The Timer Game (28 page)

“And do not think that man will save you, that man who writes so beautifully.” He crumpled the newspaper article and shoved it back into olive green pants. “Did you not wonder why he came so far on a bus?”

She blinked back sweat. Her vision blurred.

“He did not come to write this. You were
, cómo se dice
, a cover
, una distracción
. He used you, Grace, you were nothing to him. He had to meet a dangerous man here, a man who promised to take him to the place where they steal children and cut out their organs. He needed a reason to be here, and when he saw you that first day, he picked you.”

He made a small, savage gesture of dismissal.

“Out of a hat.”

Desolation swept over Grace, the kind that’s the result of hearing a terrible truth. Mac had lied to her, from the beginning.

“Grace,” Mac said into the phone, his voice anguished.

“Let me finish, Mac, there’s only a little left.”

She squeezed her eyes shut, and saw again the general, the small, still body of his child on the table in front of her. And the cost of the lie.

The general’s eyes flicked back and forth from Grace to the table, to the gray body, already slipping away.

“If she dies. If my Maria dies, we will tell the villagers we interrupted a ring of organ thieves. Stopped you. Too late to save Esteban,
pobrecito,
but the rest. You’ve seen the dried vines piled against the clinic walls." His voice was conversational.

She used the back of her wrist to wipe away the sweat.

“It will burn. The clinic. You will burn. Or be stoned. Or torn apart.” He shrugged. “One match. A well-aimed rock. One has so little control over the masses.”

At the Unocal station, the kid had finished pumping gas and the car pulled away, and Grace jerked up her head and looked blindly around. Her heart rang in her ears.

“Grace.”

“She died. The girl died.”

On the phone, Mac made a small sound.

Grace blinked.

“Sister Mary Clare was stoned to death. Two kids and Cristina died in flames.” Grace's voice was almost inaudible. “And I gave up medicine.”

“Oh,” he said. His voice was tired. “Oh.”

The sounds on the CD ended. “Story’s over, Mac. Time’s up.”

Chapter 30

All Hallows’ Eve, 10:34 a.m.

Grace crested the low brown hills out of Castaic into the Angeles National Forest, part of her not believing she’d told Mac, part of her knowing that telling him was the best chance they had of finding Katie, and the only chance she had of coming back to life.

Even at meetings, she’d only told part of that story. It was too hard. It made her feel tender inside, fragile.

She drove carefully, staying just over the speed limit, keeping the windows down and the air blowing hard across her face. There were dark shadows in the green parts of the forest, but most of it was winter brown. She needed to get into Folsom later, and as long as the Spikeman was sending her north, maybe she could still pull it off.

It was better, almost, being exhausted. The edges of pain were softer. How sharp would that loss be days from now, completely rested, if Katie was still gone?

She picked up the timer. SR 58. State route 58, she translated. And then Super 8 Punch
.
Ninety minutes left.
This is the only freebie you get. The only time you can miss a deadline
. She picked up speed. Driving. Spending this day driving was a terrible thing. Unless Katie was there, and she was moving toward her. She thought of Mac again and the pressure of his hand on her back, the sweet smell of his breath, and after a while, she turned on the radio and let it carry her the rest of the way, but time was speeding by past her window.

An acrid taste filled her mouth, the smell of an old forest fire, or maybe the smell of fear.

Dust clouds obscured the road and out of the dust, a sign appeared:
BUTTONWILLOW
58. She sailed past a field of sugar beets. On the periphery of her vision, a motel sign hung over the freeway. Super 8.

58 Super 8.

It registered a beat too late and she swerved to make the exit, barely missing a van. She corrected the wheel, sliding wide, and slammed on the brakes to stop from hitting the car in front of her, her stomach heaving in a mix of acid and alarm.

She thrust her head out the window and took gulps of air to steady the nausea. A gasoline tanker truck was swinging wide into a Mobil station and she inched around it, searching for the yellow and black motel sign jutting up on metal stilts. It stood at the end of a line of fast food outlets—buildings faintly encrusted with the chalk that came from desiccated air.

She pulled into the parking lot and burst out of the car, going into the lobby past a small kidney-shaped pool. Nausea rushed up her body and she shot into the bathroom, quivering over the toilet, her face damp. She wet a paper towel and sponged off her face, composing herself before she looked at the timer. Fourteen minutes left.

A broad-faced young woman was poring over a Sudoku puzzle at the counter and looked up in concern when she saw Grace. “You okay?”

Grace nodded, trying to think of the best approach and feeling the press of time. Across the parking lot, workmen carried racks of folding chairs toward a small stamp of grass between the hotel buildings. Grace put the timer on the counter and smiled.

“Sudoku. I love that game. I’m always getting right to the end and finding two sevens in the same square or something. Frustrating. I’m so happy to see you—” She stared at the name on the badge. “Lizzie.”

Lizzie grinned back. “Do I know you?”

“Probably not. Here’s the deal. I’m playing this game. It’s like a scavenger hunt. I was supposed to come here. This motel. At least I think I was. And ask for Punch.”

“Punch? I don’t know anybody by that name.” Lizzie frowned nicely and put down her pencil. “Show me the clue exactly. Maybe I can help.”

Grace put the timer on the counter. The numbers had slid down, melting to twelve.

“High-tech.” Lizzie turned the timer over. “Pretty cool coming up with a game like this.”

Grace nodded faintly. She pointed at the number along the bottom. “That number? That means I have less than twelve minutes left to get this thing solved.”

Lizzie’s eyes widened. “Oh. My. Okay. Well, then. Let’s see. Punch punch punch. I use a hole punch. Could that be it? Are you supposed to take it someplace? I don’t mind.”

Grace shook her head. “You wouldn’t lie to me, right?”

“About what?” Lizzie sounded deeply offended.

“Earlier, there was this clue, but I couldn’t get to it unless I did all this stuff. So even though the guy was supposed to give me the clue, he couldn’t even tell me he had it, unless I came up with—”

“Oh, oh, I get what you’re saying. No, no. I’m on your side.” Lizzie looked around the lobby and cocked her head, studying the breakfast room, now silent and empty.

“There’s punch in the machine outside,” she said finally. “One of the choices.”

“Show me.”

Lizzie abandoned her post and raced outside toward a pop dispenser, her sandals slapping the tiles as Grace followed.

She crouched down and examined it. Nothing behind the rubber flap, in the coin dispenser, or jammed into the dollar slot. She stooped down and looked underneath. Nothing.

She dug a dollar out of her wallet and fed it into the machine, on the off chance when the punch thundered down behind the flap, it would dislodge a note with it.

Punch. Nothing else. Now Lizzie was looking worried, her pale blue eyes clouding.

“God. I don’t know what to suggest. I really don’t. Can I see the timer again?”

Grace held out the timer. Seven minutes. That was all. Lizzie smiled reassuringly. “Well, it’s not like somebody’s going to die if you can’t figure this out. It’s just a game, right?”

Grace’s heart stalled.

Behind them in the grassy enclosure, the chairs had been set up in rows facing a low wooden platform. A workman said, “Hey, Lizzie. Where’s the curtain?”

“Inside, Jimmy. I’ll get it.” She turned to Grace. “Sorry. I gotta go. Good luck, okay?” Grace stood frozen. Three and a half minutes.
The only freebie you get.
Punch. There had to be something she was missing. Something obvious. Jimmy was sunburned in a white shirt and jeans, and a time card lipped from his back pocket.

Punch. “What are you setting up?” Grace fell into step with Lizzie and Jimmy.

“Oh, it’s this thing we do for the kids Sundays. Most of the time it’s reading. It’s a puppet show today. You should stick around. It’s going to be cool.”

Grace stopped. “Puppets. Punch and Judy?”

Lizzie sucked in a breath. “Damn. That’s right. Punch and Judy. There you go.”

Grace turned urgently to Jimmy. “Do you have something for me? I’m Grace. Grace Descanso.”

Chapter 31

All Hallows’ Eve, 12:02 p.m.

“I have to get the key.” He patted his pockets. “Where’d I put it? Here somewhere.”

Two minutes left. “What do you need?” Grace’s voice was harsh. “The timer?”

“Yeah, I’m going to need it when— oh, yeah, I remember.” Jimmy pulled a small brass key from his wallet. Grace thrust the timer into his calloused palm.

The numbers at the bottom of the screen whirred in a dizzying blur. He turned the timer over, examining it. They were standing amid rows of folding chairs near the makeshift stage.

“You have. . .thirty seconds.” The voice came from the timer, clear, female, and as toneless as if it had been calibrated by machine.

Grace gripped the top of a folding chair, squeezing her eyes shut, and behind her eyes was Katie. If this failed, there would be nothing left holding her to this earth, no reason to stay.

“You have. . .ten seconds,” the voice said.

“Okay, okay,” Jimmy muttered. “Found it. Oh, shit.”

Grace snapped her eyes open. Jimmy’s large hands clumsily tried to fit the key into a tiny slot in a crease of the timer. He dropped the key.

Grace snatched it up.

“Five. . .four. . .three. . .,” the voice counted.

“I’ll do it.” She grabbed the timer out of his hands and slid the key into the lock.

“Two. . .one. . .”

She twisted it. The timer pulsed in radiant bursts of blue and violet, as if she’d come to the end of a computer game and was rewarded with a miniature light show, a rainbow of light. “Con. . .grat. . .ulations. Write. . . this. . . down.”

She stared at Jimmy, stunned, trying to regroup. Jimmy pulled a pen from his pocket and positioned it over the back of his time card as the voice intoned ten numbers.

Jimmy pressed hard, making the numbers big. A moment of silence, punctuated only by a sigh from Jimmy as he slid the pen back into his pocket.

“Good. . .bye.”

The screen went dark. Grace bent over and took a long breath.

Jimmy whistled. “Wow.”

“Double wow,” Lizzie said admiringly. “Nothing ever happens like this here. Pretty cool.” She offered the Sudoku page. “You want to use this to copy the number?”

Grace nodded her thanks and copied the number Jimmy had written down. She tucked it carefully away in her wallet.

“You have something for me, Jimmy.” Grace needed to keep moving. The dark end of this terrible game was drawing near; the monster with the teeth stood on the hill with its weapons raised and she was riding to meet it.

“It’s in my truck.”

She followed him silently to the parking lot. Jimmy pulled a small bubble-wrapped package out of the glove compartment and handed it to her.

“It was this Internet site. They wanted somebody who lived in Buttonwillow and was a gamer. Random posting. I wrote back and before long, it came in the mail.”

Grace unwrapped the package. The timer was as slim as a compact and the size of Jimmy’s time card, indented slightly on one end, as if it fit into something. Bits of colored pixels floated to the surface, a conjurer’s trick. She expected the familiar numbers, she was counting on them, actually, to shore herself up, but the numbers were gone now. Across the top of this timer a single word coalesced and pulsed:
TONIGHT
.

It was scarier, not having numbers, not knowing how much time she really had.

Ere midnight tolls, I cut your heart.

But that didn’t tell her anything. It just meant that by midnight, it would be over. It was 12:40, by her watch. Eleven hours and some change, the outer limit of time left before Katie was killed.

As she stared at the pulsing word, the random-colored pixels began forming a shape.

A shape she knew well. It was a picture of her daughter, smiling up at her, under the word
TONIGHT
. Katie was smiling straight at the camera, eyes bright with trust, curls cascading. Jimmy bent to the asphalt, wet his finger and dabbed it to the ground, picking up something.

“Any return address on the package?”

“Nope. There was a postmark, but it was blurred. Someplace back east.”

“Were you supposed to call anyone when I showed up? Or leave word on that site?”

“That’s the thing. It crashed a few days ago. You know how these things go. This fell out when you opened it.” On his finger were two small shiny letters, the kind she’d seen sometimes when she opened birthday cards that spilled confetti.

Both the letter
D. DD.
DeeDee.

DeeDee Winger. The number the timer intoned had to be DeeDee Winger’s number. She slid the new timer into her bag. “I have to leave. Thank you,” she called over her shoulder. She ran for the car, passing parents shepherding children in costume.

Chapter 32

All Hallows’ Eve, 3:08 p.m.

It was DeeDee Winger’s work number at a farm community called Lodi not far from Sacramento. It was farm country, and as she drove past miles of irrigated crops, the sky itself seemed drained of color, a milky blue that shimmered in the heat and made her feel curiously short of breath. Exhaustion and unreality twisted in a tight knot behind her eyes.

She had the timer right beside her on the seat, so she could see Katie’s face. She first noticed it about half an hour away from DeeDee’s farm, and she gave a small cry and pulled over to the side of the road.