The Survivors (37 page)

I heard footsteps upstairs. No use trying to hide. I was caught dead to rights. So I looked at the nearest photo, dim in the light from the kitchen. It was like Mickey Mouse, made of perfect circular lines that bled red and purple as the paper soaked up wine.

“Davie, what are you doing here?”

“Mom, I'm sorry. I didn't see that glass.”

“Davie—” She saw the spilled wine and the ruined photo, and her face whitened with rage. “Damn you,” she hissed. She shoved me against the wall, and I thought she was going to hit me. I squawked, more from shock than anything. My dad got there and stepped in front of her.

“No, Deni,” he said. “It was just an accident. I'll take him up to bed. You clean up, OK?”

She nodded tightly. Her face was still pale, and, from the look in her eyes, I was sure she hated me then.

I followed my father up to my room. I don't recall what he said, though we did talk for a while, and then he shut out the light. Later, I heard footsteps, light and tentative like a child's. “Ron?” I whispered.

“No, Davie, it's me.” My mother sat on the bed and hugged me. She was crying so hard her whole body was heaving. “I'm so sorry. Please forget that happened. Please?”

“Sure, mom.” I nestled my cheek against her head. She squeezed me tighter and tighter, and the smell of her shampoo was all around me. My own tears ran down the side of her face.

There was a sudden tingling in my fingers, in my arms. I heard the distant thump as Scottie's tablet hit the floor beside the chair.

Fifty-four, fifty-five, fifty-six
.

I was back at the window in the master bedroom, looking out as my mother came down the porch steps. It was the same memory as always, except everything was silent—no sound of the storm or the wind in the trees. She glanced up and patted the air when she saw me. I dropped to my knees. She spoke, and for the first time ever I understood what she said. I'd always wondered if it was my name but it wasn't. She said Brookey, not Davie. On the porch someone answered, but I caught only the low drone of the voice. The wind was rising. She said something more and lifted the gun to her temple. The same temple I'd wept against the night she got so angry at me.

Mom, don't!

I leaned into the wind, which had grown to a howl. It was too much; I tumbled back.

“Wake up! Cal, wake up!”

I opened my eyes to dim overhead lights. I was lying on hard bricks. Scottie hovered close, looking at my face, and I heard the cheerful
bing-bong
chime of a Metro train. I turned my head from side to side. We were at the end of a platform. The train was leaving. As it gathered speed, its tailwind whipped through the station with a
whooosh
.

“Where are we?” I said.

“Crystal City Metro stop.”

He looked so wild-eyed I laughed and patted his arm. “I'm OK. Is there a place to sit?”

He helped me to a bench. The few people on the opposite platform were staring at us.

“I was outside and saw you come out of the hotel,” Scottie said. “You headed straight down here. When I called, you didn't even answer.”

“I must not have heard.”

“I was only a few yards behind you.” He hadn't taken his eyes off me. “You hopped the turnstile, and I had to catch up. By the time I got here, you were right at the edge of the platform. The train was coming.”

“That was the sound I heard, the wind roaring.”

“Cal—” He swallowed so hard his Adam's apple bounced. “It looked like you were just going to step off in front of it.”

“No way. I was . . .” Actually, I had no clue what I was doing. “What did you do, tackle me?”

“I grabbed you and jerked you back.”

I rubbed my throat. “Thanks, I guess. And quit looking at me that way. I'm fine—really.” I said it firmly enough, but the realization of what had nearly happened left me feeling clammy all over.

He sat back. He wasn't wearing his hat, and his hair was matted like twisted red wire. “Was that one of your episodes?”

“Maybe.”

“Cal!”

“OK, yes. But it's over now.” I touched the back of my head and found a tender lump. I must have hit it on the pavers when he pulled me down.

“I was looking at your tablet,” I said. “That file you left me. What was it?”

“A patent, from the Patent and Trademark Office website.”

“For what?”

“A digital camera. I think those were the plans your mom took from her office. The dates match up, and Braeder Corporation is listed on the application.”

Suddenly things made more sense, like why those photographs might have been around our house that summer.

I stood up and shook out my arms. “There, all better. And you
are
good at tracking things down. Come on, back to the room. I want to check out those plans again.”

“Are you sure? Felix said what Dr. Rubin did to you may have screwed up something in your head. ‘Missing defense mechanism,' he called it. He told me to watch out for you.”

I pulled him to his feet. “Felix is a ninny.”

Scottie laughed and we headed for the exit.

The people on the far platform continued to stare. I gave them a silly wave, wanting to show even strangers that I was right as rain. In my mind, though, I could still hear the howl of the wind and feel the tremble of the platform as the train drove down on me.

Thanks, Scottie
.

THIRTY-EIGHT

B
ack at the hotel, Scottie slept while I read the digital camera patent from beginning to end. It took me more than an hour, and I spent another hour studying the schematics. A lot of the technical descriptions were beyond me. Faced with something like that, the Internet can be a wonderful teacher. I read through it a second time, stopping again and again to look up some concept or definition.

Around dawn, the tablet and I both ran out steam. I dozed off, dreaming fitfully about lenses and CCD sensors and smashed wine glasses. Mickey Mouse made an appearance, dancing around our old dining table.

I woke in stages, feeling the lump on my head and then feeling how cold the air was from the open windows. Scottie wasn't in his bed. I turned and found him asleep on the floor in front of the door. His eyes opened as I sat up.

“What are you doing over there?” I said.

“Making sure you don't get out again.”

“I'm
all right
, Scottie.”

He gave a sleepy grin. “Okey-doke.”

“Is it really ten o'clock?” I said.

“Yeah. I know a great diner for Sunday brunch.” He got up and stretched. “I'm going to take a shower first.”

I found the power cord for the computer and went back to work. When the shower went off, he stuck his head out the bathroom door. “Find anything interesting?”

“Lots. We'll need to talk it over.”

“Not until later. I'm so hungry I could eat a toad.”

“I'll be scarred forever with that image.”

He rolled his eyes. “Jerkwad.”

The diner Scottie had in mind was a few blocks from his home in Mount Pleasant. If I'd had my way, we would have stayed away from that neighborhood, and anybody who might be looking for us there. But Scottie was suddenly angry at the world, so I didn't argue. His mood swing started when we got in the car, and he tried to switch on his tablet. “Dammit, you ran the battery down!”

“It'll be good for you to do something else.”

He gave me a cold stare.

“Look, I'm sorry. It's not the end of the world.”

“For you maybe.” He shut his eyes and didn't say another syllable until I made it to Mount Pleasant and parked.

From there, things spun downhill. The diner was packed, and we had to wait for seats at the counter. The server dropped off menus and Scottie said, “Where's Jeanine? Doesn't she work on Sundays?”

“What am I supposed to be, her mother?” the woman shot back.

I put my hand out to stop the tantrum I knew was coming. “Scottie, why don't you wait outside. I'll get us some food and bring it out.”

“No, I want—”

“We'll find someplace quiet to eat.”

He cursed and marched out the door.

Ten minutes later I met him on the sidewalk. “Here, take this.” I handed over a cup of coffee and a bag with ham and eggs and sausage and hash browns. “There's a bench in that park over there.”

“I know a better place,” he grumbled.

“OK. Show me.” We started down the sidewalk. It was a gray day with a gusting breeze, and leaves scudded underfoot. “So who's Jeanine?”

“A girl—woman.”

“Do you like her?”

He kicked at one of the leaves. “Not really.”

Like talking to a twelve-year-old.

“If you don't want to talk about Jeanine, tell me about this place we're heading for.”

He smiled, though he clearly was fighting it. “It'll be better if I show you.”

When we were boys, we played in the woods near my house. It was a four- or five-acre parcel, mostly pines. One summer, we built a fort, and, as the months went by, we added on and tore things down. By our last summer together, we'd settled on a simple design: a web of paths that led to a cleared circle with two large boulders. Sometimes we had battles there, using the boulders as cover while we pitched pine cones at each other. Other times we just sat on the rocks, telling jokes, scheming to conquer the world.

With that history behind us, I wasn't surprised that he led me off the street and into Rock Creek Park, to a cleared space with a large stone outcrop and a smaller boulder next to it.

“Let me guess,” I said. “You get the bigger one.”

“Damned straight.”

He hopped on the outcrop and sat down cross-legged. The boulder was shaped like a chair. I settled in and took a drink of coffee. Though I could hear traffic, I couldn't see any streets. The only house in sight was two hundred yards away, with just the rooftop showing.

“That's my house,” he said, seeing where I was looking. “I come out here all the time. Sometimes I sleep on that rock where you are. It's my favorite spot anywhere.”

A hideout is a neat thing for a couple of kids; it's a sad place for an adult.

I pulled some food from my bag, scrambled eggs wrapped in wax paper. “What was it that upset you this morning?”

He peered in his bag and wrinkled his nose. “While you were taking a shower, I called Mrs. Rogansky to see if I had any messages. My boss phoned last night. He told her if I don't finish the project I've been working on by Friday, I'll have to see the people in human resources. That's another way of saying I'll be fired.” He pulled out his packet of eggs and a plastic fork. “I can't lose my job. Nine years I've been there. It's the only thing I feel right doing.” He poked at the food. Out here, without plates and tables, his OCD was a real nuisance. He couldn't get anything square. “I wish I'd never started this, that I'd never heard of Eric Russo or any of the rest of them.”