Fire Will Fall (32 page)

"You really think?" Owen asked. "I think she wants you to relax for a few days ... to watch for anything else that might be wrong."

Rain refused to let him ruin the mood. "Shopping is as therapeutic as drugs. Come on. Enough with the bummer talk."

"Maybe you shouldn't go to this funeral Thursday if you've got all this going on today and Friday," Scott suggested.

"When you gotta, you gotta," she said, and added defensively, "Some people thrive on activity. You ought to understand that."

"I do," he said. "And you do. They don't."

He gestured at me and Owen. Owen said mildly, "I'll ... go today. So long as we can park close to the door. I'm four-star for once. Maybe I shouldn't waste it."

"Just skip shopping, for Cora's sake," Scott said. "Order your clothes online."

"I hate computers," Rain said. "We'll deal with it! One step at a time. Okay? As you say, 'Keep it simple.'"

"Cora shouldn't have this much activity," Scott insisted, and something about it irritated me, despite him speaking the truth.

Rain rolled her eyes. "So, she can rest up this morning, and we'll go shopping this afternoon."

"Actually, she can't," he said. "I need her this morning. For something."

I almost sighed aloud, thinking of making those prints ... close-ups of potential terrorists.

"You need Cora for something related to this new 'badge' I understand you have?" Rain asked.

"Yes, related," he said.

"That's so
21 Jump Street.
Wow."

"Don't start with me, Rain."

"Scott, we were talking Saturday, sitting out by the pond ... and..." She flipped her fingers back and forth from me to her to Owen. "Some people are not cut out to be you. I'd say
most
people are not. Cora ... is not."

I wished she had let me say it myself. But being honest, I wouldn't have. He nodded hard, staring down into his lap. I sensed he didn't look my way so I wouldn't have to see his disappointment. "I know."

"She did everything in her power when you were out of it yesterday to influence my dad. It worked. Leave it at that," Rain said. "Most people don't want to chase down their mother's murderers. It's a scary and violent world out there. That's why we have police."

"I totally understand. Problem is, she's kind of into it up to her ears right now. Photos to develop for Mike Tiger. Maybe she could just do that much."

His eyes rose to meet mine.

"I can ... do that much," I stumbled. It had come out worse than I wanted it to.

"Pictures of what?" Rain demanded impatiently.

Close-ups of potentially dangerous Richard Awalis.
I put my fingers to my forehead, and I think they were shaking.

"Cora, you don't have to," Rain said quickly. "You're seventeen. Who would expect you to get, um, up to your eyebrows in ... all that?"

"Shahzad and Tyler."

We turned to stare at Owen, who was flipping his napkin with his thumbs, staring into the middle of the table. "I can't stop thinking about those two guys."

Always looking to provide comfort, Rain put an arm around him and rested her chin on his shoulder. "As you said, we're not rocket scientists and computer jocks."

"No, we're not," he said. "Who are we?"

"We're ... normal people from Trinity Falls, New Jersey," she answered.

"No. That's who we
were
."

Scott's eyes wandered to me, then fell into his lap, but I felt the stab of judgment. Little Miss Stuck in Neutral.
Who am I?
If I had any clue, I probably wouldn't be getting all trembly over developing a few prints.
I need to find my father. I need to get over my fear of watching my mother's tapes and simply watch the one Jeremy told me to. Then I'll know.

Rain sighed, leaning away from Owen, saying hesitantly, "I really hope I'm not going to be the bad guy here because I'm excited about a party."

"No ... no," the brothers chimed.

A vibrating sensation jarred me, and I fumbled into my pocket, almost dropping the cell phone before figuring out how to open it. But I could feel myself starting to smile. "Hello?"

A voice outside the intenseness at this table was like a pause in a bombing. It gave some sense of being something instead of nothing.

"Much better," I answered Henry's question. "Thank you."

"I'm finished teaching at noon. I thought perhaps if you weren't up for learning the trails or looking for that darkroom that I could at least bring you some of my homemade raspberry lemonade. It's very healthy. I make it for faculty who failed to get their flu shots. They say it'll kill anthrax."

I giggled. Scott rolled his eyes.

"We could just sit on the porch around one o'clock, and I could show you the rest of the prints from Saturday. If you're up for it, that is."

To sit on the porch with a normal man and listen to the normal birds chirp.
I realized I might be defining my own type of heaven. Huge parties left me feeling naked and exposed. I didn't expect Rain to understand this.

"That sounds really wonderful," I stammered, having cleared my throat and put in a couple of "ums." "But—"

"Cora..."

My head snapped to Scott, who was staring up at the ceiling, his fingers laced across his forehead like he was cutting another aftershock. His voice was edgy. "Whatever it is, tell him
yes
."

"Just a minute..." I covered the phone with my palm, staring at Scott. My brain wouldn't move.

I stammered to him, "Why?"

"Because I said to."

Generous as he was being, he'd just ordered me about. And he was speaking for me again, only this time over another man.

"Because ... you deserve it," he rearranged his words in a milder tone, though his eyes didn't fall from the ceiling.

He was thinking of Tyler and Shahzad. No, maybe
I
was thinking of Tyler and Shahzad. Maybe Aleese wasn't really saying, "
Do it! Do it! Do it!
" Maybe it was all me and I really wanted to make a decision for myself.

"I have some photos to develop this morning for a friend, but after that would be fine."

As I hung up, Rain showed her disappointment by pressing her lips into her knuckles with her elbow on the table.

"I'm sorry," I said sincerely, looking for forgiveness in her eyes. I found it quickly after highlighting the conversation.

She laughed, however uneasily. "Cora. How many weird things have you heard me say in the past three months? If you want to sit on the porch with an old geezer as opposed to going to the mall..."

It was a merciful, funny moment. The smile only made it halfway across my face. Scott, who had just called all my shots, stood up and walked out of the room without saying anything.

SCOTT EBERMAN
MONDAY, MAY 6, 2002
9:17
A.M.
BASEMENT

Y
ESTERDAY HAD BEEN TOO TOUGH,
and I hadn't been able to add any more thoughts to it—such as Cora's flowers arriving from Mr. Almost-Doctorate. But today I was faced with how I'd feel if some other guy showed up interested in her. I was pretty stunned at the threatened heartburn working its way through me. I guess maybe I'd thought I had all the time in the world. Maybe I'd even been dumb enough to think she'd play the invisible-girl role forever.

Yet I'd seen this happen a dozen times in high school. Girls you'd never notice suddenly graduate and don't only become noticeable—they become some sort of radiant. They come into themselves. Successful older men who weren't in high school couldn't care less if invisible is what they
were.
It's not what they
are.

I didn't do anything wrong.
I reminded myself of that quickly to ward off creepy feelings of stupidity. I had never come on to Cora, which would have been ludicrous—confusing for her and downright agonizing for me. I was definitely beyond stealing a kiss and feeling like I'd accomplished something. I sighed, big-time, letting it out in a breeze that sailed over the trees.
So ... what? The answer is to let some other guy come over here and flirt with her?

I felt around in my instincts and knew I had done the right thing. It was a good move, the perfect move, something about giving a girl enough rope and she'll be sure to hang herself. If I was appalled by her thinking of some other guy, the last thing I should do was try to stop it. People always want what they're told they shouldn't have.

What is up with this guy?
He was a professor, smart and responsible, who had written the grant for this place. He knew our condition, and he knew he couldn't have her, couldn't touch her.
Is he stupid?

I suddenly wondered if
I
was stupid. For me with girls, the Final Conquest had involved only One Thing. Maybe some guys were better people. Maybe they were on Owen's higher plane of existence.
Maybe Henry simply likes Cora for Cora and is willing to take a risk that she'll recover properly.

I had heard my mother say so often about that next husband she never found, "Scott, I just want a man to like me for me. Not because I'm a lawyer. Not because I do so many charity cases that my bills are over my head. I don't need an admirer, and I don't need another Savior! I want a friend."

I heard her just fine until freshman year, when Amanda Stahl, a junior who lived next door to us, climbed in my bedroom window early one Saturday morning, blitzed out of her tree. She taught me any number of things, and left me with this hickey the size of my foot. It was an advertisement around school that got me a reputation that worked out kind of well. Amanda moved away, but I'd been programmed to think there were a thousand other Amandas out there, and if I just kept shuffling the deck, I would flip one now and again. I came up with so many Amandas that I never had the nerve to confess to Owen. The estimated figure alone would probably kill him. If Henry was deprogrammed, or had somehow managed not to get programmed, I felt more defenseless against that kind of finesse than about the fact that he was ten years older and wiser than me.

I was on the verge of overthinking. Definitely not something I was comfortable with. I was glad when Mike Tiger showed up.

"How'd you get the electric company out here so fast?" I asked, after I followed him into the basement. I still carried the exhaustion of an HH, so walking around and examining the wall sockets, new computer, and fax line in one of the servants' rooms gave me energy. These guys were fast movers. I could be one, too.

"We say we're USIC and that we have an 'immediate need,'" Mr. Tiger said, toasting me with his coffee mug. "They got here around noon yesterday, finished at two. They'll get weekend overtime and a government bonus for signing our hush-hush statements."

I watched the faint glow of green from a computer screen. "We have laptops. Not that I've used mine yet, but what's up with the tower? Isn't that slightly antiquated?"

"Laptops are too easy to steal and their hard drives are easier to hack. We Jersey guys haven't succumbed to them. For one, we intelligence agents are trained to carry around a microchip in our heads. We don't need extra memory," he boasted. Then his face grew serious. "Only the field guys like Hodji Montu are allowed laptops, and Imperial sweats bullets even about that." He looked at his watch. "Alan just ran up to the halfway point on the Parkway to pick up Hodji. You're going to have a guest for a while."

"So we heard. How's he doing?"

"Not great. He's on a grief leave. Don't expect him to be Mr. Personality, but this is the type of person this house is set up for, eh?"

"Right," I said. "We'll take care of him."

"If you want him to warm up, you'd do best not to say you're working for us. He might not put it together, the way he is. He sent in his resignation. We refused it. It was actually his idea to come down here, hang out with you guys."

I went into full medic mode, trying to remember what all they'd told me already, but it was buried in a morphine blur. "What are his injuries? Neck? Spine? Is he walking?"

"He's walking. He's got a broken nose, broken cheekbone, concussion, couple of black eyes. He flipped credentials and pulled a citizen out of his vehicle at the airport, and the car had no air bags. Just be polite. We can't vouch for his moods."

I watched through a small window as the car pulled up, and I said, "Wow," as Mike came to stand beside me. Montu's injuries were nothing I hadn't seen before, but you couldn't recognize him except for the cowboy hat. He got out of the car slowly, and Alan tried to take his arm, which he pulled away with some strong syllables I couldn't make out. He insisted on getting his own bags out of the trunk while Alan looked on helplessly.

"He really thinks he's a cowboy," Mike noted. "The New York squad said he never told them about the car accident part until after he ID'ed the bodies. That was more important to him. Let him sleep it off for a while. He hasn't slept at all."

Alan eventually came down with the new fax machine and a smile he must have pulled out of some angel's pocket.

"And what do you think of our setup?" he asked, gesturing at the primitive inner office. A bunch of office supplies lay on the servant-bed mattress. "Nobody can know about this computer down here—not even Rain and Owen. We'll keep everything locked. Meeting here instead of in Trinity saves Mike twenty minutes of driving each way, and after seeing what Hodji's going through, we need to do what we can to preserve family time. Yet I'm still a target, if you get my drift."

He was referring to the conversation he'd had with Rain on the porch about why he couldn't be here all the time. Seemed like USIC was suddenly bending its rules all over the place, between my "briefings" and this satellite office being placed in a weird yet functional spot. It was a shame two kids had to die before it happened.

Alan went on. "Your job actually comes with permission from On High—from James Imperial, but with limitations that you'd expect. Imperial did some fast paperwork, adding into our budget a certain type of clerk called a CC. That's 'classified clerical,' one that gets to handle and hear certain classified materials. It's sort of like being an agent without firearms, the age restrictions, and the eight weeks of training."