“Well, he killed all those bikers for getting in the way of his plan. How’s he going to treat someone who’s no longer useful to him? Someone he manipulated into doing his bidding?”
“You’re sure he was out there when you called him? I mean, how do you know he was right where those bikers drove you off the road?”
“I could hear the second group through the phone. They were driving toward him. They must have been going to check on their hideout, and he was there.”
“So he follows you, he watches what happens with these guys who drove you off the road, and then he just . . . stays out there?”
“Maybe he was cleaning up.”
“The bodies, you mean.”
“Yeah.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Kayla, don’t you get it? I’m his test subject. He set the whole thing up. The clearest thing about this drug is that it turns my fear into strength. In order to see if it worked on me, he had to scare the shit out of me. And what better way to do that than to show Jason Briffel how to get inside my house?”
“Jesus. Who is this guy?” Kayla whispers.
“So you don’t think I was hallucinating him, at least.”
“I don’t think you hallucinated most of it, Charley. I think Dylan’s real. I think he lured Jason out there so you’d have a run-in with him. I even think, to some degree, the bikers are real. I think this guy gave you something that made you believe you were doing these terrible things. But—”
“Terrible?” Charlotte asks.
“Come on. You know what I mean.”
“Jason was probably going to rape me in my own house. And those bikers, they were gonna do worse. A lot worse.”
“I understand.”
“But you think what I did was terrible? No, wait. Moot point. You don’t really think I did it.”
“I think your perception was altered. Chemically. Look, you’re absolutely a victim here, but—”
“So you don’t believe me? You don’t believe anything I’ve told you?”
“I said I think it’s more complicated than what either of us can see. Look, I want you to get some sleep.” Kayla gets to her feet. “I’m here for you all day. All night, if need be. I’m not going anywhere. But you need to get some rest.”
“I’m not tired.”
“You’re exhausted. Your mind just doesn’t know it.”
Kayla takes her by the hand and pulls her out of her chair. “Come on.” She leads her toward the hallway.
“No,” Charley says. “No bedroom. Sofa. I don’t want to be alone.”
“Fine. Compromises are good so long as you at least pretend to sleep.” With one arm around her shoulders, she guides Charley to the sofa. “I’m gonna make some calls, and I’m gonna do it in the other room. But I won’t let you out of my sight. I’m not going anywhere. I promise.”
“Calls?” As soon as she stretches out, the sofa envelops her in its cushions. It’s hardly the most comfortable sofa she’s ever experienced. But it feels delicious. As delicious as a mediocre meal might feel after you’ve starved yourself all day. “Who are you going to call?”
“I’m going to try to find out who this guy is, for one. And then—”
“You aren’t going to believe me until something about those bikers hits the news, are you?”
“There you go. Eyes already drifting shut. See? Told ya you were tired.”
Kayla’s right. But Charlotte still has enough energy to reach out and grab her hand before she can withdraw. “Kayla. Be careful.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“No. When you check out Dylan. He said whatever this is, it’s bigger than us. Whatever the hell that means.”
“Charley, my firm takes on some of the most powerful corporations in the world. You can trust our research department. I promise you.”
Kayla pats her forehead gently, and Charlotte feels it as if she’s wrapped in gauze. Before Kayla’s footsteps enter the kitchen, sleep rises to consume her in a great, dark tide. Then she shifts to one side, and something painful jabs her leg.
She sits up and pulls the packet of pills from her pocket.
From the kitchen door, Kayla watches her with frightened intensity.
Charlotte studies them. “You know,” she says, “there is one way to prove that I wasn’t hallucinating.”
Before she can elaborate, Kayla’s plucked the packet out of her hand. “Sleep. Now. These are staying in the kitchen with me.”
13
As Luke Prescott drives west on State Mountain Road 293, he thinks of all the times he traveled this route with his younger brother after their mom got sick.
Before their mother’s diagnosis—glioblastoma, stage four, inoperable, a year at best—he and Bailey had perfected the fine art of pretending the other didn’t exist, which wasn’t hard. Luke was aggressive and athletic back then; Bailey was computer addicted and completely uninterested in girls.
After the doctor’s visit that changed their lives, the differences between the two of them seemed to fall away, and most afternoons before sunset, if one of their mother’s friends was able to drive her to chemo, Luke would find Bailey sneaking a smoke in the field behind their house and ask him if he wanted to go for a ride. Bailey would grunt in the affirmative, and a few minutes later they’d be winding their way through the mountains in the family truck.
After a while the Pacific would open before them, roiling and vast. Sometimes blue and sun streaked, sometimes slate gray and belching fog. But the mountains always looked the same, their formidable, lightly forested slopes plunging toward the surf with a determination and strength both boys were trying to muster inside themselves.
The mountains look the same as Luke reaches them now—the sea, sparkling and riven by angry waves fueled by the cold autumn winds.
While his grief for his mother is like a fine layer of silt over his heart, evenly spread, no part of it thick enough to stop the flow of blood, with Bailey, the anger’s still laced all through his system.
Maybe because Bailey’s still alive. Out there somewhere, possibly on the other side of this very ocean, hiding from the consequences of a crime Luke still doesn’t fully understand.
But it’s rumors of a far less significant crime that have brought Luke to the Pacific Coast Highway today.
A right turn sends him in the direction of the vertigo-inducing staircase that leads to Altamira’s only real beach. The lumpy obelisk of stone just offshore, Bayard Rock, is listed in a lot of guidebooks, but most folks drive right past it without realizing it. That, or their stomachs revolt when they get a good look at the stairs you have to take to get there. The beach is where he and Bailey would usually end up on those long-ago afternoon drives. Once there, he’d let the guy stroll away from him because he knew his brother wanted to be alone while he cried into the wind. Luke did, too, for that matter. They only time they cried side by side was when they scattered their mother’s ashes there after she died.
Coming home wasn’t going to be easy; he knew this. But he didn’t expect the ghosts to be quite this vivid. Foolish of him to think a new badge and uniform would keep them at bay.
When he sees Martin Cahill’s pickup parked at the picnic area up ahead, Luke’s almost relieved. He knows it means there’s a possible conflict in his immediate future, but he’d welcome anything to relieve him of the memories that besieged him on the drive here.
He pulls the Altamira Sheriff’s Jeep into the turnout slowly, so as not to indicate any aggression that might set Marty and his crew on edge. Then, with a bowed head and his best attempt at a sheepish smile, he walks toward the spread of picnic benches tucked against the rocky slope.
The men study his approach without slowing their chewing.