“Any luck?” he asked.
“No. Internet still routes to the AussieCordon website. I check twice a day to be sure.” She set the device aside. “Did you find your friends?”
Desmond nodded, told her about the X-ray.
“I’m glad we could help. It’s about all we have around here. Broken bones are by far the most common injury we see.” She paused. “And some burns.”
Desmond nodded. Seeing her, and hearing her words, brought back a flurry of memories. He could vividly remember lying in that elementary school, in the makeshift cubicle, her reading to him by lantern light. She had been a lighthouse in the darkness. He wondered what she was now, how she was involved.
“Did you get my letters?” she asked.
He raised his eyebrows.
A remorseful smile crossed Charlotte’s face, one that said a fear she had long held had just been confirmed. “After you left, I sent them every week. For maybe a year. Less frequently after that. Every month.”
Desmond imagined Orville staggering out to the mailbox, half-drunk, tossing them in the trash and telling the mailman not to deliver anything with Desmond’s name on it. “Boy don’t need no bleeding-heart woman making him any softer than he already is,” he would have said.
To Charlotte, Desmond replied, “My uncle was a complicated man. He wasn’t much for keeping in touch with folks. Or allowing me to.”
“I suspected you never got them. I thought about you a lot after you left, wondered how things turned out. Even thought about coming to America to visit.”
“I wish you had.”
“Was it terrible?”
“No. Not at all,” Desmond lied.
Charlotte seemed to see through it. She grew quiet, stared down at her desk.
“What about you?” he asked.
“Not much to tell.”
“I doubt that.”
She shook her head. “The alliance is my life. This work. These people.”
“You’re good at it. You changed my life.”
That made her smile.
“Did you ever get married?”
“No,” she said quietly. “I came close once.”
“That guy who was at the school?”
Charlotte thought a moment. “Oh. Him. No. That was not a close call.”
Avery was getting impatient. “I think we should talk about the reason we’re here.”
Desmond exhaled. “Right. Charlotte, we found this place because of supplies shipped here. We want to ask you about that. But first, I think I should give you some background.”
Peyton studied the X-ray of her father’s ankle, which showed no fractures.
“It’s just a sprain,” she said to him.
“I’m telling you, I’m perfectly fine.”
“Just try to stay off of it and it’ll heal up in a few weeks.”
“The world doesn’t have a few weeks.” He made to stand up, but she blocked his path and put her hands on her hips. He exhaled and sank back down.
Despite his continued protests, she used some of the supplies in the medical closet to make a proper splint.
When she was done, they walked down the corridor toward Charlotte’s office. Desmond’s voice drifted out into the hall. He was describing what they’d found in Kazakhstan at Aralsk-7.
Peyton pushed the door open.
The woman sitting behind the desk looked to be in her early fifties, with a slightly lined face and trim physique.
Peyton did a double take. She turned quickly, trying to hide her shock. “Sorry, I forgot something. Be right back.”
She grabbed her father’s arm, guided him back down the hall to the medical exam room, and shut the door.
“Peyton, I really am fine—”
“I know her.”
“What?”
“That woman. I recognize her. I can’t believe it.”
Chapter 98
When Peyton and her father returned to Charlotte’s office, Desmond was laying the folder on her desk.
“These are the shipping manifests we found in Kazakhstan.”
Charlotte scanned the pages. “They look accurate.”
“There was no sender name, just the shipping company.”
Charlotte was still reading through the pages. “They were paid for by the Zeno Foundation.”
The name caught Peyton’s interest. According to Avery’s story, Zeno was the Greek philosopher who had founded the Citium over two thousand years ago.
“What do you know about the foundation?” Desmond asked.
“Not much. They’re very generous. They had a website where I could request supplies, food, water, even money.”
“Who was your contact there?”
“Tanner Goodwyn.”
The name meant nothing to Peyton.
“Did they ever ask you to do anything—to conduct trials on experimental vaccines or medicines?”
Charlotte looked disturbed by the idea. “No. And I would have refused, no matter how badly we needed the help.”
The four of them questioned Charlotte at length, exploring a number of possible ways she might be tied to the outbreak, but found no common thread. As best they could tell, the Citium seemed to genuinely want to support her work.
“It’s possible that I sent the supplies,” Desmond said. “Though I don’t know why I would have done it in secret.”
“A good point,” William said. “Charlotte, I wonder if you’d excuse us for a moment.”
“Of course. I’ll just wait outside.”
When she closed the door behind her, William said, “We’re getting nowhere here. And we’re running out of time.”
“There’s still the location near here,” Desmond said. “My childhood home. The second backup from the Labyrinth Reality app.”
“I think it’s our next move.” William nodded to Avery. “The two of you should check it out. We’ll continue questioning Charlotte.”
Ten minutes later, Peyton, William, and Charlotte stood on the loading dock watching the Land Rover drive down the dusty dirt road that led out of the camp.
“Charlotte, could we trouble you with a few more questions?” William asked.
“Of course.” She held her arm out, motioning them back into her office.