Head Rush (28 page)

A flop in my chest, like a trapped sob. It’s huge what he’s offered, what he’s doing. I want not to be lying to him. And suddenly I want him to meet Packard. “That’s such a gift.” I put my hand over his, tears in my eyes. “I know what it takes.”

“It’s time for me to act like a father.”

“You are amazing. That is amazing.” I feel like such a jerk, putting him through all this for a fake wedding—one that, if it happens, could be violent.

“You’re not ill, are you?”

“What? No, no—”

“Is it incurable? Are you going to level with your pop or do I have to ask Otto?”

“No! Okay.” I get up and check the stairway, close the door. Take a breath. He deserves to know. And he’s as good a happiness-faker as I am. “You have to pretend everything is normal. Not a word, got it?”

“What’s going on?”

“I’m not marrying Otto.” I sit beside him, speak in hushed tones. “It’s this whole situation I’m playing along with. It’s a
bad
situation, and I hate that you’re even involved in it, and I hate lying, that’s why I’m telling you. I need you to play along though, okay? Bring whatever gear you want, stay at the hotel, try to have a decent time. I don’t care what you wear. I’m hoping this wedding doesn’t even happen, but we have to plan for the worst—”

“The
worst
?” A flash of anger. “Are you okay? Are you under duress?”

“No. And he has no idea I’m not one hundred percent with him, so let’s keep it that way.”

“Why not just break up with him?”

“It’s not so simple—this isn’t just a quarrel or something, Dad. Otto isn’t what he seems. He’s a killer, and lots of people are in danger, and we’re trying to help them. The best way to do that is from the inside. This thing has to be handled secretly and delicately. It’s complicated, but he’s holding people against their will…”

“My God, what are you doing in the middle of something like this?”

“Stopping him. Don’t worry, we have a way to stop him, but it’s not ready yet; so right now, we have to act like everything’s normal.”

“So we pretend it’s going forward until this way to stop him is ready.”

“Exactly.”

Dad scowls in the direction of the stairway. “He’s a man people trust. He’s the mayor.”

“A mayor who has done terrible things.”

“I don’t like you in this.”

I give him a steely look. “I know I can count on you to act like everything’s normal. And tomorrow night, if things haven’t worked out, I’ll figure out some excuse so you don’t have to go to the church. Because, we have intelligence something big might happen there.”

“If my girl is going to the church to play a thing out, the least I can do is go too. What will people think if the father of the bride isn’t there?”

“Seriously—it could be a very dangerous place. And not from rogue strains of bacteria.” I hear a sound and hold up a finger, opening the door to check the stairwell. Empty. I close it. “The ground may well run red, if you know what I mean. He has to be stopped, and it won’t be easy, for reasons I can’t go into.”

“And I’ll be there. I’ll help.”

“I can’t drag you into this.”

“I’m your father. Wild horses wouldn’t keep me away.”

“What about horses with head colds?”

He smiles. Crinkly brown eyes. “Even those.”

“Seriously, Otto has a small militia, and they’ll be present and probably armed. Possibly the only people who get weapons in.” This last thought hadn’t come to me before, and I don’t like it. What if we never find the glasses? What if we can’t stop him? What will happen to my imprisoned friends if I dump Otto at the altar? Where does it end?

“You think he’s planning a mass hostage situation? You think he’s capable of something like that?”

“I don’t see what a mass hostage scenario gains him, but you’d be surprised at what he’s capable of. I’m surprised.”

“Well, honey,
you’d
be surprised at how much automatic weaponry a man can conceal inside a biohazard exoskeleton.”

I smile. Is he joking?

He raises an eyebrow. “I do believe it’s what all the best-dressed fathers of the bride are wearing.”

Shivers run down my spine. “You’re not joking.”

“Hell no.”

I smile wide, pleased with these new possibilities. “You’re the best father of the bride ever.”

“Can’t say it’s the wedding I imagined for my McBean. But if it comes to a showdown, I’ll have your back.”

I feel so relieved suddenly. Not just that my dad, a man who’s been preparing all his life to fight armed hordes, will be wearing a gun-concealing, bulletproof suit to my wedding, but just that he’s my ally in this. I suppose I have this idea that Dad is especially powerful in ways that others can’t understand. Maybe all daughters secretly think that on some level.

Footsteps down the staircase.

He places his gloved hand over mine.

When Otto arrives, Dad announces he’s going to finish packing. Ten minutes later, Otto and Smitty are heaving large, heavy cases into the limo’s storage trunk. Otto pauses before he shuts it, staring down at Dad’s silver case.

Why? Does he think it’s odd that Dad brought so much? How much weaponry
did
Dad bring? The stare lasts too long. Is he thinking of opening the case? I feel a wave of alarm. No, he wouldn’t.

He watches Dad get into the limo, assessing look on his face. I know that look. Things aren’t adding up.

“God, I hope he didn’t bring all kinds of backup oxygen,” I say, hoping that might explain the weight. “The bellboys are going to be bummed.”

“We’re transporting oxygen?” Otto peers into the trunk. “That’s not entirely safe.”

I swallow. I just gave him an excuse to open it. “Hold on, I’ll ask.”

I stick my head in the door. “Are your cases heavy for a reason? It’s not oxygen in there, right?”

Otto comes up beside me.

Dad grins. “Maybe it’s the inversion boots with the inversion stand. And the water purifier. It might still have several gallons in there.”

I smile scoldingly. “Dad!”

Otto goes around and bangs the trunk shut, and we join Dad in the back seat.

“Inversion boots?”

Dad has a big, long explanation about inversion boots, like he’s trying to get Otto to buy a pair. He’s fabulous. Cool as a cucumber. He goes on to question Otto on everything from police procedure to Midcity history, as a way to give me space to rest my mind. This also allows me to text Shelby: “Did you find the special bouquet?”

“
No.”

We stop to drop Dad’s luggage with the bellboy at the Midcity Arms, and then we continue to the condo to dine. Dad dons a surgical mask and accompanies us past the knot of photographers out front and on through the lobby. I suspect, with his practice in Hobart, that he could have gone through without the mask, but it’s probably a smart move, considering he’ll be wearing the full freak-suit if the wedding happens tomorrow.

Kenzo comes out before dinner with a little speech about the origin, freshness and technique of cooking the steak, as well as the sanitizing of the vegetables, not to mention the entire penthouse. Dad even gets his silverware wrapped in plastic. I encourage Otto to tell some of his police stories; they’re entertaining, and an excellent way to let Dad see that Otto is not somebody to be taken lightly. Otto is brave and powerful, even when he’s being evil.

I keep my phone on vibrate in my dress pocket, longing for news. It’s nearly nine. The curfew starts at ten. One more hour to chase down leads.

After dessert, Otto urges Dad to come out to the night garden.

“You’ll never see flowers like this, Dad,” I chime in.

Otto’s phone rings. He pulls it out and scowls at it. What does that mean?

He waves us on ahead.

I hesitate: there’s something about the way he scowled at that number I don’t like. My stomach feels twisted up. How much more of this can I take?

Dad’s watching me. “Shall we?”

“Yes,” I say, leading the way out the door. The enclosed deck is cool and vast and dark. I suck in a deep breath.

Dad asks, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” I say.

“Was there a problem with the cases I brought?”

“I think I’m overreading everything Otto does. Or maybe being paranoid. And you can tell? Crap.”

“I can tell, but he doesn’t seem to,” he says. “He adores you.”

“He reads micro-expressions that I don’t even know I make.”

“You’re okay.”

“
Micro-expressions
,” I say. We stroll deeper into the garden. I show him the hot tub and the outdoor dining room, and tell him how the top is removed in the summer.

“Regular palace,” Dad observes quietly.

“Are you planting outdoors this summer?” I ask him.

“I may,” he says. “The upcoming growing season’s supposed to be the best in half a century.

“Oh yeah? Did you read that in the
Farmer’s Almanac
or something?”

“Just something we’ve heard. John Rickert’s bought double the soybean seeds. The Hensons are getting into tomatoes.”

Neighbors. Names from the past. “And you’ve all gotten this special advanced forecast?”

“No…” He shrugs and looks away. “Sort of.”

I smile, amused to see Dad’s embarrassment. “This is something you
heard
?”

“Never mind,” he says.

“What? Now I really want to know.”

He waves his hand, as though it’s silly. “I usually don’t go in for this kind of thing, but there’s a fortune teller walking the Old Arrowhead trail. Girl’s been causing a stir up through the farms along the way with her predictions.”

The air goes out of me. “A girl walking? A walking fortune teller?”

“Guess you could say that. Strange-looking duck. She predicted a tornado would demolish a dairy barn out in Wentworth, Iowa. Told the farmer the exact time of the collapse a good three days before it happened—in her own woo-woo way. The chime of eight and all that. But three days later, sure enough, a thunderstorm starts rolling in, with a tornado watch—not even a warning, mind you, but just a watch. Well, the fellow thought to move those animals, and sure enough, the barn went down. I was awfully surprised the fellow took heed, but it saved ’em a fortune. Rickert heard it at the feed store from a guy who heard it from his hauler…” Dad goes on to tell about the chain of information.

Could it be Fawna?
“Have you met her?”

“Nah. Rickert knows a guy, knows a guy who caught up to her a week later—she told him he’d have a roundworm problem if he planted beets. Sure enough—”

“He sent soil samples to the lab,” I say.

He nods. “And they confirmed it. Girl’s pretty sure of herself, I’ll give her that. Told one guy his field would flood come spring, and he says,
how do I prevent that?
And she says,
If your field is not a field. If a flood is not a flood.
”

“And she’s heading east? A prognosticating girl who is heading east?”

He looks surprised. “You heard of her? All the way in Midcity? Though she must be somewhere north of Midcity if she kept walking the trail—could be nearing town.”

“You think she’s still walking the trail?”

“I’d imagine.”

“Walking the trail?” Otto comes up, puts his arm around me. I nearly jump out of my skin. “Is that anything like walking the plank?”

Dad says, “There’s this little girl been walking—”

“It’s stupid,” I cut him off. “It’s a Bonnerville thing. A whole long story. This girl…but if you don’t know the people involved. Just…hey—” I tug on Otto’s lapel, giving him a sly look. “Otto, you have to show Dad your Vernal vinca before it closes its petals.”

He regards me strangely. “It’s hardly going to close its petals, Justine. Are you thinking of the Zentapha?”

“Right, yeah.” Gently, I drag Otto. “I purposely didn’t tell Dad the story of the Zentapha so you could.”

Otto tells the story, which involves his going to heroic lengths to protect it from the cold during transit.

All the while, I silently marvel, and even freak out a little, over this amazing news.
Fawna is walking the Old Arrowhead trail.
This would explain why Otto’s people couldn’t find her on the roads or the bike path system.

Many major Native-American trails in the Midwest became wagon roads, and eventually streets, but the Old Arrowhead barely stayed a trail. It runs along a series of dried creeks and rocky outcrops, forming the border of a few farmers’ fields, but you have to know what you’re looking for to recognize it. As it nears Lake Michigan, it veers north of Midcity, running through suburban developments, where it’s pretty much invisible, and then it goes south along the lakeshore for several miles. It’s all quite obscure unless you belong to the set of rural or suburban kids who had maps of it from the Historical Society and got into hunting for ancient Indian-warrior arrowheads along it—a set that includes pretty much every kid I grew up with.

Digging for arrowheads was a major pastime for my brother and me—there was a good stretch of the old Arrowhead trail that was accessible to us by bike, and we actually did find a couple of real arrowheads over the years, but mostly the little boxes in our bedrooms grew full of triangular-shaped rocks that, when looked at in a certain way, could be explained as the beginnings of arrowheads, experimental arrowheads, or else arrowheads carved by warriors with poor carving skills.

The other sort of people likely to know the Old Arrowhead trail are those who own cropland or hunting land that it runs through, because you’re forever chasing away kids, and grumbling about the little holes they dig.

“Don’t you agree?” Otto’s speaking to me.

“What?”

“Your father can ride in a limo to the church. He doesn’t have to ride a horse.”

Dad says, “I can ride if I have my gear on.”

“Huh.” Otto gives me a look. He knows I don’t want Dad in biohazard gear for the wedding.

“I think that sounds good,” I smile. “I’m proud of you, Dad, and I want you to be in the procession however you please.”

It’s true, I think. True and new. I’m proud of him.

Chapter Sixteen

It’s like a déjà vu, blading along the Midcity River in the cold night, on the lookout for cannibals, criminals, and cruising cops. Avoiding streetlights for the cover of darkness. But this time, instead of heading to the Tangle, I’m skating toward the prosperous downtown by the lake. When I finally hit the lake path, I turn north, following the Old Arrowhead in the reverse direction that Fawna’s supposedly walking it.