The Cure (30 page)

Erin Palmer had been resting her eyes in the front seat, which was fully reclined. When she heard him in the backseat her eyes shot open. “Kyle,
thank God
,” she said. “You’ve been out for over ten hours. I was beginning to think you’d never wake up.”

Hansen pushed himself up to a seated position in the back of the car. Since his eyes had been closed they were adjusted for night vision—at least to the limits that human anatomy would allow—and he stared out of the window, straining to get his bearings. There were no lights of civilization. In the dim illumination provided by moonlight and starlight alone, he saw the outline of a massive concrete pillar with mighty steel struts extending upward into the blackness, just a foot from the car.

“You’re probably wondering where we are and how we got here,” said Erin.

Hansen turned to her and noticed that her hair was cut to just below the ears.

“I thought I was dead,” he said simply. And then, shaking his head as though he didn’t believe it still, he said, “How is it that I’m not dead?”

Erin spread her hands. “I don’t know. I was surprised too
. Pleasantly
surprised,” she hastened to add, and then, deciding this wasn’t nearly a strong enough sentiment, added, “Ecstatic. Relieved out of my mind.” She paused. “Anyway, our attackers—the
hostiles
as you put it—were armed to the teeth and shot up this car pretty good. Took me a long time to clean up the glass once we arrived. But they only used a tranquilizer gun on you.”

Hansen blew out a long breath. “Boy, it sure looked like a regular gun to me.”

“I don’t doubt it,” she replied. “But for some reason they wanted to take us alive.”

“For some very
unpleasant
reason I’m sure. Aren’t there a small portion of psychopaths who are not only indifferent to suffering, but actually get off on it?”

She nodded. “Yeah.”

“So go on. How did you possibly get us out of that?”

“You helped a lot. You took one of them out with the car. And I had already injured one. While you were getting shot I was able to hit another of them in the thigh. Turns out I was in a far better tactical position than I realized. They couldn’t see where I was in the room. To root me out, they had to cover territory without adequate cover. I might have been able to get them all before they got me, but I was out of ammo. Their man at the student union probably had some extra clips somewhere. In hindsight, I should have looked for them.”

“What, in the two seconds you had before a hundred pairs of eyes turned to you and the twitching bad guy on the ground?”

She smiled. “I guess I can’t beat myself up too much for that. So far, things have worked out. I realized I was out of ammo, but your stunt with the car had them second-guessing themselves, and they pulled back to regroup. This gave me the chance to leave the room and retrieve a gun from the guy you had hit. Turns out it was a tranquilizer gun. Didn’t know it, but those things are
great
. Much better than a real gun.”

Hansen raised his eyebrows. “How so?”

“If you hit someone, anywhere, they’re out of the picture. With a real gun, that isn’t necessarily the case. You might hit them, but if the shot is off even a little they remain a threat. With a tranquilizer gun it’s one and done. Within seconds.”

Hansen nodded. “So you were able to hit them all?”

“Well, you get credit for one. And without you, I wouldn’t have had a chance. Thanks,” she said warmly. “That was incredibly brave of you.”

“I was absolutely terrified. But there were no other options.”

She turned away, and Hansen imagined he saw a tear in her eye, but in the poor light, even this close, he could well have been wrong.

“There
were
other options,” she said softly, her voice now distant. “You could have frozen. Until you’re faced with a situation like that, you never know how you’ll react.” There was a long silence. “I froze up once.” She paused once more and then shook her head. “
Never again
.”

The car was as silent as a tomb for several long seconds. Finally, Hansen decided to change the subject. “Did the cops ever show up?”

“No. You need to work on your nine-one-one calls,” she chided him. “They may have arrived after the fact. Who knows? Time seemed to work in slow motion. I think the entire attack, from start to finish, only took a minute or two. When they were all down I pulled you back into your car and drove off. You know what they say about adrenaline making you many times stronger than normal?”

Hansen nodded.

“They’re
lying
. I can’t
believe
how hard it was to move you. And you don’t have a pound of excess weight on you. Unconscious bodies need to come with a handle. Or a dolly would have been nice.”

“Sorry about that. Good thing we never got that cheesecake at the union.”

Erin smiled. “So then I drove for a few miles, parked in an alley behind a Dumpster so I could think for a bit, and decided to come here.”

“And where is here?”

“We’re in the center of the Santa Cruz River. Directly under a bridge that doesn’t see much use anymore. Pretty good, huh?” she said happily. “Even the few drivers crossing the bridge have no way of seeing us under here.”

“Two things. One, Tucson has a river? Really? And two, if we’re in a river, why aren’t we floating? Or sinking to our deaths more like it?”

“It’s a dry riverbed for most of the year. Some good rain in the Tucson mountains above us and it floods. That would be very bad for us, but I didn’t think it was very likely. The river is over two hundred miles long, in a U shape, and some is underground, but Tucson was originally settled along its banks.”

“Why did it dry up?”

“When more settlers came, they needed more water. They pumped it, they diverted it, they forced it into unnatural channels. And it wasn’t exactly the mighty Mississippi to begin with.”

A sad look came over her face, barely detectable in the dull light.

“What’s wrong?” said Hansen.

“I only know any of this because of my new roommate. A history grad student named Lisa.”

“So naturally she’d be interested in the history of the city she’s living in?”

“Right. The kindest, warmest person you’d ever want to meet.” Erin paused. “Are you familiar with the story of Sodom and Gomorrah?”

“Sure. I think. They were totally corrupt cities, and God destroyed them. I think the word
sodomy
comes from this story. What does that have to do with anything?”

“My mother was Jewish and my father Catholic. My mother used to joke about certain hallmarks of being Jewish. One is that if you have two Jews in a room, you have three opinions.”

Hansen chuckled.

“And the second involved this story,” said Erin.

“Sodom and Gomorrah? In what way?”

“Well, the thing about this story is, God tells Abraham he’s going to nuke the cities. Because the citizens are so wicked. Abraham says, ‘Yeah, that’s true and all, but what if there are fifty righteous men there? How can you destroy
them
along with the evil ones?’ And God agrees. If God can find fifty righteous men, he’ll spare the cities. So then Abraham says, ‘Well, what if you can only find forty-five?’ And God agrees again. Over a series of steps, they get down to ten righteous men. Of course, God isn’t able to find even ten in these cities, so he wipes them out. But the point is, Abraham is basically arguing—with
God
.” She paused. “My mom would laugh and say that only a Jew would have the chutzpah—the balls—to argue with God. And not only argue, but win some points.”

Hansen smiled. “I see why she liked this story so much. I’ve never heard that part of it.”

“So back to my roommate, Lisa. I study the evil that humans do. I work with murderers and rapists. My family was wiped out by pure evil. You know all that. But even those who aren’t psychopathic can be pretty violent and selfish and cruel. Sometimes it gets so depressing, I think to myself, to hell with the species. Sometimes I just want to curl up into a shell and give up on life. After all I’ve been through, given the current situation, it’s tempting to say, ‘Drake thinks we’re self-destructing? So what? Good riddance.’”

There was more silence, and once again Hansen suspected tears had come to Erin’s eyes. “But then I meet people like Lisa. Wonderful people. People who are kind, and gentle, and caring. Who would do anything for others.” She paused. “And I remember my family. My parents were the warmest, most generous people I’ve ever known. My father, so filled with love, that in the end…”

She faltered, and after a lengthy period of silence it became clear she would not continue.

Hansen now understood why Erin had shared this particular biblical story with him. “So you’re saying the world is Sodom and Gomorrah,” he whispered finally. “And people like Lisa and your family are the ten righteous men.”

“Exactly,” said Erin, her voice still thick with emotion. “So maybe we are worth saving. Because of them. And people like them.”

Erin took some additional time to gather herself. “Anyway,” she said, “I should probably continue filling you in. As I was saying, I knew about this river because of Lisa.” She paused. “So I came here to wait for you to regain consciousness. I had no idea it would take so long. That was one hell of a potent dose. I was getting worried.”

“Glad to be conscious again,” he said. Then, grinning, he gestured to the concrete pillar beside them and added, “But why do I feel like a troll?”

Erin laughed. “What? You’ve never hung out under a bridge before?”

Hansen rubbed his bald head. “No. And I usually go to better barbers too. I see you kept busy while I was out.”

“I had your goodie bags from Walmart. I was seriously thinking of disguising you as a woman, but I didn’t have a dress.”

“So you went with the bald look?”

“Yeah, bald with black tattoos. I used the rearview mirror to give myself some as well. I’m not a great artist, so I used the ink pens you got and stuck with simple designs.”

She had inked a giant cross on both sides of his neck and printed a stylized
Carpe
on one of her forearms and
Diem
on the other, large enough to be unmistakable. She had cut her hair short but hadn’t dyed it.

“Now that you’re finally up, we can move,” she said. “While you were out I came up with a plan. But the plan works a lot better if I don’t have to move you around in a wheelbarrow.”

“I’m sure it does,” said Hansen. “I’m dying to hear it.”

Erin winced. “From now on, let’s try hard not to use that particular phrase.”

34

“PULL IN HERE,”
Erin Palmer instructed the driver of the cab they had called, a tall, unshaven man with a Russian accent. Erin had provided the address of their destination over the phone, and she and Kyle Hansen had remained silent in the backseat after the cab had picked them up on the little used bridge over the now-dry Santa Cruz River. Since Erin’s face, disguised though it was, had appeared on every television station in the Southwest, Hansen had screened her from view when they had entered the cab and she had immediately shut her eyes and dropped her head to her chin, pretending to be taking a nap.

Twenty minutes later they arrived at their destination; the back end of the University of Arizona’s psychology building, near the loading dock.

“She just needs to grab something from her office,” explained Hansen as Erin exited the cab, turned away from the driver, and strode behind a corner and out of sight. “Shouldn’t be more than five or ten minutes.”

“I’ll wait as long as you want,” said the driver in a thick accent. “The meter’s running.”

Hansen nodded. They had checked their cash reserves, and guessed they’d be down to their last fifty bucks after paying the cabbie.

Hansen tried to act bored, but couldn’t help glancing around nervously. It was hard to imagine Fuller would expect Erin to return to her office. Fuller had probably had her apartment under surveillance in the beginning, but Hansen wondered if he was continuing to waste manpower on such an effort. Erin had shown herself as far too capable to be foolish enough to return there. If she were in a horror film, Hansen knew, she wouldn’t be the dumb hot chick who went into the dark basement alone after hearing all the screaming.

Given the considerable territory Fuller’s people now had to cover, it was unlikely they were still watching the psychology building, if they ever had been, but just to be on the safe side they had decided to use the back entrance. All the door locks around the entire building were the same, and Erin’s pass code would gain her access to any entrance.

Even though Hansen believed this analysis intellectually, it was still hard not to be on the jumpy side, and he didn’t want to give the cabbie any reason to suspect he wasn’t completely relaxed. You’d think the man would wonder how they had come to need a cab where he had picked them up, but the cabbie had probably seen just about
everything
before, so had stopped wondering how people ended up in the unlikely circumstances they did long ago.

Seven minutes later, Erin rounded the corner of the building. When she approached the cab, Hansen said, “I’m sorry, but do you take credit cards?” knowing that this would distract the cabbie from studying her face as she returned.

It worked. The cabbie’s eyes left Erin and glanced at Hansen in his rearview mirror with a distasteful expression that said,
what kind of shit are you trying to pull here—you’ll pay your fare if I have to beat it out of you.
But aloud he simply shook his head and grunted, “Cash only.”

“Oh, okay,” said Hansen as Erin slid in beside him. “No problem.”

“Downtown Hilton please,” said Erin, throwing Hansen a nod that indicated she had been successful.

Erin had told him that during the long period she had waited for him to regain consciousness, she had reflected on a number of subjects: her life, her research, how she had ended up where she was, and her advisor, Jason Apgar. And then it had hit her.