44 Book Four (7 page)

“That’s awesome, David,” I said. I leaned in and gave him a quick, awkward hug. He smiled and his eyes twinkled when I looked back at him.

“Congratulations. You really must have wowed them.”

“Yeah, I think I did,” he said, backing up toward the store. “So you’re coming, right? It’s at 2
^nd
Street, but not until July.”

“You know it,” I said.

“Good. I’ll get you and your sister in the front row. Oh, and BB can come too, if he wants.”

“That would be awesome,” I said.

He smiled before running into Back Street.

When I walked into the house, I found Kate sitting on the sofa and watching TV, already in her sweats and T-shirt, hair up and wearing an apron. I was still getting used to her new schedule, but I liked it. It was nice having her home for dinner every night.

“Hey, Abby,” she said, getting up and meeting me at the door.

“Wow, it smells great in here,” I said.

Still, it was a strange moment. Me coming home from work and Kate making dinner. Like everything was upside down and mixed up in the universe.

I walked into the kitchen and saw a large metal pot on the backburner of the stove and a stack of dishes in the sink. I was starving and it smelled amazing.

“Hungry?” she asked.

I nodded.

“I’ll be back in a minute,” I said.

I went to my bedroom, threw down my stuff, and washed up.

When I walked back out, the television was off, Miles Davis blowing his horn in the background. Two plates of Linguini Alfredo were on the table, with crusty slices of garlic bread in a basket between the dishes.

“Wow, thanks,” I said as I sat down.

It was one of Kate’s best dishes and it had been a long time since she made it. She grated some fresh parmesan over the pasta and then sat down, pouring herself some wine.

“Want a glass?” she asked.

“No, I’m okay,” I said. “Soda’s fine.”

We sat and ate, mostly quiet, both of us lost in deep thought.

“That was delicious,” I said for the fifth time when we had finished. But I couldn’t help it. It really was.

“Good, I’m glad you liked it,” she said. “It’s kind of fun to cook again. But really, Abby, I miss your dishes. You’re really good and I hope you have some plans to start back soon.”

I hadn’t cooked much since the kidnapping. I wasn’t sure why. Maybe it had to do with Simon, one of the scientists on the island who had showed me how to make risotto and talked about food like it was a religion. Or maybe I was just too busy.

Sometimes I wondered how Simon was doing. I was pretty sure I’d see him at the trial. Kate had learned off the record that he was in witness protection, hidden away, waiting to testify. I was happy for him, his heart never seemed into holding me captive, and in the end he tried to help me escape. I wondered if he was working as a chef somewhere.

“You should invite Ty over. He must not even know how great of a cook you are.”

She was right. I hadn’t made him anything other than a few batches of cookies.

I got up and started clearing the plates.

“Oh, let’s leave them for a little while,” Kate said, picking up her glass and walking over to the sofa.

It had taken me too long to figure out something was wrong. She had been too quiet over dinner and now leaving the dishes for later made it obvious.

I grabbed another soda from the fridge and followed her over to the sofa.

CHAPTER 12

“So what’s up?” I asked.

She pulled her eyes away from the window and leaned in close, lowering her voice.

“Ben,” she said. “He finally wrote.”

It had been nearly a month since we had heard from Dr. Mortimer, even though Kate wrote to him regularly, giving him updates, asking when he was coming back. But he had taken his brother’s death hard and we both worried that it would be something he could never be able to get past.

“What’d he say?” I asked.

Looking at her energy, I could tell it wasn’t good.

“He’s not coming back.”

She sighed heavily. Her face went pale and sad like it always did now when she talked about him. She turned her head to the side, staring back out the window. I could see she was holding back tears. We sat quiet for a moment.

“Not yet,” I said after a while. “But he will, Kate. He just needs a little time.”

It really hadn’t been that long. Five months wasn’t nearly enough time for Dr. Mortimer to come to terms with the fact that he had shot and killed his younger brother, even if it had been an accident.

Dr. Mortimer never came back to Bend. After helping with my rescue and talking to the police and FBI, he left with his brother’s body for Boston, where they had been born and raised. After he buried Nathaniel, he sent in his resignation to the hospital, wrote to Kate telling her that he had to travel for a while to sort everything out, and had an agency close up his house on Awbrey Butte.

“Where is he?” I asked.

“India,” Kate said. “He’s living in an ashram. And he says he’s going to stay there for a while. Years maybe.”

That seemed like a good place for him, at least for now. I didn’t know too much about those places, but I remembered seeing something on TV once about a man searching for the meaning of life who ended up going to India and finding answers. Dr. Mortimer wouldn’t have been able to just come back here and pick up his life. He needed to make peace with what had happened. Because no matter how insane he was, Nathaniel had still been his brother and Dr. Mortimer had killed him.

“At least he’s okay, right?” I said.

“I guess he’s all right. But he sounds strange. Told me to say hi to you and to tell you again how sorry he is for everything. How you shouldn’t have been put through that horror. And that he still feels responsible for not keeping you safe.”

I sighed.

I knew from reading his energy that Nathaniel had never felt any guilt about the things he had done, the lives he had ruined, the people he had killed. And there were so many. I was one of the lucky ones. I had gotten away. And yet, here was his brother, who hadn’t done anything wrong, feeling guilty. It wasn’t right. We had all been trapped in Nathaniel’s insanity through no fault of our own. But Dr. Mortimer didn’t see it that way.

“He has nothing to be sorry for,” I said.

“The sins of the brother I guess,” Kate said.

“Tell him next time you write to him. Tell him he doesn’t have one thing to be sorry about. I want him to know that I feel that way. It makes me mad that he’s feeling responsible for his brother.”

It sent chills down my spine thinking about Nathaniel, those strange, almond eyes full of an intensity and excitement about his research. He was so sure of his ideas and his experiments, so positive that he had found a solution to death.

I shivered as I thought of him, his body lying there on the floor that day I had been rescued.

For a long time, I was sure that Nathaniel was wrong about his claim that he was the one who had saved me after I was dead for 44 minutes. I had drowned in a mountain lake and when they brought me into the hospital, I was gone. But Nathaniel was there, with his serum, and he injected me and somehow, soon afterwards, I woke up from death.

I didn’t believe it for a long time. But now, after my time on the island, I knew in my heart that it was true. That I was alive only because of the injection. That his serum did, in fact, bring me back to life that terrible night and that it was Nathaniel Mortimer who had saved my life. 

It haunted me sometimes, the knowledge that I owed my life to such a man. During the day, I was pretty good about not thinking about it. But in those long, desperate hours after midnight, the thoughts exploded in my head and pinballed inside my skull and I couldn’t stop them. I couldn’t stop thinking about him.

I looked over at Kate. She was still lost in thought. I picked up the control and flipped it on, finding
Sweet Genius
, a reality show that I liked to watch sometimes.

“That’s just life, isn’t it?” Kate said “You finally figure out what you want, but then it’s too damn late.”

“He’ll be back, Kate,” I said. “He loves you.”

I wondered why I had said that, when I knew that sometimes love just wasn’t enough.

CHAPTER 13

We weren’t able to close up on time so I texted Kate to let her know that I would be late.

Thanks for the heads up. See you soon.

Sometimes I hated Mike’s policy about how if a customer was sitting down and it was closing time, we couldn’t ask them to leave. We could start closing up, lock the doors, turn over the sign, but we had to wait patiently until they finished their drinks and left on their own.

Sometimes waiting was tough. I was tired and wanted to go home. And the two women who were engaged in an animated conversation seemed like they were never going to stop talking, even with the chilly glares that Mo sent their way every few minutes.

They also ignored us as we mopped and wiped down tables.

“Time to go,” Mo said under her breath, a little louder than I was expecting, as she walked by them and collected a few dirty cups.

But she was right. It was getting late and I found myself zoning out as I stood, staring into space. I was counting the hours that I had slept over the last three nights and had come up with eight. No wonder I was so emotional all day, and had felt like crying over nothing. It must have been all related to lack of sleep.

I had even snapped at Ty earlier, when he called and told me he couldn’t come over for dinner on Friday. They had asked him to work that night. It was pretty stupid anyway because I was way too tired to be slaving away on the Bolognese Lasagna I had planned to cook, but I was still upset. I called him back later and apologized about my behavior.

“No biggy,” he said. “I’m sorry too. Can’t we just do it on Thursday instead?”

“No, that won’t work. But how about next week?”

“Perfect,” he said.

I yawned again and started emptying trashcans, hoping the two women might finally get that it was time to hit the road. But no hope was needed. Mo, at the end of her rope, walked over and told them that we were closing.

“Screw the policy,” she said to me as she walked back over to the counter.

I looked at clock. It was close to ten.

“Bye, girls,” the larger woman said as she pushed open the door. Mo didn’t answer and I just gave a little wave to their backs.

There were still a few things to do, but we worked well together now. I didn’t mind Mo’s silences anymore and appreciated that I didn’t have to try and think of something to say. It wasn’t like that with Mike. I was always stressing about topics when he came up front and we worked next to each other. I decided that it was nice working with Mo after all.

I pulled down the blinds while Mo turned up a song by Rural Demons, a local band that sounded like a cross between a young Steve Earle and Edgar Allan Poe. She counted out the register. She was fast and took the money back to the safe.

I still didn’t know much about Mo, but David could be counted on to pass along any gossip he heard about her. Like about how she had just broken up with the lead singer in her band. And about how Mike was trying to promote her into a management position for the new branch, but she didn’t want to do it.

It had taken a while, but I finally realized that Mo and I both were at Bend High for a year.  When I was a freshman, she was a senior. But back then she had real long, black hair and didn’t have the tattoos or piercings. She looked totally different, which was probably why it had taken me so long to put it together. 

I started sweeping the floor for the last time. I was humming along to the music but stopped suddenly, letting go of the broom.

The ghost boy was sitting at the last table, staring at me.

My heart thundered in my chest. It was time to figure out what he wanted.

I gathered up my courage and inched closer. I could see his scars clearly now, deep and dark across his face and arms. He had been in an accident, I was sure of that. A real bad accident.

I made my way over toward him. He was sitting on one of the chairs, his feet crossed in front of him. We looked at each other for a long time. 

“Hey,” I said, keeping my voice low. I didn’t want Mo to hear me talking out loud, thinking I was insane.

“I’m Spenser,” he finally said, nodding.  

“Hi, Spenser,” I said. “So how old are you?”

“Twelve,” he said, looking around the coffee shop.

His dark hair was straight and thin, hanging past his shoulders. His pale skin bright against the shadows behind him.

I tried to seem relaxed so I wouldn’t scare him away. But when I looked up at him again I saw that he was fading, disappearing before my eyes.

“Do you need my help with something?” I asked, feeling my knees buckle.

“I… I… messed up,” he said softly.

“Messed up? What do you mean?” I asked.

He just nodded, and looked back up at me, his eyes urgent.

“Time is running out,” he said.

 I heard Mo come out from the back and he vanished, like he had never even been there.

“Okay, you almost done?” she shouted to me over the music. “Time to get outta here.”

“Yeah,” I said, taking off the apron, rubbing my arms to chase away the chills.

What did he mean I was running out of time?

At least I had a name. Spenser. It was a beginning.

We quickly finished boxing up the day-old muffins for the homeless shelter and left them on the counter for the pickup in the morning and grabbed our stuff and headed toward the door.

I turned abruptly to ask her if she had turned the lights off in the back when I caught sight of her arm and dropped my car keys on the floor.

“Oops,” Mo said sarcastically.

But I just stood there, paralyzed, staring.

“Need help?” she said.

I nodded, but couldn’t pry my eyes off the tattoo on her arm. I hadn’t ever seen that one before.

It was a face.

It was Spenser.
CHAPTER 14