Pines (8 page)

“I’ll give him the message!” Marcy said brightly and hung up the phone.

Ethan pulled the receiver away from his face and slammed it five times into the table.

As he was hanging the phone back up, he noticed Sheriff Pope standing in the doorway to the conference room.

“Everything all right, Ethan?”

“Yeah, it’s...just having a little trouble getting through to my SAC.”

Pope came inside and closed the door. He sat down at the end of the table opposite Ethan.

“You said there were two missing agents?” Pope asked.

“That’s right.”

“Tell me about the other one.”

“Her name’s Kate Hewson. She worked out of the Boise field office, and, prior to that, Seattle.”

“Did you know her there?”

“We were partners.”

“So she got transferred?”

“Yes.”

“And Kate came here with Agent...”

“Bill Evans.”

“...on this top-secret investigation.”

“Right.”

“I’d like to help. Would you like my help?”

“Of course, Arnold.”

“OK. Let’s start with the basics. What does Kate look like?”

Ethan leaned back in his chair.

Kate.

He’d so thoroughly trained himself over the last year
not
to think of her that it took him a moment to retrieve her face, the memory of it like tearing open a wound that had just begun to scar over.

“She’s five-two, five-three. Hundred and five pounds.”

“Little gal, huh?”

“Best lawman I’ve ever known. Short brown hair last time I saw her, but it could have grown out. Blue eyes. Uncommonly beautiful.”

God, he could still taste her.

“Any distinguishing marks?”

“Yeah, actually. She has a faint birthmark on her cheek. A café au lait about the size of a nickel.”

“I’ll put the word out to my deputies, maybe even have a sketch of her drawn to show around town.”

“That’d be great.”

“Why did you say Kate was transferred out of Seattle?”

“I didn’t say.”

“Well, do you know?”

“Some sort of internal reshuffling was the rumor. I’d like to see the car.”

“The car?”

“The black Lincoln Town Car I was driving when the accident happened.”

“Oh, of course.”

“Where might I find that?”

“There’s a salvage yard on the outskirts of town.” The sheriff stood. “What was that address again?”

“Six-oh-four First Avenue. I’ll walk you over.”

“No need.”

“I want to.”

“I
don’t
want you to.”

“Why?”

“Was there anything else you needed?”

“I’d like to know the results of your investigation.”

“Come back tomorrow after lunch. We’ll see where we’re at.”

“And you’ll take me to the salvage yard to see the car?”

“I think we can swing that. But for now, let’s go. I’ll walk you out.”

* * *

Ethan’s jacket and shirt smelled marginally better as he slid his arms into the sleeves and started down the street, away from the Wayward Pines Sheriff’s Office. He still reeked, but figured the offensive smell of decay would draw less attention than a man walking around town in nothing but dress slacks.

He pushed as strong a pace as he could manage, but the wooziness kept coming in waves, and his head was alive with pain, each step sending new tendrils of agony into the far reaches of his skull.

The Biergarten was open and empty save for one bored-looking bartender sitting on a stool behind the bar reading a paperback novel—one of F. Paul Wilson’s early books.

When Ethan reached the bar, he said, “Is Beverly working tonight?”

The man held up a finger.

Ten seconds passed as he finished reading a passage.

At last, he closed the book, gave Ethan his full attention.

“What can I get you to drink?”

“Nothing. I’m looking for the woman who was tending bar here last night. Her name was Beverly. Pretty brunette. Midthirties. Fairly tall.”

The barkeep stepped down off his stool and set the book on the bar. His long, graying hair was the color of murky dishwater, and he pulled it back into a ponytail.

“You were here? In this restaurant? Last night?”

“That’s correct,” Ethan said.

“And you’re telling me that a tall brunette was tending bar?”

“Exactly. Beverly was her name.”

The man shook his head, Ethan detecting a whiff of mockery in his smile.

“There’s two people on the payroll here who tend bar. Guy named Steve, and me.”

“No, this woman waited on me last night. I ate a burger, sat right over there.” Ethan pointed to the corner stool.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, buddy, but how much did you have to drink?”

“Nothing. And I’m not your buddy. I’m a federal agent. And I know that I was here last night, and I know who served me.”

“Sorry, man, I don’t know what to tell you. I think you must’ve been at a different restaurant.”

“No, I...”

Ethan suddenly lost his focus.

Dug his fingertips into his temples.

He could feel his pulse now in his temporal artery, each heartbeat carrying the punch of those cold headaches he used to get as a kid—that fleeting, excruciating pain that followed too ravenous a bite of popsicle or ice cream.

“Sir? Sir, are you all right?”

Ethan staggered back from the bar, managed to say, “She was here. I know it. I don’t know why you’re doing...”

Then he was standing outside, his hands on his knees, bent over a pool of vomit on the sidewalk that he quickly surmised had come from him, his throat burning from the bile.

Ethan straightened up, wiped his mouth across the sleeve of his jacket.

The sun had already dropped behind the cliffs, the coolness of evening upon the town.

There were things he needed to do—find Beverly, find the EMTs, and recover his personal belongings—but all he wanted was to curl up in bed in a dark room. Sleep off the pain. The confusion. And the base emotion underlying it all that was getting harder and harder to ignore.

Terror.

The strengthening sense that something was very, very wrong.

* * *

He stumbled up the stone steps and pushed through the doors into the hotel.

The fireplace warmed the lobby.

A young couple occupied one of the loveseats by the hearth, sipping from glasses of sparkling wine. On a romantic vacation, he figured, enjoying a completely different side of Wayward Pines.

A tuxedoed man sat at the grand piano, playing “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.”

Ethan arrived at the front desk, forcing himself to smile through the pain.

The same clerk who’d evicted him from his room that morning started speaking even before she looked up.

“Welcome to the Wayward Pines Hotel. How may I help...”

She stopped when she saw Ethan.

“Hi, Lisa.”

“I’m impressed,” she said.

“Impressed?”

“You came back to pay. You told me you would, but I honestly didn’t think I’d ever see you again. I apologize for—”

“No, listen, I wasn’t able to find my wallet today.”

“You mean you haven’t come back to pay for your room last night? Like you promised me you were going to multiple times?”

Ethan shut his eyes, breathing through the exquisite pain.

“Lisa, you cannot imagine the day I’ve had. I just need to lie down for a few hours. I don’t even need a room for the whole night. Just a place to clear my head and sleep. I’m in so much pain.”

“Hold on.” She slid off her chair and leaned toward him across the counter. “You still can’t pay and now you’re asking me for
another
room?”

“I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

“You lied to me.”

“I’m sorry. I really thought I would have it by—”

“Do you understand that I went out on a limb for you? That I could lose my job?”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“Go.”

“Excuse me?”

“Did you not hear me?”

“I don’t have any place to go, Lisa. I don’t have a phone. I have no money. I haven’t eaten since last night, and—”

“Explain to me again how any of this is my problem.”

“I just need to lie down for a few hours. I am begging you.”

“Look, I’ve explained this to you as clearly as I possibly can. It’s time for you to leave.”

Ethan didn’t move. He just stared at her, hoping she might see the agony in his eyes, take pity.

“Now,” she said.

He raised his hands in a gesture of surrender, backing away from the counter.

As he reached the doors, Lisa called after him. “I don’t want to see you back in here ever again.”

Ethan nearly fell descending the steps, his head spinning by the time he reached the sidewalk. The streetlamps and the lights from passing cars began to swirl, Ethan noting the strength flooding out of his legs like someone had pulled a drain plug.

Regardless, he started up the sidewalk, saw that redbrick building looming up the street, eight blocks away. There was still fear of it, but now he needed the hospital. Wanted the bed, the sleep, the meds. Anything to stop this pain.

He was either going to the hospital or he was sleeping outside—in an alley, or a park, exposed to the elements.

But it was eight blocks, so far, each step now requiring a crushing expenditure of energy, and the lights were disintegrating all around him—swirling, long tails getting more intense, more pronounced, skewing his vision as if he could see the world only as a long-exposure shot of a city at night, the car lights stretching into rods of brilliance, the streetlamps burning like blowtorches.

He bumped into someone.

A man pushed him, said, “Do you drive that way?”

At the next intersection, Ethan stopped, doubtful he could make it across.

He stumbled back and sat down hard on the sidewalk against a building.

The street had become crowded—he couldn’t see anything distinctly, but he could hear footsteps moving by on the concrete and snippets of passing conversation.

He lost all sense of time.

He might have dreamed.

Then he was lying on his side on the cold concrete, felt someone’s breath, their voice right in his face.

Words came at him, though he couldn’t assemble them into any sensible order.

He opened his eyes.

Night had fallen.

He was shivering.

A woman knelt beside him, and he felt her hands gripping his shoulders. She was shaking him, speaking to him.

“Sir, are you all right? Can you hear me? Sir? Can you look at me and tell me what’s wrong?”

“He’s drunk.” A man’s voice.

“No, Harold. He’s sick.”

Ethan tried to pull her face into focus, but it was dark and blurry, and all he could see were those streetlamps shining like minor suns across the road and the occasional streak of light from a passing car.

“My head hurts,” he said in a voice that sounded far too weak and pained and fear-filled to be his. “I need help.”

She took his hand and told him not to worry, not to be afraid, that help was already on the way.

And though the hand holding his clearly didn’t belong to a young woman—the skin too taut and thin, like old paper—there was something so familiar in the voice that it broke his heart.

They took the Bainbridge Island ferry out of Seattle and headed north up the peninsula toward Port Angeles, a convoy of four cars carrying fifteen of the Burkes’ closest friends.

Theresa had been hoping for a pretty day, but it was cold, gray rain, the Olympics obscured, and nothing visible beyond their narrow corridor of highway.

But none of that mattered.

They were going regardless of the weather, and if no one else wanted to join her, she and Ben would hike up alone.

Her friend Darla drove, Theresa in the backseat holding her seven-year-old son’s hand and staring out the rain-beaded glass as the rainforest streaked past in a blur of dark green.

A few miles west of town on Highway 112, they reached the trailhead to Striped Peak.

It was still overcast, but the rain had stopped.

They started out in silence, hiking along the water, no sound but the impact of their footfalls squishing in the mud and the white noise of the breakers.

Theresa glanced down into a cove as the trail passed above it, the water not as blue as she remembered, blaming the cloud cover for muting the color, no failing of her memory.

The group passed the World War II bunkers and climbed through groves of fern and then into forest.

Moss everywhere.

The trees still dripping.

Lushness even in early winter.

They neared the top.

The entire time, no one had spoken.

Theresa could feel a burning in her legs and the tears coming.

It started to rain as they reached the summit—nothing heavy, just a few wild drops blowing sideways in the wind.

Theresa walked out into the meadow.

She was crying now.

On a clear day, the view would’ve been for miles, with the sea a thousand feet below.

Today the peak was socked in.

She crumpled down in the wet grass, put her head between her knees, and cried.

There was the pattering of drizzle on the hood of her poncho and nothing else.

Ben sat down beside her and she put her arm around him, said, “You did good hiking, buddy. How you feeling?”

“All right, I guess. Is this it?”

“Yeah, this is it. You could see a lot farther if it wasn’t for the fog.”

“What do we do now?”

She wiped her eyes, took a deep, trembling breath.

“Now, I’m going to say some things about your dad. Maybe some other people will too.”

“Do I have to?”

“Only if you want to.”

“I don’t want to.”

“That’s fine.”

“It doesn’t mean I don’t still love him.”

“I know that.”

“Would he want me to talk about him?”

“Not if it made you feel uncomfortable.”

Theresa shut her eyes, took a moment to gather herself.

She struggled onto her feet.

Her friends were milling around in the ferns, blowing into their hands for warmth.