On Borrowed Time (16 page)

As he always did when a setback, however slight, occurred, he reassessed everything to see if any changes in the plan were warranted. This time he decided that the plan should survive intact, but that increased speed was necessary.

He was so close.

I spent the next twenty-four hours assessing the situation.

I did this partially because a lot had happened, and I needed to figure out exactly what it all meant. But the main reason for my lengthy reflection was that I couldn’t think of what to do next.

I wasn’t happy about the results of my encounter with Lassiter. I’m not really sure what I had hoped to accomplish, but whatever it was, I didn’t succeed. I learned nothing except an instinctive confirmation that Lassiter was doing business at Ardmore General, business that he wanted kept secret. But I really had already known that, based on the number of calls that Craig reported between Lassiter and the hospital.

Also on the downside, if Lassiter wasn’t aware I was after him before, I had certainly tipped him off and helped him prepare. Kentris questioning Gates would have likely done so anyway, so that didn’t bother me too much.

If I was trying to rattle Lassiter’s cage, I probably shook it gently instead. It wasn’t satisfying; what I really wanted was to put the son of a bitch in a cage for the rest of his life.

I was more pleased with how things went in confronting the guy tailing me. I had gotten pictures of him, his license plate, and the device he was using. My plan was to give it all to Kentris; he would hopefully have the ability to use it to find out the guy’s identity.

I didn’t want to send Kentris the camera itself, because I wanted to keep the pictures for myself. I brought the camera to the drugstore and asked them to develop five copies of each, hoping their promise of “one-hour photo” was legitimate. I also asked them to put the pictures on two CDs.

The clerk seemed to know what she was doing, and I mentioned that these were very important pictures to me. If they screwed it up, bringing it there would have ranked as the stupidest thing anyone had ever done, and I regretted it the moment that I dropped the camera off.

But the pictures came out crisp and clear, and I e-mailed them to Kentris, in addition to overnighting him two sets. I called him to explain what had happened and what he was receiving, but I had to leave a message when I couldn’t reach him.

I also called Mark Cook, and asked him to examine the picture of the device that always seemed to be pointed toward wherever I was. I e-mailed it to him, and he called back within two minutes of receiving it.

“It’s a laser,” he said. “State-of-the-art. Probably cost two hundred grand.”

“What’s it used for?”

“To overhear conversations,” he said. “You said you were in a restaurant at the time?”

“Yes.”

“This device blanketed the window and absorbed every single conversation, every single sound, in that restaurant. You didn’t say a word that they didn’t hear.”

“How can they distinguish one conversation from another?” I asked. “There must have been at least twenty-five people talking in there.”

“Richard, I can give you an hour-long technical explanation, or you can just accept what I tell you. Whoever is reading the data from this machine knows every word you said.”

“And let me guess … we can’t trace it back to anyone.”

“Right.”

“Where do they get it?” I asked.

“Where do they get what? The device?”

“Yes. I assume you don’t walk into Walmart and pick one of these things up,” I said. “Maybe we can find them that way; trace it back from where they purchased it.”

“You’re not understanding me, Richard. You’re trying to find out
who
you’re dealing with, when the problem is you have no idea
what
you’re dealing with. This is how countries spy on each other; you piss off any countries lately?”

“Can you do anything about this? I need to be able to conduct private conversations. At least in my apartment.”

“The only way is white noise.”

“What about it?”

“If we attach white-noise devices to the panes themselves, then when they are forced to strip it out, they’ll lose your voices in the process. I can take care of it right away; it’ll be in by tomorrow.”

“Is it expensive?”

“Depending on how many windows you have facing the street, maybe a couple of hundred bucks. That’s the thing with these scientific advances; once you know how to defeat them, it’s easy and usually cheap to do so.”

Cook hung up to get the white-noise machines, and I called Craig Langel to see if he’d come up with anything. “I was just going to call you,” he said.

“What about?”

“It isn’t easy to penetrate what’s going on at Ardmore Hospital; it’s a small place and Gates has it locked down pretty well.”

“That’s what you were going to call me about?” I asked.

“No, that’s my way of setting you up to be impressed with the information I have gotten.”

“Let’s hear it, and please make it be good news.”

“Well, it’s certainly interesting news. Gates is definitely conducting a drug study for Lassiter’s company. It’s an Alzheimer’s drug.”

The news was somewhere between intriguing and stunning. Lassiter was involved with a memory drug, and everybody around me had forgotten Jen. It could be a coincidence, but that didn’t help me to think about it that way.

“Do you know anything else about it?” I asked.

“I thought that was pretty good, for a start. It’s a stage-two trial, which is a very significant step if they get to move forward to stage three.”

“Good. Now get me more information.”

“I will. But Richard, there’s something else I need to say. As a friend.”

“Okay,” I said, girding myself. I’d found that very often things people say “as a friend” don’t sound too friendly.

“There’s nothing that I’ve learned so far, absolutely nothing, that has anything to do with your girlfriend. No hint at all that she existed.”

“I understand.”

“I didn’t say that to make you feel bad; it’s just that I know that’s your goal here, and you need to know the truth. But that’s not the only reason I’m saying that.”

“What’s the other reason?”

“You’ve been, we’ve been, investigating this stuff as a way to search for her. But there’s something major going on here, and it likely has nothing to do with her.”

“So what does it have to do with?”

“I don’t know yet. But I’ll bet it’s about that story you were working on, the one that was going to get you the Pulitzer. All I’m saying is that we might be better off going at this as a news story, rather than a missing persons case.”

He was probably right, but I didn’t want to admit it. “Fine, so let’s uncover what’s going on and get me the Pulitzer. Then it’ll get a lot of publicity, Jen will read about it, and she’ll come home.” I was joking … sort of.

“You’re a pain in the ass,” he said.

“That’s how you talk to a Pulitzer prize winner?”

“This is Richard Kilmer. I trust that by now you are quite familiar with him.”

The Stone noticed his audience smile, an easy thing to notice, since the entire audience consisted of one person. This person would not have been there if his lower-level colleagues had not given a glowing and detailed assessment of the Stone’s progress.

And nothing proved that progress more completely than the case of Richard Kilmer.

This was the first of three second-tier presentations the Stone would make. The competition was down to three finalists, and this was the next-to-last time that the Stone would have to address them before they made their final bids.

What followed next was a two-hour video and audio presentation in which Kilmer was the star performer. The Stone limited his comments to the rare times when he felt some explanation was necessary, but otherwise the presentation basically spoke for itself.

At the one-hour mark, the Stone always offered each audience a break, to have a drink or to go to the bathroom. The offer was always declined, a reflection of how riveting the presentation was.

When it was over, the Stone said, “As you can see, the stress that Mr. Kilmer has been under has been extraordinarily intense. Much of this has been by design, but much he has brought on himself in the process of conducting his amateur investigation.”

The question the man asked of the Stone was the expected one. “He seems to be making progress in that investigation. How are you planning to deal with that?”

The Stone smiled knowingly. “Good question. Much of that progress has been, shall we say, allowed to happen. The more stress, the more knowledge, the more conflicting the emotions, and the more the perfection of our system becomes obvious. Our intent is to show that nothing can break through; that the effect of our process is permanent.”

The Stone hesitated, to let it sink in. Then, “Nothing Kilmer can learn, or fear, or deal with, can change what for him is an immutable truth. He knew this woman, he loved her, he slept with her, he was going to marry her. That is the reality that he has lived.”

“And the publicity he is generating?”

The Stone believed in being candid, and this was certainly the time for that. “That is exactly why he was chosen, along with the fact that he was beginning to interfere with the secrecy of our work. His ability to reach the public was a way for us to demonstrate to you … and other potential buyers … the power of what we possess, in a way that is completely credible.”

“I have no doubt it is credible, and you may be assured that we remain very interested. However, you understand that as important as it is to us to re-create the past, it is at least as important to influence future behavior.”

The Stone smiled. “That is why the process continues and bids are not yet being solicited. Mr. Kilmer is going to behave exactly as we dictate.”

“Can you be more specific?”

“Certainly. He is a nonviolent man; to the best of our knowledge he has never even been in a fistfight. Additionally, he has often written of his disdain for capital punishment, calling it ‘barbaric and not consistent with enlightened society.’ ”

“What are you saying?”

The Stone smiled again. “I am saying that Richard Kilmer is going to commit murder.”

When I answered the door at nine
A.M.
, Jen was standing there.

Suddenly there was no air in my lungs and no support for my legs. I let out a noise somewhere between a gasp and a moan, not too loud and certainly not voluntary. I caught myself when I realized that it wasn’t Jen at all.

It was Allie.

“I’m sorry,” she said, instantly realizing what had happened. “I should have warned you.”

I was going to try and deny that I had thought she was Jen, but there would have been no way to convince her. “It’s okay,” I said. “I’m glad to see you.” And the truth was I was very glad to see her.

She hugged me, longer than I might have expected, but not as long as I would have liked. “Can I come in?” she asked.

“Actually, I’m enjoying myself out here.”

She laughed, and we went inside. “Coffee,” she said. “Urgent. Coffee.”

I poured cups for both of us. “I didn’t expect to see you,” I said. “I’ve missed you.”

“I should have called, but I was afraid you’d talk me out of it. I flew in last night, but got in late.”

“How is your mother?”

“Even after all this time that Julie’s been gone, she’s still in denial. I don’t think a parent can ever be the same, not after something like this.”

“What made you come?”

“Besides you?”

I didn’t know how to answer that, so I took the easy way out. “Yes.”

Allie reached into her handbag and took out something I never would have expected, a pair of woman’s shoes. “These.”

“How did you know my size?”

I thought it was a pretty funny line, but she didn’t smile. Her answer told me why. “Julie was wearing these when they found her body.”

“And?”

“And all of the clothes she was wearing when they found her were not the clothes she was wearing when she left the house that day.”

I knew what she was saying immediately. Julie had left in the morning, and only driven six hours before her car went off the road. Why would she have stopped to change clothes?

“There could be a million reasons for that, Allie.”

“Name one.”

“She could have stopped for lunch, spilled something on herself, gone into the restroom, and changed.”

“No. None of that can be the explanation.”

“Why not?”

Allie held up the shoes. “Because of these. They’re called flats. When Julie was eighteen, she got in a car accident. She sped up when she should have stopped, and hit a tree. Broke her arm and cut her chin. She said it was because she was wearing flats like this, and the shoe got caught on the gas pedal. She never wore them again when she drove. Never. She would sooner have driven barefoot.”

“So what’s your theory?” I asked.

“I don’t have one, except I know it didn’t happen the way they said it did.”

“But it was definitely her body?’

She nodded. “The DNA matched.”

“Are they sure they are matching it to the right sample? Would they have had a sample from Julie?”

“They used hair from her brush, but to be sure, I made them repeat the process using my DNA. Identical twins have the same DNA. It matched again.”

“What does this have to do with what I’m doing?” I asked. “Jen couldn’t have been with me if she was in that car. It’s great to see you, Allie, but why are you here?”

She held up the shoes. “Because these don’t make any sense, Richard. So I brought them to the ‘no sense’ capital of the world.”

I smiled. “Kilmerville. Population one nut-job.”

“Two.”

“I think it might be better for you if it stayed at one.”

“Why?” she asked.

“Because you’re not going to find Julie here. And on some level you’re still looking for her. It can’t end well.”

She pretended to be sniffing the air in the room. “Do you smell psychobabble?”

“I’m serious, Allie. I love having you here, and I’ve missed you terribly, but you need to think about yourself and what’s best for you.”