Die Again Tomorrow (11 page)

CHAPTER 17

 

CHAPTER 18

 

S
urfing was her one escape. The morning ritual that kept Isabel sane, when every other waking moment was consumed by paranoia or defiance.

She never expected it to be her downfall.

So when the ferocious wave slammed her and her fellow surfers off their boards, she plummeted to the bottom, but didn't panic. Not at first. She held her breath as she tumbled through the chaos, waiting for the sea to straighten itself out. The light of dawn struck the water, transforming its surface into a glittering kaleidoscope above her. She pushed her way up, greedy for air.

That was when a mysterious hand yanked her ponytail down. Her head snapped back, her lips parted, a nauseating flood of salt water rushed in. She choked and gagged and grew furious. Her arms and legs thrashed, but that hand was as firm as an anchor chaining her to death. She kicked harder, clawing and biting at her tormentor: a wet-suited scuba diver whose lips were wrapped around a breathing tube. It enraged her that this monster was feasting on air while she drowned. Her lungs felt like pressure tanks about to explode. He clamped down on either side of her neck with both hands and squeezed.

Soon a realization came that she had no choice but to confront: she wasn't going to make it. Yet in spite of her rage and despair, she clung to an absurd optimism that persisted until the very end.

She never wondered why she was being killed. She understood perfectly. Her only surprise was that she, of all people, had succumbed—in the one place she thought she was safe. She didn't even get to say good-bye. Her final thought was of Richard Barnett—and how, like a typical man, he had failed her, having vanished from her life without ever making good on his promise.

Despite everything, death itself was peaceful. In the final split second came acceptance—then the absence of pain, followed by an all-encompassing blackness. She encountered no light or universal warmth. Instead, she simply ceased to exist, along with the secret of the violence she almost carried to her grave.

 

 

“And now I'm here,” she said to her riveted audience.

She was sitting upright in her hospital bed on the cruise ship, surrounded by a dozen people: the kind old man who had resuscitated her, Dr. Quinn, plus a group of wide-eyed nurses in blue scrubs, a couple of male EMTs, and a tall, stern man with intense blue eyes for whom the crowd had parted. He was given a few feet of space to stand by her bed, in the prime spot. Everyone else was crammed shoulder to shoulder in her small cabin, with several more people clogging the doorway, all clamoring to hear her story.

She'd been talking for an hour, describing the details of how she came to be murdered. It still didn't feel real that she could possibly be alive. But she was. The scent of salt water permeated her hair. She could almost still taste the squishy cloth of the scuba attacker's suit. The bruises on her neck felt fresh and sore. Her throat was raw and dry from so many hours of intubation.

She paused to sip from a white paper cup that Dr. Quinn handed her. The cool water was a balm to her parched vocal cords. Then she went on.

“Nothing's changed except that I survived. There's still two million dollars at stake.”

No one moved or said a word. A heavy dread thickened the air. From all sides, the hospital staff stared at her, fearing the inevitable conclusion. She closed her eyes, delaying the words that had to come next. It was glorious to feel the air pass into her lungs, to feel her chest rise and fall, to feel the sturdy beat of her heart. Each moment was a novelty she wanted never to end.

At last she lifted her eyes to the waiting crowd.

“When I go back home,” she said, “whoever wants me dead is bound to find out. And they're going to want to finish the job.”

CHAPTER 19

 

T
he starchy cotton sheets of her hospital bed were drenched with sweat. She clutched the plastic guardrail of her bed, feeling her own anxiety escalate as she watched it reflected in the faces of the onlookers.

Expressions of horror and sympathy surrounded her. She waited for someone to say a word, to offer support or advice, but they stayed inexplicably silent. Several women wearing blue medical scrubs traded dismayed looks. A cluster of young male doctors in white coats shifted on their feet, but no one spoke. Standing at her elbow, Dr. Quinn regarded her with a frown that deepened the crease between his sparse white brows. In the corners of his lips, his skin was pinched like cracked clay. He, too, remained silent.

A sudden feeling struck her that she was missing something. Something everyone else knew, but wouldn't tell her. She became aware of the floor's gentle rocking motion. A salty warm breeze drifted in from the circular window.

“Why are we on a ship?” she blurted out. “Who are you guys, anyway?”

When Dr. Quinn looked away from her, she noticed the rest of the crowd's attention had also shifted. They were all watching one man.

The tall man with blue eyes the color of glacial ice.

At the foot of her bed, he was standing perfectly still—a contrast with the nervous fidgeting pervading the crammed quarters.

He was watching her with a quiet intensity. Isabel felt that he was seeing more of her than everyone else, taking stock of her every move. She was reminded of an encounter while filming her show in the Sahara desert, when she found herself across a pond from a lion. This man projected a similar mix of vigilance and perceptiveness. At least six feet tall, with symmetrical cheekbones, a square jaw, and a prominent nose, he possessed a formidable majesty. A mane of wavy black hair gave him a youthful aura, though the lines on his face put him around sixty.

She was captive, but felt no fear. Unlike the lion's eyes, his were kind.

“What's going on?” she asked him. “Who are you?”

“I go by Galileo.” His gaze swept to the others. “Isabel and I need a few minutes to get acquainted.”

The nurses, doctors, EMTs, and lab techs cleared out in a respectful exodus. Even Dr. Quinn rose from his stool by her side, patted her arm, and left.

When they were alone, Galileo closed the door and came to perch on the edge of her bed. Whatever he was about to say carried a gravity that made him draw a deep breath.

Her heart sped up, as though in preparation for important news.

“Have you heard of the Network?” he asked, looking her in the eye.

She shook her head. “I don't think so.”

“So you have no preconceived notions then.”

“Nope.”

“That makes things a little easier. I'm going to be frank. Your situation has never happened in our history. I can't in good conscience deliver you back home into the hands of a killer—but I also can't risk the damage you could do by going public.”

Isabel pressed her lips together. “I'm not sure I follow. . .”

“Let me back up. You're in the heart of a world-class research center, maybe the best in the world. Only . . . we're not supposed to exist. So no one on the outside is supposed to know.”

“This is a joke, right?” She squeezed her eyes shut to clear any debris from her consciousness. When she opened them, he was still sitting there, deadly serious.

“Should I go on?”

She nodded.

“Our organization, the Network, has been around for twelve years. We started as a group of a few scientists at odds with the establishment, who were eager to accelerate major breakthroughs. The kind that would take decades of regulatory headaches and billions of dollars to happen in the regular world—but our way makes it much faster and cheaper. In the last decade, we've grown to almost forty core members who live and work here on this ship. We've also established safe houses and key allies all over the country to transport supplies and people. I manage the whole operation and handle recruitment—we look for researchers who are frustrated with the system, on the verge of a serious breakthrough, and comfortable working in seclusion without any prestige. We provide the lab space and equipment, and in return, they agree to let the Network share ownership of any discoveries made here.”

He paused, studying her face for signs of a negative reaction. But her amazed expression was anything but hostile.

“So this is for real?”

“You're in it. We have a small hospital on deck three, where you were resuscitated, and state-of-the-art labs on deck four. The researchers live in private cabins here, on deck two.”

“Wow. Ever since my mom's life was saved by this new drug Braxa, I'm in awe of the people who actually develop that stuff.”

“Ah, Braxa.” His face lit up as though she'd mentioned a mutual friend. “That was one of our first successes. We developed it a decade ago and licensed it to LifeTech Pharma. It took them all these years just to get FDA approval.”

“You're kidding.” Her jaw hung open. “You guys are behind Braxa?”

“Yep.” He smiled sadly. “There's a reason the public doesn't know.”

“It's not legal?”

“Exactly. You need federal approval for clinical experimentation. The U.S. government has been trying to find and shut us down for years now.” He paused. “There's even a reward out for my head.”

“So you're a criminal?”

“Not just
a
criminal. I'm on the top ten most wanted. At least, the concept of me is. They have no idea what my real name is, and neither does pretty much anyone else—hence my pseudonym.”

She chuckled. Grouping this man with murderers and rapists seemed about as logical as grouping Martin Luther King with the KKK.

But he wasn't smiling. His mouth was a thin, grave line. “Now that you've been here,” he said, “you could report us.”

Her amusement vanished in an instant. “So why are you telling me this?”

“I want you to know all the facts. Because I'm going to offer you a deal in exchange for your discretion.”

She frowned. “I don't need to be bribed. You already saved my life.”

“I have to take certain precautions. Everyone else inside our headquarters has been vetted. But we don't know you at all.”

She hugged her knees to her chest. “I'm listening.”

“First, a little history. We recruited Dr. Quinn seven years ago, after he lost his professorship at Harvard to scandal. At the time, he was working to develop a chemical compound to delay the decay of brain cells in recently deceased mammals—blurring the boundary between life and death. A jealous colleague accused him of stealing ideas from her, but in reality he was the victim of her lies.

“After we recruited him and his associate Chris, he finished the rest of the research here, tested it successfully on rats, then dogs, then started human clinical trials using recent corpses. You were the twenty-second one in the trial. All have been successfully revived. In every other case, once the patients woke up, we tranquilized them and immediately sent them back to the outside world, so they would have no memory of their time here. But then you came along.”

“Wow.” She touched the inside of her wrist. Her pulse was strong and steady. It was mind-boggling to think that only a few days earlier, she'd been cold and lifeless. “I need to get to my family. They must be freaking out.”

“But if you go home, you yourself said you're risking your life.”

“What else can I do?” She scowled. “That asshole broker, I knew he was setting me up.”

Galileo raised his eyebrows. “You think he was part of it?”

“Pretty sure. He was going to help me, then he just disappeared—and look what happened.”

“Why didn't you go to the police?”

“What could they do? I couldn't prove it. I still can't.” But the truth was more complicated: Andy's immigration status was as illegal as ever. She would never risk bringing the authorities into their lives, not even now.

“I have a background in law enforcement,” Galileo said. “I might be able to help you.”

She felt herself tense. “What kind of background?”

“Ex-FBI. I know a thing or two about trapping bad guys.”

“So what's the deal?”

“You have two choices: you can go home, unprotected, and wait for your killer to come after you again. You can rat us out and try to collect the reward money, but this ship would be long gone. We could be anywhere. Of course, we'd rather not have to go. We stay in harbor whenever we need to transport supplies.”

Isabel took a sip of water from the paper cup beside her bed. She noticed her hand was shaking. “Or?”

“Or”—he gestured to her cramped room, filled with nothing more than a standard-issue hospital bed, a wooden dresser, and a bathroom so small she could barely turn around—“you can stay here on the ship, under our protection. You agree to let us monitor you as a continuation of the study. So far, we haven't been able to test our subjects for more than a few days, so you present a unique opportunity to see how a human body reacts to the chemicals over a longer time. In exchange, we'll work to bring your killer to justice.”

Immediate protests sprang to her lips: what about her family, her television show? Remaining here would derail her whole life. But then again, her killer had done a pretty good job of that already.

“So?” Galileo raised his eyebrows. “What do you think?”

“Could I leave any time?”

“Of course. We don't hold anyone hostage. But once we part ways, you're on your own.”

She touched the sore bruises dotting her collarbone. The dull ache was a reminder that her life wasn't the only one at stake—and her death wasn't the only one to avenge. In Richard Barnett's heavy scrapbook of obituaries, how many were victims? How many unwitting clients were still alive, about to be next?

His existence on earth was like ink stuck to paper, bleeding an ever wider circle of carnage. He and his accomplices needed to be found—and destroyed.

“I'll stay,” she said. “But only on one condition. And it's a big one.”