The Epidemic (26 page)

“But then I got sent on an assignment, same situation as you. It wasn’t right—timing too coincidental. Both assignments came directly from Arthur, both of us Marie’s closers. I don’t know what it means, but I just got a feeling. I don’t think Marie is fighting against Arthur—I think she’s working
with
him.”

I shake my head, seeing the logic in his argument, but not buying it completely. “That’s a pretty big accusation,” I say. “I . . . I don’t believe that. Marie’s scared of Arthur—I can see it, hear it in her voice. She thinks he’s going to erase her memory for breaking her contract. Besides,” I add, “she let you leave and she gave me my closer file. Do you really think she’d double-cross us now?”

“Did she let me leave or was she trying to get rid of me? Because there’s a difference,” he says.

“I’m not defending her,” I say, holding up my hands apologetically. “But she did want us to run. She was
protecting
us.”

Aaron puts his hands on his hips like he can’t believe I just
said that. “So if she’s protecting us, she can lie to us?” he says. “I know you don’t buy that.” He pauses. “Does that apply to your father, too?”

And, of course, now that he says it . . . I think maybe it does. I asked Deacon how he could love the woman who’d mistreated him so badly, and the only answer was because she was his mother. I get it now.

“He’s still my father,” I tell Aaron, my voice starting to shake. I’ve been keeping the fear at bay, but the fact is, I have no idea about my father’s condition. I have no idea if he’s okay.

“Aw, shit,” Aaron says, and steps over to hug me. “I didn’t mean to bring him up. I’m sorry, Quinn.”

“Will you find him for me?” I ask, my cheek pressed to his chest. “Will you just check if he’s okay?”

“Yeah,” Aaron says. “I have a few contacts in Corvallis. I’ll get in touch with them.” He pulls back and stares down at me. “I’m sorry about what I said,” he adds. “I know Marie loves us. I just want to be careful. And now that I’ve said my piece, why don’t you tell me what’s going on with you and Virginia Pritchard.”

I sniffle and a take a step back. Aaron knows I’m a good person, but not that good.

“I need to find out how she remembered her past,” I tell him. “That means she knows everything that her father’s done. She knows the methods and reasons. And she might know how to trigger my memory. If she can, then I won’t need Arthur Pritchard to find out my identity. I’ll get it my damn self.”

“So you want her help?” he asks.

“Yes. And I want to help her, too. If she already has her memories back, the only thing I can offer is freedom from her father. So if Marie can’t get him shut down, I think we should help Virginia run away.”

Aaron’s lips form a perfect O, and he forces a laugh. “That’s enough conspiracy talk for today, Quinlan,” he says, reaching to take my arm. “Let’s save this conversation for when your boyfriend gets back.”

We walk up the outdoor steps of the motel toward my room. “He’ll agree with me,” I say, looking sideways. I smile when Aaron meets my eyes.

“Oh, I don’t doubt it,” Aaron says. “He’s a crazy fucker too.”

We both laugh, but when we get to the motel room door, we exchange a look that brings the lightness of the moment crashing down around us. We’ll have to try harder, do everything we can when all around us darkness is pushing in. So we force bigger smiles and go inside the motel room.

Deacon jumps up from where he was sitting on the bed, surprising us. I didn’t know he was already back.

“What took you so long?” he asks, obviously worried. The news of Virginia getting dragged off the volleyball court must have been disconcerting, even though he wasn’t there. Aaron and I are immediately grounded again in the horror of our situation.

“Sorry, man,” Aaron tells Deacon in a low voice. He goes
to sit in the hard chair next to the window. “Where were you when I called?”

Deacon shifts his eyes to mine, checking to make sure I’m okay since I’m not the one who answered. “I was at Arthur’s medical office,” he says to Aaron, although he’s still watching me. “His car wasn’t in the lot, though. I’m thinking about breaking in.”

“Of course you are,” Aaron says with a heavy sigh.

Deacon ignores him and crosses the room to pause in front of me. “Are you really okay?” he asks quietly.

I lean in to him. All at once I feel vulnerable again. “You should have seen her,” I tell him, the image of Virginia fighting and bleeding and helpless burned into my memory. “It was awful.”

He tightens his arms around me, whispering how sorry he is that he wasn’t there. For a second I let myself pretend that if he had been, he would have run onto the court, grabbed Virginia’s hand, and taken off with her. He would have saved her. That wouldn’t have happened. But I need to think it could have. The chance that we’re not all completely helpless in this comforts me.

There’s a buzz, and Aaron takes his phone from his pocket to check the caller ID. “It’s Myra,” he says. “I gotta take it.” He points the phone toward the door. “I’ll be in my room. Let me know when Reed gets in touch.”

I nod, and after Aaron leaves, Deacon checks me over, seeming uncertain. “You look miserable,” he says. “What can I do?”

“You can stop treating me like I’m made of glass,” I say. “I won’t smash into a million pieces.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t even want you to get a hairline crack, so let’s take a minute to think.”

He’s right. If we let ourselves dwell on the terrible, it can become us. We know that from being closers. Right now we just have to fake it as long as we can.

“You hungry?” he asks. “I picked up lunch.”

“Sure,” I say. “I am kind of—”

Deacon motions to the bed across the room, and I see a mountain of vending-machine snacks. I laugh, and when I look back at him, he grins.

“What?” he asks. “I’m a stress eater.”

*  *  *

Deacon has fully stocked us with salt-and-vinegar chips, Red Vines, Dr Pepper, and Hostess cakes. We’re adulting pretty hard as he spreads it out like a picnic on the extra bed. I sit cross-legged in front of him, our phones set out where we can see them, and I tear open the Red Vines.

“Appetizer?” I ask, holding out the package. Deacon shakes his head and reaches for the Ho Hos.

“Going straight to the main course,” he says.

The sounds of crumpling cellophane can barely cover the sadness that’s hanging around, and soon enough our attempts at levity become pointless. I adjust the pillows behind me and lie back.

“What do you think they’re doing to her?” I ask Deacon, sick at the possibilities.

Deacon lowers his eyes to his food, but he no longer looks hungry. “Well,” he says, “I didn’t get far, but while I was waiting in the parking lot, I managed to make a few calls, find out the names of a few employees.”

This isn’t unusual; as closers we’ve done this sort of research for assignments. We don’t always leave it all up to Marie. “And?” I ask.

“I tracked down a receptionist—Magdalena. She had her profile on private, but she accepted my fake friend request. Anyway, she was complaining about work. She said the doctor was making her move boxes and her back was killing her. She suggested he was moving out. So I think that whatever Arthur’s doing, it’s happening somewhere else. Different facility, possibly.”

“You have to break in and find out for sure,” I tell him.

“Exactly. And I feel stupid, you know? Even though I never trusted Arthur, part of me believed he really was trying to protect you. That was the one part of him that seemed true. That all changed when he assigned you to Catalina’s case. He changed after that.”

“Because he thinks I discovered his daughter’s connection to the suicides,” I say. “And now I’m a liability. Which is why we need to get to Virginia before he erases her. I need to know what she remembered.”

“I think . . .” Deacon scrunches up his face like he doesn’t like where his thoughts are leading him. “I think part of what’s happening to her is my fault, because the memory manipulation with you seems to have started before Virginia’s,” he says.
“You’re Arthur’s patient zero, and since I always told him you were fine and well-adjusted, because I lied to him, he went ahead and started testing it on his daughter.” Guilt crosses his expression. “So I’m basically the worst person alive.” He reaches for a can of Dr Pepper, staring down at it.

“Deacon,” I say softly, sitting up, “you were trying to protect me. You didn’t know what Arthur was planning. Hell, we still don’t. But what matters is that we’re here together now. We’ll beat this. We’ll beat him.”

Deacon looks up, his finger on the tab of the soda. “I’m crazy about you,” he says, setting the drink aside. “Do anything for you.” He crawls up the bed, crushing some of the food under his knees.

I pull him to me and kiss him, threading my fingers through his soft hair. And when his tongue lightly touches my lower lip, I moan against him. We lie back on the bed, brushing the snacks onto the floor. The mood here isn’t quite right, but if we waited for that, it never would be.

So I slowly strip away our clothes, and we pay attention to each other, to every need and whisper. We don’t speak a word about the epidemic, about Virginia, or about how the chances of us getting out of here alive grow smaller every day. For now we just live.

THERE’S RADIO SILENCE FOR NEARLY
two days. Although we can leave the motel room to eat or run errands, Marie bars us from contacting anyone other than the closers involved. She also forbids Deacon from breaking into Arthur’s office or going to his home. As the only adult in our lives, one that we’ve all counted on in the past, I guess she still has power over us.

Reed suspects that Virginia is being treated at home. He saw an older woman at the house, but he wasn’t sure who she was. Marie guessed it was Dr. Evelyn Valentine and said she’d follow up. We haven’t heard from her since.

There is nothing about Virginia on the news. Despite the fact that her meltdown took place in front of two teams and half the school, her name is completely absent from the broadcasts. Absent
from the websites. Like it never happened. Even when I check social media, I find only a few vague references to the event. And then I find a whole slew of accounts that have been locked.

“Do you think the grief department could do this?” I ask Deacon, looking over to where he’s sitting at the table, going through a list of former closers, now presumed missing. He’s researching them, but he hasn’t found anything unusual yet.

“No,” he says. “I think the threat of the grief department is causing people to police themselves. Intimidation at its finest.” He glances out the window, brow furrowed. “Where the hell’s Aaron?” he asks.

Deacon’s phone vibrates loudly on the table, and he snatches it up. When he sees who it is, he slips his phone in his pocket and puts on his jacket.

“What are you doing?” I ask. “Who was that?”

Deacon bites down on his lip. I scoff, letting him know that
not telling me
isn’t even an option. “I was hoping Aaron would be here by now to take the heat off of me,” he says.

“Uh . . . that’s an encouraging start,” I tell him. “Now, who just texted you?”

“Marie,” he says. “She’s staying in a short-term apartment across town, and I demanded a meeting. I can’t wait around here anymore. I need to know what’s going on.”

I tilt my head, slightly confused. “Don’t we all?” I ask. I’m not sure why going to see Marie would be a secret. I climb off the bed and walk to the chair to grab my jacket. “Fine,” I say. “Let’s go.”

He winces. “She said just me.”

Deacon and Marie have had a strained relationship since he left the grief department. His work with Arthur would make them more colleagues than the typical advisor and closer. And when Aaron told him his theory on Marie working for Arthur, Deacon didn’t disagree.

“I don’t trust Marie, and I think she’s hiding something,” Deacon says. “She said she wanted the closers to warn them, but instead she recruited them to work for Dr. Valentine. Not far off from transitioning into handlers, wouldn’t you say?”

I swallow hard, not wanting to believe that Marie would betray us. Lie to us, sure—she’s done it before. But work for Arthur Pritchard and actively put us in danger? No.

“I need to know whose side Marie is really on,” Deacon continues. “And if it’s not ours, we leave.”

“Say it’s all true,” I tell him. “Say she’s working for Arthur and is royally screwing us over. Why would Marie tell you any of it? She isn’t exactly an open book.”

“Because I plan to drug her with her own truth tea,” Deacon says innocently.

I stare a moment and then laugh. “What?”

“Tabitha was able to track some down,” he says. “We’re not the only ones who don’t trust Marie anymore. We just want to know the truth.”

“This is absolutely not going to work,” I say. “You know that, right?”

Deacon smiles and comes to a pause in front of me. “Oh, baby, with that sort of confidence, I can do anything.”

“Be quiet,” I say, putting my palm on his cheek. Worried. Terrified. You don’t drug a person and go on like nothing happened. I mean, not unless you’re their advisor.

Deacon leans in and kisses my lips softly—an obvious, but not unpleasant, distraction. “I love you,” he whispers.

“Just be sure to come back,” I say, knots tightening in my stomach.

There’s a knock on the motel room door, and Deacon goes to open it.

“What’s up?” Aaron says with a big smile, but he immediately senses that something’s wrong and sucks in a tentative breath. “Aw, shit. What now?”

Deacon slaps his shoulder and starts past him, stopping in the doorway. “I’ll be back,” he tells Aaron.

“Where you going?” Aaron asks.

Deacon looks past him toward me. “I’m going to get answers,” he says, and turns back to Aaron. “I’m sure Quinn will fill you in on my idiotic plan. Now, both of you stay safe. Back as soon as I can.”

Before Aaron can ask any more questions, Deacon is out the door. And I’m left in a motel room with a huge weight on my chest.

*  *  *

Reed arrives an hour later, saying he’s happy we got in touch. Aaron and I had grown bored, and since we’re not allowed to contact nonclosers, Reed was the only choice, since we actually like him.