Trapped (Here Trilogy) (9 page)

I BIT MY lip as we drove through the grassy foothills, past fields where snow was melting in soft, white sunlight.

“What do we need at the store?” I asked.

“Enough food for two more nights at least, and at least eight gallons of water.”

“That’s a lot of water.”

“Little more for Vera, because her body is a different. Little more for me, because I'm bigger. Be sure to get at least 9,000 calories for Vera and me, for a three-day period, plus a minimum 4,638 for yourself.”

I blinked, surprised that he knew exactly how many calories I needed. More than I would ever eat, I thought, feeling kind of strange about it. I wondered what Nick would think if he knew about my craziness. When I looked up from the cuticle I'd been playing with, he was looking right at me. I felt the blood rush from my cheeks.

“What's wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing.”

One of his eyebrows arched up toward the bill of his hat. “I don’t believe you.”

“I was just thinking about something.”

“Something sad?”

“After dad died, I had…issues,” I said, shocking myself that I was actually going there. I searched Nick’s face for signs of discomfort, the kind I came to expect on my friend’s faces the few times I opened up. He raised both eyebrows, a casual invitation. I glanced out the window. “I didn’t eat enough,” I said quickly. When his face remained neutral, I went on. “I think I just...didn't know what to do about it.” I looked back over at Nick. “What I mean is, I wanted to do something about it, but there was nothing I could do. I couldn't be mad about it, because who would I be mad at? I couldn't talk to my mom too much, because she would get upset, even though she said she wouldn't; she always did. I wanted to...I don't know...make a statement. A statement to the universe that I didn't approve.” I bit my lower lip, imagining I must sound ridiculous.

It took me a second to wrangle up the nerve to look at Nick's face, even after his thumb started stroking my knuckles. When I did, his face was solemn. “I wish I had been there.”

“It was probably one of those things that was just bound to happen.” I'd always been a little funny about food. In a session with Dr. Sam, Mom mentioned I had avoided mayonnaise and candy even as a little girl.

“Do you believe that?” Nick asked seriously. “That things are bound to happen?”

I shook my head. I didn't—did I? “No. I guess not really. I don't want to, anyway. What do you think? You probably know.”

He sighed. “Not any more than you.”

“Really?”

“You’re surprised.”

“No, I—” had always kind of assumed that consciousness was headed to a better understanding of those things. “I don’t know. I guess I thought you guys would know everything.” I shrugged, feeling trite.

“There’s knowing and there’s
knowing
,” he said as we passed under the arch and out the park. “We know a lot about the way the universe works. But We know only what We observe, and We only observe what We need to survive. There’s plenty We don’t know. We never ask why, either.”

“Really?”

“We're good at math.” He offered. “We comprehend the equations that create existence. But nothing in our knowledge leads to understanding. It doesn’t provide…I don’t know, anything existential. That’s not what we’re after.”

My stomach rolled as we curved around the road to Gardiner. “Let's go to the little general store up here, past the bridge, on the right,” I told him. “As for the other thing...what do you mean by the equations that create existence?”

“Well…remember what I originally asked you? Whether or not things are determined to happen?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“I
can
tell you the probability of any conceivable event occurring.”

“That’s cool.”

He shrugged. “I’m a cool guy.”

We held hands as Nick drove us past the shops of downtown Gardiner.
When my anxious mind dredged up thoughts of my mom, worried beyond endurance, or of the minutes ticking by like sand in Vera's hourglass, or of the devastation I knew I’d feel the moment Nick left, I tried to focus on the scenery: jack-o-lanterns by doorsteps, shoe-polish messages on store windows, potted firs in medians, the curve of the mountains behind the town, and the egg-white sky that spread out in every direction over us, almost translucent with the cold.

“Was Annabelle really dead?” I asked, to distract from the Hitchcock birds flapping in my stomach as we rolled through traffic.

Nick shook his head. “She wasn't dead, but she had some serious arrhythmia.”

“What happened?”

He shrugged
.
“I dropped her on the bed and went into the bathroom. I saw the statue—” a statue made entirely of gold “—and had what I could only describe at the time as an out of body experience. When I came to, you were there, and she was almost dead.”

“So you, like, brought her back to life.”

“I corrected her heart’s rhythm using electricity.”

“So you’re, like, a human defibrillator.”

He shook his head, and I realized my mistake. “Well, a defibrillator masquerading as a human. A hot human,” I said, winking.

“Masquerading,” he agreed with a wary smile.

We passed a book shop and a hardware store before parking in front of the little general store. Firewood lined the sidewalk, sharing space with potted pines, snow plows, cedar rocking chairs, and license plate birdhouses.

I pushed my hair back under the fedora, neatened the wig into a perfect blond ponytail, and glanced warily at the glass door, already feeling trapped.

Nick gave my hand a little squeeze and surprised me when he pulled me close for a quick hug. “Everything is fine,” he said, passing me a credit card he’d rigged to leave no trace. “Take your time and don't be afraid to make eye contact. But don’t go out of your way to.”

“Thanks Jason,” I teased as I reached for my door's handle.

“Bourne?” he asked, and I nodded.

Nick tapped his temple with a wink, and I held an image of his silly face in my head as I slid out of the truck and stepped up the curb. I passed a man in jeans and a down jacket sweeping a few feet from the door, and I flashed him a polite smile. A cheerful bell announced my arrival, and before I got all the way inside, the delicious smell of cinnamon roasted almonds hit my nose. My stomach cramped, and I let the hunger distract me from my nerves.

When the gray-haired woman behind the counter gave me a cheery smile, I was able to smile back.

“Hello,” she chirped.

“Hi,” I said with a little wave.

“Can I help you find something?”

I almost said, 'no', but I figured asking for help wouldn’t hurt. “Just some snacks and maybe a few flashlights.”

“Right this way, dear.” Her voice was sharp, and as she smiled, lipstick rubbed off on her teeth. For some irrational reason, this made me think she was an undercover agent.
It’s okay
, I reminded myself.

The woman led me down an aisle lined with baking supplies and fix-it stuff, like nails and wrenches. Along the back wall, beside some snow blowers, was a row of flashlights.

“Here they are. For food and drink, it's the other side of the counter,” she said, pointing to the far end of the check-out counter, which had been hidden from the doorway by a giant, painted totem pole.

My stomach clenched when I noticed a TV back there, along with another, younger woman watching it.

As I reached for a hot pink flashlight with rhinestones—for Vera—the woman put her hand on my shoulder, and I nearly had a seizure.

“Are you the Bertrards' cousin? Sally, I think, from Seattle?”

I swallowed, trying to find my breath. “Um, no. I'm not.” Sketch-yyyy!

She laughed, sounding embarrassed. “Oh, well, I heard the Bertrards were having company. A pretty, tall, blonde girl. My daughter—” she said, pointing to the '40s-aged brunette sitting near the TV— “has a son about your age. We were doing a bit of match-making.”

I smiled, and tried to sound laid back and friendly. “My name is Ruthie.”

“Well nice to meet you, Ruthie. I'll leave you to your business,” she said, chuckling as she headed back to her spot behind the counter.

“Thanks for the help.” I grabbed two flashlights, then, in a panic, two more; no news reports would mention four fugitives—although, I realized, it wouldn’t mention three, either, since I was officially an abductee.

I snorted at that and walked back down the aisle. I found several disposable cameras at the end and grabbed the most expensive. Then I followed my nose to the source of the almond smell: a hooded buffet counter, near where the first woman’s supposed daughter was flipping through a
Redbook
.

“Oh, wow. I need some of the cinnamon stuff,” I said with my brightest smile.

Yeah, it would cost me a few minutes, but Nick had said to act natural, and I hearted sugared almonds hard.

The brunette’s smile looked like her mother’s. “Anything else?”

“Umm...I need a lot of food,” I said, and she laughed, probably because I didn't look like I'd eat a lot. “I'm here with friends,” I explained, slipping into chatty mode. “A girls' trip. We're all really hungry.”

She got off her stool and stood to scoop and bag the almonds. “How many bags?”

“Um, maybe six or seven,” I said.

“Anything else?”

“Mac and cheese and some of the potato soup.” I pretended to count on my fingers, revising my order. “Five bowls of soup and five of the mac and cheese.” She nodded, and I turned away to grab a basket and raid the canned food shelves. “Are you here for the park?” she asked, and I turned around with my mouth hanging open. “Yes—
no
. I mean, we're not sure yet.” I laughed away the awkwardness. “My friends can't decide on anything. We're really on a road trip.”

I turned back to the shelves and grabbed a small shopping basket before I could sound any more suspicious. I tossed in several cans of miniature hot dogs, about a dozen peanut butter cracker packs, two jugs of water, two water purifying water bottles, a jumbo bag of peanut M&Ms, and some tuna.

Then the door chimed, and I looked up and nearly died. It was a cop. A female cop. And as my gaze hit hers, her eyebrows shot up into her bangs.

She looked over at the gray-haired woman, and my fingers trembled around the handle of the basket.

“Is this her?” she asked casually.

I glanced at the back of the store, already prepared to run; the brunette had stopped packaging my food and was leaning into the TV now, peering at something. The cop had stepped closer, and was waiting for the gray-haired woman to answer.

I sat the basket on the floor and took two steps toward the end of the aisle, seconds from lunging into a sprint. But then the gray-haired lady's gentle laughter warmed the room.

“I’m afraid not. Just passing through with some friends.”

I had a moment’s relief—the cop thought I was that niece. Whatever her name was. The next moment, I almost jumped out of my skin when the brunette at the TV gasped. “Mama. Sara!” Her tone was that of someone just discovering something. I stopped, noticing for the first time the officer’s resemblance to both women. “Doesn’t Deb Crenshaw live in Golden, Colorado?”

The officer nodded, and so did her mother.

THANK YOU GOD. This was just a benign family drop-by! I laughed, high pitched and slightly maniacal. I turned around to get my basket, then I remembered that the brunette had been talking about
Golden
!

“I think so.”

Her daughter pointed to the TV. “They’ve got some kind of outbreak.”

“Outbreak?” the other daughter, the police officer, asked.

“It’s a virus.”

Heart pounding, I stepped to the counter as the first daughter turned up the volume on the TV.

I heard a female voice saying, “...new strain of zoonotic swine flu, which originated here, and so far has infected all four hog farms in this foothills town directly west of Denver.
Can you tell us what's going on right now, Dr. Barnett?”

I strained to get a better look at the TV, which was slanted toward the brunette, as she bagged my stuff and asked me how I wanted to pay.

I handed her the card, and she pointed to my basket. “Do you want all this stuff, too?”

I nodded, hoisting it onto the counter. “Sorry.”

“You're fine,” she said, glancing again at the TV, which had clearly captured all our attention. “I hope that doesn’t make it anywhere up here,” she mused.

“...at least four people in quarantine. We'll do everything we can to keep the residents of Golden safe and to keep the virus from spreading while we continue to develop a response.”

There was footage of three people in hazmat suits entering a building I didn’t recognize, followed by an aerial shot of my hometown. Streets crisscrossed the humpy foothills, flattening out at little on the east side of the town, where the interstate connected it to downtown Denver.

“Your total is forty-one oh-eight,” the brunette said, and I felt her mom and sister closing in behind me.

She turned the TV toward her mom, and I recognized the image on the screen as our wind turbines.

Standing out in front of Mitchell property, wearing a red jacket and a grim, down-to-business look as he spoke into a microphone, was Diego.