Pines (11 page)

Ethan tried to suppress the glare.

“Are you kidding?”

“If you could just answer...”

“No.”

Jenkins scribbled on his pad.

“Have you had any difficulty talking? For instance, maybe your speech has been garbled or mixed up?”

“No. And I’m not delusional. And I’m not having hallucinations, or—”

“Well, you wouldn’t really know if you were having hallucinations, now would you? You’d believe the things you were seeing and hearing were real. I mean, if you were hallucinating me and being in this hospital room and this entire conversation we’re having, it wouldn’t feel any different, would it?”

Ethan slid his legs over the side of the bed and eased his feet down onto the floor.

“What are you doing?” Jenkins asked.

Ethan started toward the closet.

Weak, unstable on his legs.

“You’re in no condition to be leaving, Ethan. They’re still evaluating your MRI. You could have a closed-head injury and we don’t know the severity. We need to continue our evaluation—”

“I’ll get an evaluation. Just not here. Not in this town.”

Ethan pulled open the closet door, took his suit down off the hanger.

“You did walk into the sheriff’s office without a shirt on. Is that correct?”

Ethan slid his arms into his white button-down, which appeared to have been washed since he wore it last. The stink of human decay replaced with the scent of laundry detergent.

“It reeked,” Ethan said. “It smelled like the dead man I had just—”

“You mean the one in the abandoned house that you say you found.”

“I didn’t
say
I found it. I found it.”

“And you did go to the residence of Mack and Jane Skozie, whom you’d never met before, and verbally harassed Mr. Skozie on his front porch. Is that a fair statement?”

Ethan started on the buttons, fingers trembling, struggling to fit them through the holes. Got them out of
order, but he didn’t care. Get dressed. Get out of here. Clear of this town.

“Walking around with a potential brain injury is not on the list of smart things to do,” Jenkins said. He had risen out of his chair.

“There’s something wrong here,” Ethan said.

“I know, that’s what I’ve been trying to—”

“No. This town. The people in it. You. Something’s off, and if you think I’m going to sit here, let you fuck with me for one more second—”

“I am not fucking with you, Ethan. No one here is fucking with you. Do you have any idea how paranoid that statement sounds? I’m merely trying to determine if you’re in the throes of a psychotic episode.”

“Well, I’m not.”

Ethan pulled on his pants, got them buttoned, reached down for his shoes.

“Forgive me if I don’t take
your
word on that. ‘An abnormal condition of the mind, generally characterized by a loss of contact with reality.’ That’s the textbook definition of psychosis, Ethan. It could’ve been caused by the car accident. By seeing your partner killed. Or some buried trauma from the war resurfacing.”

“Get out of my room,” Ethan said.

“Ethan, your life could be—”

Ethan looked at Jenkins across the room, and something in his stare, his body language, must have suggested the real threat of violence, because the psychiatrist’s eyes went wide, and for the first time, he shut up.

* * *

Nurse Pam looked up from her paperwork behind the desk in the nurses’ station.

“Mr. Burke, what on earth are you doing up and dressed and out of bed?”

“Leaving.”

“Leaving?” She said it like she didn’t comprehend the word. “The hospital?”

“Wayward Pines.”

“You’re in no condition to even be out of—”

“I need my personal belongings right now. The sheriff told me the EMTs may have removed them from the car.”

“I thought the sheriff had them.”

“No.”

“You sure about that?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I can put on my Nancy Drew hat and—”

“Stop wasting my time. Do you know where they are?”

“No.”

Ethan turned away from her, started walking.

Nurse Pam called after him.

He stopped at the elevator, punched the down arrow button.

She was coming now—he could hear her quick footsteps on the checkered linoleum.

Turned and watched her approach in that lovely throwback of a nurses’ uniform.

She stopped a few feet away.

He had four or five inches on her. A few years as well.

“I can’t let you leave, Ethan,” she said. “Not until we know what’s wrong with you.”

The elevator doors screeched open.

Ethan backed away from the nurse into the car.

“Thanks for your help, and your concern,” he said, pressing G three times until the button illuminated, “but I think I got it figured out.”

“What?”

“It’s this town that’s wrong.”

Pam stretched her foot across the threshold, blocked the doors from closing.

“Ethan. Please. You’re not thinking clearly.”

“Move your foot.”

“I’m worried about you. Everyone here is.”

He’d been leaning back against the wall. Now he pushed off and came forward, stopping inches away from Pam, staring at her through the four-inch space between the doors.

He looked down, tapped the tip of her white shoe with the tip of his black shoe.

For a long moment, she held her ground, Ethan beginning to wonder if he would have to physically remove her from the elevator car.

Finally, she pulled her foot back.

* * *

Standing on the sidewalk, Ethan thought the town seemed quiet for late afternoon. He couldn’t hear a single car engine. Nothing, in fact, but the sound of birds cheeping and wind pushing through the crowns of three tall pines that loomed over the hospital’s front lawn.

He walked out into the middle of the street.

Stood there watching, listening.

The sun felt good and warm in his face.

The breeze carried a pleasant chill.

He looked up at the sky—dark blue crystal.

No clouds.

Flawless.

This place was beautiful, no question, but for the first time, those mountain walls that boxed this valley inside instilled something in him other than awe. He couldn’t
explain why, but they filled him with fear. A dread he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

He felt...strange.

Maybe he’d suffered an injury. But maybe not.

Maybe being detached from the outside world now going on five days was beginning to take its toll.

No iPhone, no Internet, no Facebook.

It seemed impossible as he considered it—to have had no contact with his family, with Hassler, with anyone outside of Wayward Pines.

He started walking toward the sheriff’s office.

Better to just leave. Regroup. Reevaluate from the other side of those cliff walls.

From the comfort of a normal town.

Because something here was definitely off-kilter.

* * *

“Sheriff Pope in?”

Belinda Moran looked up from her game of solitaire.

“Hello,” she said. “How can I help you?”

Ethan asked a touch louder this time. “Is the sheriff in?”

“No, he stepped out for a moment.”

“So he’ll be back shortly?”

“I don’t know when he’s due back.”

“But you said ‘for a moment’ so I figured—”

“It’s just a figure of speech, young man.”

“Do you remember me? Agent Burke from the Secret Service?”

“Yes. You have your shirt on this time. I like this look much better.”

“Have there been any calls for me?”

She squinted and cocked her head. “Why would there be?”

“Because I told some people they could reach me here.”

Belinda shook her head. “No one’s called for you.”

“Not my wife, Theresa, or an Agent Adam Hassler?”

“No one’s called for you, Mr. Burke, and you shouldn’t tell them to call for you here.”

“I need to use the telephone in your conference room again.”

Belinda frowned. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Why?”

She didn’t have an answer to this, just maintained her scowl.

* * *

“Theresa, it’s me. Just trying to reach you. I was in the hospital again. I don’t know if you called the sheriff’s office or the hotel, but I haven’t gotten any messages. I’m still in Wayward Pines. I haven’t been able to find my phone or wallet, but I’m done with this place. I’m going to borrow a cruiser from the sheriff’s office. Call you tonight from Boise. Miss you, love you.”

He leaned forward in the chair, got a new dial tone, and then shut his eyes and tried to conjure it.

The number was there.

He spun it out, listened to four rings, and then that same voice from the last time answered. “Secret Service.”

“This is Ethan Burke calling again for Adam Hassler.”

“He’s not available at the moment. Was there something I could help you with?”

“Is this Marcy?”

“Yes.”

“Do you recall our phone conversation from yesterday?”

“You know, sir, we get a lot of calls here every day, and I just can’t keep up with every—”

“You told me you’d slip Agent Hassler a message.”

“What was it regarding?”

Ethan closed his eyes, took a deep breath. If he insulted her now, she’d just end the phone call. If he waited until he was back in Seattle, he could publicly eviscerate her, have her fired on the spot.

“Marcy, it was regarding a dead Secret Service agent in Wayward Pines, Idaho.”

“Hmm. Well, if I said I would give him the message, then I’m sure I followed through on that.”

“But I haven’t heard back from him. Don’t you find that strange? That an agent from Hassler’s field office—me—located another agent who had been murdered, an agent I was sent here to find, and now twenty-four hours have passed and Hassler hasn’t even returned my call?”

A slight pause, and then: “Was there something
I
could help you with?”

“Yes, I’d like to speak with Agent Hassler right now.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, he’s not available at the moment. Was there something—”

“Where is he?”

“He’s not available.”

“Where. Is. He.”

“He’s not available at the moment, but I’m sure he’ll call you back at his earliest convenience. He’s just been very swamped.”

“Who are you, Marcy?”

Ethan felt the phone rip out of his grasp.

Pope slammed it down into the cradle, the sheriff’s eyes boring through Ethan like a pair of smoldering coals.

“Who told you you could come in here and use my telephone?”

“No one, I just—”

“That’s right. No one. Get up.”

“Excuse me?”

“I said get up. You can either walk out of here under your own steam, or I can drag you through the lobby myself.”

Ethan stood up slowly, faced the sheriff across the table.

“You’re speaking to a federal agent, sir.”

“I’m not convinced.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“You show up here, no ID, no phone, nothing—”

“I’ve explained my situation. Did you take a trip over to six-oh-four First Avenue, see the body of Agent Evans?”

“I did.”

“And?”

“Under investigation.”

“You’ve called in crime scene specialists to process the—”

“It’s all being handled.”

“What does that even mean?”

Pope just stared at him, Ethan thinking,
He’s unhinged and you have no support in this town. Just get a car, get out of here. Hammer him when you come back with the cavalry. He’ll lose his badge, face prosecution for hamstringing a federal investigation.

“I have a favor to ask,” Ethan said, conciliatory.

“What?”

“I’d like to borrow one of your vehicles.”

The sheriff laughed. “Why?”

“Well, obviously, since the accident, I don’t have one.”

“This ain’t Hertz Rent-a-Car.”

“I need some transportation, Arnold.”

“It’s just not possible.”

“Is this
your
sheriff’s department? You can do whatever you want, right?”

The sheriff blinked. “I don’t have one to lend you.” Pope started walking down the length of the conference table. “Let’s go, Mr. Burke.”

Pope stopped at the open door and waited for Ethan.

As Ethan drew within range, Pope grabbed his arm and pulled him in close, his large, powerful hand crushing his biceps.

“I may have questions for you in the not too distant,” the sheriff said.

“About what?”

Pope just smiled. “Don’t even think about leaving town.”

* * *

Walking away from the sheriff’s department, Ethan glanced over his shoulder, saw Pope watching him through a split in the conference room blinds.

The sun had gone behind the mountains.

The town stood silent.

He put a block between himself and Pope’s office and sat down on the curb of a quiet street.

“This isn’t right,” he whispered, and he kept whispering it.

He felt weak and hungry.

Tried to lay everything out, all that had happened since he’d come to Wayward Pines. Scrambling to assemble a snapshot of the entire picture, thinking if he could see it all at once, he might piece these bizarre encounters together into a problem to be solved. Or at least one that made sense. But the harder he tried, the more he felt like he was thinking inside a cloud.

An epiphany: sitting here wasn’t going to change a damn thing.

He came to his feet, started toward Main Street.

Go to the hotel. Maybe there’s a message waiting from Theresa or Hassler.

False hope. He knew it. There would be no message. Nothing but enmity.

I am not losing my mind.

I am not losing my mind.

He recited his name. His social security number. His physical address in Seattle. Theresa’s maiden name. The date of his son’s birth. It all felt real. Like scraps of information that formed his identity.

Comfort in names and numbers.

A clinking on the next block caught his attention.

There was a vacant lot across the street with several picnic tables, a few grills, and a horseshoe pit. Families had gathered for a party—a group of women stood talking by a pair of red coolers. Two men flipped burgers and hotdogs on a grill, smoke rising in blue coils into the still evening air. The smell of cooking meat made Ethan’s stomach ache, and he realized that he was even hungrier than he thought.