Deadly Design (9780698173613) (13 page)

“You can trust me,” Jimmy says. “You can't trust a marine, who the hell can you trust?”

“He was special forces,” Cami says, giving me a reassuring smile.

She trusts him, and I trust her, so . . . “I need a way to access information from this phone, but it's locked.”

“Whose phone is it?” Jimmy asks.

“This guy was following him, kind of stalking him.”

Jimmy nods like he sees the whole picture. Like he was there and knows everything that happened. “So you killed him and took his phone?”

“I didn't mean to kill him,” I say, and I wonder how many confessions start off with that exact same phrase.

“It's okay.” Uncle Jimmy shrugs. “It's all good. Sometimes you have no choice. Kill or be killed. It's cool. So who's this doctor he was working for?”

I was right. Uncle Jimmy must have been listening for quite a while. Maybe some of it's paranoia, the need to know what's going on around him, or maybe he's just a bored marine. “My brother and I and some other kids were developed by the same doctor in the same fertility lab. He's had people watching us, trying to pinpoint when and where we'll die. Most of us die around our eighteenth birthdays.”

“That sucks!” he says and starts pacing. “You don't know where the doctor is?”

“No.”

Jimmy nods. “But you think he might be able to help you?”

“His research might.”

He nods again, and I can see excitement growing in his eyes. “You need a hacker. That's probably what he has. A good hacker can get into hospital records with no problem. A really good one. And a good hacker could get into that phone.”

“Do you know any good hackers?” Cami asks. “Maybe someone you knew in the marines.”

A broad smile grows on Jimmy's face. “Yeah. As a matter of fact, I do.”

“H
ow do you know this guy?” Cami asks as we watch various people, mostly burly-looking men, coming in and out of the truck stop.

“I told you, we served together in Afghanistan.” Jimmy glances at his watch. “He's probably just running a little late.”

A waitress puts down three small glasses of water, one with something floating on top of it.

“We've got another one coming,” Jimmy says, and the waitress leaves to get another glass and one more menu. “We didn't fight together. He wasn't even supposed to be in Afghanistan. He was supposed to be stationed in Germany, but the intelligence guy serving at our base had a breakdown, so they sent Matt in. He was pissed, too. Guy's a genius. Wasn't supposed to be anywhere near combat zones—that's the deal his recruiter made him. But there he was in the thick of it. He spent two weeks at our base, then the higher-ups realized their mistake. We were transporting him out when we got hit.”

“Got hit?” I ask.

“IED blew the shit out of us, but I was lucky compared to Matt.”

Lucky? What could be worse than chunks of metal in your brain? “What happened to him?”

“Lost his left leg and some other parts us guys are particularly fond of, if you know what I mean. He was supposed be getting married to his high school sweetheart, and she dumped him while he was in the hospital. Who does that?” He clears his throat just as a man in his midtwenties comes through the door. Jimmy waves, and he comes toward the table.

Matt's wearing jeans and a shirt buttoned up oddly high for the warm weather. He walks with a noticeable limp.

“Man, it's been too long,” he says as the reunited marines give each other a quick but firm embrace. They both sit down.

“This is my niece, Cami,” Jimmy says, motioning across the table. “And this is her friend Kyle, the one I told you about.”

Matt extends his hand to each of us. He doesn't look like a computer nerd. His shoulders are broad, his arms muscular. His blond hair is cut short next to his somewhat tan face. He reminds me of an older version of one of Connor's friends. I can totally see them shooting hoops together or going for a run. Of course, it might be tough for Matt to do those things with one leg.

The waitress steps up to the table. “Do you need another minute?” she asks, looking at Matt. “I can come back if you do.” She's probably in her early twenties, with long brown hair pulled into a ponytail. She'd be prettier if she put some effort into it, but I can see why she doesn't, working here. Still, the way she's looking at Matt, I bet she wishes she had.

“I'll just have a cup of coffee,” Matt says, avoiding the eyes that are trying to meet his.

She looks at me. “And you?”

I lift the menu, and my fingers slip on the greasy film covering it. The place is busy, but it's the only place on Interstate 70 for several miles, so the number of patrons probably has nothing to do with the quality of the food.

“I'll just have a Coke,” I say.

“A lemonade,” Cami adds.

Jimmy looks at us like he doesn't quite understand why we chose to meet at a truck stop at lunchtime if nobody's ordering any lunch. When no one offers him an explanation, he shakes his head. “I'll take a Dr Pepper and a piece of apple pie.” He picks up the glass with something floating in it, uses a spoon to fish it out, then takes a long drink.

“Do you have the phone?” Matt asks, reaching over the table.

I want to hesitate. Jimmy knows this guy. He trusts him, but I don't know him. Hell, I barely know Jimmy. And I'm handing over the best chance I have to find Dr. Mueller. I give Matt the phone.

“And the guy's name is?”

“Scott Stiles,” I say, “but that might not be his real name.”

“Probably isn't.” Matt pops off the back of the phone, takes out the battery, looks at the serial number, then pops the battery back in and slips the phone in his pocket. “Chances are if he was doing some type of covert work for this doctor, he was using an alias. And Jimmy said something about autopsy reports?”

“Yeah,” I say. “The doctor who designed us needs access to the reports.”

“But people died in different places. That means different coroners, different hospitals.”

I nod.

“So he's got someone hacking into different hospital servers. Do you have a list of the people who have died and where they died, what hospitals their bodies were taken to?” Matt asks.

“I can get that to you.”

Matt takes a small pad of paper and a pen from his pocket and slides it across the table. “Write down everything you know. If I can get a list of the names and hospitals, I might be able to find a link between whoever is hacking their system and where that information is being sent.”

“You can really do that?” Cami asks. “You can hack a hacker?”

Matt smiles. “I can do anything,” he says. “Of course, it was easier when I had military clearance. But then the military decided they didn't need me anymore, thanks to their own fuckup. I went from the being the best programmer they had to being unemployed.”

“Unemployed? You don't need a leg to be a programmer. You just need a brain,” I say

Matt gives Jimmy a nudge. “So you didn't tell them our whole sordid bromance, huh?”

Jimmy shakes his head.

“We were both in the humvee that got blown up, but we didn't really know each other until we ended up being roommates in a hospital in Germany. Our relationship really blossomed in the psych ward after Jimmy had a bit of a PTSD psychotic breakdown and I tried to kill myself, hence Uncle Sam doesn't have much faith in my brain these days either. And when companies look at me and my not-fully-honorable discharge, they're not sure they can trust me with all the shit they have stored in their systems. So I might be teaching computers 101 at a community college this fall. Looks real promising. Hooray.” He shrugs.

The waitress comes with our drinks and Jimmy's pie. She hesitates, having heard this last bit of information. She is young, but a sudden sadness on her face makes her look much older.

“You boys veterans?” she asks, looking at Jimmy and Matt.

“Marines,” Jimmy says.

She thumbs through the orders on her little pad of paper, tears off the one for our table, and puts it in the big pocket of her apron. “It's on me today,” she says. “Glad you made it home.” She rushes from our table, and it's clear that somebody she knew, somebody she cared about, didn't make it home.

“We should have ordered more,” Jimmy says.

Matt smiles and shakes his head. “I've missed you, buddy,” he says. “And I'm really glad you got ahold of me on this.” He looks at me. “I'm good at what I do. I'm damn good. I'm not sure how long it will take me. Different hospitals use different security programs, but I'm sure I can get around them. As far as the phone goes, I'm not sure how hard that's going to be, but I'm sure I can do that too. Let's just say I'm Santa Claus, and if I'm going to give you just what you want for Christmas, what exactly would that be?”

“Dr. Mueller's real name and address,” I say. “But please tell me I'll get my present before Christmas.”
And my seventeenth birthday,
I think.

“I should have something to you in a few weeks, maybe a month.”

“Really,” I say. “That's great.” And it is great. But I hope it's sooner. Scott Stiles said I wouldn't make it to my seventeenth birthday. Connor and I were born nineteen months apart. I turn seventeen in December. It's the middle of July now, so I have, at most, five months.

“Write it all down,” Matt says, pointing to the paper and pen. “Everything is stored electronically nowadays. An autopsy report goes somewhere; I just have follow its path. See where it went, and you'll have your man. If I were you”—he takes a sip of coffee—“I'd enjoy what's left of summer. Spend some time with this pretty girl here.” He winks at Cami, and I feel for the guy.

He's good-looking. He could probably get just about any woman he wants, until he tells them the bit about missing a leg and . . . his manhood.

“So,” Cami says, “should Kyle consider that an order?”

I look at her and roll my eyes, like I really need to be
ordered
to hang out with her. Hell, who else would I hang out with? School starts in one month, and it's not like I want to spend it hidden away in the basement playing video games. Last year that's exactly what I did. But it's different now. I think of Amber and the way she kissed me. I think of how emotions have a taste to them and how treasuring a moment and being desperate at the same time can create the most exquisite, unbearable taste.

She only had a few days to deal with the possibility of death, of never growing up or falling in love or any of it. Stiles had had no time to contemplate his death. He was fit and healthy and running one minute and then he was dead. I guess when it comes down to it, nobody knows how much time they'll get. I do know I'm ready to hand this over to Matt, to let him look for Dr. Mueller for a while.

I'm ready to get a sunburn and a snow cone brain freeze. I'm ready to step on hot cement in bare, damp feet, and I'm ready to forget, for just a while, that this may be my last summer.

I
never realized how the gravitational pull of the Earth impacts water, specifically water soaked into swimming suits. Bikini bottoms and baggy guy trunks reach toward the pavement, and their wearers seem oblivious to the various amounts of ass being exposed. Of course, judging by the bikinis most of the girls are wearing, being exposed is the goal. Crescent-shaped butt cheeks are everywhere, and the old saying that if you don't see the nipple it doesn't count should really be revised.

I've seen more tits in two hours at the water park than a dairy farmer sees in a lifetime and, occasionally, nipples included. Not that I want to see them, but . . . it's not like you can help it. I wish the lifeguard where Josh is playing would stop turning around to look at Cami. At least she's not hanging out of her suit. She has the good sense to leave some things to mystery, but they're mysteries I'm pretty sure he'd like to solve.

“Who is that guy?” I ask as he supervises little kids trying to make it across a path of lily pads in water that's probably about three feet deep. He's tall and muscular and bronzed.

“That's Ryan Jameson.”

“Does he go to our school?” I ask. I feel something bubbling up in my stomach, and it's not the plate of nachos Josh and I shared an hour ago.

“No. Josh took swim lessons this spring at the rec center, and Ryan was his teacher. He was always hitting on me.”

Jealousy. No, that's not what it is. But then again, my dreams have morphed away from images of Emma to glimpses of Amber to Cami. But that's just because I spend so much time with her. I mean, that's what dreams are—your brain filing away the day's events into certain categories. I've been spending a lot of time with Cami. She's helping distract me while Matt works his hacking magic. We watch movies together, take Josh to the park, and play endless hands of Uno. Of course I dream about her.

Cami picks up the towel she's been lying on, rolls it up, and shoves it into an oversized bag. She looks at me with her sunglasses lifted to see me better. Then she looks over at Ryan Jameson, who just so happens to be looking at her. She smiles. “Are you jealous?”

“Of him?”

“Yeah. He's hot.”

“And he's checking you out,” I say, and for the first time, okay, maybe not the first time, I check Cami out myself. Jameson's not the only guy who enjoys a little mystery, and all the
really good stuff
is hidden. Of course her legs are pretty good. They're slender but shapely. Her stomach is definitely nice too. It's not completely flat and hard like girls in workout commercials. There's a little curve to it, a nice soft curve.

She's standing now, the bag draped over her shoulder. She clears her throat and then does a turn so I can take it all in. So does Jameson.

“You
are
jealous,” she says. And I think I hear her add “about time” under her breath. “I'm going to get Josh. My dad will be home tonight, so I'm free if you want to watch a movie at your house or something.

Cami's dad's not a big fan of leaving Josh alone with Uncle Jimmy, so we hang out at her house a lot, especially during the day. But I like to spend most evenings at home with Mom and Dad, so it's nice of her to volunteer to come over.

“Sure,” I say.

She looks back over at Ryan. “I can see if he's busy if you want. Maybe he can come over too, and the three of us can hang out.”

“You think it takes two guys to handle you?” I say, enjoying our playful flirting, but at the same time wishing I could rewind and think things through a little more. Cami's great. She's pretty and smart and unbelievably responsible. But there's the whole “you won't make it to seventeen” thing. Is it fair to flirt with Cami? Aren't I being selfish just spending time with her when I don't know what's going to happen?

Water splashes both of us, and we see Josh giggling in the three-foot section. She doesn't yell at him or even look mad; she just takes a semidry towel from her bag and holds it, using it to signal him that it's time to go. He dog-paddles through the water to where we are and lifts himself out of the water. He takes the towel, then shakes his body like a wet dog.

“I gave you the towel for a reason,” she says, then pretends like she's going to throw him back in. Josh laughs and starts drying off.

Suddenly I feel like I'm inside a box—a box made of thick glass. I can see everything, but the sounds are muffled, and there's a definite feeling of being disconnected. It's like I'm trapped inside a television and the actors, the scenes, and stories are happening on the outside of it.

Earlier, there was a young girl with no hair in the kids' pool. She looked like she was twelve or thirteen. The water only came up to the top of her knees. Several times she looked toward the deeper pool where kids her age were splashing and doing somersaults in the water. But she never left the kiddie side. She just sat down so that the water lapped up against her chest. She closed her eyes like she was pretending she was part of the laughter, like she was part of the life being lived where the water is deep.

She was in the box. I know that now. Does everyone who is so sharply aware of mortality feel the box? Do we try it on while we're living so that the permanent box we'll be planted in won't be so frightening?