Eternal (16 page)

“Julia, beware!” Bertel shouted after her. “He will drag you down with him!”

E
IGHTEEN

J
ulia ran outside, zig-zagged three blocks, and stopped at a well-lit convenience store to catch her breath. She was about to dial her father’s number when she heard a car slow to a stop next to her. She looked up and saw a familiar nondescript sedan. Jack leaned out the window, a look of exasperation on his face. “What the hell are you up to?”

“I’m sorry … I didn’t mean … I just …” Julia stumbled over her words. She was still confused, so she said simply, “How did you find me?”

“I was doing the rounds of your building, and I found the open window. You gave your name to taxi dispatchers. It wasn’t hard to find out where they dropped you. And I saw you run out the door of the restaurant. Who were you meeting? That Tyler creep?”

“No. I’d rather not talk about it.”

“Who were you calling?”

“My dad.”

“Hop in. I’ll take you where you need to go.”

“Am I under arrest?”

“No, but you
are
being stalked, by two different guys as far as I can tell. And you just ran out of a restaurant looking scared as hell of something, or someone. Do you really want to stand here on the street and wait for your dad?”

“No, I guess not.”

“Then get in, already.”

Jack made a call on his cell phone to the restaurant. Then he made another call. “It was like I thought. The manager said she was with someone matching Bertel’s description … Uh-huh … When I found her, she said she was about to call her father … Okay … Right. See you in a few.” He ended the call, dropped the phone in the center console, and put the car in gear. “I’m taking you to the police station. Austin wants to talk to you.”

Julia looked down at the floor and said nothing. Neither of them spoke all the way to the station. She wondered if she needed a lawyer.

When Jack pulled up to the entrance, Austin was waiting out front. Julia opened her door and got out. Jack leaned toward her open door and said to Austin, “I’m going to see if I can scare up Bertel.”

“Right. Be careful. If you don’t find him in an hour, come back here and we’ll regroup.”

“Will do.” Austin shut the door and Jack drove away.

Julia looked at the ground. Austin stared at her. Neither spoke for a moment.

“Let’s go somewhere that we can talk,” he said simply. She obediently followed him down a scenic trail next to the police station.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“There’s a bench on this trail where we won’t be overheard. Unless you’d rather have me take you to the interrogation room.” There was no need to answer. About a hundred yards away, they came to a park bench, and he motioned for her to sit down.

“What is the exact nature of your relationship with Dr. Bertel?” he asked. His voice was even, almost masking the betrayal she knew he felt.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m asking you.”

She looked him in the eye. “He was my boss. He was my friend. My mentor.”

Austin’s eyes were filled with hurt, but his voice was cold. “I’m sorry, but we’re trying to protect you from Bertel—then you go meet him? My personal feelings aside, I do need to know …”

His personal feelings?
So he did have feelings for her. Her voice softened, “I know how it looks, but I promise I had nothing to do with his disappearance.”

Austin continued to press her. “Did he get you into something over your head? Something illegal, maybe?”

“Of course not. How can you think that?”

“Look, you were both involved in very controversial research. Then a mysterious accident happened, and you saved his life; then he became abusive and threatened your life. You were attacked by a man fitting Bertel’s description in the graveyard. You said you thought he was possessed, or at the very least involved in something you didn’t know about. We assigned you police protection, then you went and met with him. How can I help but wonder if you’ve been in on whatever it is the whole time?”

His suspicions hurt her feelings, even though she could see why he had them. She chose her next words carefully. “You know me better than that. I know you know me. I don’t know how, but you do.”

He nodded slowly, his rational mind struggling to overpower his desire to believe everything she said. “Then why did you meet with him after all that’s happened?”

“He—he said I was in danger. Said we have a lot of enemies, different organizations trying to get their hands on our research. He said he was cooperating with an FBI investigation.”

“FBI? Then why didn’t you tell me, Julia, before you went running over there? I’m a cop. I could’ve checked on all that.”

“He said you’re in on it.”

“Julia, I’m a detective.”

“I know. I told him that. He said that cops can get involved in conspiracies too.”

“And you believed him?”

“No, I didn’t. But he promised to get some professional help and go to the police if I met with him first. And I wanted to believe so badly that he was telling the truth. It all made more sense than the crazy stuff I’ve been thinking.”

“That he was possessed?”

“Right. Wouldn’t you rather believe it was a conspiracy? A
human
conspiracy?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. Ever since I met you anything seems possible. It’s like I’m …”

“Living in a dream?”

He nodded.

“I know.” Julia paused, then took a long breath.
Should I tell him?
she thought. It was now or never. “Austin, I keep having a dream about a man named Pierre. I haven’t told anyone about it, not a soul. The dreams are so vivid, they seem like … almost … real. And Pierre, well, he looked—”

“Like me?” Austin’s eyes were staring at her intently.

“How did you know?”

Austin took a deep breath and held it. Finally, he let it out with a sigh. “I’ve been having dreams about you. You called me
Pierre.
”

Julia knew she should be surprised, but the revelation seemed natural. She nodded. “When I met with Bertel, he asked about Pierre. Then when I asked what he was talking about, he tried to cover it up and said he meant Tyler. But I distinctly heard him say ‘Pierre.’ How could he know my dreams?”

“How could
we
be having the
same
dreams?”

“I don’t know, but he called Pierre a heretic.’“

Austin spoke slowly. “So, you think that note was possibly directed at
me?”

“‘Death to the heretic,’“ Julia muttered. “I don’t know. It was on
my
car.”

“But Bertel knew you’d show it to me.”

“Maybe he, or someone, was threatening you because he knew it would upset me, or threatening
me
because he knew it would upset
you.
Maybe he knew, somehow, that there was some kind of connection between us.”

“Julia,” Austin turned to face her on the bench. “There
is
a connection between us.” He put his hands around her waist, drawing her body close to his. The feel of his hands on her body made her relax instantly. She leaned forward.

“Can you feel it too?” she asked.

“Since the moment we first met. Because of my job and your boyfriend, I have held back. But now I don’t care. I don’t care about your boyfriend. I don’t care about my job. I don’t even care about whether you’re telling me the truth. I care about
you”
He said the last words with an intensity that made Julia’s heart leap.

Julia was overcome with fear, with worry, but mostly with love for this man who had just laid his soul bare and set it at her feet. Any words would have been inadequate for the emotions she was feeling at that moment. So she did what she had seen herself do so many times in her dreams. She closed her eyes, turned her face toward him, and kissed him. The kiss was deep, warm, lingering. He gently wrapped his hands more tightly around her waist and felt underneath her shirt for the bare skin of her back. The touch of his fingertips sent electricity through her skin that stirred the pale hairs on her arms. As she opened her mouth to him, every nerve ending throughout her lips vibrated with a longing that filled her soul. His hands moved up her back to her shoulders, as he kissed her eyes, her ears, her neck.

They became aware of their surroundings as the blaring sirens of the police cars grew louder. They parted lips but couldn’t let go, as if they had been separated for the eternities and had just found one another once again. Julia had never before looked so deeply into the eyes of another human being. Austin returned her gaze with equal intensity. Julia felt naked, exposed in some deeper way—and she didn’t mind at all. Looking into this man’s eyes was like looking into forever. The idea of infinity had always enthralled Julia, and at this moment she felt as if she could grasp it not just as a mathematic principle or scientific theory, but as something real that a person could find in the soul of her true love. He was here, now. She didn’t know how she was so sure. She just was.

Austin grinned, breaking the intensity of the moment. “I think it’s time for me to formally invite you out on a date.”

“What about fraternizing with a witness?”

“Policies be damned!” he said with the flair of a Shakespearean actor, and they both laughed. Then he reached out, stroked her cheek, and said quietly, “We have too much at stake. Come on.”

Austin led Julia back up the trail and into the building. As they walked down a corridor of the mostly empty police station, he let go of her hand. A couple of cops from the night shift sat in the break room talking shop. Austin took her into a larger room with about half a dozen desks and stopped at a desk in the middle of the room. It looked more or less utilitarian, except for three plastic action figures with the brawny chests of wrestlers with heads that didn’t match. She stared more closely at the heads: one had long, dark hair and a thin mustache; another looked like an ancient Greek bust with a beard; and another sported a bishop’s hat.

“I see you’re admiring my friends: Descartes, Aristotle, and Augustine.” He picked up the third one and made the arms move up and down. “Our friend Augustine can beat the sin out of the other two.”

Julia laughed and picked up another. “But Descartes can destroy them all with one powerful flex of his thoughts.”

“Julia, are you willing to tell me everything Bertel told you tonight?”

“Of course.”

They put down the philosopher action figures. Austin gave her his rolling chair and sat down in the straight-backed chair next to the desk usually reserved for witnesses and visitors. Then he reached over and grabbed a pen and yellow legal pad from his desktop, but not before she noticed a word scrawled multiple times across the pad. She couldn’t completely make out Austin’s scribbling penmanship, but she could have sworn it was a name, something like
Helen.

For the next twenty minutes she told him everything she could remember about her meeting with Bertel, word by word, phrase by phrase—it was so terrifying, she remembered it all. Austin asked her to scoot over so he could show her something on his computer. He opened a file on his desktop, and a photo appeared. It was a young, blond man wearing glasses, a suit, and a tie. He looked oddly familiar. At first, she didn’t know why. Then she blanched. Without the glasses …

“It’s the guy who jumped on your car! Who is he?”

“You never saw him before tonight?” he asked.

“No. Should I have?”

“His name is Winston Bresner. He was Bertel’s last lab assistant, before you.”

Julia’s eyes widened in horror.