She should have told someone she was leaving to go to the bathroom. No one would miss her. No one would even know she was gone until Baldwin and Fletcher came back. They all had their own roles to play. They weren’t watching out for her.
Sam tried to gauge where they were headed. It seemed as if they were walking away from the entrance gate, not toward it. The trees surrounded them. It was cooler under their branches. Flies and gnats lit upon her, making a meal out of her exposed arms and neck.
She debated the different ways she could disarm Kaylie, and when to make her move. She decided to see where they were headed first, to be sure she didn’t screw up and get hurt, or killed, in the middle of nowhere. They’d need to follow the vultures to find her, and Xander would be furious with her.
Kaylie hadn’t taken Sam’s phone away from her. She hoped to find a chance to send a text or dial 911, but she’d need seclusion to do it, if she could even get service deep in the woods. No, she’d be better off catching the girl off guard and overpowering her. Sam could do it—she had a great deal of training—but again, she wanted to wait until they were someplace easily accessible to the teams in the field.
As if she knew the mental space was sufficient for Sam to plot an escape, Kaylie started to talk.
“What is it like, doing an autopsy?”
Play along, Sam. You’ll get your chance.
“Messy,” she said.
“Is there blood? I always figured once a body was dead and gone, there wasn’t any more blood pumping through the heart.”
“The human body contains about five liters of blood. Unless there’s an incidence of exsanguination, small or large, that blood stays in the body. So yes, there’s quite a bit of blood.”
“Was there a lot of blood in Doug when you cut him open?”
“No more than the usual,” Sam said. “Why?”
“What did he look like inside? He was very health-conscious.”
“His body showed that.”
“What about cancer? Did he have cancer?”
The sun was shifting in the sky; Sam saw the dappling on the leaves moving farther down the trees. Great. They were heading into late-afternoon now. How long had they been gone?
“I didn’t see anything that indicated cancer. But there are many different kinds. It’s possible. We’d have to run tests on his blood to know for sure.”
“But there was nothing that looked like cancer to you? No tumors, no lesions?”
“No. Why are you asking?”
Kaylie bit her lip and didn’t respond right away. “Why did you decide to become a pathologist?” she asked, finally. “That’s the right word, yes?”
Sam clambered over a log. “Yes, that’s right. I found the inner workings of the body of interest.”
“That’s all? ‘Of interest?’ Come on, Doc. We have a ways to go. Tell me the truth. Why do you do it? Why do you cut people open and peer into their bodies? It seems like a grave invasion of privacy to me.”
What’s with this line of questioning? “I do it to give peace to the ones who need it. So many people are killed, so many are hurt, or die alone. Without me, there are no answers. I give the body a last moment to explain itself, to share what happened, and why. Then the loved ones will know, and are able to mourn their dead and move on with their lives. It is very satisfying.”
“That makes sense. Doug taught me a lot about anatomy, what went where. He thought it might be useful if something happened to us.”
“He was right, it is useful. What else did Doug teach you?”
Sam glanced over her shoulder. Kaylie waved the pistol to indicate she was to keep moving.
“Kaylie, can we stop? I’m thirsty. I hear water.”
“No. Keep walking. You’ll be fine. Doug taught me a lot of things. He was kind to me. He read to me. He showed me how to grow things. How to manage money, how to stay off the grid. How to be my own person. How to heal from all the horrible things that happened to me. The things Curtis did to me, and Adrian.” She went silent. “Doug was a good man. He loved me, and I loved him. I have no one to tell my truths to anymore.”
“Tell me, Kaylie. Tell me about Eden. Tell me what happened to you.”
“I already did tell you.”
“I don’t think you’ve told me everything. Why did Doug decide to take you away from Eden? Why you, and no one else? He could have saved everyone. He could have stopped Curtis and her awful operation in its tracks. Why did he disappear with you?”
“Because he loved me.”
“He loved you so much he decided to get himself killed and expose you. Why, Kaylie? Why now? Why me? He could have gone straight to the FBI and shut it all down. Instead he’s playing some sort of sick game from the grave, dragging all of us into this situation. People could die today. Can you comprehend that? The FBI isn’t playing around. Your daughter is in that compound, and she could be killed. Help me understand.”
“He was ill. It was eating him alive. It was time.”
Her voice was atonal, eerie.
“Time for what?”
“Time for the Reckoning. He wanted it to stop. He ate the wafer of life, and it told him this was the time to stop the Reckoning.”