Forty-Four Box Set, Books 1-10 (44) (39 page)

When it was time I headed down before anybody came up to get me. There was no point in waiting. And I needed to go, even if I didn’t want to.

We greeted each other as we always did, and he got me a soda too. Then he sat back down in his chair, pulling at his sleeves.

“Is there ever a clear day up here?” I asked. I was trying to think of some small talk. I didn’t have much.

“February and August are the best months I’ve been told,” he said. “With a sprinkling of blue skies here and there, throughout the year.”

I tried to think of something else besides the weather to talk about. Anything.

“Abby, I hope you had some time to think about some of the things we discussed last night,” he said. His eyes were wide.

I inhaled. I was really hoping we could just forget about it and move on. I wanted to be honest, but I had to be smart, too.

“Truthfully, Nathaniel, it was all kind of shocking,” I said. I quickly looked away and stared down at my hands. “I don’t really know how to respond. I don’t even know anything about you, other than you kill people.”

It was an honest answer, even if it sounded a little brutal.

“Go ahead. Ask me anything,” he said.

I tried to think of a good question that might not have to do with his feelings.

“Tell me about your childhood,” I said.

He smiled as if amused. I knew it was a stupid, but it was all I could think of and it might eat up some time.

“Okay,” he said. “I will indulge you. A quick summary. Both Benjamin and I were raised by our father, a humorless man who made a considerable fortune in the shipping industry. This was in Boston, of course. We went to prep schools and university. And then medical school.”

I checked his energy. It was steady, but I could also tell that sharing his past wasn’t as easy a thing as he was pretending. I wasn’t sure why he was even doing it.

“What about your mother?” I asked.

There was no change in his mood.

“She died when I was young. In childbirth,” he said, matter-of-factly. “We share that, don’t we? Both of us losing our mothers at a relatively young age.”

There was no malice in his words, but it stung just the same as he mentioned my mom. I didn’t want to talk about her or about her death from cancer or about the black hole that it had left inside me. I would never talk about it with Nathaniel, phone call or not.

“Next subject,” I said.

“Fair enough,” he said. “We have plenty of time.”

“So what else do you want to know for your research?” I asked, trying to move things along and away from sensitive topics.

He leaned toward me, his face in the shadows.

“I want you to think about your accident and tell me everything you remember. Everything. No matter whether you think it’s insignificant or not, I want to know what happened on the afternoon that you drowned.”

“Sure,” I said.

That seemed pretty easy. I couldn’t remember much. I took a moment, pretending to think.

“It’s simple. The car spun out of control. I was thrown into a lake and I drifted down in the water. It was dark and I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t get any air. I tried to hold my breath for as long as I could. Then I had to inhale. It was all like a bad dream. A very bad dream.”

“What else?” he said.

“Then I woke up in the hospital. Kate was by my side, crying. That’s it. That’s all I can remember.”

“Try harder, Abby,” he said, sounding a little frustrated. “Maybe there’s something you’re missing. Because I think there is more. Something you may not have thought of. Or even something you are wishing to keep from me.”

I looked at him strangely.

“I’m not keeping anything from you, Nathaniel,” I said.

“Perhaps not. But I am very curious about where you were during that time. Mentally, I mean. The time between when you drowned and when you woke up in the hospital.”

We sat in silence for a little while. I really wasn’t hiding anything. All I could remember was the black, the nothingness.

“It was just dark and—”

“And what?”

“I remember being scared. Real scared. Scared like I’d never been before in my life. It was like I was in a void in the center of the earth. A dark vacuum. It was awful.”

“Good,” he said. “That helps, Abby. Please go on.”

“There’s nothing else,” I said. “It’s just like I said. I woke up.”

He shook his head.

“But there’s got to be something more you remember,” he said. “It’s critical to the research.”

“I guess I can think more about it, “I said. “See if anything comes back.”

He nodded.

“Good,” he said. “Now, I know that you had some physical difficulty in that year afterwards. Memory issues. Coordination problems and trouble walking and running. I was glad to see those improve over time. But I am sorry that you won’t ever be able to see colors again.”

I stared at him.

“The color blindness is the one regrettable side effect of my serum. There really is no way around it. Two of the vital compounds that I’ve used cause that condition, so it can’t be helped. Still, all in all, it’s a pretty good deal. Your life for impaired vision. I think you would agree that life without color is better than no life at all.”

I felt sick inside. I didn’t know if what he was saying was true or not. Kate and Dr. Mortimer had convinced me that Nathaniel had been lying about the entire thing, that he hadn’t even been at the hospital that night. But now I wondered.

I was quiet for a moment, listening to the rain while dark thoughts churned in my mind.

Maybe Nathaniel was telling the truth.

As he walked over to the window, I finished the soda and stood up. I was ready to go back upstairs. I needed to get away from him and think things through with a clear head.

He turned around and looked at me. The smug smile was gone, replaced by something else. As I stared at him, watching that bright energy buzz around him, he looked away suddenly as if embarrassed.

“Good night, Abby,” he said, clearing his throat. “We’ll pick up tomorrow night at the same place. And I’d be most appreciative if you could try to remember more about that time period we discussed.”

I left, trying to hold it together as I flew up the stairs back to the bedroom, until I could close the door behind me.

***

I called out for Jesse. I wanted to talk to him, to ask him if anything Nathaniel had been telling me was true.

If I was alive because of the serum.

I was certain that Dr. Mortimer was the one who had brought me back to life. But now, I wasn’t so sure. Now, I was wondering if some of what Nathaniel was saying was true.

For the first time in a long time, I was seriously considering the possibility that I really was the product of some freakish experiment. And as much as I tried, I couldn’t chase the thought away.

That it could have been Nathaniel who had saved me.

CHAPTER 14

I called out to Jesse a few more times. He might know about whether it was Nathaniel who had saved me. But he didn’t show up.

I walked over to the window and looked out at the lights of the island.

It had been a long day, and an even longer evening. I pulled out
The Lady from Shanghai
with Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth and put it into the player, turning the sound down low. I was always struck by how handsome he was in his younger years.

I crawled under the soft down comforter, trying to release my mind from the turbulent thoughts building inside me, but it was impossible to keep them at bay.

I fell asleep for a little while, but I woke up again just after midnight. I couldn’t stop thinking about Nathaniel. About not being able to see colors. About the serum.

I walked over to the window and that’s when I saw it.

The moon.

The moon was out and the sky was clear. The wind had died down and there was no fog.

The storm had passed.

I put in another movie while I collected everything.

Tonight was the night. It was time to go home.

CHAPTER 15

The lights from the island across the way sparkled like jewels in the dark night, calling to me.

And I was ready to answer.

I brought a few bottles of water, candy bars, and a windbreaker inside a pillowcase. I was wearing a non-cotton layer next to my skin with a hooded fleece jacket over it. I had stuffed a bunch of clothes under the covers of the bed and shaped them into what I hoped looked like a body. It wasn’t going to win any acting awards, but it might buy me a few precious minutes.

I left the house just past one. I wasn’t sure if there was an alarm system on at night, so after I closed the front door, I hid in the trees along the shore for a few minutes to see if anyone had followed me.

But everything was quiet and I took off down the beach.

I found the kayak right away and dragged it over to the shore. I packed it up, grabbed the paddle, and slid it into the water. There were still some small waves, but it was much calmer than it had been during the storm. I knew I could handle the swells. It was time to get home.

My heart pounded as I stared at the black water. It was the water of my nightmares. But that didn’t matter anymore. It was now the water that would take me to freedom. 

I got in and pushed off. I paddled near the shore for a few minutes, getting the hang of the kayak and making sure there were no leaks.

Everything felt good.

I sank the paddle in the water, saying a quick prayer as I headed out into the Sound.

I wished I could have talked to Jesse before I left. I wanted him to know that I was escaping, getting away from Nathaniel and his twisted feelings and serum. But then I thought about how my next visit with Jesse could be back home at Drake Park, about how all this could be behind me soon. I picked up my speed.

As I paddled, I kept my eyes on the flickering lights ahead. Rolling under me, the black swells grew larger the farther I went out into the strait. I didn’t want to think too much about the size of the waves or the currents. I had to force down those thoughts as much as I could and swallow any fear that tried to bubble to the surface.

I also had to fight the urge to get to the island in a few giant strokes. I needed to keep a steady, even pace and not blow myself out. If I was lucky, this was going to be a marathon.

After a time, I stopped for a quick break to assess my progress. I sat in the middle of the eerie blackness, but I was happy. It was a beautiful night. The stars were sprinkled across the sky, the moon bright and leading the way. I took a long drink of water and glanced back at the island behind me. It was getting smaller. I pressed on.

Being out here was very different than what I had spent doing last summer. Running rapids all day down that familiar river canyon with the rock walls and wilderness close by on both sides hadn’t prepared me for this. I was now paddling in open water with nothing nearby, nothing to swim to if I capsized.

“Come on,” I said out loud. “You can do this.”

My confidence grew with each stroke. The swells continued to get larger and blacker. But I kept my eyes on the prize, paddling toward the island, which increased in size, taking up more and more of the horizon. I began to feel that my fate, like the paddle, was in my hands.

I had to fight down the growing feeling of euphoria that was swelling up inside me. I was at that point where your team scores a goal, but before celebrating you glance over at the linesman to make sure he hasn’t called offside.

I still had a long way to go.

CHAPTER 16

I just needed to keep going and I’d make it.

My arms were beginning to burn. I ignored the pain, paddling through it, thinking about home and being a river guide again next summer. About Ty and how great it would be to see him again. And about the other guides and how we still needed to have that party. And about how the holidays weren’t that far away.

I started singing
Under the Tahitian Moon
, pushing the paddle into the water to the beat of the music. I was grinning now. I didn’t care.

I was going to make it! Freedom was within reach, right in front of me.

I forgot about my strategy and started paddling harder through the water. I could feel the knots in my shoulders. Maybe my brain wasn’t getting enough oxygen, but at that moment I felt that it had all been worth it. The pain, everything that I’d been through had brought me to this point. I felt that something out there, something larger than me, was on my side. Nothing was going to stop me now.

And then I heard it.

A faint buzz coming from somewhere behind me.

CHAPTER 17

I kept pushing the paddle through the water. The noise could be anything, anyone. For all I knew maybe it was the Coast Guard coming to rescue me. I wasn’t going to turn around to look. I had to keep going. Maybe it was someone from one of these other islands. A fishing boat getting an early start.

It couldn’t be Nathaniel’s people. Even if they had noticed that I was missing, how could they find me out here in the middle of all this water? In the middle of all this darkness? There was no way it was Nathaniel.

I put myself in their place. Even if they had somehow discovered that I wasn’t in my room, they would first search the house. And then maybe the guest house. And then all over the island. And finally, when they couldn’t find me, they might send the boat out. Search the stretch of water between the two islands.

I was fairly sure that I hadn’t been spotted yet by whatever was back there. But just in case, I started paddling parallel to the island, away from where they might logically look for me.

“Faster,” I said out loud. “Come on!”

The noise was getting louder. I glanced toward my right and a moment later saw the bright lights of a powerboat veer sharply in my direction. It was almost as if they knew where I was.