And I thought, Time bombs.
Julia said she hadn’t felt anything when she’d hugged him this morning. No dizziness. No vertigo. Julia’s skepticism about the supernatural was one thing, but if you asked Rosalie, you’d get a different story. In Rosalie’s case, there’d been more going on than just vertigo. A lot more.
It had haunted Rosalie, just as it had haunted Cécile. And Dr. Genet. All three had been unfortunate enough to cross paths with Nick, after which they’d been walking around like ticking time bombs.
And now all three of them were dead.
Once he’s touched you, once he’s cursed you, he gets into your head and never leaves.
Time bombs.
How long before Nick’s parents would explode? Harald and Louise? How long before Julia would?
And me.
And you will also find out what it’s like to fall. To fall . . . and to fall . . . and to fall . . . and to fall.
All those people in the AMC. Did they fall too?
If Nick had placed time bombs in their heads, then they’d been really short-fused. A timer set for right the fuck now.
Thirty people. A complete demolition squad.
I needed evidence.
My only lead connected to Nick’s time in the AMC was his shrink, Dr. Claire Stein. She was the one I needed. But the three sessions I participated in, they’d gone through Nick, and I didn’t have her number.
What are you gonna do if it’s true? If he really is a mass murderer?
Shut up. We haven’t got that far yet.
So I log in to Nick’s Gmail. Yep, I knew his password, and whoever’s got a problem with that at this stage—see this finger?
Claire’s last email was an out of office autoresponse from September 24. Ten days before we left for Switzerland. She had her cell number in her signature, but when I tried calling I got the “This number is no longer available” notification. That was weird. No voicemail. Simply disconnected.
I copied her address, then opened my own email and tapped,
Dear Dr. Stein. I would like to talk to you about Nick. It is very urgent.
I thought a bit, then added,
It may be a matter of life or death. Sam Avery.
Send.
Ping!
Out of office.
I waited. Looked for updates about what had happened that night. The August Fright Night. The official story was still that it was most probably the outbreak of a hospital germ that had caused seizures followed by heart failure. What germ? Unknown. One of those next-of-kin lawyers bitched on a prime-time talk show about the vague information disclosure, which only served to fuel the conspiracy theories. On a late-night talk show, he said he was repping a family that wasn’t allowed to see their mother after she’d died. Said the casket was closed and that officials refused to tell them why.
Every five minutes, I refreshed my email.
After the third time, my hands started to shake again. What did it mean that Claire’s cell was no longer available?
I searched for her Instagram, but she didn’t have one. Not even Facebook.
Frustrated and more or less numbed out, I scrolled through my own feed, getting burned on pics of abs and boobs and sports cars and luxury retreats. Scrolled through my notifications. My chat messages. Everything felt empty. Hollow. Outside, behind mountain slopes and clouds, the Maudit was staring at me right through the window. Downstairs, something terrible was dormant.
There was a message notification in my requests, from someone I wasn’t connected with.
Emily Wan. A profile pic of an Asian-looking woman. Two messages. Both from yesterday, 10:34 a.m. The first was practically identical to the email I had sent to Claire: Hello Sam. You don’t know me, but I would like to get in touch with you about your partner Nick. It’s urgent.
The second, that was the clincher. The second message said,
Like him, I’m one of the survivors of the August 18 AMC tragedy. I need to ask you something. I hope I’m not too late.
Holy fuck.
Emily Wan. I scrolled through her photos. There weren’t that many. Good-looking, with a sophisticated flair to her bearing. Chinese, living in Amsterdam, two kids. Speaking gig at some expo center. “31st European Neurology Congress Madrid,” the dais-wide text beamed onto the screen behind her lectern.
Heart thumping, I tapped out a reply:
And I’ve got about a million things to ask U. Call?
It didn’t take long for her reply to come.
I’m so relieved that you wrote back! Sorry about the strange request. Yes, please!
And a number.
Bingo!
5
I called out on the porch, cuz I didn’t want Nick to hear me, in case he woke up. I could still feel last night’s cold deep in my bones.
A whole different kind of cold wrapped itself around my heart.
Emily Wan answered right away, as if she’d been waiting with her phone in hand. You could hear just a hint of that melodious Chinese intonation in her voice. What you also heard was nerves. No—scratch that. What you heard was a woman who was dead scared but trying to play it cool.
Said she was glad we could talk so soon. That I must have been weirded out by her message. It was awkward for her, too, she didn’t really know how to say this, and oh heavens, she completely forgot to introduce herself: Emily Wan, how do you do, living in Amstelveen and a neurosurgeon at the AMC. Her credentials totally highbrow, but she rattled on as if she were staring wide-eyed into nothing. She was beating around the bush, afraid to broach the subject this call was all about.
So I said, “Let me guess. You were there that night in August, and now you’re having flashbacks. Aftereffects. And you think Nick may somehow be responsible.”
Long silence. When she spoke again, her voice was no more than a whisper. “So it’s true?” Barely audible: “Please tell me what you know . . .”
Her fear seemed genuine, but still, I was on guard. What credentials did I even have on her? I didn’t know this woman.
So I inquire, how did she even find us?
“Through . . . through a doctor friend of mine.” Trying to control her voice again. “Someone who’d been treating your partner, Nick. And, God, yes, what you say is true. I was there when the disaster happened. Unintentionally, I got more personally involved than is good for me.”
I asked what she meant by that.
“I had an emergency operation. The patient we were treating died during surgery. And not from the problem we were operating on him for.”
I closed my eyes. Afraid that the answer would irrevocably lead me toward a truth I couldn’t face, at least not just yet, because I was partly responsible for it, I asked, “What did your patient die of, Ms. Wan?”
And Emily said, “I can’t tell you that. All the hospital employees who were working that night had to sign a nondisclosure agreement.” A clearly intended pause—implying that she wanted to tell me. Just not over the phone.
She was afraid someone was listening in.
Paranoid? Sure sounded like it. But what did I know, at this point?