive.”

  “Thank goodness.”

  “I could use the ibuprofen.”

  She walked to the curtain, glanced back with a frown, then stepped out.

  Daniel yanked the IV from his arm, slid out of the bed. His legs were shaking, and it took him a moment to steady himself. They’d stripped off his shirt and laid it over the back of a gray chair on the other side of the hospital bed. Holding the bedrails with his right hand, he stumbled around.

  He grabbed the shirt and shrugged into each sleeve. As absurd as his attempt to leave was, the notion of heading south—just south, no destination in mind—was even worse.

  As he’d hoped, the keys to the Suburban were in Lori’s black handbag, the same one she’d stashed the muscle relaxant in. Which, once again, struck him as interesting. It was as if she’d anticipated the possibility of his wanting to die again.

  He took a deep breath and slipped out from behind the curtain adjacent to the bed. His hands were trembling, so he shoved them into his pockets. A patch of gauze was still stuck to the inside of his right arm, and he thought about tearing it off. Instead he withdrew his left hand and covered it as naturally as he could.

  The door stood open past the nurses’ station—they would undoubtedly wonder what he was doing up so soon. But his trek across the emergency room floor wasn’t as much about avoiding curious stares from the nurses and doctors on duty as getting out without Lori knowing.

  He kept his head down and walked easily, as if all was in perfect order, never mind the sweat bathing his face.

  “Sir?”

  He glanced over at one of the nurses who was staring at him. “Tell Dr. Ames I went to the bathroom.”

  “We have one around the corner.” She wagged her finger in the opposite direction, eyes still questioning.

  “Okay, hold on one second.”

  He picked up his pace, exited through a wide, white door, and entered the hall. Both directions clear. Thank goodness for small favors.

  Daniel was halfway down the long wheelchair ramp on the right when he heard Lori’s voice from the emergency ward. He scooted forward in a fast walk that struck him as safer than a sprint. No need to stress the heart in his condition. Whatever that was.

  “Daniel!”

  Daniel slipped outside, eased the door shut, and headed through the parking lot toward the vehicle. He had to assume the worst, that she would find the bathroom empty and immediately run to the car.

  Cool night air whispered past his neck, through his exposed hair. The Suburban chirped when he pressed the remote. Orange lights flashed twice.

  Lori burst through the emergency doors as he slid into the seat.

  “Daniel!”

  Fumbling with the keys, he managed to shove them into the ignition. Fire the engine. Drop the Suburban into drive.

  Lori stood her ground in front of the door, yelling something he couldn’t hear. It didn’t matter at this point. There was no way she could catch him, and she had no idea where he was headed.

  How could she? He himself didn’t.

  Southhhhhhh . . .

  The Suburban surged out of the parking lot and around two corners before roaring onto the main drag.

  Daniel shook his head of an image of the boy whispering with lips stretched over black teeth, breath so rancid he could almost see it.

  “South. Why south?”

  No sign of chase in his rearview mirror. He was driving a rental; he absently wondered how far he would be taking it. How long was he supposed to drive south before realizing that this recklessness was a fabrication of his mind after all?

  He drove under a sign that told him Interstate 80 was a mile ahead. More east than south, but it joined Interstate 25 roughly fifty miles farther.

  His cell phone buzzed on the passenger seat where he’d left it. He glanced at the screen, saw it was Lori, flipped the phone open. Then thought better of answering and snapped it shut. If he was going to do this, clearly a decided matter, he had to do it to the letter. Alone, in every respect.

  Traffic was thin on I-80 and he made good time, pushing ninety. Then a hundred.

  The fact that he wasn’t actually headed south yet kept his palms wet and slimy on the steering wheel.
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  The fact that he was actually following the advice of the boy with black teeth that he’d met in his mind while dead cooled his neck with chills. A week ago he wouldn’t have run from the emergency ward to do the bidding of an alter ego who insisted that he was Eve. Then again, a week ago he hadn’t yet been dead. Three times.

  Thirty-six minutes and four more ignored cell calls later, Daniel hit the 45 MPH ramp onto Interstate 25 south doing sixty, sixty-five, then promptly accelerated to the century mark again. He was FBI, after all. Speeding tickets couldn’t touch him.

  Still, his heart pounded. Still, his palms greased the wheel. Still, chills raked his neck like a predator’s talons.

  The tires hummed. His head ached. He was headed south, right? This was what southhhhhhh meant, south on the interstate, not straight south out of Laramie. What if he was wrong about that? What if Heather was stuffed in a root cellar just south of Laramie?

  What if there was no south to Eve at all?

  His phone rang again, and he only gave it a side glance, fully expecting Lori’s or Brit’s number. Out of state. Area code 508.

  At three o’clock in the morning . . .

  He lifted the phone, eyes fixed on those ten numbers. Would Eve use a traceable phone?

  He flipped the receiver open and brought it to his right ear.

  “Clark.”

  The responding voice was confident. Low. “I understand you’re headed south. There’s still time if you hurry.”

  “Who is this?”

  The caller waited four or five seconds, as if considering the question with some uncertainty. “I’m sorry. I didn’t expect such a stupid question from you. Go south. Take 40 East. I’ll call again with a different phone. Please hurry. Heather’s not so good.”

  The line went dead.

  TWENTY- SIX

  DIED?” BRIT SAID. “As in . . .”

  “Acute cardiac fibrillation. His heart stopped. Think of it as an aftershock. But as I said, we were able to resuscitate him at the hospital.” Lori gripped the phone in her right hand and paced her hotel room the next morning at nine. They were due to take off in an hour, and Daniel still hadn’t returned or made contact.

  “Why wasn’t I informed?” Brit demanded. “It’s been seven hours and I’m just now hearing this?”

  “I’m sorry, I should have. It just . . . We brought him back, and it was late.” She walked to the window and looked at the parking lot. “You heard what I said, though . . .”

  “That he was gone. You just told me you brought him back. How can one person die twice in one week?”

  Three times, she nearly said. “No, gone, as in he took the Suburban and left.”

  This time Brit came back slow. “After he came to? To where? I thought he was in the hospital.”

  “He walked out of the emergency ward, got in the Suburban, and took off. To where, I don’t have a clue. To clear his head, for all I know.”

  “So he could be dead on the side of the highway for all you know. And you didn’t bother calling me?”

  She’d spent the last seven hours thinking the same thing. “I thought he was just blowing off steam. The highway patrol would know. I called, no reports involving a Suburban in a five-hundred-mile radius.”

  Brit remained silent on the other end.

  “So, what do we do?”

  “We delay our departure and find him,” Brit said.

  “And if we can’t?”

  “If he doesn’t turn up by this afternoon, we head back and keep our fingers crossed. He’ll either show up or we’ll find him. We have the Suburban’s license number and can track his cell phone.”

  “I’m sorry, I really thought he’d be back before now.”

  Brit ignored her apology and asked the obvious question. “Any reason to think he may have gone after Eve on his own?”

  “Heather.”

  “Of course. But as far as you know, he didn’t have any information we don’t know about.”

  Yes, he saw a boy in his mind who called himself Eve, she thought. Although how that might prompt Daniel to take off alone, she had no idea. If he had gone after Eve, he’d learned something from the boy that he refused to share with her.

  Her own desire to tell someone what she did know pounded through her chest like a freight train.

  “Not that I know,” she said. “He’ll be back.”

  “I hope you’re right. I really hope you’re right.”

  But she wasn’t sure she was right. Not even close.

  “I’m worried about his heart giving out, Brit. I don’t think it can take much more.”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  DANIEL GUIDED THE Suburban down the overgrown gravel road slowly, eyes peeled for the cattle guard Eve had said he would find past mile marker 97. The night was black. Trees rose on both sides, like dark sentinels watching the lone vehicle roll past, knowing what only a fool could not.

  This was a one-way trip.

  Using a series of phone calls to pay phones, Eve had drawn him to Oklahoma, south of Interstate 40, into the woods. Forty-five minutes had passed since Daniel last saw the lights of another vehicle. Eve had meticulously laid out the route, probably the same one he’d used to transport Heather once he’d turned south on I-25.

  Eve’s ploy made unnerving sense to Daniel. Eve had taken Heather to draw him. He’d calculated Daniel’s required refueling stops and the time it would take to reach each one. He’d stopped at each himself and written down the numbers of pay phones, planning that at any given time, Daniel would only know the next leg of his journey south.

  None of this was particularly disturbing to Daniel. He would expect nothing less from such a meticulous adversary.

  What haunted him was the fact that Eve intended to expose himself. How could he know that Daniel hadn’t reported the calls? That a tactical team wasn’t following by air at this moment, ready to smother Eve when Daniel reached his destination?

  I see you, Daniel.

  Yes, there was the inner child, that boy in his mind’s eye who claimed to be Eve. But the mind’s invention did not a flesh-and-blood adversary make. The boy couldn’t inform Eve of Daniel’s calls any more than the killer could transport himself into the vehicle for a quick peek.

  No. Eve, or whatever his real name was, had something much more dangerous up his sleeve.

  He had Daniel himself up his sleeve. How, Daniel couldn’t be sure, but Eve knew him nearly as well as he knew himself. Knew that Daniel was desperately loyal to Heather. That only his obsession with Eve drove a wedge between them. That Daniel had been worn down to the loose ends of a frayed rope over the past week, haunted by fear so unnatural that he was willing to kill himself not once, but twice since Eve had killed him.

  That after such a long hunt, Daniel wouldn’t risk losing either Heather or Eve by reporting his whereabouts to the FBI. That if he did, Eve would know. How, exactly, Daniel didn’t know, but Eve had repeatedly proven that he was far too smart to risk his exposure without having covered every possible danger.

  What if . . . Just what if, however unlikely, the supernatural was real and Eve was a supernatural being? A demon, as the religious nuts called them. A presence who was operating with the killer, and had visited Daniel in his death, in his dreams?

  Leading Daniel south to his final death.

  The temptation to call in his location had badgered his mind for hours. But Eve was right: Daniel couldn’t bring himself to risk Heather’s life. Or to risk finding a resolution to the abyss that had swallowed him since his first death in Colorado.

  When he lost cell coverage half an hour earlier, the temptation had been removed.

  I see you, Daniel. One last chance to keep your pincushion alive.

  He took the Suburban around a long bend, and its headlights illuminated a fence. A cattle guard bridged the gap in the barbed wire.

  His arms tensed. Nothing past the cattle guard that he could see, just more overgrown road with grass down the middle and twin graveled
paths where the growth had been discouraged by the occasional passage of trucks. Hunters, perhaps.

  The Suburban’s tires rattled over the steel piping.

  There was a distinct possibility that Eve had already infected Heather with the disease. That Daniel would find her on a chair, eyes rolled back, convulsing as the lethal strain of streptococcus ravaged her mind and body.

  Daniel eased the gas pedal down. The sound of crunching gravel under him became a muted roar. He wiped the sweat from his eyes and stared at the fuzzy line between the headlights’ reach and darkness.

  An old shack down the road, Eve had said. But he hadn’t said how far.

  Exhaustion had forced him to pull over at a rest stop just after he crossed the Oklahoma state line. He slept thirty-seven minutes before jerking awake and resuming his push.

  Upon further reflection, the notion that the boy in his mind’s eye was something more than an electrochemical reaction felt hollow. Nevertheless, however foolish notions of the supernatural were, he now understood with surprising clarity why 98 percent of the world’s population put its faith in them.

  Explaining his experience in supernatural terms would be acceptable to any less-informed person. And, even for him, it was tempting. He knew that hell was real because he’d been there and met the devil himself: a little boy who called himself Eve. When the killer had killed him that night in Manitou Springs, Daniel had met the boy—this demon called Eve—and evidently made a promise to back off the investigation in exchange for his life. That was how Lori had been able to bring him back.

  Now Daniel was paying the price for failing to keep his end of the bargain. That was the religious explanation for what was happening to him.

  In some ways the explanation rang true. Only the names were wrong. Hell was the mind, the devil was actually a little-understood chemical called DMT, and the boy was an even less-understood electrochemical reaction best known as the conscience.

  The light reaching out into darkness broke on an old shack. Daniel shifted his foot to the brake, heard the tires skid, then eased off. The fear hadn’t returned since he’d left Wyoming, but panic made a pass now. Then retreated.