“You were hallucinating,” I say. “He drugged you.”
She nods. She knows this already, I think. Weird voices and dark streaks from the cruel courage in her tea. Whatever secret ingredient he put in to add to his private fun. His game, his apocalyptic April Fool’s Day joke. Given her overdose and the subsequent patchy spots in her memory, we’re probably talking about a hallucinogen, some sort of dissociative anesthetic; PCP, maybe, or ketamine. But I can’t say with certainty, it’s not my area of expertise, and if it would do any good I would take blood, I would stick her with a needle and catch any lingering molecules still swimming in her veins. Send it to the lab, boys!
The rest of them got much worse, of course. This was Astronaut’s real plan B. Food and water were limited, everything was limited, and he wasn’t going to share any of it, not for a second.
So here comes Jean up the rickety stairs with Astronaut’s sawtooth buck knife, shoved out of the hatch and told the price of her future. Surfing darkly, wild chemical horrors churning in her gut along with the terror. Looking for Nico.
“You know what?” She looks up at me with hope in her eyes, a small spark of joy. “You know what I remember? I remember thinking she’s probably gone. Because she told me she was going to leave, on the stairs she told me. And then with the party, and the speech, I mean, we’d been down there for—I don’t know, half an hour? He sat us down, he gave the speech, it had been time. If she was leaving she’d be gone already. I remember thinking that.”
I’ve thought of it too. It’s in the timeline I’ve got, up in my head.
“But there she was. She was still there,” says Jean. “Why was she still there?”
“Candy,” I say.
“What?”
“It was going to be a hard trip. She took what food she could find.”
She took the time to empty that machine, to prop it with the fork and run a coat hanger or her skinny arms up there and empty it out, she took that time and it cost her her life.
“So you fought her.”
“I guess.”
“You guess?”
“I don’t remember.”
“You don’t remember fighting her? And her fighting you?”
Her hand flies up to her face, her scratches and bruises, and then down again.
“No.”
“You don’t remember the woods?”
She trembles. “No.”
I lean over her, the gun and the knife in my two hands. “What do you remember, Jean?”
She remembers afterward, she says. She remembers running back to the garage, and finding that it was sealed. And understanding, even in her dark and addled desperation, understanding what it meant. The whole thing had been a joke, he had known all along she wouldn’t make it down there. Because Atlee Miller had already come and sealed up the hole, as Astronaut knew that he would.
And then there was just the sink. Just the sink and the knife and knowing what she had done and that she had done it for nothing—for nothing—and then cutting herself open like she had cut Nico open. Pressing the knife in as far as she could stand it, until the blood was pouring out of her and she was shrieking, and running, running from the blood, running out into the woods.
That’s the story. That’s the whole story, she says, and she’s trembling on the ground, her face is streaked with grief, but I’m pacing back and forth above her, that’s the whole story, she says, but there must be more, I have to have more. There are pieces missing. There has to be a reason, for example, that a slitting of the throat presented itself as the logical method—was that directed by Astronaut or was that an improvisation, the most effective means in the moment? And surely she was directed to bring back something. If she was supposedly earning her place in the bunker by killing Nico, there must have been a token to prove it.
I throw myself down in the mud and drop the weapons and grab her shoulders.
“I have more questions,” I tell Jean. Snarling; shouting.
“No,” she says. “Please.”
“Yes.”
Because I can’t solve the crime unless I know everything and the world can’t end with the crime unsolved, that’s all there is to it, so I tighten my grip on her shoulders and demand that she remember.
“We need to go back to the woods, Jean. Back to the part in the woods.”
“No,” she says. “Please—”
“Yes, Jean. Ms. Wong. You find her outside the building. Is she surprised to see you?”
“Yes. No. I don’t remember.”
“Please try to remember. Is she surprised?”
She nods. “Yes. Please, stop.”
“Do you have the knife out at this point—”
“I don’t remember.”
“You chase her—”
“I guess.”
“Don’t guess. Did you chase her through the woods? Over that creek?”