“Then why were you laughing?”
Theo couldn’t safely answer that question either. He remembered what it was like to be sixteen and fearless. He remembered the false security his own brilliance afforded him. Now, at twenty-three, it was far too soon to play the role of the hardened old crank. And yet here he was, chuckling at David’s impertinence, fighting the urge to say, “Boy, it ain’t that easy.”
“I was mocking myself. But for what it’s worth, you’re right that we need wheels. We’re going to hit desert soon. That won’t be fun to walk.”
Zack continued his memory sketch of Evan Rander. “As long as we bring enough water and don’t pray to any golden calves, we’ll make it through the desert. I’m more concerned about the financials. Fifteen hundred isn’t enough to get us across the country.”
“You don’t think so?” Amanda asked. “I mean we’re stocked up on supplies now. If we’re careful—”
“If there’s one thing I learned today, it’s that ‘cheap’ times six equals ‘expensive.’ Unless Future Mia fronts us another loan, we’ll have to come up with more.”
“I’m not so sure.”
Theo shook his head. “No, Zack’s right. It’s not enough money to get to Brooklyn.”
Hannah leered at him with sudden puzzlement. He caught her hot stare. “What?”
“You said that before.”
“Excuse me?”
“That thing you just said. You used those exact words back in the van.”
Now it was Theo’s turn to become baffled. “I don’t recall saying that.”
“I don’t recall him saying that either,” David attested. “I was there the whole time.”
“No. I don’t mean the van today. I mean six weeks ago. When I first met you.”
In the wake of everyone’s dumbfounded looks, Hannah bared her palms. “I’m not making this up! We were on our way to Terra Vista. You’d fallen asleep. And then suddenly you mumbled, ‘He’s right.’ I said, ‘Who’s right?’ and you said, ‘Zack. He’s right. It’s not enough money to get to Brooklyn.’ Then your nose got all bloody and you fell into your coma.”
The showerhead dripped ten more times before Zack broke the muddled silence.
“Uh, normally I’d write that off as a strange coincidence. But after everything we’ve seen, Theo, I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest you might not be entirely weirdness-free.”
Theo felt a hot rush of blood in his face. He stammered for a response.
“I really don’t see how—”
“Oh my God!”
The others followed Mia’s gaze to the lumivision, where the nine o’clock news had just begun.
Contrary to Amanda’s expectations, the broadcast didn’t open with her police sketch. In fact, the standoff on Highway V would merit just forty seconds of airtime. In the absence of any fatalities, and the coordinated silence of all law enforcers on scene, the incident was treated as just another police chase. Another irksome traffic jam.
The top story of the day was much juicier. The star of the tale was Sterling Quint.
—
At 6:34 this morning, operators at Triple-5 Emergency received eleven distress calls of the exact same nature—eleven spouses, lovers, and siblings who’d all succumbed to the same fatal stroke. When record checks revealed that the deceased were all employees at the same organization, authorities suddenly became quite interested in the goings-on at the Pelletier Group.
By sunset, the last of the bodies had been discovered. Four names on the payroll had yet to be accounted for: Erin and Eric Salgado, Beatrice Caudell, and the head honcho himself, Sterling Quint. The world-renowned theorist had left for work at 7 A.M. and was never heard from again.
The story quickly caught fire at newsrooms across the nation. Some broadcasts filled their screens with juxtaposed photos of a dour Quint and a nervous Beatrice—a saucy suggestion that the pair had perpetrated the massacre and were now lovers on the run.
The Silvers watched the lumivision with wide eyes and white faces, processing the deaths of everyone they knew outside the motel room. Hannah thought of poor Charlie Merchant, barely a year older than her. Her eyes welled up with tears.
“I don’t get it. Why would he kill them?”
“I assume you’re not referring to Quint.”
“You know I’m not, David. Come on. I’m talking about Azral.”
“It had to be him,” Amanda said. “Him and Esis.”
The widow couldn’t get her mind off Czerny. His death had seemed so inconsistent with his type of injury. Now she knew why. She bit her trembling lip.
“They threw them away. They didn’t need them anymore, so they just tossed them like garbage.”
David shook his head. “For all we know, this was the work of Rebel’s people.”