In the Grey (35 page)

She looked at him for a
moment. Feeling her gaze, he looked up. She gave him a slight
smile.

“
Would you like to go for
a ride?” Helen asked. “I asked this morning. They got my Gennifer
ready and have a stallion you can ride.”

“
I’d like that,” Troy
said. “I’m glad you have Genni here with you.”

“
Yes,” Helen nodded.
“She’s been my friend and confidant for almost twenty
years.”

Troy smiled. He’d fought
hard to keep his sister’s brown mare out of his parents’ bankruptcy
proceedings. But they had purchased the horse originally; she was
one of their precious few remaining assets. When it looked like the
mare would go to auction, and surely wind up in a dog food plant,
he’d borrowed money from Alex and bought Gennifer for four times
what she was worth. The mare had arrived a month after Helen moved
in to this facility. According to her psychiatrist, it was Gennifer
who broke through Helen’s madness. Troy thought old Gennifer was
worth every penny.

“
Do you want to talk to my
shrinks and stuff?” Helen asked.

“
If you’d like,” Troy
said. “I have some questions for you.”

“
I know,” Helen said. “I
have some answers.”

“
You do?”

“
Alex called my counselor
with the questions about Dahlia,” Helen said. “We went over them
together so I’d be ready.”

“
She did?”

“
She’s been trying to help
me,” Helen said. “And I . . . I used to hate her so
much. Mostly, I was jealous of her freedom. But she’s been very
good to me.”

“
She has?”

“
You don’t know?” Helen
smiled. “She comes by when she’s on this coast. I see her and that
handsome Art every other month or so. They don’t stay very long,
but they always tell me stories of the fun places they just left.
It helps me remember that there’s a whole world out there. She pays
for flowers in my room every week. It sounds small, but it means a
great deal to me.”

Not sure what to say, Troy
smiled.

“
So I have answers to your
questions, brother,” Helen said.

“
Okay.”

“
Here goes,” Helen stopped
talking. Tears welled in her eyes. She cleared her throat and said,
“Our brother killed your beloved because she knew he was a fraud. I
knew too.”

“
Helen, you don’t have
to . . .”

“
Actually, I do,” Helen
said. “My counselor has been saying for months, ‘Helen you have to
choose your own side,’ but I didn’t want to pick a side that wasn’t
Dad’s or Hector’s because . . .
because . . . And my side is definitely not their
side.”

“
They seemed so powerful,”
Troy said.

Helen nodded.

“
They seemed that way to
me too,” Troy said.

“
Really?” Helen asked. “I
thought you were . . . free.”

“
Running away from horror
only means you’re forever tied to it,” Troy said. “The horror of
Dad, Hector, and our life as kids, it’s been like a bungee cord
that wrenches me back if I get too . . .
happy.”

Helen nodded.

“
I’m in therapy too,” Troy
smiled.

She swallowed hard and
took a breath for courage.

“
And yes, our brother
killed your beloved because she left him,” Helen said. “Both
answers are yes. But I think, mostly, he killed her because she was
beautiful and light. She was living proof against the need for the
global meltdown.”

“
Global meltdown?” Troy
covered his surprise with a lazy look.

“
Oh come on, little
brother,” Helen said. “You have to remember.”

“
Vaguely,” Troy
said.

“
Our father talked about
the necessity of global meltdown all the time,” Helen said. In a
dull, almost numb voice, she said, “‘Human beings are weak and
inferior. We must create enough environmental pressure to kill off
the weak and give rise to a new breed of humans.’ I would lie in
bed at night shivering with fear at the idea of the entire world
burning – Mom, you, Hector, our house, Gennifer, my cats. I could
see everything going up in flames. You really don’t
remember?”

“
It sounds familiar,” Troy
said. “Mostly, I thought he was completely nuts. Hector
too.”

“
They were,” Helen
laughed. She caught her breath mid-laugh, “They were mad; I wasn’t.
They were crazy; I wasn’t. It was them; not me.”

“
That’s true,” Troy
said.

Surprised, Helen turned to
look at him. He nodded.

“
Dad was crazy,” Troy
said. “We were caught in the web of a madman. And Hector
was . . . just wrong, backwards, mentally deformed.
Mom was working all the time and had no idea what they were up
to.”

“
Her career was more
important to her than we were,” Helen said.

“
Sometimes,” Troy said. “I
think she thought she would prove to Dad that he was wrong. And
honestly, someone had to keep us afloat. But . . . I
get angry with her too.”

Troy shrugged.

“
You haven’t spent a lot
of time with the boys, have you?” Troy asked.

Helen shook her
head.

“
They are real and
brutally honest. They won’t put up with crazy,” Troy smiled. “They
help remind me that I can be brilliant and not crazy. You’d like
them. Their best friends are these wild Irishmen, Cian and Eoin.
They know the meaning of being trapped and being free. They’ve been
teaching the boys how to cook.”

Troy reached in his pocket
and pulled out a bag of chocolate crinkle cookies.

“
The boys made cookies for
you,” Troy said.

Helen took the bag and
looked at the cookies inside.

“
They made them for me?”
Helen asked.

“
They’re excited to see
you again.”

Helen nodded.

“
When you’re ready,” Troy
said. “We’ve found a place in Colorado that’s like this one. You’d
be close enough so we can see you once in a while, as much as you
can handle. When you’re ready, we can talk about
moving.”

“
I need to work,” Helen
said.

“
Honestly, Helen,” Troy
said. “I think you’ve done enough. If you spent the rest of your
life recovering, that would be all right.”

“
I loved teaching,” Helen
said.

“
When you’re better, maybe
you’ll want to teach . . . horseback riding, or
gardening, or advanced applied theoretical physics.”

Troy smiled, and Helen
laughed.

“
Your job, now, is to
recover,” Troy said.

“
And if I never do?” Helen
asked.

“
I’ve learned that
recovery is not a destination,” Troy said. “And really, this isn’t
such a bad way to spend your life.”

Helen smiled. They watched
the sun on the pasture for a while.

“
Hector stole your work,”
Helen said.

“
I found that out just the
other day,” Troy said. “Any idea if they ever armed those
nanodrones?”

“
I doubt it,” Helen said.
“Hector was terrified that people would find out that they didn’t
do anything.”

“
I don’t really get that,”
Troy said. “Wouldn’t people know they weren’t getting video
or . . . ?”

“
You bought a satellite
package,” Helen said. “The drone vibrates so the satellite can pick
them up. The drones are sticky. They stay with the person they’re
tracking. You can follow someone by satellite via imagery or get
the GPS location. That’s how Hector knew where you
were.”

“
One of those bugs was on
Dahlia?” Troy asked.

Helen nodded.

“
Did they ever arm them?”
Troy asked.

“
Fire,” Helen said. “That
was the talk last year. ‘Flick a switch, and everything burns.’
That’s what Hector said. But I doubt they ever figured it out.
Everything they added made the drones crash. Of course, Hector was
supposed to figure it out. If he’d designed them, he probably could
have. But he didn’t.”

Troy nodded.

“
Would you still like to
ride?” Troy asked.

“
Yes, but I have a
question for you first,” Helen said.

“
I’m happy to answer
anything,” Troy said.

“
Why didn’t they prosecute
me?” Helen asked.

Troy grimaced and looked
away.

“
Did you make that
happen?” Helen asked.

He turned to look at
her.

“
The last memory I have
was of that district attorney telling me that I was going to live
the rest of my days in prison for killing Dahlia,” Helen said. “He
told me I’d live in solitary confinement in an eight-by-ten cell.
He would personally see to it that I was never, ever let
out.”

“
Sounds like a real
asshole,” Troy said.

Helen chuckled. Troy
grinned, and she shook her head at him.

“
Do you know why they
didn’t prosecute me?” Helen asked. “I should be in jail. I knew
they paid that guy to kill Dahlia. I didn’t do anything to save her
or the boys. Hector would have killed them too. It’s entirely my
fault.”

“
No, Helen, it’s not,”
Troy said.

“
But the
law . . . ,” Helen’s face flushed bright red,
and tears fell from her eyes.

Troy looked away to give
her a chance to collect herself.

“
How did you pull it off,
Genius?” Helen asked using his childhood nickname.

“
I convinced Dad to take
the blame,” Troy said.

“
You what?” Helen was so
surprised she jumped from her rocking chair.

Troy smiled and held the
chair so she could sit again.

“
What do you think Dad is
the most afraid of?” Troy asked.

“
Being victimized,” Helen
said. “Being weak like me.”

“
You are not weak,” Troy
said.

“
You know what I mean,”
Helen said.

“
I do,” Troy said. “And
you’re wrong. You’re lovely and very human, which makes you all the
more beautiful; you’re not a demented aberration of nature like
Hector and Dad.”

“
How did you do it?” Helen
asked.

“
I’d be lying if I said it
was all me. My team helped me come up with the plan and the
evidence,” Troy said. “But I leveraged Dad’s fear and convinced him
to be an actual father. He got puffed up about the idea of saving
his children while saving his own ass. The truth is that he
wouldn’t survive long in the world. I gave him enough evidence to
convince him. So he confessed to the entire thing.”

“
What did he get in
return?” Helen asked.

“
He’s in a
medium-security-facility, no murderers or rapists. He’s not
thrilled, but he’ll survive. He gets to see his grandchildren once
a year, and that makes him feel important. Mom is setting up
accounts so he’ll have money to buy perks. Last I heard, he was in
a regular poker game with a couple of those Ponzi scheme
guys.”

“
That was nice of you,”
Helen said. “A lot nicer than I would have been.”

“
What would you
do?”

“
I’d kill him – slow and
mean,” Helen’s voice was so matter-of-fact that Troy leaned over to
look in her face.

“
Ever killed anyone?” Troy
asked.

Helen shook her
head.

“
It’s not all it’s cracked
up to be,” Troy said. “Especially slow and mean.”

Helen gave him a solemn
nod.

“
I know you’d rather stay
here and talk about killing our father,” Troy said. “But I’d rather
go horseback riding.”

Helen’s face broke into a
big smile. She stood and held her arms out. They gave each other a
tight hug.

“
Can you stay all day?”
Helen asked.

“
I planned to,” Troy
said.

“
Good,” Helen said. “I’ll
take you to my favorite place. This way!”

She started off toward the
stables. Troy shook his head and smiled.

“
Come on!” she waved, and
he jogged after her.

F

Wednesday, early
morning

November 17 – 5:01 a.m.
CET

(November 16 – 11:01 p.m.
EST)

Ramstein Air Base,
Germany

The door opened behind
her, and Alex looked up from her laptop. Seeing a US Navy ensign,
Alex stood from her seat at the table. She put her shoulders back
and her feet together and stood at attention. The Admiral came in
the door. The ensign saluted and left the room. The Admiral stared
at Alex for a moment.

“
Did you ask Captain
Hutchins and Petty Officer Carmichael to escort me off the plane to
soothe me?” the Admiral asked.

Alex stared straight
ahead.