Double Dose, page 12
The possibility of a “downside” wormed through Daley’s gut. Here they were, standing in a place that was Somewhere Else. What if whatever technology was responsible for this suddenly developed a glitch and they wound up trapped here?
“Okay,” she said, easing toward the door, “I think maybe I’ve seen enough.”
She released a little sigh of relief when she stepped back into the relatively tiny front room and Note Man closed the door behind them—back to the real world from wherever Somewhere Else might be.
“It will take you a while to absorb all this,” he said.
Daley shook her head. “I don’t know…the warehouse in Somewhere Else and the wind from Somewhere Else…they’re so far out they’re like Star Wars or some other science fiction come true. They’re just technology, and I can accept advanced tech a lot easier than why anyone would want to store so goddam much electricity.”
“Jason Tadak made a deal with Elis Pendry to trade some of his excess electricity for an interest in the clan’s Tesla tower.”
“I knew they were sharing power but not much beyond that.”
She remembered Rhys complaining about the rush job to connect the tower to the Tadhaks’ transformer.
(“Maybe the Tadhaks aren’t so smart. Broadcast energy will never work.”)
Maybe they know something you don’t—like how to construct a building that’s bigger on the outside than it is on the inside.
Which prompted a question…
“Why would people with the Someplace Else technology want to get involved in something like a Tesla tower?”
Note Man hesitated, then said, “I’m guessing they don’t know the real purpose of the tower.”
Daley shrugged. “To broadcast energy, right? Wireless energy.”
A slow shake of his head. “Not according to the film.”
“The film! Yes! Speaking of which, you’re supposed to have a name and address for me.”
“I do. I’ll give it to you when I drop you back at your place.”
31
The walk back from the windfarm was quick and uneventful, with Pard remaining unusually silent. And now Note Man stood inside her door, offering a slip of paper.
“A Japanese fellow bought the original company and renamed it.”
Daley took the slip and read the name out loud. “Daigo Digital. In La Mesa?”
“He moved it from San Diego, which is what made tracking the company so hard. I spoke to him. He has all the digital assets of the original company and he’ll be glad to make a copy for a nominal fee.”
“Finally. I’ll check it out first thing tomorrow.”
“You’ll have to involve my brother.”
“Your…brother?” This was a shock. “You’ve never mentioned him.”
“As I’m sure he never mentioned me.”
“I know him?”
(“Uh-oh. I’ve got a feeling…”)
“Rhys Pendry.”
“What?”
(“Knew it!”)
“I’m Cadoc Pendry, Rhys’s older brother.”
Daley backed up to one of the chairs by the kitchen table and dropped into it.
“But he never mentioned he even had a brother!”
“We’re actually quite close, but it’s long been my wish that no one in the family mentions me. Because mentioning me will lead to questions as to why no one ever sees me and then to requests to meet me, which I’ve always desperately wanted to avoid.”
“I can understand that, but…Rhys’s brother…I had no idea.”
“I want you to involve him because it’s time he saw the film and learned some hidden truths about our family and its beliefs…and what the clan considers its destiny. He needs to know.”
“I’ll tell him as soon as I call this Daigo Digital place and—”
Cadoc waved a hand. “No-no. Not yet. Rhys has no idea you and I have been in contact. I want to be the one to tell him. I’ll mention it during our Saturday night chess game. You can contact him about the film on Sunday. You’ll need him along because I called Daigo Digital about getting a copy. They said no problem, but since they have it listed as a family film, they’ll release a copy only to a member of the family. I’m not about to present myself there, which means Rhys has to be with you.”
“Oh…okay.” The question that popped into her head struck her as an awfully girly thing to say, but she had to ask. “Does he ever mention me?”
“We don’t discuss women because it’s not a topic to which I can contribute, but he has mentioned you in glowing terms. My brother is quite taken with you.”
Daley felt a flush creep up her neck. She wasn’t sure why she’d asked, but was glad she had.
“That’s nice to hear. I like him too. But you never mentioned we’d met?”
“Well, until this week, we really hadn’t. We’ve been communicating, but we’ve never met face-to-face until the past few days. You were new in town and something about you intrigued me. I simply wanted to contact you and leave it at that. So I took a chance. I so enjoyed our interactions, even with a door dividing us, that I kept coming back. You’ve made me realize how lonely my life has been.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You never ever have to apologize to me, Daley. You’ve given me more than I could ever give you.”
“I meant, sorry you were lonely.”
“I was isolated by choice, because of my skin. I know who to blame for my skin.”
Daley stiffened. “Someone’s to blame? I thought it ran in your family.”
“It does…and it doesn’t.” He reached behind him and opened the door. “Good night, Daley.”
(“Obviously not a topic on which he wishes to elaborate.”)
“Good night…Cadoc.”
No longer Note Man, he was Cadoc Pendry, Rhys’s brother. Holy shit.
(“Well,”) Pard said when he was gone, (“this has been quite the evening.”)
“Wasn’t it just last night that I asked you if my life could get any more weird?”
(“I believe it was.”)
“Well, remind me not to ask that anymore, because every time I say something like that, the weirdness only increases.”
(“Exponentially so tonight. I can’t get that windfarm out of my thoughts.”)
“I know…those turbines and that warehouse that goes on forever…”
(“The Tadhaks must have discovered a different kind of geometry that the rest of us can’t even dream of.”)
“And to think how Note Man—I mean Cadoc Pendry—has known about this for years and never said a word.”
(“I’ve a feeling that’s just the tip of an iceberg of secrets Cadoc Pendry guards. I now understand how he managed to sneak us into the Lodge—he lives there.”)
“How am I going to sleep tonight?”
(“I can help with that—increase you melatonin level, for instance. You need to be well rested for our return to the medical center.”)
Oh, hell. She was going to have to sneak back into ECRMC again tomorrow. With all that happened tonight, it had fallen off her radar.
FRIDAY—March 13
32
“I just realized,” Daley said as she eased her Subaru into a spot in in the ECRMC visitor’s lot, “it’s Friday the thirteenth.”
(“Surely you’re not prone to triskaidekaphobia.”)
“Not a bit. I don’t believe in any of that superstitious junk.”
(“Glad to hear it.”)
“After all, I was born in May which makes me a Taurus and, by nature of our birth sign, we’re a very skeptical lot.”
Pard made no reply.
“Hello?”
(“You set me up for that one.”)
Yes, she had. Oh, yes, she had.
“I couldn’t resist. And I needed something to ease this anxiety.”
(“I’ve been aware of your mood. I know you don’t like placing yourself in this position…”)
No, she didn’t. She hated it.
“It’s just that if I’m found out, I’m caught red-handed: I’m dressed as a nurse but I’m not a nurse or any sort of employee here. As a rule I’m pretty good at talking my way out of things, but how do I talk my way out of that?”
(“But think about it: What is your crime? Visiting before visiting hours? And this is America, which means you can dress any way you damn well please. You’ve got no stolen property on you and so the most they can do is show you to the door.”)
“Well, put that way, I guess it’s not so bad. I just wish it wasn’t Friday the thirteenth because I can’t help thinking something’s going to go wrong.”
She wasn’t joking this time. She had a bad feeling this morning.
After a long pause, Pard said, (“We will not speak of the date again, understood?”)
“Got it.”
(“And if you want to back out, it’s fine. Really and truly. Restart the car and we’ll head back to Nespodee Springs.”)
“Nothing I’d like better, but we’re all they’ve got.”
That was the kicker. It always came down to that. People were suffering and she had no one who could step in for her. And today was extra important. Today they might discover the source of the horrors and that would put them one step closer to ending this plague.
She checked herself over. She wore the same outfit as Wednesday—blue nurse scrubs, hair tucked up under flowered scrub cap pulled low over her ears, surgical mask dangling from the neck, dork glasses, and clipboard with pen.
Just as she had Wednesday, she headed for the emergency exit. That bad feeling followed her. She knew it was irrational but she couldn’t escape the feeling that something was going to go wrong today.
She lowered her head as she entered the emergency department and pretended to stare at her clipboard. An orderly had the hallway blocked with an elderly woman on a gurney, probably on her way to X-ray. As Daley waited to get by, she glanced down at a copy of one of the local papers someone had left on a chair—the Imperial Valley Press. The front page showed a blurry photo of a bespectacled woman in scrubs and a flowered cap walking down a hallway toward the camera. The headline blared:
IS SHE THE ANSWER
TO THE HORRORS?
The figure’s head was down, staring at a clipboard, but Daley knew in an instant she was looking at herself.
Shit! That’s me!
(“Turn around and leave. Now.”)
Daley was already into a turn. Her heart pounded madly as she quick-walked through the parking lot toward her car.
What?…how?
(“Obviously CCTV footage from one of the hall cameras. That clipboard was an excellent idea. Your head was down and none of your features was visible.”)
But why me? Hundreds of people must march up and down those hallways every day and those cameras record every damn one of them. Why do I wind up on the front page with a headline about the horrors?
(“We’ll have to pick up a copy and see if they explain it. Right now you’ve got to get out of this parking lot and out of those scrubs.”)
Daley reached her car but just as she was opening the door, she heard an angry voice behind her.
“God damn! I knew it was you! I knew it!”
Daley groaned. She knew that voice. She turned and—yep—a graying, fiftyish man stood there smirking.
Billy Marks. A member of the Family come back to haunt her. Again. She’d gone a dozen years without seeing him and now here he was again, the second time in the past two weeks. And not just any Family member, not just a distant cousin of her father’s—the man who murdered her father on the day she was born.
A bad day had just got infinitely worse.
“What are you doing here?”
“Is that any way to greet your Uncle Billy?”
“If I believed for an instant I carried one cell of your blood in my veins I’d slit my wrists right here!”
(“I might want to have something to say about that.”)
Hush!
Billy’s expression hardened. “When I saw that photo in the paper this morning I recognized you and almost choked on my coffee. You lying little bitch!”
“What?”
“I told you I had an angle to work the horrors and warned you off it. You told me you had no interest.”
“I don’t. Absolutely no interest in running a game on the horrors.”
He waved a hand at her. “And yet here you are, dressed as a nurse and taking credit for these cures.”
“I’m doing no such thing!”
“The headlines say different. And they’ve even got a picture to prove it.”
She didn’t care what Billy Marks thought and he wasn’t worth the trouble to convince otherwise.
“We’re done here,” she said and slipped in behind the steering wheel.
“Oh, no we’re not!” He went to grab for the door but she slammed it and hit the electric locks.
“You’re working something good,” he shouted, “and I want a piece!”
She started the car and backed out with him following her.
“You’re getting credit for the cures and I can work that with you! We can be a team!”
“Stay away from me!”
Daley hit the accelerator and roared off.
(“You’re shaking. And your heart’s racing—just like the last time he accosted you.”)
“He does that to me, the bastard.”
She calmed slowly as she drove.
“What do we do now?”
(“You change into regular clothes and we find a convenience store to buy a paper.”)
Daley hadn’t wanted to be spotted in her scrubs in Nespodee Springs so she’d left town and changed in the desert. Changing back would prove a little more complicated here in El Centro. But she found a 7-Eleven and changed in the restroom. Out front she made herself a coffee. As she was picking up a copy of the Imperial Valley Press she noticed the same photo and similar headline on the front page of the San Diego Union-Tribune.
Oh, crap!
So she picked up a copy of that as well. Then she sat in her car and stared at the photos on the front pages. How had Billy Marks known it was her?
(“Let’s see what they say inside.”)
She read both articles, which were remarkably similar. It came down to the administration and the staff of ECRMC desperate for an explanation for the cures and trying everything to find one. One avenue was to interview anyone—staff or visitor—who’d had the slightest passing contact with the cured on Wednesday morning. That involved a careful analysis of the CCTV images of the hallway outside the room where the two cured roommates had been under treatment. Working around the clock, they’d identified everyone entering and leaving that room except this woman in scrubs.
Despite the best efforts of the security staff and even the police, no one could isolate an image of her face.
In desperation they went back to Monday and the hall outside Timothy Blaine’s room. Mrs. Blaine had stated that she’d been out of the room for less than an hour that afternoon. Analysis of CCTV images had proved more complicated because the cure had occurred during visiting hours but eventually they homed in on a slim young woman with a very similar build to the mystery scrub nurse. But she wore a broad-brimmed hat and sunglasses that completely obscured her face.
Both papers showed another blurry photo of Daley, this time in her sun hat and peasant blouse. The article ended with a plea:
If anyone can identify this woman, please contact ECRMC immediately. She is not in any trouble, she is merely a person of interest.
Daley said, “Remember the other day when you said things don’t tend to turn out too well for messiahs.”
(“Of course.”)
“Well, things tend not to end too well for persons of interest either.”
(“This puts a major crimp in our plans. How can I seek out the source if I can’t have contact with a victim?”)
“I wish I knew. One thing I do know: I’m heading back to Nespodee Springs and laying low until—”
(“Can I just say, ‘lying low’?”)
She damped a flare of anger. “No, you may not. I’m not a happy camper at the moment. It’s been a bad morning: I’ve had my picture in two newspapers, maybe more, and I had to speak to Billy Marks. So I’m going to lay low for a while and wait for this to go away. Because if Billy Marks could recognize me from that photo—”
(“He’s a special case with a special interest in the horrors. He wants to use it to scam people, and he’d already warned you to leave the horrors alone. So he’d be intensely interested in news of anyone curing the horrors. He was primed to find you involved.”)
“Let’s hope so. But I can’t help worrying that if Billy Marks could recognize me, someone else might too.”
33
Sunlight awakened Jeffrey.
He’d parked his pickup facing west so the rising sun wouldn’t shine in his face. But now it poured through the rear window. He sat up and looked around. Usually he didn’t get to sleep this late because of Jimmy banging on his window.
So where was Jimmy this morning? And where was his coffee?
How quick you got spoiled.
He threw off the blanket, got out of the truck, and stretched. Then he stumbled over to Jimmy’s camper and pounded on the door.
“Jimmy! Yo, Jimmy, you in there?”
Nothing.
He pounded again. “Jimmy!”
A faint sound…a groan?
Jeffrey yanked on the handle and the door opened. And there, sprawled on the floor directly in front of him, lay a very bloody and beat-up Jimmy Fries.
“Aw, shit, Jimmy!” he said, stomping up the two steps and kneeling beside him. “What happened?”
The word came out wrapped in a groan. “Nothin’.”
“Yeah? Fuck that. Somebody kicked the shit outa you.”
“Said I ratted on him…sent someone to see him. I didn’t rat.”
Well, shit. That pretty much confirmed what Jeffrey had figured the instant he saw Jimmy: Lugo.
“I think something got busted inside.”
Yeah. He looked like shit. Jeffrey pulled out his phone and dialed 9-1-1.
34
