For a few seconds the room stayed quiet. Then Audrey spoke. She addressed Dryden; it was clear Rachel had already heard this part.
“There are things we just don’t know how to explain to Rachel right now. Things that would be very hard for her to hear. Not just what makes her different. Other things, too. About what happened to her mother. About how we ended up free. About Holly Ferrel.”
“We will tell you,” Sandra said. “Both of you. All we’re saying is that we want Rachel to remember it for herself first.” Her eyes went to the girl. “Honey, if we tried to tell you now … we’re not sure you’d believe us. You sure as hell wouldn’t want to believe us. You can imagine they’re not happy stories.”
“You’ve kept a journal for the past few years,” Audrey said. “We debated showing it to you, letting you learn everything that way. But we really think your own memories would make it easiest on you … that when you remember the things you’ve been through, you’ll also remember that you’ve recovered from them. That’s the best we can do. We’ve given it all the thought in the world.”
“Gaul knows where Holly Ferrel lives,” Rachel said. “If she’s in danger, I don’t want to wait however long it takes—”
“Holly is in danger,” Sandra said. “Grave danger, but not immediate danger. I know that doesn’t make sense to you now, but I can say it with certainty. For the time being, this week for sure, nobody’s going to hurt her.”
“But how do you know?” Rachel asked.
“I know. I promise.”
Rachel looked as frustrated as Dryden had ever seen her. He couldn’t blame her. His own frustration was simmering.
“How did Gaul get to me?” Rachel asked. “Two months ago.”
“That’s tied into the rest of it,” Audrey said. “In a way, it’s all just one story—the things we’re holding back.” Her eyes went to Rachel and softened. “You don’t want to hear it right now, sweetie.”
Against his will, Dryden thought, Maybe you just don’t want to tell it right now.
He couldn’t call it back any more than he could’ve kept it in. He saw all three of them react as if he’d said it aloud.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Not your fault,” Audrey said. She added, “You’re not entirely wrong, either.”
“What about the cell tower in the desert?” Dryden asked. “Whatever it relates to … whatever so many people are afraid of.”
“It’s not really the towers they’re scared of,” Audrey said. “Or what the towers are being used for right now. It’s something else—and they’re right to be afraid of it.” Her eyes went back and forth between Dryden and Rachel. “The answers are coming soon enough, I promise. Bear with us, okay? When you know the rest, you’ll probably wish you didn’t.”
*
Darkness had slid down over Santa Monica Bay. Gaul stared at it from his patio, a mile inland and five hundred feet up. To the west, the Point Dume Headlands shone dull in the moonlight. To the east, twenty miles out in the night haze, lay LAX and the orange glow of the city beyond.
Gaul sank into a chair beside the pool. In the blue light rippling up through its surface, he looked at the bound document in his hands. In the months since he’d first read it, the block of text on its cover had come to embody stress itself.
U.S. ARMY BIOWARFARE RESEARCH INSTITUTE (USABRI)
LIVING WEAPONS INITIATIVE—COHORT 23.3
ACCIDENT INVESTIGATION REPORT—“SNAPDRAGON”
Gaul shut his eyes and sank back into the seat cushion. His phone rang in his pocket. Lowry’s ringtone. Gaul took it out and answered without opening his eyes.
“The Chicago option is up and running, sir,” Lowry said.
Gaul acknowledged him, hung up, and set the phone on the paver bricks.
Two months before, in the days after Rachel had been captured, chemical analysis of her skin and hair had yielded a pollutant profile consistent with greater Chicago. That wasn’t where Gaul’s people had grabbed her, but it seemed to be where she’d spent much of her recent time. It seemed to be her home.
She likely wouldn’t remember her way back there for days yet, but in the name of caution the Chicago option was running now.
The thing was, it didn’t speak of caution. It spoke of desperation. It was as ridiculous as it was clever. That he was grasping for it only heightened the feeling that he was drowning.
*
“So you’re sleeping in the living room?” Rachel asked.
Dryden nodded. He stood in the doorway of her bedroom; she stood facing him from just inside, holding under her arm the triceratops whose name she couldn’t remember.
“I know I’m safe here,” Rachel said. “I just wish you were going to be closer.”
“Downside of owning a whole floor of a skyscraper,” Dryden said.