Infamous (48 page)

It was at that point in their interview that Bill made a crass joke about how maybe it had been the ghost of Silas Quinn who’d shot Alison. And A.J., who still had her blood on his jeans, wasn’t ready to joke about that at all, so he told Bill to shut the fuck up.

Things got even more tense when Bill dropped another bomb and let us know that the deputies who’d gone out to A.J.’s cabin used some kind of electronic surveillance detecting equipment to locate a cell phone jammer. And yes, indeed, it was a TechWhiz 7842, and it had been wiped clean of all fingerprints.

I stood off to the side in that little curtained ER room, while A.J. told Alison everything.

And like A.J., I held my breath, praying that after she absorbed it all, she’d look him in the eye and say,
I still believe you
.

But she was silent, and I knew that A.J. didn’t blame her for her doubt. It was a lot to take in. A lot to wonder about.

But then she said, “What about the picture?”

And A.J. didn’t know what she meant at first.

I did, though, so I told him, “The police artist’s rendering of the killer. The tall man named Brian.”

A.J. had told her about my suggestion on the ride to the hospital, but he now shook his head. “No way is Fenster going to spend any of his budget on that. He thinks I’m crazy.”

“So let’s pay for it ourselves,” Alison said, leaning forward to take his hand. “Or do it ourselves. Isn’t Bev an artist?”

A.J. glanced over at me, hope in his eyes. “She paints,” he told her. “She’s not … But Charlie … He used to draw.”

“But you know who’s even better?” I reminded him. Or maybe it wasn’t a reminder. Maybe he just didn’t know. “His father. Tom. When he was a boy, he drew a picture of Melody—just from my description through the years.”

Although, to be honest now, after that wink Tom had given me, I wasn’t sure he hadn’t actually seen her, maybe as a spirit or an angel come to watch over me.

Still, it was certainly worth a try.

Alison was moved out of the ER and into a private room. Bev’s husband, Charlie, had brought her suitcase from A.J.’s, because the clothes she’d been wearing had been ruined.

He’d brought her toilet kit, too, so that she could wash up.

Rose had stayed with her at first, making sure she was steady enough on her feet as she changed. But then she’d left to give Alison some privacy—especially when Hugh called from Arizona.

“How are
you?”
Alison asked.

“Finally out of the hospital,” he said. “It’s you I’m worried about. Al, seriously, you’ve got to get out of there. Henry’s shitting dancing monkeys—he’s terrified the nutjob’s going to kill you. And I have to be honest—for once I actually agree.”

“A.J.’s not a nutjob,” Alison said.

“Babe,” Hugh said. “The state police are crawling all over his truck, because, well, it matches my description of the truck that ran me off the road.”

“You were run off the road by a
truck?”
Alison asked, her heart in her throat. “Did you see the other driver?”

“No,” he admitted. “And really, my description was big
and dark colored, which, yeah, could be every other truck in the state. I really don’t remember that much. Still … Lookit, you’re not going to like this, but the production office got an anonymous phone call last night. It was on the voicemail this morning. A tip. Warning us about A.J. Gallagher. Telling us to be careful, because, well, he’s … literally crazy.”

“He’s not,” Alison said. “I know I said what I said, but—”

“And you are
so
sleeping with him again,” Hugh said. “And it’s against everything I believe in to trash-talk a friend’s lover, but, honey, this is something you really need to know. We verified it, Alison.” He took a deep breath. “A.J. Gallagher spent quite a few months in a psychiatric hospital.”

“It was rehab,” she said. “Your uncle Henry himself has gone in—”

“This was for way longer than your average twenty-eight-day program,” Hugh said.

“A.J. needed more than twenty-eight days,” she countered. “He’d seen some horrible things in the war.”

Hugh sighed heavily.

“When people are ill, they go to the hospital,” she told him. She tried, but she couldn’t keep her voice from shaking.

“And sometimes,” her friend told her quietly, “they’re released before they’re better. Honey, the state police found a cell phone signal jammer in the back of Gallagher’s truck. I remember being run off the road and being pissed that my phone didn’t work. I thought it was temporary—the lack of reception. It happens, particularly out in the middle of nowhere. So I sat there, in the Jeep, with the AC still running, waiting for phone service to come back on line. But it didn’t. And it still didn’t. And then I ate my lunch and I got incredibly sick. And there I am, heaving by the side of the road, and my phone
still
doesn’t work. Kind of the way it stopped working when the police got that jammer up and running, to try it out. They had me test it.”

“A.J.’s being framed,” Alison said, but even as the words came out of her mouth, they felt odd and bizarre. People didn’t get framed for crimes they didn’t commit. Not outside of the movies or old episodes of
Charlie’s Angels
.

“You need to get away from there,” Hugh said. “Henry insists. He’s sent the plane and he wants you on it. Today.”

“Hugh—”

“Alison, think about it. Everything that’s happened? It was supposed to be you with me, scouting locations. But even before that, there was that snake in your house—and you told me yourself A.J. opened your door with a freaking credit card. He certainly could have put that snake there.”

“Why?” Alison said. “Why would he do that?”

“So he could save you,” Hugh said. “Same with the missing anchors on your trailer. Again, who comes to your rescue? A.J. Gallagher.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Alison said. “Mine wasn’t the only trailer—”

“So he took
all
the anchors,” Hugh spoke over her, “so he could be an even bigger hero. Paula told me about the accident you had with the rental car. The brake line was frayed. Yeah, right, how often does
that
happen? But who’s there, so that you can fling your arms—and legs—around him after he saves the day?”

Alison was silent.

“Tell me that you’re not sleeping with him,” Hugh said, “and I’ll revise my theory.”

She was getting mad. Not just at Hugh, but at herself and at A.J. “So A.J. shot me this morning so I’d have sex with him,” she said flatly. “That doesn’t make sense, after I already spent the night with him.…”

But she broke off, because maybe it
did
make sense in a crazy way. She was going to leave. She’d told A.J. so.

Still, she shook her head, unwilling to accept Hugh’s so-called theory. “Hughie, I know this sounds crazy, but Jamie—the ghost—he’s real,” Alison said. “I’ve felt him. He saved our lives today.”

“Just get on the plane,” Hugh said. “Please. You need a little distance from this man. Maybe you’re right. Maybe there’s really a ghost. But maybe there’s not. Maybe you just
want
there to be a ghost. Just
get
on the plane, and we’ll figure
it out. I’ll help you, I promise.” His voice broke. “Alison, please, I’m really scared for you.”

The diaries arrived while A.J., Bev, and Rose were still attempting to track down Tom Fallingstar—to see if the shaman could draw a picture of Brian, described by Jamie, with A.J. as information conduit.

There were two of them—the diaries. They were in plastic ziplock baggies that were tucked into an ancient-looking leather mailbag.

Joe Gallagher dropped them off in Alison’s room, moments after she had signed her release papers and received her prescription for antibiotics from the nurse.

She didn’t get a chance to open the baggies before two men—the co-pilot and the flight attendant from Henry Logan’s private jet—came into her room, gathered up her suitcase and her belongings, and hustled her out of the back door of the hospital.

Alison found herself flipping back and forth between
this was crazy
and
Hugh and Henry had a point
.

If she
were
in danger from A.J.—and God, she just couldn’t
believe that she was—then leaving Alaska would ensure her safety.

Unless, of course, Jamie was real and A.J. wasn’t crazy—and someone named Brian who wore his long hair back in a ponytail, who had killed another man named Wayne, and who had a cohort named Gene, really
was
gunning for her.

Which was ridiculous. She’d witnessed nothing—no murders in the backseat of any kind of car. Not ever, in her entire life.

She dug her cell phone out of her purse, but the co-pilot, a rotund little man named Julio Garcia, who was sitting in the back beside her while the flight attendant drove, gently took it from her, taking care not to jostle her injured arm.

“You can call Mr. Gallagher from the phones on board after we’re in the air,” Julio told her. He and Henry had gone to middle school together, in suburban New Jersey. He’d told her that the first time she’d flown on the director’s private jet.

It was clear that Julio would do anything for his friend and boss.

“So I’m being kidnapped,” Alison said.

“Absolutely not,” Julio said. He signaled to the flight attendant, who pulled to the side of the road. “But be aware if you get out? You’ll be sued for breach of contract. Henry needs you back on set, and the plane is scheduled to leave in a matter of minutes. If you’re not on it … Well, that would be a shame. Your lawyers’ fees will probably be around two hundred thousand dollars, even if you win, which you won’t.”

“Henry’s not going to sue me,” she said. But at the same time, she didn’t get out of the car.

“Don’t count on it.” He nodded for the driver to resume. “Henry feels responsible for sending you to Alaska. If you get killed while you’re here, your estate will sue him—no doubt about that.”

“I don’t have an estate,” she informed him. “I don’t have a family. I don’t even have a cat.”

“Then your publisher will sue Henry. Someone will. This is a litigious world we live in, Dr. Carter, and Henry wants
you safe. Not merely because he’s fond of you, but for financial reasons, too. He’ll sue you, to prove that you broke your contract by staying in Alaska against his wishes. So if you
do
die …”

“I’m in love with this man,” Alison said, “that everyone thinks is a lunatic. But he’s not. I know it. And you’re making me leave without even—”

“If Henry’s wrong about him,” the co-pilot told her, “he’ll fly you back. And he’ll explain to your friend that you were given no choice. You had to leave.”

“A.J. won’t understand,” Alison said, but when they pulled up to the plane and she got out of the car, she didn’t try to run away.

She just climbed the stairs, hoping that A.J. would follow her here, so that she could, at least, say good-bye. But she paused for just a moment before going into the cabin, looking out at the empty parking lot. And the pain in her arm was nothing compared to the ache in her heart.

A.J. heard Alison board the plane.

Jamie had told him that the private jet had landed in the airstrip north of town. The ghost had overheard, too, Alison’s phone conversation with her friend Hugh.

And A.J. knew that there was no way he was going to be able to purchase a plane ticket down to Tucson or even Phoenix. Because the way things were going, it was really just a matter of time before Bill Fenster brought him in for questioning.

Not the semi-friendly questioning like this morning, but the kind where A.J. was fingerprinted and locked in a holding cell.

The kind where charges were going to be filed against him, where a judge would find him a flight risk and agree that he should be held without bail.

At which point, he’d be locked up and impotent while Brian and Gene were both still out there, on the loose and dangerous and—according to Jamie—gunning for the woman he loved.

So A.J. had made a decision—and he’d come here to the airfield and stowed away on Logan’s private jet, sneaking on board with a food delivery.

He’d set his cell phone on vibrate, willing Alison to call him. But then he turned that off, too, when Jamie reported that her phone had been confiscated by the co-pilot.

“She really doesn’t have a choice, kid,” Jamie said as A.J. hid in the shadows of the plane’s storage cabin. He knew it was pressurized, because there were dog crates built in, and a large, goofy-looking poodle/lab mix was curled up in one of them.

The dog had lifted his or her head when A.J. had first come on board, but there was no barking, which was good.

But he knew that the dog belonged to one of the pilots or the flight attendant—who would probably be down to check on it during the long flight.

Which meant he’d have to stay hidden.

All the way to Arizona.

Which was no big deal, if it meant keeping Alison safe.

He looked at the clock on his cell phone, wishing that Tom hadn’t been tied up and unable to do that drawing. Tom was going to have to draw the picture of Brian via the phone, with Jamie jumping back and forth, which had to be taxing for the ghost.

A.J. wished he had his hat, too. He felt undressed and incomplete without it, but he knew without a doubt that if he let anything happen to Alison, his lack of hat wouldn’t matter.