Heartsick (21 page)

Chapter Forty-Two

“Stop!” I shout. The men hardly notice me. One of them jams the butt of the shotgun into Zachary’s gut. Zachary groans and curls in on himself. “Stop!” I say again, this time trying a new tactic. “If you don’t want to get it, you should stay as far away from him as you can. It’s incredibly contagious.”

The guy with the shovel steps toward me, an angry look focused on my purple eyes. My body shakes and any food in my stomach may soon be splattered on the blades of grass along with Zachary’s blood. But another guy slams his forearm into shovel-guy’s chest.

“She’s right,” he says.

“Look, just let us go. We’ll go back into the quarantine,” I say.

“We got no way of knowing you’ll keep your word,” the shovel guy says.

“No, we don’t,” the older man says. “We’ll call the cops. Jimmy, Sandy and Billy, y’all watch ‘em. Keep your distance, but shoot ’em if they try to leave.” He turns around and pulls his phone out of his pocket.

The guys nod and back up, running their fingers along their guns. I tremor at the number of weapons, the order to shoot us, but shoo the scary thoughts away. I stumble and fall and grasp Zachary.

“Where’s Mandy?” I squeeze his arms, my fingernails digging into his flesh. I don’t care about the blood that splatters onto my jeans as he coughs. It’s warm against my thigh. I don’t care about the shotgun trained on my head twenty feet away. I just care about those eyes. His purple eyes still have life in them.

“Mandy,” he murmurs, his brown hair nestled in my lap. “Quinn?”

“Where is she?” I press. I must keep pressing. His eyelids droop. His cheek is a mix of blood and gore. And rips and slits. I see the edges of his skin. I see inside him.

I focus on the closing eyes. “Where is she?”

“She’s safe,” he says, before his neck can no longer hold his head and it flops onto me. “But, Quinn, I’m sorry. Please tell them I’m sorry. What’s happened to the town...what’s at Professor Livingston’s house...I was in too deep...and Mandy...”

Livingston. My heart thumps. Zachary wasn’t alone in this.

His face contorts. He groans.

Sirens zoom. Moments. It just took moments.

“Where is Mandy—is she at Professor Livingston’s?”

Zachary’s head droops. “Was that a nod?” I screech.

Instead of cop cars, the field is trampled by big, black, shiny vans. Men in space-costume-like black rubber outfits with hoods and plastic windshield fronts spill out and swarm toward us. I wipe away tears and snatch at Zachary’s shirt as rubber-covered hands grab at me, grab at him. They pull us apart. I scream. “Where is she?”

Zachary strains to respond. He coughs blood on the grass. His blood smears across the space suits.

“Mandy is safe. She’s finally safe.”

Chapter Forty-Three

The voices coming out of the rubber suits say something about how I can’t leave the quarantine.

“I wasn’t trying to, I was just following him. I swear,” I say.

They clamp some handcuffs on me, so hard it cuts the skin, harsh crevices stinging into my wrists. I grimace. The blood trickles down my hand, away from the pain.

“She’s bleeding,” a scared voice says. Maybe the voice just sounds scared because it’s rattling against the shield. If I had to be confined to one of those rubber suits, I’d be scared too. I’d want to strip it off the first chance I got and run naked as a jaybird through dandelions just to get the claustrophobia out of my system.

“Wrap her up,” an impatient voice says. More rubber-suited figures place Zachary on a stretcher.

The proud man with the shovel squirms and throws punches as they try to move him into a van as well. “You’ve been exposed, sir. We need to isolate this area. We need to isolate anyone who could have been infected.”

I stare at the sad, old wrinkly face of the farmer cursing about government intrusion as he throws his phone on the ground, before he too is restrained, pulled and stuffed in a van.

“Pull your arms away from your body,” the man behind me says. I follow the directive as well as I can with handcuffs on.

“I really wasn’t trying to leave.” I don’t realize how afraid I am ’til I hear the tremor in my voice. I didn’t want to admit it to myself. I have no idea what they will do to me. The brave façade crashes down as the rubber-suited man wraps gauze around my arm. I shake and my knees struggle to stay tight, locked.

He grabs me. “Stay still.”

It’s a funny thing to say, because as soon as he ties off the gauze, he pushes me into the back of another van. “I wasn’t trying to leave,” I try one more time as they close the door. I struggle to sit upright and once I do, the van jolts to a start and I’m knocked over again. I rattle between two benches built into the walls of the van.

The tires thump over soft ground and then smooth pavement for about ten minutes. The crush over gravel is a startlingly refreshing shift. The van is still for a long time. The two men up front talk, but between their suits and the van wall, it’s just muffled, angry inflections. They argue for what seems to be two hours, but could be only twenty minutes. When you’re alone in the dark, time gets wiggly.

I need to pee. I think about deserts, dry sand and bristling cactuses. I still need to pee.

They pull open the doors. “Get out of the vehicle and walk to the police car.”

With my handcuffed arms, I have to scoot down the side of the van and flip out the back. I have to remind myself to take deep, reassuring breaths.

I’m alone on a lonely gravel road, until a cop car emerges, swerving alongside me.

“Get in.” It’s Raven, the woman from the station. The cop with the big smile and huge wink. Though she lacks both of those as I open the door and climb in as best I can without the use of my hands.

She speaks into her phone. “I got her.”

Chapter Forty-Four

I’m abysmal at being in jail. Being confined like this at any point would make me want to shake against the bars like an untamed monkey, but especially now. I need to see Professor Livingston’s house. I need to continue my search for Mandy. She needs me.

So I’m exuberant when Luke walks down the hall. However, his usually wonderful lips are twisted in a scowl.

“Luke—”

“No,” he says, arms crossed. “I get to talk first. Do you know what it’s like getting a message in the middle of the night saying that your girlfriend has tried to escape the quarantine?”

“But I didn’t.” My knuckles hurt with the strain it takes to grip the bars, but maybe if I hold them hard enough they will fall away. I don’t like this barrier between Luke and me. I don’t like that I can’t reach him. That I can’t touch him.

Only then does the “girlfriend” part sink in, and I wonder if I should protest the label. Again.

“I know you weren’t trying to escape.” He sighs and his arms fall. “When I saw that Zachary was the other one trying to get out, I put two and two together.”

I stare at my thumbs.

He approaches me, his large hands covering mine. He rests his forehead against two bars. His voice has gotten lighter. “I’ve got a lawyer lined up for you. He can talk to you in the morning.” With his Southern accent, the way he says
lawyer,
the
a
s are drawn and quartered.

I want to rattle this cage. “I can’t wait ’til the morning. I need to get out now. Mandy is missing. She could be hurt or trapped. Zachary said something about Professor Livingston and doing something at his house. I need to get out now. I need to save her.”

He reaffirms his grips on my hands. “Quinn, they probably won’t even let you out in the morning. What if you tried to escape again?”

“But I won’t try,” I say, and climb on the bars I’m so eager to be let out from. My body shakes and moisture pulses from my temples.

Luke closes his eyes and breathes out. He reaches his hands through the bars, so his fingertips touch my waist. It’s an odd, stifled way to comfort me. But I still appreciate it. With his touch, I feel less trapped. “I know that, but they don’t,” he says.

“Call my father,” I say. I shake my head and laugh, but it’s a choked laugh. “I hate using his connections, but I have to this time. I have to for Mandy.”

“Quinn,” he says, his finger stroking my cheek. I rub my face into his palm. “I don’t know what your dad could—”

“Just call him, please,” I say. “The number is in my phone, which Raven took. Tell him what’s going on. He’ll know what to do.”

Luke’s face is filled with pity. I grit my teeth.

“Please, right now.” I pull away from the bars and resume my pacing. Pacing helps.

He nods and walks away, slow, Southern, strolling footsteps when they should be fast.

I lie on the bench. I look out the teeny window to the moon outside. Some branches smack against the window, as though they’re tapping out Morse code. Tears fill my eyes. Mandy was there for me. Now, when she needs me most, I’m trapped. She became her mother. She trusted the wrong man, a violent man. It can’t be how her life ends. It can’t.

I slam a fist into the bench and it helps. I do it six more times. Mandy wouldn’t have let a silly jail cell stop her from saving my life. I laugh, a soggy, salty laugh, thinking of how she’d somehow evade the bars and the cops and the security system. It would be no match for her. Nothing was a match for Mandy.

Finally, Luke is back. Instead of showing pity, his face is fresh and wild as he opens the door for me.

I leap and jump out as he explains something about my trial date and PR bond and other things I don’t care about now. I am free.

I rush, but Luke slows me down. He grabs my hand and I swing around back to him with the momentum.

“Let me drive you home,” he says.

“I’m not going home.”

His voice is gravely. “Let me drive you home.”

Fine.

We walk out a side door of the station. He is quiet as I climb in his car. He is quiet as he turns to me.

“Why didn’t you tell me who your dad was?”

“Why didn’t you tell me you were a cop?”

His knuckles whiten around the steering wheel. “I should have. It’s just, well, the badge has scared off girls before. And you, well, you know you’re the kind of girl who can get spooked out of a relationship.” I flinch at the word
spook.
And
relationship.
He wipes his face. “But shit, Quinn, you were in Richmond because your dad was the lieutenant governor. You could have mentioned that. And your parents are in Japan because he’s the ambassador?”

“Well, he’s friends with the president,” I say, scratching the back of my head and avoiding eye contact with Luke. “...and the mayor.”

“Yeah, and he and the mayor asked the magistrate to give you a PR bond, so here you are,” Luke says. “I’m not sure what would have happened to you if the state troopers had you, but the mayor wants anyone caught trying to escape to be processed and tried in Allan. This is still her town.”

“So, that means Zachary is in your custody now?” I ask.

“He is, but even on all those pain meds, he’s not talkin’.”

“Well, is he in any shape to talk? He was hit so many times. There was blood everywhere.”

Luke shakes his head. “He’s making a speedy recovery.”

“Because of his condition.”

“Yeah.”

I run a fingernail back and forth along my lower lip. There was that night Zachary ran out of the bar. He looked in Mandy’s eyes. He must have seen it. Shocked, he just left her. But he could have had it first and just showed the symptoms later. That’s what Rashid said, Zachary probably caught it and accidentally gave it to Mandy. And what else did he do to Mandy? “Mandy is at Professor Livingston’s house. I know it in my gut. You need to check it out. We need to go there.”

Luke nods. “Guts don’t get warrants,” he says. He finally starts the car and drives. “But I’m working on it, Quinn. Erikson and I want to get in that house too. He’s involved somehow. After the NSA told us we couldn’t get Zachary and Livingston’s research, we looked into Livingston. He’s supposed to be on sabbatical in China, hiking the mountains or some shit, but no one’s heard from him in a month. And the NSA keeps blocking us when we try to dig deeper.”

“Are you allowed to tell me all this?” I ask, tilting my head.

Luke shrugs. “They told us not to tell anyone, but Chief Erikson called Representative Mitchell a couple hours ago. Soon everyone will know how the federal government is keeping good local cops from protecting the citizens of Allan.” Luke grins. I can’t help laughing. But when it comes down to it, I don’t care about the NSA. I just care about Mandy. “Anyway,” Luke says, a smile still in his throat, “we still need to play by the rules. And the NSA is still making the rules.”

I rest my right elbow on the window and bite my thumb as I stare at the passing trees. Swoosh. Swoosh. Swoosh. “Luke, I get that you can’t get in there, I do. I get that you’re just trying to do your job.” I put my hand on his thigh and feel the fabric of his suit under my palm. “But I have to get in there.”

He shifts off the street abruptly, like he almost missed the turn. I don’t recognize the road but it must be a back way to get to my house. As he breathes out through his nose, like he had been holding his breath, my mind scrambles. It will be easy enough to find out the professor’s address in the online campus directory. It will be easy enough to break in. I won’t care about breaking some glass on a door to open it from the inside.

“Quinn,” he says, as he swerves left, “I hope you understand how much I want to keep you in my house, under my security system, so no one else can touch you.”

“Well, that sounds creepy.”

“Yeah, I know.” He pulls alongside the curb and shifts the car into park. We aren’t at my house. His eyes are earnest and glowing. “And I know you need space and freedom and all that shit. And if I want to be with you, I need to offer a lot more than security.”

“Luke, this is not the time for a heart-to-heart about our romantic feelings.” I’ve got to get away from him so I can figure out where Professor Livingston’s house is and break into it.

He puts his hand on my knee and swallows. “Please listen.”

“Okay.”

“I think I get you, Quinn. I like that you’re brave and even reckless...” Luke smiles. “If we’re together, I don’t want to get in your way. I want to help you achieve anything you want to achieve.”

“What if what I want to achieve is starting a destructive cult where we all dance around a fire before downing cyanide-laced Kool-Aid?”

“Well then,” he says, “I would politely and respectfully suggest that the Kool-Aid recipe doesn’t include cyanide.”

I smile. He reaches to my neck and pulls me in for a kiss that is deep and long and sensual, tongues tangling and hearts beating. So much that I almost forget the horridness of the world around us.

Almost.

I press my hand on Luke’s chest. His heart. And gently push away.

“Luke, I get that you need to do your job, it’s just frustrating.”

“It is,” he agrees. “It’s really frustrating that Professor Livingston’s house is right in front of me.” He raises his hand, gesturing to the dark home outside my passenger window. It looms above us and the silvery moon peeks over the roof, enticing me. Pulling me from Luke. And Luke is okay with that?

“It’s right in front of me,” Luke continues, “but I can’t see inside of it. If I do, I could jeopardize the whole investigation. It’s not just about losing my job, it’s about losing my chance to use my job to solve this and find Mandy. Do you understand?”

“I do,” I say, taking off my seatbelt and opening the door.

He opens his glove compartment and pulls out some latex gloves. He tosses them to me. “Don’t fuck up a potential crime scene. You’re just in there to get Mandy, if she’s there.”

“I understand,” I say.

“Quinn.” He grabs my hand before I can leave. His face loose and his eyes mopey. “You know you don’t have to do this.”

“I know,” I say to Luke. “But don’t feel guilty. I would have done it anyway.”

He takes my knuckles to his mouth. “Be safe. I’m just getting used to having you around.”

I crawl on the seat, not exactly sitting so much as crouching, and I take his scruffy cheek into my palm and pull him to me. We kiss, noses rubbing against each other. I pull back and get out of the car, walking into the unknown darkness.