Nerve Damage (31 page)

“Her name was Delia,” Roy said.

“Delia?” said Adele, eyes again drawn to the photo. “That's close, isn't it?”

“Yes,” Roy said.

A moment or two went by. Then Adele shook her head and backed away. “I don't believe it.”

Roy reached for her hand, held his next to it, side by side, made her see. “I'm your father,” he said.

Adele tore her hand loose. “This can't be happening.”

“A DNA test will prove it,” Roy said. “But where's Truesdale? He can clear things up sooner than that.”

“What do you mean?” Adele said.

“By filling us in on what happened after the last time I saw her.”

“When was that?”

“When she was three months pregnant.”

“She left you or something?” said Adele.

“She was taken,” Roy said.

“Kidnapped?”

Roy started to say no, then stopped himself. “I'm still figuring it out,” he said.

“You've been figuring it out for fifteen years?”

“I've been in the dark for fifteen years,” Roy said. “I'm figuring it out now.”

“So you never knew she was here?” Adele said. “Didn't know about the coma?”

“Coma?”

“She never came out of it—that was the worst part,” Adele said. “She was in a coma for months before she had me.”

“Truesdale told you that?”

“Another one of those things I always knew,” Adele said. “But not
just from hearing it,” she added quickly. “I remember when I was a little kid there was medical stuff in the West End bunkhouse.”

“What's that?”

“This old shack,” Adele said. “All boarded up now.”

“I'd like to see it.”

“Can you ride?”

The demon reacted to that one.

“What's wrong?”

“Nothing,” said Roy, straightening up. “I'm fine.” And, in fact, some inner part, where no disease could reach, felt better than it ever had.

“Aren't you a bit young to drive?” Roy said.

Adele climbed behind the wheel of a pickup—same model as Roy's, but newer and equipped with shotgun rack and shotgun—that was parked behind the stables, keys in the ignition. “This is a ranch,” she said.

She drove along a dirt track heading west, away from the main compound and toward the hills; a good driver, or at least a driver just like him, every touch of the wheel or the pedals exactly as he would have done. They crossed a grassy plain, with horses standing near a lone tree in the distance, splashed through a shallow, muddy stream and started up a long rise, the landscape turning brown and dry.

A big open four-wheeler appeared at the top of the rise, coming their way. “Security,” said Adele.

Oh, not now. Roy went rigid. What had Turk and Freddy said to do if something like this happened? For a moment, Roy couldn't—

“Get down,” Adele said.

Roy got down, squeezed himself onto the floor. He saw Adele's foot—she wore dusty cowboy boots, decorated with silver stars—move from the gas pedal to the brake, press down. They came to a stop.

A man said, “Hey, Adele, how's it going?”

“Not bad,” said Adele. “You guys?”

“No complaints,” said the man. “Lookin' forward to the party tonight?”

“Too much homework,” Adele said.

“Hey, c'mon,” the man said.

“All work and no play,” said another, a little farther away, voice less distinct.

“Got to get going,” Adele said. “But you could do me a favor—I left Angus in the corral.”

“We'll put him back in the barn,” said the first man.

“No problem,” said the other.

“Have fun tonight,” said Adele. Then she floored it, jamming the pedal to the floor. Roy heard the tires spin, felt the rear of the pickup start to swing out. She brought it back in line with ease. Behind them one of the men yelled, “Ooo-wee.” The security guys liked Adele.

“You can get up now,” she said.

Roy pulled himself up with just a little breathing problem, instantly disguised.

She gave him a quick sideways glance. “What happened to your arm?” she said.

“I—” He almost said
I used to play hockey,
stopping himself at the last moment. “Hockey,” he said.

“Cool,” she said.

How glad he was those words hadn't got out.

“Do you have allergies or something?” Adele said.

“No.”

“City people come here and get allergies.”

“I'm not city people,” Roy said. “I live in a little town in Vermont.”

“With snow?”

“Lots.”

The track grew rougher. Adele dodged a deep pothole with a smooth turn of the wheel and said, “What do you do up there?”

“I'm a sculptor,” Roy said. “Your—Calvin Truesdale just bought one of my pieces.”

She was silent for a moment or two. “If everything you're saying—” She began, then stopped herself. “That's weird,” she said.

“Isn't it?” said Roy. Two hundred and fifty grand and yet he'd suspected nothing:
who in their right mind,
as his own mother had said. Suspecting things was not his strength; that had to be clear by now.

The hills were much closer, not very high. In a fold at their base stood a small rectangular building, the only straight lines in sight. A big black bird circled high above.

“I take the art elective,” Adele said.

Roy didn't understand.

“In school,” she said. “There's something of mine in the glove box.”

Roy opened it, took out a scrolled sheet of paper. He unrolled it: a watercolor still life—horseshoe, hammer, nails, all lying on a barrelhead in shadowy space. The nails seemed light, horseshoe heavier, hammer heaviest of all; and a nice, dull shine gleamed on the striking surface of the hammer.

“This is good,” he said.

“I got a B,” she said.

“A B?”

“From the teacher.”

Roy laughed.

“What's funny?” she said; and he realized she had no idea how good it really was.

The track sloped up, rounded a pile of rocks, ended in front of the bunkhouse—wood siding weathered gray, plywood on the windows, a combination lock on the door. They got out of the truck: total silence and endless sky above, cloudless but not blue, as though a big dust storm had passed nearby. And not quite total silence—Roy heard a low, rhythmic rattle, didn't make the connection for a moment or two. The sound was his.

Adele walked to the door, spun the combination lock. It clicked open. She looked back at Roy. “I come out here sometimes.”

They went in. Light flowed in through the doorway, and in shafts here and there from chinks in the walls. The bunkhouse was bare in
side, long and narrow with nothing in it except a broom in one corner and a footstool sitting in the widest shaft of light. Roy had expected dust, cobwebs, spiders, maybe a lizard or two, but there was none of that, the whole place swept clean.

He walked to the far end. “What kind of medical stuff?” he said.

“I don't really remember,” said Adele. “A hospital-type bed, maybe? Bandages? I was little.”

Roy sat on the footstool, tried to imagine Delia lying here, possibly in a coma. All he knew was that Janet had seen her in the back of a limo, injured but conscious. Operation Pineapple, a fiasco, but she'd survived it: and then come—or been taken—here?

“What's that sound?” he said.

“Buzzard,” said Adele. “Landing on the roof.”

Roy rose, got that too-tall feeling again, fought it off. He saw initials carved into the rough, knotty-pine-board walls:
SJW, BT, KLN
; and some names:
KING RICO, BUDDY, GATO
. No
D
s, no Delia. Wouldn't she have done that, left some imprint? Roy thought so.

He moved around the bunkhouse, scanning the walls. Nothing, except…Except, what was this? Roy knelt in the corner, near the broom. On the wall, about three feet above the floor, he saw a crude carved shape, very small, taking up no more space than a business card.

He ran his fingers over it: an upside-down
V,
but softened, and halfway up one arm a tiny box sticking out. Upside-down
V,
square box…like a mysterious glyph left on a cave wall by an unknown artist.

“Yeah,” said Adele, coming up behind him. “I've seen that. Know what I think?”

“What?”

“It's a diagram of where we are, right here—the bunkhouse and the hills.”

That made sense, some bored cowboy, lying in bed, scratching away at the walls.

“Although whoever it was got it wrong,” she said.

“How do you mean?”

“The bunkhouse is at the base of the hill,” she said, “not halfway up.”

Roy nodded. “You've got a good—” And then it hit him. A little box halfway up: the mountain hut. “Oh, God.”

“What?” said Adele.

Roy ran his fingertips over the image, again and again, as though through the sense of touch it could tell him something, like a message in Braille. And it was telling him:
If we get separated, if you can't find me
. Delia had carved this picture. He could even convince himself that he recognized her handiwork. She had no artistic ability at all.

He tapped at the wall, heard nothing behind the image that he didn't hear anywhere else.
The hiding place won't be obvious. Come on, Roy, even you knew that.
He tried to pry the plank loose. Nailed in tight: it wouldn't budge.

Had she simply been saying:
I was here
? Roy didn't know what else to think. He gave the plank one last tap, this one a bit harder, with the side of his hand. No hollow sound resulted this time either, but a knot in the plank below—two or three inches from the picture—fell out and landed at his feet, leaving a fist-size hole in the wall.

Meet me here.

Roy tried to reach in: fist size, but for a smaller fist. Adele knelt beside him, stuck her hand inside, felt around. Her hand reappeared, and in the palm she held a yellowed square of paper, folded small. Eyes wide, she gave it to Roy. His hands shook so badly he could barely unfold it.

Roy handed the letter to Adele. He went outside. The buzzard flew off the roof, rose into that dusty sky, spiraling up and up. Tears came, silent and not many. Even though she'd ended up dying on him twice, who had time for tears?

Adele came out, looked up at him. Her tears were streaming down her face. “So you're my dad, for sure?”

“I am,” Roy said.

“What are we going to do?”

“You're going to stay right here,” Roy said: his first parental decision.

Adele wiped her face with the back of her arm. “No way,” she said.

 

They got
in the pickup, Roy behind the wheel. He pressed the button that activated Freddy's wire. Then he read Delia's letter out loud, voice steady almost to the end. This time, on second reading, he could see how some people might find it a bit self-serving. But so what? As for forgiveness, he was the one who needed it: so many clues he'd missed, so many chances to find out. Roy knew he had failed her. He folded the letter with care and put it in his pocket.

“Is someone listening?” Adele said.

“Better be,” said Roy.

Adele nodded. They seemed to understand each other without much effort. Wishful thinking? Was that so bad? He glanced at her, saw something very soft and childlike in the skin at the back of her neck, something that didn't remind him of Delia—or himself—at all.

“I don't really understand what's going on,” Adele said, “but I never liked being around him, even though he's been so generous. That made me feel guilty.”

“You can stop,” Roy said. He wasn't going to fail her. He turned the key and drove back along the track, across the dry plain to the green oasis of the compound.

 

Roy parked
behind the stables. “Stay here till I come for you.”

“Why?”

“I'll explain then.”

She looked annoyed for a second, then laughed, a lovely, unself-conscious sound. It followed him, at least in his mind, as he crossed the gardens. Beautiful gardens with all kinds of blooming flowers: Roy felt like his old self almost the whole way. But just as he came to the huge double doors of the gallery—now wide open—the demon sprang up and got its claws around his heart again, quick and sneaky, before his heart could soar away, out of reach. Then the demon gave a sharper squeeze than any in the past, as though squashing a frog. Roy gasped, doubled up, slumped behind one of the doors.

After a moment or two, the pain lessened slightly. Roy tried to take a breath—all his air gone in that gasp—and couldn't, as though his lungs were petrifying. At the same time, he heard Spanish voices. Men in work clothes came out of the gallery, lunch boxes in their hands, and took a path toward an outbuilding beyond the stables. None looked back, so no one saw him in that horrible emergency breathing position, chest stuck way out, elbows pulled way back. It worked, a little. Air entered his body, opened a miserly pathway, enough to keep going. Roy straightened and walked into Calvin Truesdale's private museum.