Don't Turn Around (21 page)

They went through three more files: In all of them, Cody determined that based on the steady decline in life signs, the patient probably hadn’t survived.

“How many of these are there?” he asked, closing the files.

“Lots,” Noa said. “And I’ve got these, too.”

She opened the file that contained scrawled doctors’ notes. Seeing the first, Cody barked a laugh.

“What?” Peter asked.

“I’m not going to be able to help with these. That’s kind of the running joke: Not even a doctor can read another doctor’s handwriting.”

“Okay, then.” Noa found the folder that held the larger reports filled with scientific jargon. “How about these?”

Cody skimmed the first, quickly becoming absorbed. He took over the cursor, scanning through another document, then another. Noa watched him read. He had a look of intense concentration on his face.

“Anything?” Peter said.

He sounded annoyed. Noa turned to find him glaring down at them from his position on the couch.

“A lot,” Cody said, not appearing to notice. “Man, this is … where did you say you got these?”

“They’re from a company called AMRF,” Noa said.

“And that’s the one your parents are involved with, Peter?” Cody asked, looking up.

“Yeah,” Peter said. “Why?”

“Neither of you was able to find out anything more specific about this company?”

“I’ve got some more files on a database,” Peter said with a shrug. “They’re uploading now. Why? What does it say they’re doing?”

Cody sat back and eyed the laptop pensively. “Experimenting,” he finally said.

“What kind of experiments?” Noa asked in a small voice. Suddenly, she wasn’t so sure she wanted to know.

“They’re trying to find a cure for PEMA,” he said. “Using human test subjects.”

“Test subjects?” Peter asked.

“But I don’t have PEMA,” Noa said. She tried to fight the panic out of her voice as she continued, “I mean, I’d know if I did, right?” She suddenly realized she hadn’t been to a doctor in years. Could she have been sick and not known it? She didn’t know much about PEMA, although of course everyone had heard of it. Schools had recently started monitoring for it, but only after she’d dropped out. She tried to remember what the symptoms were. The most common was weight loss over time, but there were also weirder things. She’d heard of kids walking in circles, avoiding other people, lapsing into sleep midsentence. Had she been losing weight? She’d always been skinny, but the new jeans she’d bought barely fit her. And suddenly, she didn’t have an appetite, she realized. “Did they give it to me?” she demanded in a shaky voice. “Or did I already have it?”

“I can’t say yet,” Cody said gently. “I need to go over these more carefully to find out. But hey, relax.” He reached out an arm and encircled her, drawing her close.

Usually Noa would have jerked away from that sort of physical contact, but she let him do it. Even more surprising, she tasted salt, and realized that she was actually crying.

“Oh, man,” Peter said. “My brother.”

Noa peered up at him through her tears. “What?”

“That’s why my folks got involved. Because of Jeremy.”

“Probably,” Cody said. “That would explain a lot.”

Noa looked down. It was all starting to make sense.

“What’s going to happen to me?” she finally asked.

“Nothing tonight,” Cody said. He took hold of her chin with one hand and tilted it up so that she was forced to look in his eyes. “It’s going to be okay, Noa. We’re going to figure this out.”

In spite of everything, he sounded so certain Noa let herself believe him.

Amanda blew hair out of her eyes and sat back on the floor. Filing was her least favorite part of volunteering at the Coalition. The nonprofit had a tiny budget, and there was only one computer in the entire facility. So the bulk of their files was kept in metal cabinets that were packed to the seams. Every few years, older files were boxed up and sent to storage, but still it took effort to squeeze a new file into the drawer every time a teen took advantage of their services.

She’d spent most of her five-hour shift cataloguing the drop-ins as the waiting room gradually emptied. Amanda tucked the last file into the drawer and slid it shut. Mrs. Latimar was in back ushering the last few teens in to see the doctor.

Amanda took a look around the office while she wiped her hands on her skirt. The filing was done, the phone wasn’t ringing, and everything was as straightened as possible. She peered around the doorsill into the waiting room: empty. Good, that gave her a few minutes. Once Mrs. Latimar came back, she’d be put back to work on something: The woman was a firm believer in keeping her volunteers occupied.

Amanda sank down in the chair behind the desk. Once Peter had left, she’d sat up in her window seat staring out at the quad for hours. She felt awful about what had happened—she hadn’t handled the situation well, and she knew it. She’d never meant to hurt his feelings. All along Amanda had figured that once she went off to college, their relationship would just naturally fade away. Unfortunately, Peter hadn’t felt the same way.

A flash of his look of betrayal the night before flitted through her mind. Amanda cringed at the memory.

“Excuse me.”

She turned to find a man watching her, a strange smile on his face.

“Yes?” she said, automatically straightening in the chair. He was overdressed in an immaculate three-piece suit, wool overcoat, and shiny black shoes. He had short black hair and eyes so pale they were kind of spooky. Amanda forced a smile as she asked, “Can I help you?”

“I certainly hope so.” He scanned the room as if looking for someone, even though there wasn’t exactly space for anyone to be hiding. “Mrs. Latimar is expecting me.”

“She’ll be back shortly,” Amanda said. His eyes darkened, and she fervently hoped that Mrs. Latimar would show up soon; she couldn’t put her finger on it, but something about the guy gave her the creeps. Maybe just because he was so clearly out of his element, she told herself. Plus she was still spooked after her encounter with the girl who claimed her friend had been taken.

He cocked his head to the side, considering her. “You’re one of her volunteers.”

The way he said it wasn’t a question. Amanda nodded. “Yeah, I am.”

“Then you can help me,” he said decisively, stepping into the room.

Amanda fought the urge to shy back—she was overtired, and it was making her paranoid. Still, it was a strain to maintain a smile while asking, “What can I do for you?”

“I need some files.” His eyes flicked toward the cabinets. “Mrs. Latimar would have put them aside for me.”

Amanda’s mouth opened, then closed again. The one thing that had been drilled into every volunteer was that files were sacrosanct. Mrs. Latimar’s assurances that anything they said and did would be kept confidential from the authorities, their parents, or whomever else they’d run away from was largely what kept teens coming back. She couldn’t imagine Mrs. Latimar just handing over files to anyone, never mind a guy dressed like this.

“I’m on the board,” he said, noting her discomfort. “It’s all right, she approved it.”

“Still,” Amanda said, “I’d feel more comfortable if we waited for her.”

He frowned and made a show of looking at his watch. “I really don’t have much time.”

“I’m sorry, Mr....” Amanda paused, waiting for him to fill in the blanks. When he didn’t, she asked straight-out, “You haven’t told me your name.”

“That’s true, I haven’t,” he responded evenly. “You haven’t told me yours, either.”

“Amanda,” she said. “Amanda Berns.”

“Pleased to meet you, Amanda Berns,” he said, extending a hand. “You can call me Mr. Mason.”

She shook automatically, thinking,
Mason
. The name tugged at her memory. She tried to place it, but failed. He probably was on the board; she must have seen it on the letterhead. “Mr. Mason, I—”

The sudden appearance of Mrs. Latimar in the door behind him stopped her. Amanda caught her eye. At the sight of Mason, the woman had frozen. A strong emotion—fear? Dislike?—marred her features. By the time he’d turned to face her, Mrs. Latimar had composed her face into its normal mask of affability. Amanda was certain she’d seen it, though.

“Mrs. Latimar!” Mason cried, opening his arms wide with delight. “Just the person I was looking for.”

“They’re in here,” Mrs. Latimar said curtly, pushing past him. She offered Amanda a thin smile, then leaned around her to open the desk drawer. She pulled out a thin sheaf of files and passed them to Mason, letting go as soon as his fingers touched them. That was odd, too, Amanda noted. Mrs. Latimar was known for her warmth—she tended to stand close to people, as if on the verge of offering a hug. Clearly not with this man, though.

“Excellent.” He tucked the files under his arm and nodded at both of them. “Nice meeting you, Ms. Berns. Mrs. Latimar, I’ll see you next time.”

Mrs. Latimar nodded but didn’t move to walk him out. When the outer door slammed shut a minute later, Amanda breathed out, relieved he was gone.

Mrs. Latimar was distractedly shuffling through the piles of papers on her desk. “Did you finish the filing?” she asked sharply.

Amanda started at her tone. For a minute, it seemed as if the woman she’d known and worked with for three years was gone, replaced by a cold, formal stranger.

“I—yes, I did,” Amanda managed. “Who was that?” she asked, recovering somewhat.

Mrs. Latimar turned to face her, scowling down with dark brown eyes. At the expression on Amanda’s face, however, her features relaxed. “A board member,” she said. “I’d forgotten he was stopping by.”

The way she said it convinced Amanda she was lying. “But, the files …”

“The best thing would be …” Mrs. Latimar looked away for a second, as though something dark and foreboding hovered past Amanda’s shoulder, where a map of the city was plastered on the wall. She sighed and gave her ponytail two fierce tugs before locking Amanda with a firm glare. “Listen to me, Amanda. This is very important. I want you to forget all about what just happened. Do you understand?”

The urgency in her voice was clear—and so was the threat underlying it. Amanda swallowed hard, wondering what the hell was going on. She’d never seen Mrs. Latimar in such a state—the woman looked as though she’d been caught doing something truly terrible. Amanda wondered what had been in those files.

“Okay,” she said, forcing a smile. “Yeah, sure. No big deal. Why don’t I just …”

“The locker room needs to be checked,” Mrs. Latimar said in her normal voice. Amanda heaved a secret smile of relief—this was the woman she knew. “Would you be a dear and do that before you go?”

“Sure.” Amanda practically launched from the chair, suddenly desperate to get out of the room. Even though cleaning up the locker room after doctor day was unpleasant, today she welcomed the task. Anything to get her out of that office, where the air had suddenly grown too thin to breathe.

Halfway down the hall, she chanced a glance back and saw Mrs. Latimar bent over her desk, holding her head in both hands. Her shoulders shook and her fingers trembled. She was crying, Amanda realized, startled.

She stopped dead in the hall, torn between the desire to offer comfort, and the memory of how cold Mrs. Latimar’s eyes had been as she stared down at her. Shuddering, Amanda pressed resolutely forward and pushed open the door to the locker room.

Peter scowled through spoonfuls of soup. Noa and Cody were sitting across the room, engrossed in stacks of paper. Cody claimed that staring at a screen for too long made him cross-eyed, so he’d prefer to read hard copies of the files. His ancient ink-jet printer had been grinding out documents for over an hour.

Cody had asked Noa to comb through the photo files, making note of the kids’ names. She had a habit of chewing her lip when she concentrated. Peter couldn’t decide yet if it was charming or kind of gross.

The AMRF files were still being processed by the server he’d shuttled them to, and at the rate it was going, they wouldn’t be accessible for at least another few hours. Which left Peter with nothing to do.

When he finally complained about being hungry a half hour ago, Cody said, “There’s ramen in the kitchen,” without even bothering to look up.

“Guess I’ll help myself,” he’d grumbled.

Cody laughed at that. “You always do, right?”

He didn’t seem to notice Peter’s irritation. And Peter begrudgingly had to admit he was right. He visited a few times a month, whenever Cody’s schedule permitted. He liked it here—it wasn’t fancy, but it provided a nice counterpoint to the McMansion his parents lived in. And Cody was one of the few people who actually treated him like a grown-up. Hell, like a friend.

Cody had practically been the third kid in their family until Jeremy died. He’d shown up at their school Jeremy’s freshman year. He was the token scholarship student, the only son of a single mother who worked as a paralegal. Because it took him over an hour to get to school on three separate buses, sometimes he’d just crash at their place during the week. Even though he was five years older, Jeremy had always been a pretty cool older brother. He never minded when Peter tagged along. The three of them would play video games for hours after school.

Then Jeremy and Cody went off to college. They remained inseparable, even managed to talk Harvard into letting them room together. Although they still came around a fair amount to visit, it was different. The house had definitely gotten lonely. It was around then that Peter really started getting into computers, doing more than just messing around on the internet. He found some hacker sites, and it just kind of took off from there.

Then Jeremy got sick.

It was unusual for PEMA to develop in someone as old as him—he was at the upper edge of the spectrum, on the verge of turning twenty. Most of the kids who contracted the illness were in their midteens.

Peter could still remember when Cody called their house in a panic. His parents got on separate extensions, talking to him in low voices. After they hung up, Peter asked what was going on, but they refused to tell him. Priscilla said, “We have to go help Jeremy with something, dear. Don’t leave the house.”